Paranoia RPG Community

paranoia-rpg@cy.borganism.com

A discussion group channel for Paranoia XP, RCE, 25th Ed, 1st and 2nd edition role-playing game. Pulls in RSS feeds from various relevant sources.

Noob DM can't figure out how combat is supposed to work in the new paranoia

/u/RIPanimalball

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 13:39:50 +1100

Noob DM can't figure out how combat is supposed to work in the new paranoia

Title says all really. I'm dming red-clearance edition paranoia for the first time in a few days. And while I have the rest of the system on lock-down, im still not sure exactly how combat is supposed to work.

here are a few of the Confusions I have

- Am I supposed to roll for enemies? I thought the dm didn't roll dice. And If I don't roll dice, why do npcs/monsters have stats?

- Does the computer die count towards successes?

- How is playing a card supposed to work exactly? If you do a basic action, do you still use the action order of the card?

Clarifications would be appreciated.

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Introducing Secret Societies

/u/friendcomputer58

Sun, 19 Jan 2020 06:53:17 +1100

Introducing Secret Societies

Hi everyone, I've DM'ed several D&D adventures in the past, and I'm currently working on my first Paranoia campaign for a group of D&D veterans. I'm trying to introduce things in a manner that's faithful to the spirit of Paranoia, but so that I won't break the RP immersion they're used to with D&D.

I find myself stuck on a good way of introducing Secret Societies in a way that they'll appreciate. I'm seeking some advice on how Paranoia DM's have introduced these in the past, and how you handle players' being briefed on their individual secret society missions.

Also, what sorts of rewards have you given out in the past for completing secret society missions?

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[Straight style] Method of clone replacement/memory transfer?

/u/Laughing_Penguin

Sat, 18 Jan 2020 09:09:05 +1100

[Straight style] Method of clone replacement/memory transfer?

So, due partially to some posts on this sub, I've gotten it into my head to explore running an actual Straight style Paranoia campaign. So I thought it might be good to open up some of those thought processes up to the group for discussion.

Assuming we're working with a reasonably serious and functional Alpha Complex, how would some of you choose to handle clone replacements? In terms of all aspects: freshly decanted vs. reassigned from another job, how memories are transferred between closes (if at all?), and actual delivery of the new close to the mission site in a way that makes some kind of internal sense. These are all easy questions to answer when going for the "Zany!" approach of a Zap game, but a bit tougher to wrangle for a more serious setting.

The first part of that seems like the most obvious, in that a semi-efficient society would want those backup bodies at work in their respective Service Groups. Just because #1 got promoted to Troubleshooter doesn't mean there isn't still some menial jobs to get done, right? I'm even toying with the idea of allowing a player to re-assign a skill point or two when a new clone steps up to server to reflect the slightly different job experience they might have had, but not sure yet. I'd like to hear other takes on this though...

The second one is a bit trickier in a serious setting: nightly memory backups while sleeping make sense, but out in the field? I don't think I'd want a PC always connected for 'uploads' for setting purposes, but would they have an implant that records experiences that can be applied? Would the body need to be intact for a brain scan? To what degree should other PCs be allowed to interfere with the process?

Transport would be very mission-dependent, but surely there must be a standard "default" in place? What would you image that to be for a rapid deployment?

I look forward to hearing what the other complexes have to say!

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Paranoia: Troubleshooters (2009)

/u/mishaado

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 21:53:36 +1100

Paranoia: Troubleshooters (2009)

This is the 25th anniversary edition of the game.

There seems to be 2 different covers when I do some digging for the "core" game from this era.

Could someone please confirm or refute this?

I'm trying to grab a copy of this, and have located the other 2 variants (Internal Security & High Programmers), but I dont want to grab the wrong thing for the "Red" game.

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Project Infinite Hole

/u/RoadieRich

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 08:13:05 +1100

Project Infinite Hole

From The State of the Mongoose post on the Mongoose Publishing forum:

Project Infinite Hole is a new box set that focusses on the wonders of the greatest Service Group of them all. The scientists, technicians and boffins of R&D salute you!

