Who has posted? | | View a Printable Version

sfou · 08-19-2013, 03:18 AM

Here is a copy of thriggle's legendary post in the Old Forums:

---

You were just another Clearance INFRARED worker, working a low-pay job for one of The Computer's service firms. For a hundred credits a month, you did light drudgework in a food vat, bot maintenance facility, reactor control room, or clone tank.

The work was dull. Meals consisted of Hot Fun pouchmeals, extruded ropes of Cold Fun and a bag of algae flakes, washed down with CoffeeLike, TeaSir, or the occasional Bouncy Bubble Beverage. You slept in a different bunk each night in the communal barracks. It was loud as a boiler room. It smelled like turpentine. You got skin rashes and ringworm. Still, you drifted along blissfully in a haze of free HappiTime medication.

Then you reported another INFRARED's treasonous behavior to your friend The Computer. In recognition of your service, The Computer promoted you to RED clearance, awarded you 1,000 credits and your own quarters, authorized a reduction in sedation, and granted you a token treasure from the high-clearance hydroponic gardens: an apple. A real apple.

Eating that apple--the first time you'd ever tasted actual food!--you realized people at higher security clearances eat like this all the time.

Thinking clear thoughts--the first time you'd done that, too--you burned with a new desire: to live better than you have. To get ahead.

The Computer told you the name of that variety of apple: Red Delicious.
You are a cloned citizen of the Alpha Complex. You have recently been promoted from INFRARED to RED security clearance, meaning Your Friend, The Computer, now trusts you more. You get to wear a RED jumpsuit and weild a RED laser pistol, and you're no longer kept in a drug-induced stupor (though you are still given regular hormone suppressants; with the pervasiveness of cloning technology, no citizens must suffer the indignities of historic childbirth, and gender is obsolete except as decoration). As a RED citizen, it is your happy duty to serve as a Troubleshooter for The Computer, solving problems, carrying out tasks, and, most importantly, rooting out treason. Trust no one! Keep your laser handy!

Traitorous actions include, but are not limited to:
Disobeying The Computer, disobeying a citizen of higher security clearance, destroying The Computer's property, being a member in a secret society, being an unregistered mutant, entering areas outside your security clearance, being out of uniform.

A not completely exhaustive list of traitorous, or not traitorous activities:

Acceptable Behavior:

Show Content

Insubordination:
(This is a set of guidelines, not an exhaustive list.)

Show Content

Treason:

Show Content

Meritorious conduct:

Show Content

Mandatory Bonus Duties
A Reference

Team Leader

Show Content

Loyalty Officer

Show Content

Hygiene Officer

Show Content

Communications & Recording Officer

Show Content

Equipment Guy

Show Content

Happiness Officer

Show Content

Agent Provocateur

Show Content

SpoilerCongratulations, citizen! In recognition of your skill at spotting and revealing traitors, you have been awarded the decisive role of agent provocateur. Clearly, The Computer has enormous trust in you, for only someone with unshakable loyalty is ever granted this position.

As agent provocateur, it's your job to spot traitors and schmooze with them, earning their trust so you and your team can break up entire traitor cells and terrorist networks. You are responsible for infi ltrating all such groups you encounter, especially those that might be involved in your current mission.

Naturally, you will be given passwords and information to help you insinuate yourself into their misguided organizations. You are also authorized to demand backup and support from your teammates.

To aid you, The Computer has kindly provided you with useful equipment, including an AP-2140 Audio Implant to let you keep in touch with your teammates. Of course, if you need any other information or equipment, or a nice brainscrub after your mission is over, you have only to ask.

Remember, you're an undercover agent, so act like one!
The agent provocateur's job is to spot traitors in a crowd, go undercover to secret society meetings to get information on their upcoming activities, and entrap traitors into revealing their treason.

The agent provocateur is your teammate on the inside when you're tracking down traitors. He receives special training for infiltrating secret society meetings and for spotting the ringleaders in spontaneous criminal outbursts.

Your agent provocateur has a lot on his mind, so don't be shy about pointing him toward potential traitors! Remind him you've got his back when he's off to spy on those Commies and PURGErs. And no matter how numerous or well-armed a mob of mutants and traitors might be, don't hesitate to call upon his services. After all, that's what he's here for! And if he asks you to accompany him, it's your duty to help.

But most important, remember his job doesn't authorize him to commit treason, just to act like it. So if you see him commit treason, turn him in â€”but if he's merely consorting with traitors, don't worry! That just means he's doing his job.

At each mission briefing, the agent provocateur receives information regarding traitor groups he's likely to encounter, including passwords, call signs, meeting places and doctrines. This information is always accurate, up-to-date, and untampered with; rumors to the contrary are treason!

To maintain contact with the rest of the team, the agent provocateur is often fitted with a new
AP-2140 Audio Implant. Expert R&D surgeons implant this miniaturized com unit directly in the agent's ear, allowing his team to listen in on everything going on around him. In addition, the team can talk to
him through the implant, supplying him with advice, information and orders at any time.

R&D also supplies a range of equipment to help the agent provocateur fit in better with the twisted wretches who populate Alpha Complex's secret societies. Every agent looks forward to receiving these useful items, be they drugs, propaganda, cybernetics, or experimental R&D mutation emulators.

