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View Full Version : Need Some Paranoia Help!



Org
2010-12-26, 09:37 PM
Hey everyone. After just receiving Paranoia:Troubleshooters, and having a blast(literally sometimes :D) playing it, my group decided to play again tomorrow. However, I need some ideas for the scenario! I just can't think of anything for a good Classic campaign. Any help would be appreciated, so any fun campaigns/one-shots you had would be awesome!

Also, new R&D weapons. Any ideas for those would be cool.

Thanks!
Org

Enix18
2010-12-26, 10:28 PM
I ran a great pre-made adventure once, part of which involved the players entering an infrared preschool/daycare. So much hilarity ensued!

Basically, the plot was that a shipment of gum that had been sent to the daycare, but someone had managed to sneak terrible communist propaganda into the containers. It was their job to go in, locate the propaganda, and get rid of it. However, the ship of normal gum that was supposed to go to the daycare had also accidentally been switched with "battle gum" that was essentially filled with steroids—steroids that turned the children into massive, super-powerful freak babies!

The greatest part, though, was that none of the players had their normal weapons. Obviously, it would be a bad idea to allow anyone with a laser gun into the daycare (they could be commie mutant traitors!), so before they entered the players had to participate in a quick examination. I described a bunch of images, and for each one they had to decide if it was something they would terminate, report, or ignore (because it was something computer-approved). The examination was, of course, designed so that they would fail—the real fun came with how terribly they managed to fail. Players who did terribly had to be drugged up on happiness pills that basically turned them into drooling idiots. Players who did alright received... safety guns!

Safety guns were special laser pistols with a camera attached to the barrel. When someone pulled the trigger, the camera would snap a picture, which would then be sent to a board of trusted higher-ups for review. If the board decided that the image was something worthy of being blasted, they would relay this to safety gun, which would then promptly fire. The result was that, whenever the players tried to fire their guns, there was a delay that could be anywhere between a few seconds and a few hours! It was basically up to random dice or DM discretion when the guns actually fired, and leaving up to the latter (but pretending it was the former) created plenty of hilarity.

And the adventure just went on from there. It was all pretty great, and my players had a blast.

Darrin
2010-12-27, 12:37 AM
I just can't think of anything for a good Classic campaign.

If you can't think of a scenario, then just go with that: the Troubleshooters are summoned to the briefing room for a mission, and told they must succeed or else... but nobody can tell them what their mission is. Their briefing officer is on his last clone and will instantly blast them all where they're standing if they don't finish it quickly, but he has no idea what the mission is (it's either above his security clearance, or the mission orders got lost/deleted, and he can't risk admitting that he doesn't have them). If the Troubleshooters press him for details, he vaporizes a couple of them for being commie infiltrators, because of course the clones should already know what their mission orders are, otherwise they must also be commie infiltrators. He shoves them out the door, telling them they should already know where to go next. He continues to call them on their comlinks later, harassing them for progress updates in progressively panicky tantrums. As the Troubleshooters stumble around, misled by rumors and red herrings planted by secret societies and clueless service groups, various other clones wink at them and give them cryptic messages about their "Mission", but on further interrogation don't know anything more about it than the Troubleshooters do. After a suitable number of clones have been vaporized, they get called back to the briefing room, and have to explain whether they completed their mission or not.

R&D Devices:

X-Ray Goggles. They allow the clone to see right through metal walls. However, one single use also generates a massively lethal dose of radiation right through his eyes and straight into his brain. A few seconds after activating the goggles, the clone goes immediately and permanently blind. A few minutes later, he gets violently ill, and about 1 hour later dies from massive radiation poisoning.

Stealth Rifle. Pantomime giving an invisible, weightless rifle to a clone, and explain it's the latest in stealth technology. Completely invisible, weightless, and undetectable by any means. Pantomime giving the clone an instruction manual. It too is completely invisible, weightless, and undetectable by any means. If the clone asks how to operate it, the R&D tech sniffs haughtily and points at the imaginary instruction manual, "Can't you read, you idiot vatslurper?" Later in the mission, when the clone has completely forgotten about it, have the Stealth Rifle malfunction and get stuck on full-auto mode, preferably when it's pointed at something important.

Mood Ring. According to R&D, it can actually change a clone's mood. It doesn't. It has four settings that can be set by the wearer: Content, Happy, Very Happy, and Extremely Happy. Of course, this mood setting is automatically reported to the Computer via a wireless connection. However, there's a bug in one of the subroutines that automatically update's the clone's current_mood_status value. If the ring is set to any of the "Happy" settings, the Computer refuses to authorize any termination for that clone, reasoning any clone with a current_mood_status = happy cannot by definition be a commie, mutant, or traitor. Anyone who illegally terminates what was obviously a completely happy and innocent citizen, however...