Troubleshooters will rejoice when they get their hands on the R&D Happy Testing Catalogue, where they can select the experimental device best suited to their current mission, and they will be positively giddy when they use the new TIRDA (Troubleshooter In-field R&D Adjunct) system to combine Equipment cards to create their own experimental items!

Gamesmasters will revel in the parting of the curtain behind the workings of R&D, how it gets along with the other Service Groups, how to insert R&D into any briefing, Plug N Play locations, and oodles more. Your players will thank you for bringing R&D front and centre into their missions.

Not content with that and the 120-card deck included in this box set (covering new Actions cards as well as, naturally, a veritable salvo of Experimental devices), the Project Infinite Hole Mission Book provides a new set of exciting opportunities for your players as R&D has just created a black hole in Alpha Complex. Just a small one, and it is being contained, so everything is perfectly safe – but then again, the Troubleshooters have not turned up yet…

Project Infinite Hole will be coming to Kickstarter in March. It would simply be treasonous to miss it.

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Democracy via Focus Groups

/u/igorhorst

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 04:31:50 +1100

Democracy via Focus Groups

“In the bad old days of liberal democracy, where people vote for what option to pick, you usually see the following: 40% vote for option A, 40% vote for option B, and 20% are centrist voters who decide what option actually gets picked.

That’s incredibly inefficient! Why not just skip the election, and survey the 20% directly?

Eventually, we refined the process further, cutting down the red tape and speeding up decision-making. In Alpha Complex, we now have a superior form of democracy - an electronic democracy, where The Computer selects an Electorate (consisting of 5 people to represent the total population). We then let this Electorate make decisions for us! All the benefits of democracy, without those inefficient elections!”

I took the the ‘spork’ focus group mission in “Spin Control” and ran it on its own, treating the focus group system as the Electronic Democracy that I detailed above (with the focus group described as “the Electorate”). The decision the Electorate had to make was: “What service firm should be in charge of spork production in the complex?”

The mission ended with the entire focus group murdered and then retroactively accused of treason since they were all carrying contraband. Before a new focus group was selected (players hoped they might randomly get selected to sit on it), a spork firm’s CEO was accussed of treason and promptly terminated in a confusing firefight that also destroyed the focus group center in the process. The CEO’s assets were then delivered to the sole remaining spork firm, so no decision needed to be made.

During debriefing, a Troubelshooter suggest that next time, members of the Electorate should be drawn from Troubleshooters or ex-Troubleshooters, to prevent a scenario like this from happening again (where every representative was found to be a traitor). “Service equal citizenship!”

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I want to GM this game but I'm completely lost

/u/Reallythatwastaken

Fri, 10 Jan 2020 06:22:06 +1100

I want to GM this game but I'm completely lost

I've tried asking for help finding the rules, but was only given tips on how to GM, or inside jokes.

I'e tried watching a video, but it makes no sense because I don't know the rules.

Can someone just tell me what I need to do to read the rules, no jokes, no friend computer talk. no tips. I just want to know what to do.

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Is there a Paranoia subreddit for the computer game Paranoia - Happiness is Mandatory ?

/u/calicchio77

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 15:53:08 +1100

Is there a Paranoia subreddit for the computer game Paranoia - Happiness is Mandatory ?

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Private messaging the GM

/u/azurial

Sat, 04 Jan 2020 06:26:05 +1100

Private messaging the GM

Hi All,

I recently discovered Paranoia and I am keen to GM my own session In the coming week. I want to make this special, as it will be my groups first time with Paranoia too.

I really like the idea of each player using their cerebral coretech to communicate to both the GM and each other secretly. I want to avoid note writing as it is quite obvious. So I want to use an instant messaging type function.

Has anyone had success with this? Or does anyone have suggestions? I wanted to keep it immersive and create citizen profiles on something like twitter that all have the happiness is mandatory banner, and are followed by friend computer etc , but it is surprisingly fiddly to try and set up 7 Twitter accounts singlehandedly!!