100 MUTANT POWERS!!!

Show Content

By popular request:
Sfou and SleepingOrange's quick and dirty guide to IRC Paranoia

So, you've read a few of the game logs and decided that you want to give it a try. Or maybe you're just intrigued about what this whole Paranoia thing is? Alternately, maybe you've played your lot of games and you want to try your hand at GM-ing. Well, we're no experts, but we've seen our share of action from both sides of the table (channel?) and here are a few pointers that may or may not be of use to you.

Quick player guide
- Read the first post of this thread. It's got basic info on the game's setting and on the various roles you might be asked to perform. Don't go around reading wikipedia pages and whatnot, though! Not knowing what's going on is half the fun; just like the denizens of Alpha Complex, you should be painfully unaware of how things work.
- You might want to read part of a game log just to see how it works. Some players are more gameplay-oriented, and others enjoy the roleplaying most. The two styles mix with each other quite nicely.
- Keep your character info to yourself if you can. Mystery is fun.
- Don't be afraid to PM the GM during a game to perform secret actions or ask for information about your equipment. The fast and furious IRC style sometimes leaves questions unanswered, so don't be afraid to ask for more info.
- Don't go asking for OOC knowledge, though. This will slow down the game and annoy your GM.
- Similarly, wait for the GM to catch up with what you do before you do other things. Stacking five actions impatiently is unfair AND it's only gonna stress him/her and slow things down.
- Don't be afraid to be a dick to others (we're talking in-game, of course. OOC dickery is bad, bad, bad.) That's the point of the game and the GM will reward you for it. Unless you mess up; in this case you will die hilariously.
- Speaking of dying, don't get too attached to your character. You'll understand why soon enough.
- Finally, just jump in and give it a try. We promise you'll love it.

Quick GM guide, spoilered for great justice (and spoilers)
DO NOT READ THIS SECTION IF YOU ARE NOT PLANNING TO HOST A GAME! (it could kinda make it less fun for you)

Show Content

Spoiler- Every GM has his or her own style, but here are some basic rules that most people will agree with. Feel free to disagree or disregard.
- 5 or 6 players is a good number. At 7 or more, you might have trouble keeping up, depending on the complexity of your mission. The players might get lost in the mayhem.
- Reading the rulebook is a largely optional process. Most of the stat-related rules and mechanical aspects of the game are obsolete for a real-time medium such as IRC. Of course, thorough experience with the playing aspect is a must. Skimming the text for background info on Alpha Complex, secret societies and mutations is probably the most efficient way to go about it.
- Unless you've stated your game to be Zap-like, don't distribute death like candy. Serious players will hate you for it.
- Of course, people HAVE to die or it can hardly be called Paranoia. If someone doesn't lose a clone during the mission, then they are either pretty lucky or skilled or you are doing things wrong.
- For new players especially, and for players about to use a new power or secret society for the first time, give detailed and interesting descriptions! Don't just let a first-time Mystic know "They like drugs and a lot of them talk funny."; long descriptions can slow things down, but they add a lot to the game, and you don't have to write a novel. Create a fixed NPC from the character's secret society that he or she will stay in contact with between missions in interesting manners. The more involved it is, the most personality you give to your game world.
- Don't be afraid to manipulate dice rolls for the sake of enjoyment. Of course, the game has to be fair, but when someone comes up with that One Awesome Idea, you sometimes just HAVE to let them succeed. Alternately, a particularly entertaining failure is sometimes more fun than a straight nat20. Finally, sometimes no (or fewer) dice is better than too many. If the entire group shoots the same target at once and the mission has been dragging on, why not roll a single die to determine their overall success and then move on with the action?
- Keep it interesting. Quirky NPCs, unusual settings and novel mission styles will work your players' brains.
- Balance is key, however. It's often best to keep the mission itself pretty simple; it gives the players a lot of room to shape the story themselves and have the entertainment come from interaction and subterfuge rather than deep and engaging plot. That's not to say either style is invalid, but be warned that 'open-ended' is what many of your players will expect, and trying to juggle six conniving players, a handful of NPCs, and a complicated story can be very taxing.
- Letting the characters separate can make for a very interesting game with lots of room for backstabbing, but it can also slow down the action substantially while you flip through the various groups. Use it in moderation.
- Encourage and reward returning characters. Give them involvement in your storyline or powerful new weapons. Work with your players to make interesting characters (without, of course, overpowering them). A new mutation or an interesting intrigue in their secret society is a good way to help them develop.
- Reward the characters that entertain you. A particularly incompetent character might be worthy of promotion just because his or her actions are completely ludicrous. Higher clearances shouldn't be entirely populated by boring bureaucratic types.
- Don't let them rely too much on their powers, but don't make powers so impossible to use that no-one ever does; you might want to gently (at first) punish players that fall to either end of the spectrum: a headache is a good way to tell someone overusing a psionic power that now is a good time to stop; spontaneously-jiggling small objects might tell a reticent telekinetic it's time to free the beast. If your player ignores you of course, they have just given you license to blow up their head, fling the team around with accidentally-used gravity powers, or a host of other amusing consequences.
- Keep Friend Computer entertaining; it's an ancient, schizophrenic conglomeration of AI and High Programmers' alterations and schemes that was once a civil servant: it's going to do weird things from time to time. It can be fun to have FC switch personalities or quirks between or even during encounters, and it keeps players on their toes. Remember, though, that FC really does love all his troubleshooters, and it isn't out to get them; it's just all too happy to let Commie Mutant Traitor Scumâ„¢ out itself. Except when it's suddenly insanely paranoid and murderous. Surprise!