Paranoia

Complexity Low Cost < £15 Players 3-7 Producer West End Games Type Science Fiction (sort of)

Premise

You're not allowed to know

Review

This is one of my favourite RPGs, and the rulebooks are always a good laugh.

If you've never played it, you're missing out, unless you're a ruleplayer in which case you'll probably hate it. The premise is that you're a colour coded for clearance clone, running troubleshooting for a deranged Commie obsessed computer.

Don't run this game with too many players - you're likely to kill yourself laughing. This is the most hysterical RPG I've ever played, but is very exhausting. Paranoia lends itself to using multiple DMs; even better if they have no idea what's going on.

You can run games with no preparation, but it pays to have plenty of tricks up your sleeves, and I recommend putting some effort into some of the bizzare tricks you're going to pull on the players. Scenario books rarely get completed and I once spent an entire evening on one innocuous sentence in one scenario. On the fly improv is the key (pretend you're on Whose Line is it Anyway).

My personal favourite is the second edition rulebook which was published by Games Workshop in the UK. You can still get copies from time to time from second hand games dealers. My preference is to own copies of all editions (see below for why). I can also recommend the Paranoia novel Title Deleted for Security Reasons.

Tips for DMs

• Ban all dice of the wrong colour
• Write notes to red clearance clones in red ink on red paper
• Use Dame Ednaesque name labels
• If it's funny do it, never mind reality
• Props are your friends - use the quiet moments to see if you can work everything in the room as a prop :)
• Collect all editions of the rulebooks and change randomly between them to freak out the players
• Petty is this season's colour

Tips for Players

• Take plenty of blank character sheets, and dice in rainbow colours.
• Don't annoy the DM, in fact bribes of cakes and choccie biscits enhance your survival rate amazingly well.
• Unlike other RPGs, killing the characters is the whole point. Try to get killed and kill in an amusing manner.
• Weapons are not the most dangerous things in Paranoia!
• Sending the DM notes may delay him thinking of an amusing death for you, or it might just annoy him - you'll have to experiment.

Rating

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