Bio-Exothermic-Entomorphic Hexogonic-Inculcation-Viability-Encasement. A white box, about the size used to contain a small stack of folders. If a clone listens closely, a faint humming sound can be heard inside. If the lid is opened, angry bees fly out and sting anyone in the immediate area. These bees have been genetically modified to create a peculiar type of honey: it's highly explosive, particularly when the hive is jostled, dropped, or hit by stray laser fire.

Boomerang Grenades. They look like metal boomerangs straight off of Batman's utility belt. Naturally, no sane clone would willingly activate these on his own, with the fairly straightforward reasoning that they will simply return to whoever threw the boomerang and blow him up. However, the first time a non-boomerang grenade is thrown at the user, one of the boomerangs automatically activates, launching itself via miniature air jets at the grenade, magnetically attaches to it, returns the grenade to the unlucky grenade-thrower, and then detonates it. After working perfectly the first time, the rest of the boomerangs malfunction, returning the grenade to whoever was wearing the boomerangs.

Kurald Galain
2010-12-27, 03:55 AM
However, I need some ideas for the scenario! I just can't think of anything for a good Classic campaign.

Well, you can always pick your favorite movie and play that Paranoia-style. Don't bother informing your players of this fact, of course.

For example, if you've recently seen Despicable Me, this makes an excellent mission. Five troubleshooters (Gru, that tech guy, and the three girls) are sent on a mission to obtain a large spherical floating object. Tech guy works at R&D, one girl is a Sierra club member with a unibot. There's plenty of ludicrous devices in the film that could be assigned to the team, and there's an over-the-top bad guy in the form of Vect-O-REE that fires aquatic animals at them. Of course, this being Alpha Complex, do play up the tidal disasters that occur if and when they do obtain (or, inevitably, destroy) said spherical object.

Pyrite
2010-12-27, 08:08 AM
The armed forces have gotten tired of being essentially useless, and so have decided to create an invasion of Alpha Complex. A select few sectors have had all the people removed from them (some memory wiped and relocated, some advanced in clone number to preserve the authenticity of the facade) and been "occupied by the enemy." To allow this, a very rough hack has been induced in The Computer's perception of this whole affair, and it doesn't really understand what's going on. The Computer starts sending troubleshooter teams into these sectors on strike missions against enemy forces, but the only people in these abandoned sectors are other troubleshooter teams.

Do the troubleshooters try to make the computer understand what is happening and find proof, or do they simply start shooting the other troubleshooters and claim that they have found "the enemy?"

Grelna the Blue
2010-12-27, 10:49 AM
I heard about (campaign of a friend of a friend) the most incredibly appropriate ending to a Paranoia campaign a little while back. After two years of Paranoia gameplay, the PCs have finally discovered the exit from Alpha Complex.
The exit tunnel takes them to a small metal room through a door striped in yellow and black. There is a larger door with a locking mechanism on the far wall. That door cannot be opened until the first door is shut. When the first door is shut, the door to the outside can be opened, although the unlocking process takes a little time. While this is being done, red lights on the walls blink and an alarm goes off.

When the door to the surface is opened, everyone is blown out onto the airless surface. Apparently, unbeknownst to any of the players, Alpha Complex was on the moon.
Paranoia doesn't get any better than that.

Kurald Galain
2010-12-27, 11:03 AM
Paranoia doesn't get any better than that.

Most impressive.

Megaduck
2010-12-27, 12:57 PM
I heard about (campaign of a friend of a friend) the most incredibly appropriate ending to a Paranoia campaign a little while back. After two years of Paranoia gameplay, the PCs have finally discovered the exit from Alpha Complex.
The exit tunnel takes them to a small metal room through a door striped in yellow and black. There is a larger door with a locking mechanism on the far wall. That door cannot be opened until the first door is shut. When the first door is shut, the door to the outside can be opened, although the unlocking process takes a little time. While this is being done, red lights on the walls blink and an alarm goes off.

When the door to the surface is opened, everyone is blown out onto the airless surface. Apparently, unbeknownst to any of the players, Alpha Complex was on the moon.
Paranoia doesn't get any better than that.

The only way for it to be better is if you didn't tell the players they were on the moon. Red lights flash, Alarm goes off, next person to look into the room finds it empty.

So, who wants to go next?

Grelna the Blue
2010-12-27, 01:10 PM
The only way for it to be better is if you didn't tell the players they were on the moon. Red lights flash, Alarm goes off, next person to look into the room finds it empty.

So, who wants to go next?

My understanding (although I wasn't there) is that everyone was in the room. It was designed to be the last game session in the campaign.