As a follow-up to my wonderful time at Regncon, I will regal you with a tale of Paranoia XP. A tabletop game I played for several hours with a random gang of fantastic fellows. With a very fun and good game master. But before you can continue with the article make sure you have ultraviolet clearance. Anyone without the proper clearance will is considered a terrorist and will receive a summary execution.
Always follow the rules if alpha complex and the computer is your friend. Happiness is mandatory.
*Spoilers* ultraviolet clearance reading is considered treachery. You won’t disappoint a friend’s computer, will you?
In Paranoia XP I started off by exiting a cloning chamber, and putting my feet on the cold floor. As a TOS pops up in front of my face. Introducing me to the wonders of friend computers and the joys of working in the alpha complex. Quite outrageous really. I had to click yes on a pop-up window in front of my eyes. This annoyed me a lot, so I opted to poke the guy next to me in the ear instead. He was very distraught about that, so I did it again instead of ticking off yes. Their system did not like this one bit and a pesky terrorist star popped up over my name. Apparently, five turns you into an enemy of a friend’s computer. As we wetter getting out bearings, a horrible rumble shocked the foundation. So I headed for the door, but before I could exit a very rude lady in red came offside inside and demanded that I put on a black jumpsuit. seems like being dressed in mosaic bars is not acceptable. Since I’m infrared and all. We were also handed a standard-issue mop. Which I was explicitly told had to be taken good care of it.
Outside I came into a long corridor, where a slightly inoperative cleaning bot sat and whined barely moving. As a gang of reliable troubleshooters, we decided to do the best we could to help the poor thing. I kicked it very hard, twice. Only to be greeted with a horrid sound. One of the other fellows decided to talk to it, hoping that the poor sod could tell us. It simply replied with another whine. At this point, another fellow pushed his hands in under the machine. To see if he could wriggle out the thing that was stuck. The bloody machine nearly took his hands off instead. We decided to push it towards maintenance instead after a friendly suggestion from a friend’s computer. Suddenly a wild terrorist appeared running towards us. Which caused one of the others to squeeze his ever-wet sponge, pooling up a puddle on the floor. Which caused the five-star terrorist to take a nasty tumble. Followed by a nasty beat-down until he died. For the good deed, he got rewarded with exp. Whatever that is.
Paranoia XP is the latest iteration of the game. Which does the best it can to combine witty dark humor and the everyone is out to get you mentality. Backstabbing is to be expected followed by brutal murders, no matter how inconsequential the task.
The character creation is an interesting affair. Pick a skill you’re good at, such as athletics +2, which will then cause the one left of you to have -1 to that stat. Until at least 5 skills have been picked. Then pick three adjectives to describe your character. You then pass over to the person on the left-hand side, so he can reverse one of the adjectives. Such as nice is turned into mean instead.
Meanwhile, skill checks are done with six-sided dice, where one is a friend’s computer. Take the skill, combine it with a stat above and roll the combined sum worth of dice. To dodge, you can use athleticism and violence. Every time a five hits five or six, it counts as a success. Even if the computer notices you. Being seen is bad and removes a point of moxie. Lose weight and you’ll go off on the deep end.
Eventually, mutant powers manifest as well. Which is handed out by the GM and is represented with cards. Doing good and positive things brings exp, which can increase skills or the number of clones. You’ll be number one in no time. It’s not like the other people in the party will put a knife in your back and take the glory for your accomplishments.
Gear, mutant powers, and the rest of the goodies come in a pack of cards. We never really touched on combat, and ran a simplified version. Apparently, the game box comes with a GM screen, a funny clones introduction manual to alpha complex and a booklet with a very tongue-in-cheek adventure, which I roughly introduced above, and a stack of character sheets. After all, I can’t spoil all the fun. Unless you want to.
Njål Sand is a Norwegian Cosplayer with opinions on video games, and a passionate for creating content on YouTube about living in Norway, and gaming!