We could use personal profiles on discord, but I don't want people distracted in the session.

Any thoughts?

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New GM looking for advice

/u/Creslin9

Sun, 29 Dec 2019 18:32:36 +1100

New GM looking for advice

I've been reading through the core box books. Fantastic to read through, but has left me with some questions.

It seems like the only reference to traitor stars and death is a couple of small boxes in the adventure book. Did i miss it somewhere else?

If a clone keeps their memories, do they keep their stars? Why would the computer let a traitor's clones wake up? What about a mutant? Do all of the clones have the same power?

How does one lose traitor stars? How should they hamper the group?

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Question about dealing damage (Longtime RPG player, new to Paranoia)

/u/budbk

Thu, 26 Dec 2019 14:19:07 +1100

Question about dealing damage (Longtime RPG player, new to Paranoia)

I have read the section on Doing Damage (pg 44 PHB) and wanted some clarification. From my understanding, if a player succeeds on an attack by matching the difficulty, they deal 1 lvl of damage. And if they have 2 more successes than they needed they deal an additional point of damage. 3 more = 3 lvls of damage etc.

What confused me is based on this, wouldn't that mean if you beat the difficulty by one you still deal one damage?

If I'm not explaining this well my understanding is:

Player A attacks something with difficulty of 2 and has a NODE of 5: Player A rolls 1,2,5,5,4. ==> Target takes one lvl of damage. (For tying difficulty with successes)

Player B attacks something with difficulty of 2 and has a NODE of 3: B rolls 5,5,6 ==> Target takes one level of damage. (For only beating difficulty by one with successes)

Player C attacks something with difficulty of 2 and has a NODE of 4: B rolls 5,5,6,6 ==> Target takes 2 levels of damage. (For beating difficulty by 2 with successes).

Any clarification or confirmation that I understand the rules would be greatly appreciated

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Alpha Complex Map (Full Album in Comments)

/u/Javaman1

Wed, 25 Dec 2019 07:18:31 +1100

Alpha Complex Map (Full Album in Comments)

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Got an old Paranoia 2e, any tips to noob GM?

/u/brunoalcunha

Tue, 24 Dec 2019 16:23:53 +1100

Got an old Paranoia 2e, any tips to noob GM?

https://preview.redd.it/5337swr0ni641.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46c4a5b7509c8dc7ed12bec1af30b5f0d3a30f7a

My uncle has passed away in 2011, when I was 11, and I kept it not knowing anything about it.

Nowadays, I have already played D&D 5e and Call Of Ctchulhu several times, but never as a GM. I'm now reading the Paranoia Second Edition to play as a GM. Do you guys have any tips to me? The sort of thing that the book doesn't explain or tells me about.

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Card sleeve sizes?

/u/DanteFaustus

Sun, 22 Dec 2019 05:50:29 +1100

Card sleeve sizes?

What are the sleeve sizes/colors/brands that work for the cards in the reboot box set, acute box, and card expansion packs? TIA, troubleshooters

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How do you use the spaces of the GM screen

/u/DanteFaustus

Sat, 21 Dec 2019 19:58:25 +1100

How do you use the spaces of the GM screen

If you were to lay it flat for card slapping what in the heck do the spaces do?

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Paranoia Character Sheet - Excel

/u/grenadiere42

Sat, 21 Dec 2019 05:25:23 +1100

Paranoia Character Sheet - Excel

Attention Citizens! R&D, in their glorious and infinite wisdom, has issued a new and shiny Excel version of the Character Sheets we all know and love. This new and improved version is in no way tainted by Communist propaganda, and works flawlessly.

Using the systems laid down by the Glorious Founders of Alpha Complex, this sheet rolls up:

A name (from a list of 200 Approved Names provided by the Clone Naming Department of Special Services)
Sector
Clone number
Service Group and Firm
Gender
Action Skills
Knowledge Skills
Secret Society (complete with a quick and handy guide on their beliefs, signals, advancement, and special rules)
Mutant powers
Equipment
Secret Skills
And any notes that may be relevant either to your secret society or service group

It also goes through and randomly selects up to 6 Common Specialties and applies the appropriate bonuses, as well as the corresponding Weaknesses (with the appropriate penalties), as well as a Service Group specialty.

