A 12-Year Apology And Thank You - to the Ultraviolets of Paranoia-Live.netThis account is most definitely a throwaway, as I don't wish to be connected with the stuff I posted when I was 11-13. I hope I was precocious, adorable, and merely annoying but I'd rather not take the risk that I was a teenage edgelord.
Randomly, while getting a very rare and precious job writing an RPG supplement for Generic, Big Name Company, I remembered the first actual role-playing game I ever played. Paranoia. I'd discovered it while browsing Wikipedia, of all things, following a rabbit hole that started with me looking at Asimov's Law. Eleven year-old me was
overjoyed at the discovery tabletop RPGs were a thing. I quickly found Paranoia-Live and threw myself into it with the over-the-top energy only a precocious, prepubescent teenager can. It was my first exposure to online forums, internet culture, and roleplaying over the internet, and blew my mind.
So, I decided to see if Paranoia-Live was still alive, only to be vaguely disappointed to discover it had died. Unsure, I decided to do some Googling,
and in the process, I found this, the first ever RPG supplement I wrote. I think I was around 12 when I wrote this, and it shows - my sense of humor was massively immature, there's random references to the forum that make no sense, and I'm pretty certain 90% of it was ripped from jokes other people had made while the rest was stolen from Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues. But I was a kid, and didn't know what I was making was terrible.
Anyway, that reminded me that as a user, I had to politely get removed from the forum by a bunch of moderators that didn't know how to deal with the idiocy and immaturity of a twelve-year-old: mostly not listening or being able to write a good joke, or having to intervene at my efforts of roleplaying. I'm not certain - I definitely didn't have the common sense to pick up on subtle hints - but I'm pretty sure I caused them a
lot of work.
Anyway, I wanted to apologize - and thank - the people who ran that website for so long, and introduced me to the joy of TTRPGs. I don't think I'll ever have the talent or expertise to make it a full-time job, but you definitely instilled a love of gaming in my heart, and created a lifelong love for the hobby. I even get to write roleplaying games, now, and I'm much,
much better. Heck, I'm good enough that I don't want to risk the blowback my teenage self created.
So, thanks to the people who made that site! I don't know if you'll ever know what an impact it's had (and I'm not willing to confess to my treasons to admit it), but I am sorry for the trouble I caused you along the way.
- Scalene
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