Paranoia is fair in its unfairness
Lead designer WJ McGuffin explains.
Greetings, WJ MacGuffin, Lead Designer of Paranoia Perfect Edition! I’m not going to do the cheeky in-game Paranoia voice in this interview although it’s very tempting. For anyone who doesn’t know what Paranoia is, can you break down the history of the game all the way up to Perfect Edition?
And I’ll try to answer questions like a normal human being and not The Computer.
Paranoia was first released in 1984 (of course!), and for the time, it was very innovative. It took the usual RPG tropes of heroic adventurers cooperating to save the kingdom and twisted it to become crazed Troubleshooters who attack each other more than the supposed enemy to save their own traitorous little hides. Hell, Paranoia might be the first game to tell players they should not know the rules.
A second edition was published in 1987 that changed the system but kept the setting–until it changed it. Eventually, later books deleted the main NPC, Friend Computer, and regrettably began to run out of steam. They attempted a metaplot that, while decent, strayed a bit too far from the game’s roots and was not received well by fans.
In 1995, a 5th edition came out (yes, it really is the 3rd edition, that was one of their “jokes”), and while I will say nothing bad about the designers, it was clear this team did not grok Paranoia. Most people simply say there never was a 5th edition. Never. Got it?
Mongoose Publishing revived the game with 2004’s Paranoia. (It gets called Paranoia XP because that’s what it was called before a certain big corporation took offense and “XP” had to be dropped.) This was a golden age for the game, with some very solid titles. After 25 such offerings, the game petered out and was replaced by Paranoia: 25th Anniversary Edition, which was mostly Paranoia XP but with some small differences.
Mongoose revived the game in 2017 with a very different system (going from D20 to D6 dice pools, adding playing card mechanics) and some setting changes called Paranoia Red Clearance Edition (RCE). This was met with mixed reviews; some loved the changes while others did not.
I worked on Paranoia XP and Paranoia RCE, so when Mongoose decided they wanted a new edition, I was fortunate enough to be picked. That leads us to Paranoia: Perfect Edition, which Kickstarts on Friday, 10/28/2022. Will this be the best edition ever? Since I helped write it, yes. Yes it will be.
A list of Mongoose “Classic Paranoia” titles on sale at drivethrurpg.com.
That’s a lot of editions and supplements to sift through. Before we jump into the Perfect Edition on Kickstarter, what was your first experience with Paranoia? And as time has passed, what have been some of your favorite supplements for Paranoia and favorite aspects of older editions? And just to make this question even more convoluted, what are three must-reads in the Paranoia galaxy of books?
My first experience was playing Vapors Don’t Shoot Back, a 1st edition mission, the Paranoia term for an adventure, way back in 1986-ish. (Yep, old guy here.) I fell in love immediately! Who doesn’t love a game that openly says to focus on fun over rules? (Protip: Loving games is legit because they are always ready to go on a date.)
I have two favorite supplements: The original Acute Paranoia for 1st edition (with the mission Me And My Shadow, Mark IV, one of the best ever!) and Project Infinite Hole for RCE. The former is just chock-a-block with amazing gags and ideas, whereas my work on Project Infinite Hole helped earn me the responsibility for a new edition. I also love any supplement that Mongoose will pay me for. Hey, something something inflation and all that.
As for favorite aspects of an older edition, I honestly and truly love them all (except 5th which never existed, capiche?). Uh.... got it! Jim Holloway, who unfortunately passed away, created the artwork for most older edition books and holy cow that stuff is good! Holloway even turned some art directions of mine into proper artwork for the Paranoia XP book WMD, and that was one of the highlights of my life. (My son complains that I’m more proud of that than his birth, but you know what? My son needs to get better at art.)
Three must reads, eh? You mean besides the upcoming Paranoia Perfect Edition? :) Here ya go:
Orcbusters (1st Ed.): It’s a stand-alone Paranoia mission that satirizes fantasy RPGs like D&D, and it’s a rollicking good time to boot. Plus, it stars every players most hated NPC, Randy the Wonder Lizard!
Extreme Paranoia (XP): The setting for Paranoia is such a weird take on science fiction and post-apocalypse stories that it can be hard to wrap your head around it all. This supplement provides a ton of lore and NPCs for the setting so you can see how characters at different social-economic levels live their lives.
