Don’t forget Commies. In one scenario my friends and I had to guard a large talking military robot overnight. Among other things we were visited by a group of guys with Russian accents who kept calling us “comra…er…companion!”
Stay Alert! Trust No One! Keep Your Laser Handy!
I’m an Alpha Complex Dandy!
Alpha Complex do or die!
So, I remain slightly confused…
There are at least TWO different paranoia games:
One is a table-top RPG (think twisted D&D).
The other is a recent (last decade or so) Paranoia card game that I though was rather good. But the cards shown on this article appear to be cards from that very game.
So, is this a re-make of the RPG, or the card game? I assume the RPG, but the photos of the cards on the kickstarter page make me question that assumption.
Still, if this happens, I may have to pick up a copy.
…will double down on the original darkly humorous premise built around a 24/7 full-surveillance police state…
Paranoia, like old Onion articles, hasn’t aged well. How is satire expected to keep up with our world?
Commie, mutant traitor scum!
I actually survived that mission with my last clone.
I feel a case of the yellow clearance blackbox blues coming on.
Wow. Whoever was moderating that game must have been tough. Nobody died in my group, but then we strongly played up the humor of Paranoia (as we would later when the Cyberpunk RPG came out–my character was Gilbert Gottfried).
My favorite part was when a part fell off the equipment. We quietly hid it and pretended nothing had happened. And none of the higher-ups ever noticed. Frighteningly realistic.
Aaaaah, the memories…
A new version of Paranoia? That makes me so Happy™. And as we all know, Happiness is Mandatory®.
Wait, what do you mean “Does that imply I wasn’t happy before?” Of course I… what are you doing? No, I’m always… please, no! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Huh, I thought the whole point of Paranoia was to wipe out all the clones by the end of the game…I feel like I even read that somewhere.
But the kicker about the original Paranoia was that although the Computer believed society was infested with commie mutant traitors, it was right! The player characters were all either Communists, mutants, or traitors (or a combination). And that was funny. I’m not sure having the players be actual terrorists (matching current government paranoia) would be quite as amusing.
Oh wow - time to break out the Hot Fun and celebrate!
It appears that they are going for a hybrid approach, including cards in the RPG systems. Unfortunately, this makes me thing “Oh, like the new Gamma World”, which to my mind was ruined by the addition of cards (draw a card during combat…Wow! You sprouted a new mutation! Wacky!!!).
(Note that this Gamma World opinion is purely within my mind, I haven’t actually played a tabletop RPG in over 25 years (do something for a job and never want to do it again…), but I keep up with what the kids think is cool today.)
Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was, and there were times when we stuck to the spirit of the game and clones dropped like flies. I was tempted to say that we went with a lighthearted approach because killing a character is always a bummer, but the kill-'em-all version was fun in a different way. This was even more true at conventions, where it was accepted that nobody gets out alive.
What I always found odd was that when we’d talk about our silly sessions with other players some would get angry and criticize us for playing the game “the wrong way”. For me the fun of RPGs has always been that there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to play.
If you do not display sufficient happiness, you may be used as reactor shielding.
Hmm. He’s not responding well to the Happy Pills. Better get a skin core sample.
I heard a treasonous rumor about this one a week or two ago, but at the time it wasn’t clear that Greg Costikyan and the other original designers were going to be involved.
I am now convinced that this new version will not, in fact, be traitorous.
I just hope the R&D playtest version doesn’t melt my face.
Wait, what are you all talking about?
All I’m getting is a screen saying “This information is not available to your security clearance level”.
