/tg/Station 13

I was asked to DM Paranoia irl.
I never played Paranoia, I never heard about it, I only just now started reading Paranoia XP edition.
I don't have any other materials.
The DMing is to take place in two days, we'll have about 3-4 hours.
Any tips or pointers or whatever?

Here's a video of people playing it so you can get an idea of the themes, how it works etc.
It's basically Malf AI: the RPG.

Are you playing the new version?
If so spike their drinks with ricin

If the players reference the rules in any way, punish them for it. After all, it's against the rules for the players to know the rules (as long as they admit it rather)

Also make it clear that life is cheap and death is not only expected, but the logical outcome

Did someone say... PARANOIA???
I've GM'd paranoia extensively in the past, including for some people who hang around here.

First: Have the players roll the dice. Then, whatever you want to happen, happens.

Second: Set the players up to fail. Paranoia, at it's core, is a game about shifting the blame for your inevitable and catastrophic failure.

Third: If any of the players references the rules, especially as a complaint about you not handling something according to them, kill their character.

Fourth: Enforce "If you said it at the table, you said it in character." For most games this isn't a helpful rule, but for Paranoia, it's great.

Fifth: Don't hurt the players. Make them hurt each other. Give them a reason to hurt each other, and then let them go to it with all their ingenuity.

Sixth: Use the Perversity mechanics; they're great.

Seventh: Make sure the players can't all succeed. By the same token, make sure it's possible for more than one of them to succeed. This keeps things interesting.

Eighth: Very early in a game, put your players in a situation where Following The Rules Of Alpha Complex will very clearly result in a swift and painful death, and so will getting caught breaking them. Make them get their hands dirty.

Ninth: Include a "darkroom"- about 1/3 of the way through the session, after everyone knows their goals and thinks they know other people's goals, and maybe have a few tenuous alliances, contrive to put the PC's in a situation where they can Do Treason and expect to stand an excellent chance of getting away with it.

Tenth: Always limit information (especially about what happens in the darkroom) to what the character would know. And, have people lie to your PC's. Of every 10 pieces of information, one should be completely true, three should be mostly true, four should be "true" from a great distance on a dark night, or bureaucratically true, and two should be catastrophically wrong.

Also don't make NPCs behave cartoonishly, except maybe Friend Computer. The PCs and NPCs should be seriously considering Elvis Presley lyrics to be communist propaganda at all times

can I play it while drunk as hell

CitrusGender wrote:can I play it while drunk as hell

yes and you should

you can even make a drinking game of it-
lose a clone, do a shot
mutant power backfires, take a drink
R&D equipment malfunctions, take a drink
Mandatory Hygiene Test occurs, take a drink of something with a high enough alcohol content to be sterile

I played in Dryn's game, it was fun

If in person make sure to print out bullshit reports and have them fill out equipment requests. Half the fun was the bullshit paperwork and the Computers criticisms on its accuracy. Its legit a dick Malf AI mixed with Glados

I seem to recall one of the adventures had a stat block for The Computer, and its listed weapon was "An entire civilisation of bloodthirsty brainwashed lunatics armed with the latest high-megaton personal weaponry"

Did the game, took all of your advice and used it. Thanks people!
Had reports, drinking for failure, drinking as "happy pills", false info, darkroom, filling out trick forms, bureaucracy etc, stirred the plot to make the players work together but secretly set them on each other as much as I could via secret messages to individuals.
Played it so the world and the "main quest" was mostly a decoration for them backstabbing each other, no outright "everything is so dysfunctional you fail all the time", instead "everything is just barely functional and can be easily made to set up the other players".

Was pretty fun. More fun than I expected. Mostly thanks to forms, drinking rule and "Fifth: Don't hurt the players. Make them hurt each other. Give them a reason to hurt each other, and then let them go to it with all their ingenuity".

Not-being-afraid-of-dying I think I failed to implement but whatever.

Thanks again, lads.

Paranoia is best when you give the players a car battery, some jump leads and the instruction that one of them needs to hook it up to their genitalia to open the door.

I'm including that one, definitely. Maybe not genitalia, but something in that spirit

By the way, I checked out paranoia let's plays - the one in this thread and the kikoskia one - I am not sure if players would find them enjoyable. They seem a bit too random, and don't have enough progression? Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Paranoia sounds like the kind of game that would make me want to strangle everyone else at the table.

Not everyone else. Only the DM. If done improperly (properly?)

Whoisthere wrote:I'm including that one, definitely. Maybe not genitalia, but something in that spirit

By the way, I checked out paranoia let's plays - the one in this thread and the kikoskia one - I am not sure if players would find them enjoyable. They seem a bit too random, and don't have enough progression? Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Paranoia isn't a game about progression
progression makes death sting too much

If you are dead-set on Paranoia and you want progression you could try the straight mode of play. In fact, there are some interesting straight scenarios in WMD book