20 January 2012

Paranoia: The IRCing


I'm actually going to run a game of Paranoia via IRC with some random guys I met via /tg/. If you've never played Paranoia, you really should. The setting is a pop-culture mockery of both modern society, of the doom and gloom post apocalyptic future some people think we're going to be in, and of the hopeful, automated society the rest of us imagine. It's a commentary on human nature and our own stupidity and capitalism and communism and secrecy and also itself.

It's also got lots of room for GM fiat, intra-player squabbling, cheap and easy death, and fate points. 

It's like it was made to be played with random people. 

So yeah, it's gonna be fun. 

I'm thinking about making the characters in advance, one for each person that's supposed to show up, and then handing them beforehand. It's not like I expect anybody to cheat, but it feels right, somehow, to not even intentionally generate your own character. Thrust into the world of Alpha Complex, if you will.

What does this mean for Aim for the Head and Black Shield? It means that they might take a little longer. I kind of knew that anyways. The basic rules are done, sure, but you can get a link from mediafire yourself if you really wanted to. The difficult part was always going to be making it into an actual dungeon-crawl game, like a HeroQuest+, or a WarhammerQuest-, if you will. Extensible but with all of the simple rules still in place because, unbeknownst even to the HQ designers, they accidentally made really simple resolution systems for everything. But I digress.

2 comments:

  1. All cars are pintos and hand creme is made of explodium. Dying before even getting to the communist-crushing-operations briefing and then beating up the followers of John Lennon and Groucho Marx. What's not to love?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am here to carry out a summary execution in the name of Friend Computer for using his name and likeness on an image with such mockable spelling and grammar. Please forgive me as I deliver these vats improperly labeled PETROLEUM JELLY in a circular pattern around you and then deploy numerous ABSOLUTELY PERFECT (because Friend Computer says they are!) bomb disposal bots from R&D to deal with the jellied petroleum that is in your posession. Aah, I love the smell of napalm in the morning, almost as much as I love the delightfully scummy taste of Okra Cola™. Yes sir, life is wonderful.

    ReplyDelete

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