Project Infinite Hole (RCE): I know, arrogant much? But there’s a good reason for including this box set here. It includes several missions in a campaign centered on an actual, real black hole accidentally created in the middle of the setting’s one big city called Alpha Complex. Paranoia Perfect Edition builds off that, including a Great Hotfix program to rebuild after... well, it certainly wasn’t a mistake! It was ... uh, sabotage by Commies, mutants, and other traitors! Yep, just that.
The way Paranoia plays can be described as player-vs-player (PvP), which is an outlier game mode in the TTRPG world. You’re lying to each other, subverting each other and even trying to kill each other, among other things. How has this affected long-term play in your experience? i.e. can Paranoia be a game played amongst the same group of buddies over the course of years without the adversarial elements wearing them down?
Paranoia campaigns don’t get the love they deserve, but it is entirely possible to play Paranoia in the same campaign for years. What works best in this RPG is when the campaign is player-focused, not PC-focused. For example, the last edition’s Project Infinite Hole included a campaign of three linked missions. Players had different PCs each time, but the story progressed through the missions, helping the players feel they’re in a campaign.
Since the players get new PCs so often in Paranoia, the backstabbing and PvP elements change from mission to mission. It would get old if PC #1 always had it in for PC #2, agreed! By giving players new PCs with different rivalries and abilities, we keep things fresh and make sure the love (or in Paranoia, the abject hate and mistrust) is spread around. PC #1 might have it in for PC #2 in the first campaign mission, but then PC #1 might target PC #3 in the next one.
What really helps here is how Paranoia treats everyone with unfairness fairly. You might get a bit miffed when your PC is slyly executed, but you will feel sooooo much better when you get sweet, sweet revenge. Remember, when the GM has a hammer in the rules, all the PCs look like nails.
The game over the years has always dabbled in satirization of the fears and anxiety that come with the modern age. Does the upcoming Perfect Edition contain any updates to the game’s setting or premise that reflect changes in our real society since the last edition came out?
Yes and no. We are wary of putting too many modern references into the corebook because it can quickly become outdated. That said, we absolutely looked to this day and age for targets of satire.
Secret societies (illegal groups the PCs join individually) are always part of Paranoia, as they should be. For the Perfect Edition, we tweaked them a little to become more clear what they’re satirizing. For example, Antimutants are anti-vaxxers worried about “chemicals” in the water; Sierra Club mocks environmentalism; Corpore Metal loves robots so much they act like rabid sports fans arguing over minute statistics; you get the idea.
One thing we made sure of is to satirize conservatives, liberals, and everyone in between without getting overtly political. We don’t want to make any political statements, just to mock them.
Two subjects I always avoid at cocktail parties are religion and politics. In for a penny, in for a pound with those two. How can GMs and players ensure they don’t step on each other’s tails when dabbling in the (light) satire of Paranoia?
Oooh, tough question! When playing with new folks (such as at a con), I highly recommend safety tools like X-cards and lines & veils. Both are efficient ways to give players a chance to stop things if they’re getting under their skin, and you do not have to know the players well to gain the benefits. The GM should explain at the start that Paranoia’s humor can involve graphic violence, corrupt police, etc. (I didn’t list these in the corebook because Paranoia avoids all gender and sexuality issues by not having either in the setting, making things easier to work around.)
If you’re playing with an established group and you know each other at least a little bit, then such tools are still a solid idea. That said, I think an open conversation before the game begins (such as Session 0) can go a long way to avoid stepping on each other’s tails. For example, the introductory adventure included in the Paranoia Perfect Edition corebook involves sentencing arrested traitors, sometimes to capital punishment. Before starting, talk to players about this. If folks are authentically bothered by state execution of prisoners, turn execution into life in prison.
Games can be art. I always encourage people to play games the way the designer intended just to see their vision come through the gameplay–and then decide if that works for your group or not. That said, people are more important than games. Pay attention to the group as you play, and if someone seems annoyed or frustrated, pull them aside and help them.
The game tends to have a ubiquitous central NPC at all times: Friend Computer/The Computer. What are three pieces of advice you could give for how to roleplay The Computer?
Playing The Computer can be hard since you have absolute control in the setting but must use that wisely. With great power and all that. Here are three tips that can definitely help.
Sound pleasant: The Computer does not get angry, and It loves Its citizens. No, really! When it has to punish traitors, it does so swiftly but only to teach a valuable lesson. This AI does not take pleasure in this, which is why It prefers the term corrections over punishments. In other words, The Computer is not sadistic. It merely thinks It always knows best regardless of how much screaming there is.
