Justin Carroll (West End Games)
In
a distant future, humanity survives a post-apocalyptic world under the
watchful eye of the Computer. This benevolent AI runs the subterranean
Alpha Complex, where citizens live under a rigid color coded clearance
system. This "paradise" is under constant threat from secret societies,
mutants, and communists. Secret societies are treason. Mutants are
treason. Communists are treason. Rumors are treason. Good citizens don’t
commit treason.
Troubleshooters selflessly uphold the Computer’s benevolent reign, rooting out treason wherever they might find it, even in their own ranks. They're selflessness is offset only by the promise of a higher clearance level, large sums of credits, and legions of underlings to abuse. But to reach that point, Troubleshooters have to navigate the endless bureaucracy of the Alpha Complex. And of course, survive their missions.
In 1987, West End Games published the second edition of its dystopian RPG satire Paranoia. Written by Dan Gelber, Greg Costikyan, Eric Goldberg, and Ken Rolston, it ironed out some of the glitches of the original. The biggest shift was moving away from 1st edition’s percentile system in favor of a D20 based one. For a variety of reasons, I’d argue this edition represents the peak of the game. Paranoia Second edition fulfilled all its goals, both as a send up of popular RPGs, bad player habits, and as a uniquely hilarious, lethal RP experience.
From the get-go, Paranoia touts itself as different from its unnamed (but otherwise thinly veiled) competitors. This would be obnoxious if it weren’t said with the tongue in cheek tone that characterizes the game.
It's also completely true.
Paranoia is a system where the game master is encouraged to be a tyrant. Like their Troubleshooter chracters, the players are encouraged to be as underhanded as possible. They’ll be executed for treason if (read as: when) they get caught but success in the Alpha Complex is reached atop the back of lower clearance citizens and your friends.
Written as a rejection of the elaborate “simulationist” systems popular in the 80s, Paranoia is a perfect example of complexity vs nuance. To help represent its oddball world, this system is the very definition of "rules light." Ironically, it still has more structure to it than a lot of modern games I play. The few times I’ve joined a Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition group, it played worryingly close to a jaunt through the Alpha Complex, minus the wit and charm.
James Holloway (West End Games)
Skills are intentionally limited and, in some ways, obtuse (Bootlicking, Truncheon, Nuclear Engineering, Energy Weapons, you get the picture.) If you wanted to play an untouchable superbeing, you came to the wrong sector, buddy. In Paranoia, you’re a low-ranking clone who’s spent their whole life as an “infrared” in a subterranean dictatorship.
And it shows.
A Troubleshooter has access to everything they need but even that won’t ensure survival. But you weren’t supposed to make it anyway. In one of the passages addressing “high level play,” the writers berate the game master for letting their players get so far.
In place of classes, careers, and what not is a set of eclectic abilities and allegiances. Each Troubleshooter belongs to a service group that completes specific tasks for the betterment of the Alpha Complex. This is all vital work; it’s just not done properly.
James Holloway (West End Games)
Far more interesting are the Secret Societies and Mutant Powers. Each Troubleshooter randomly receives one of both. Secret society membership is punishable by immediate execution, especially if you're a communist.
Same goes for mutants, who must submit to becoming second class citizens or face death at the hands of the Computer. Unless a given mutant is TOO powerful, then they're killed regardless.
Of course, everyone in Alpha Complex, from the lowest infrared to the ultraviolet clearance high programmers, belong to a society and have a mutant power. The Computer just doesn't know that yet (or can't bring himself to admit it). It’s still treason though.
James Holloway (West End Games)
This can only be replenished with a good night’s sleep. The more they use a power, the harder it gets, until they run empty all together. Of course, if one of your fellow troubleshooters or, Computer-forbid, the Computer itself catches you in the act, it’s game over.
Secret societies don't have direct mechanical effects but are one of the more unique aspectsof the game. A Troubleshooter secretly owes fealty to the Illuminati, communists, anarchists, eco-terrorists, Computer worshipping Christians, or something like that.
Every one of these organizations are as incompetent and tyrannical as the “rightful” authorities they undermine/secretly control. Paranoia stresses that every secret society has been constructed from faulty information, whether it be pre-apocalypse media or just doing the opposite of what the Computer tells them.
That’s mainly where Paranoia works, since the no matter how light and flexible the rules are, every player has to deal with a web of conflicting responsibilities. They have to obey the Computer, they have to please their secret society, they have to placate higher clearance citizens, and they have to yield to their service group. And that means something different for each Troubleshooter, who will always end up with conflicting orders.
The rules stress that Troubleshooters should kill each other just as much if not more so than their many NPC adversaries. Success is not an option because no one, not even the computer, really knows what it would even be.
James Holloway (West End Games)
The book encourages heaping bonuses and rewards on the players leaping into action with bizarre maneuvers. In the same vein, the tactical minded minmaxer is to be severely punished.
Initiative is dictated by where the players are sitting. If a player has to think of what to do in a firefight, that’s what their character ends up doing, so they lose their turn. Weapons have damage values and armor is a factor, but Paranoia uses wound states instead of a more granular approach. A character is either unharmed, stunned, wounded incapacitated, dead, or ZAPPED.
The Dramatic Tactical Action System is one of the more obvious ways that even as a satire, Paranoia still has important lessons to impart. In line with its “this is supposed to be fun” mantra, the most infamous parts of RPG combat are rejected if not actively penalized on the player's end.
I’ve had games where an extra hour gets tacked on just from drawn out tactical discussions. These have their own appeal but as it turns out, they’re less fun than actually playing the game. Paranoia's almost infantile initiative system resolves that very easily.
