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Ka'ladun
2008-06-25, 07:02 PM
I've recently bought the Paranoia books and my whole group is very anxious to play. It sounds thoroughly chaotic, violent, and hilarious. My only concern at the moment is how to ensure that the party will slaughter each other. Any tips on getting them out of the mindset of 'work together' and into 'kill my teammates and plant evidence on them' mindset or just general advice on setting the mood?

tyckspoon
2008-06-25, 07:22 PM
The various bureaucratic duties you can distribute amongst the party should take care of any notions of 'camaraderie' or 'teamwork' that they may be hanging on to. They'll get the idea after the first time the Happiness and Well-being Officer stuffs one of his teammates full of experimental Valium for expressing dissatisfaction with an R&D device that turned somebody else inside out.

Secret Society associations and missions also help. In any given group you can easily have one or more of: Two people attempting mutually exclusive goals, somebody trying to do something directly counter to the official mission given by FC, somebody trying to kill another group member.. well, the 'mutually exclusive goals' thing covers a lot of options in the general form of 'Bob's society wants something done and Joe's society wants to stop it.'

Or just run the classic scene somewhere near the beginning of the game: Somebody gets a clone executed for accidental security/clearance violations, while somebody else receives an award for providing the evidence of said violation. That should get the idea across pretty well if your players are at all receptive to it.

Goober4473
2008-06-25, 07:59 PM
Wait wait wait. Players have the mindset of working together? When did this happen?! :smalltongue:


my whole group is very anxious to play.
From what I hear, they'll be even more anxious while playing.

Kurald Galain
2008-06-25, 08:01 PM
Any tips on getting them out of the mindset of 'work together' and into 'kill my teammates and plant evidence on them' mindset or just general advice on setting the mood?

Oh, that's easy. Give each of them a secret society mission to kill one of the others.

Ask who will sign for the PLC items. If they don't catch on the first time, blow up the items in whatever fashion, and terminate the clone who was responsible (i.e. the one who signed for them), THEN ask who will sign for the R&D items.

Give all of them forms (handouts) on which they have to indicate who was the most and the least helpful teammate.

If the players are cooperating, You're Doing It Wrong (and should report to the nearest termination center, citizen).

Duke of URL
2008-06-26, 07:24 AM
Yeah... the idea of players actually cooperating in Paranoia is a little mind-boggling. Heck, in my current game on the PbP forums (kind of stalled due to the recent server overloads), the group completely forgot to take the package they're supposed to be delivering, because I got them bickering too much over team roles.

The briefing officer got their names all mixed up, and handed out assignments to clones while saying a different clone was actually in that position. They were so busy undermining each other and switching jobs/equipment that no one remembered to actually take the package!

If any of them survive to debriefing, this is going to be fun... (if none of them survive, it'll probably be more fun).