Be “helpful”: Along those lines, Friend Computer wants to authentically be everyone’s best friend. That’s why It means well and tries to help. Because It’s been used for hundreds of years past Its expected life cycle, It helps the same way a toddler helps a parent: Means well, screws everything up, makes it all worse, and you can’t complain about it. It’s just that most toddlers will not have you executed.
Don’t take no sass: However, do not play The Computer as flexible and giving. It is absolute in Its control and power, and It crushes anyone who dares defy it. Sure, that might be based out of love and a soupçon of arrogance, but the upshot is that you should severely punish anyone giving Friend Computer any trouble. (In-game punishments, please keep your players safe.) That’s why the Paranoia GM has such power; to let players have a small taste of what their PCs experience.
Wow, this advice really makes me want to run a game of Paranoia. The Computer is quite a unique character for the GM to use in play. So, in all your years with Paranoia, what are three of the funniest moments you’ve had in a game?
You know what? This is actually hard to answer because such times are typically organic; the adventure is fertile ground for comedy, but it really comes through with player decisions. That said, here are some I fondly remember (that still don’t capture the laughter at the table).
The MBD test: Mandatory Bonus Duties are roles within the Troubleshooter “party” such as Team Leader or Happiness Officer. Paranoia XP included a two-page multiple-choice test with questions like, “If you were in charge, would you make fewer mistakes, more mistakes, or the same amount of mistakes?” I would hand this out at cons waiting for everyone to show up, so new players would see a table full of people laughing about multiple choice tests and know they found it.
Explosive Decompression: Paranoia 1st edition has an adventure called Clones In Space where the PCs visit, you guessed it, space. What happens if a PC gets tossed out of an air lock? To help GMs, the product included an Explosive Decompression table with seven distinct ways to die, such as fast freezing or literally exploding. Once the players learned such a table existed, they kept throwing NPCs out into space just to watch them ‘splode.
Argumentative lasers: One old piece of equipment in Paranoia is the Smart Laser–a laser pistol with a limited AI that talked to you through a wireless earpiece. It would offer advice to help the character shoot better. But the gun feared its own death should its battery die, so it always told the user to not shoot for some reason. One player started arguing with his Smart Laser, and I’m still not sure how, but he lost. Even better, everyone else cannot hear the pistol, so all they saw was a guy losing an argument to a pistol.
Perfect Edition is being released with a supplement, Accomplice Book, which includes extra rules and expansions on gameplay concepts. What would be the next most important supplements for Perfect Edition? In that same vein, would it be challenging to create new splatbooks for Paranoia after so much ground has already been covered in previous ones?
That would probably be Certifiable, a mission especially designed to help teach the game’s concepts to new players. Paranoia’s rules do not have a steep learning curve, but its unique tone and setting does take some effort. (Cooperating is the bread-n-butter of the RPG world, but Paranoia encourages craven and unfair competition between players.) By using the excuse of a Troubleshooter certification exam, we can cover each element of a great Paranoia mission one by one.
As for new books, the question is not what is left to write about. It’s what GMs and players find useful in their games. There’s nothing wrong with writing text full of jokes and interesting bits, especially with a game like Paranoia. That said, we want to ensure our books can be used to enhance the game.
Roughly half of the upcoming content releases will be premade adventures, while the others will fill rules niches that remain open. For example, we’ll be publishing Traitor’s Guide to the Interwebs, a book on the setting’s internet and social media because GMs and players can use both for more skulduggery and Catch-22’s. Likewise, Not So Simple takes a bunch of relatively simple actions in the game (such as catching an elevator) and gives multiple ways the GM can turn that into an interesting (and often fatal) scene. I mean, if a book isn’t going to be useful to lots of people, why publish it at all?
I’m just really glad I finally discovered Paranoia, even though I’m very late to the party. I have friends who just want to joke around during sessions and be mean, and now I can play with them again! So look, I’m out of questions about Paranoia. Needless to say, I’m backing this project and looking forward to running it. I do have one last random question, though. What new fun thing besides Paranoia has been consuming WJ McGuffin this year?
Honestly, Paranoia has been filling my free time for a long while now! One project on the backburner is using the Year Zero Engine to create a tabletop RPG based on the Backrooms horror sites and videos. (Note: These can actually be scary.) Outside of gaming... oh c’mon, there has to be something else, right? No? I really am that lame? Then so be it! :)
Thanks for sharing, WJ! I’m definitely looking foward to reading Perfect Edition and getting it to my table. Good luck with the Kickstarter! (Here is a link to Paranoia Perfect Edition on Kickstarter one last time).