Even if a lot of the combat rules amount to a mean-spirited joke, Paranoia ends up rewarding a player’s creativity and immersion. This isn’t accomplished through coming up with even more rules but instead stripping away unnecessary ones and discouraging bad habits.
In contrast with the fast-paced combat, the gear section is pretty substantial. The Troubleshooter has all manner of high-powered weapons at their disposal. All of which are prone to failing dramatically on the roll of a 20, a threshold that lowers the more powerful a weapon is.
Six shot laser pistols are the standard armament of a Troubleshooter. They can fire more than six shots, but with each one made after the “barrel” hits its limit increases the likelihood of malfunction by +1. That’s not even getting into real deathtraps like ice guns and plasma generators.
The gear section also details robots and vehicles at the Troubleshooter’s disposal. These are both narrative devices more than anything else, though most serve a mechanical purpose too. Paranoia’s satirical elements shine through here, with Jackobots that can do anything, as long as they have the right software and the memory to store it (which is where the problems come in).
The vehicle section might be my favorite in the book. Owning a personal vehicle is an alien concept in Alpha Complex, so most citizens are ferried by upscaled robots. The generic categories of vehicle are established, along with rules to make your own. The more detailed entries are a treat though. The Flybot 17 ATV can traverse through any environment. It just can’t do any of that particularly well.
Meanwhile the Vulture Warrior 920 VTOL is the peak of Alpha Complex engineering. The over armed, intelligent fighter jet serves as a microcosm for Paranoia as a whole. While the craft can fly itself better than any pilot, the Computer feels compelled to send one human to keep an eye out for treason and another human to monitor the first one.
James Holloway (West End Games)
As you’ve probably guessed, there’s no shortage of ways for a Troubleshooter to die. To compensate, each Troubelshooter belongs to a “sixpack” of identical clones. When a player character dies their sibling is instantly inserted to replace them.
For sanity’s sake, each clone is indistinguishable from the last, right down to secret societies and mutant powers. However, the Computer doesn’t believe in Sins of the Father (because it technically is the Father), so a new clone starts with a clean slate.
Except, of course, for a single treason point given to successors of identified traitors. This prevents games from turning into Troubleshooters endlessly killing a known traitor’s replacements, which while amusing would quickly get tiring for all involved.
With such an intentionally erratic rule set, Paranoia relies on its setting and tone more than most RPGs. Thankfully, both are remarkably consistent and have proven to be very timeless. Despite clocking in at barely more than a hundred pages (not counting the beginner’s adventure), this book establishes a compelling, absurd world.
James Holloway (West End Games)
Second edition favoring the comedic side over 1st edition's more serious take, which works better for the breakneck pace and slapstick nature of the rules. Even so, first edition’s more serious take created a strong foundation that still holds up and prevented the game from becoming complete nonsense (which is exactly what happened with later editions).
Aside from world building, the writing itself is just top notch. While this is from a time where RPGs were more comfortable in being funny, reading through the rulebook is just as enjoyable as actually playing the game. The sense of humor is solid all the way through.
While there’s some degree of references and wacky random humor, most of the jokes are rooted in the absurdity of the setting and poking fun at RPG tropes. This has helped Paranoia feel fresh after all these years.
The writers will also explain the logic behind some of the more arbitrary or bizarre rules, often framed as a gag. Maybe this breaks the “immersion” (a somewhat laughable idea in Paranoia) but it provides players and GMs a better understanding of the system by explaining the design philosophy. Just one of the many things other games could learn from our benevolent overlord, The Computer.
James Holloway (West End Games)
Holloway’s cartoony style perfectly represents Paranoia, as conveying motion and emotion is more important than lavish detail. Aside from the great visual gags on every page, he depicts the denizens of Alpha Complex exactly as they should be. Bewildered, mad with power, or both.
The retro-future stylings have also given Paranoia a timeless quality very much lacking in other Sci Fi systems from this time period. They really convey the backwards, regressive nature of a world ruled by a machine still hung up on the Red Scare. The art direction in modern RPG books might be flashier and more lavish but very much lack the consistency and soul Holloway brought to Paranoia. My only complaint is how often the book will just repeat art.
The beginner adventure, "Into the Outdoors with Gun and Camera," included in the book has some funny moments. It does a good job establishing a “normal” Paranoia game, with backstabbing, abuses of power, and ignorance.
I do take issue with how it sees the Troubleshooters venturing into the great outdoors on their very first mission. I personally feel like players should adjust to the artificial world of Alpha Complex before being exposed to the horrors of a non-Computer controlled world. As for the rest? Well, that’s classified.
James Holloway (West End Games)
While Paranoia is uniquely suited to online play, you do lose out on the physical props and psychological tactics (rolling dice and refusing to explain why) the book recommends. More broadly, I also feel this game is best played with a close group of friends who have played an RPG together at least once before.
Everyone should have a good sense of each other’s boundaries, so the infighting of Paranoia doesn't bleed into real life. Additionally, the game works better if the players are familiar with what’s being satirized.
Even as a satire, Paranoia’s exaggerated rules still present my ideal approach to RPGs. The rules are an important set of guidelines to simulate the setting, but they should be bent, shattered, or mysteriously disappear when they become a hindrance to the story the GM and players want to tell.
Paranoia's refrain that RPGs should be fun rings true, no matter what you’re playing. In this case, a lack of hard and fast rules compensates for the labyrinthine political games Troubleshooters are forced into. In Paranoia, fun comes before anything else, and I personally don’t see a reason why I shouldn’t run every game like that.
If you're an aspiring game master, or even a veteran one, pick up a copy of Paranoia second edition to experience life under your friend the Computer. You'll learn a thing or two just from reading one of the most complete rulebooks ever published.