Your equipment list also comes complete with a COMMON, CONTROVERSIAL, and CONTRABAND item to complete your character listing.

Finally, your Secret Skills are chosen and set aside for you. If there is a mandatory skill, it has been chosen.

As with all R&D Equipment, this spreadsheet also comes with BONUS FEATURES! Features include the Ability to tell it:

"Stop generating me a character", at which point it will clear the entire thing.
"I want to take my chances on not being R clearance."
"I want to start my game with 6 clones, not a random number less than 6"
"I don't want a random secret society"
"I don't want a random mutation"
The entire sheet is written in DOS text formatting, as well as 'tearable' paper feeding strips to really give it that Dot-Matrix feel.

Things this sheet does NOT give you:

Mandatory Bonus Duty. This is assigned by your Briefing Officer. It cannot be assigned in advance.
Player Name. Due to Regulation [CLASSIFIED], we cannot alter your name in advance. Therefore you must provide one.
MBD equipment. See "Mandatory Bonus Duty"

Finally, if you don't like your generated character, hit F9 or go into "Formulas" and hit "Calculate now" to create an entirely new one.

**Disclaimer**

Any and all errors in calculation or notation are the product of traitorous communist infiltrators.

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An idea for money in Paranoia.

/u/JFerlandFan

Wed, 18 Dec 2019 22:29:00 +1100

An idea for money in Paranoia.

Taken directly from a sci-fi novel "Limes Inferior" by a Polish author Janusz A. Zajdel
- Mind you, the novel satirized communism -

There are four categories of products: Basic Everyday Necessities (food, hygiene products, underwear, etc), Emergency Necessities (medications, bandages but also all the baby products), Minor Luxuries (cinema tickets, books, music, etc) and Quality Luxuries (car, TVs, etc.)

In the novel, there were four currencies:
Red Money for Basic Everyday Necessities
White Money for Emergency Necessities
Blue Money for Minor Luxuries
Yellow/Gold for Quality Luxuries.

Everyone always received the exact same amount of Red ("to each equally"), at administrative request & with proof they would get White ("to each according to their needs"), the Job Aptitude Tests determine the amount of Blue ("to each according to their potential") and the actual Profession determines Yellow/Gold ("to each according to their accomplishments").

It would make sense that in a closed system of Alpha System a similar Currency System be implemented, with every TroubleShooter receiving Red for just existing, Blue for the job they had before being TroubleShooters and Yellow according to their Clearance.

I ran several campaigns using this and the players thought it was good.
What are your thoughts?

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Set up from last nights game. Anyone else generate a lot of paperwork?

/u/Ozzymosis-2112

Sun, 15 Dec 2019 04:26:29 +1100

Set up from last nights game. Anyone else generate a lot of paperwork?

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Doom Magnet?

/u/ersatzthefox

Sat, 14 Dec 2019 13:12:40 +1100

Doom Magnet?

So I keep hearing about this Doom Magnet power from people who've played XP, and I just got the Service Pack 1 book for XP myself but I can't find any mention of it -- which is a shame, because it sounds like a really fun power. Am I missing something, or is it in a different publication, homebrew content, etc? Is it just that I have the wrong edition and the people who've been talking about it just brought it over from another edition?

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I want to start a Paranoia XP campaign, any tips?

/u/WeAreABridge

Sat, 14 Dec 2019 07:16:48 +1100

I want to start a Paranoia XP campaign, any tips?

I have run Paranoia a few times for my friends, but I have only ever done it in one-shots, which have a lot less to worry about because of the lack of an overarching story, and how it essentially removes clearance and credits as things to worry about.

What are some tips you have for instead running a Straight-style campaign? Any recommended reading? Know any Paranoia forums where I can ask about this more?

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