Bundle of Holding has two bundles for sale: Paranoia Red and Paranoia 2004.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2021PARANOIA

I played Paranoia once, in the 90's. It was funny for about an hour, and then it got old, like a joke told too many times. I've always wondered about playing it seriously, where the players are trying to escape a dystopian complex set in the future.

Question 1: Is that even possible? Which version would be better suited for it? Or am I wasting my time?

Question 2: What are the differences between the versions?

Question 3: What are your experiences with the game in general?

Quote from: Aglondir on December 01, 2021, 06:08:52 PM
Bundle of Holding has two bundles for sale: Paranoia Red and Paranoia 2004.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2021PARANOIA

I played Paranoia once, in the 90's. It was funny for about an hour, and then it got old, like a joke told too many times. I've always wondered about playing it seriously, where the players are trying to escape a dystopian complex set in the future.

Question 1: Is that even possible? Which version would be better suited for it? Or am I wasting my time?

Question 2: What are the differences between the versions?

Question 3: What are your experiences with the game in general?

(1) I've run and played in some Paranoia adventures across multiple sessions, but never a campaign that lasted more than a few weeks. I don't think it's possible to play it seriously - the humor and satire are built into the game. I think it's really designed for at most short campaigns. I could see extending it some by having a series of adventures leading to a conclusion. However, I don't think it can go further. If the PCs succeed in escaping the complex - then that's the end of the game, at least as something recognizable as Paranoia. You could switch over to Gamma World scenarios, but then it's basically a new game.

(2) I know the original edition pretty well, and briefly tried the 2004 "XP" edition. They have many differences, but neither stood out to me as a whole thing. As I recall, the XP edition added a minor meta-mechanic like hero points, but it didn't have a major effect overall.

(3) Overall, I think done well, it can serve as a fun change-of-pace from usual games - especially because it is a parody of RPGs themselves. Some of the adventures have wonderfully inventive extensions of the concept. But the jokes will run out eventually. I think games last longer than Toon, but it's still best in limited doses.

Paranoia is a great beer & pretzles RPG for friends with simliar tastes in humor. (Dark, absurd and silly in equal measure)

The last time I played (which was quite a while ago) the GM had all our secret factions want us to throw acid in the face of a "traitor". Over the course of the game, all the PCs wound up throwing it at the same character. Poor guy was a mess by the end of the adventure. You could only get away with such cruel humor in a game like Paranoia.

Quote from: jhkim on December 01, 2021, 06:42:45 PM
(1) I've run and played in some Paranoia adventures across multiple sessions, but never a campaign that lasted more than a few weeks. I don't think it's possible to play it seriously - the humor and satire are built into the game. I think it's really designed for at most short campaigns. I could see extending it some by having a series of adventures leading to a conclusion. However, I don't think it can go further. If the PCs succeed in escaping the complex - then that's the end of the game, at least as something recognizable as Paranoia. You could switch over to Gamma World scenarios, but then it's basically a new game.

(2) I know the original edition pretty well, and briefly tried the 2004 "XP" edition. They have many differences, but neither stood out to me as a whole thing. As I recall, the XP edition added a minor meta-mechanic like hero points, but it didn't have a major effect overall.

(3) Overall, I think done well, it can serve as a fun change-of-pace from usual games - especially because it is a parody of RPGs themselves. Some of the adventures have wonderfully inventive extensions of the concept. But the jokes will run out eventually. I think games last longer than Toon, but it's still best in limited doses.

Thanks John, that's basically what I was afraid of (the jokes run out eventually.) Think I will pass on this one.

Quote from: Aglondir on December 01, 2021, 06:08:52 PM
Question 1: Is that even possible? Which version would be better suited for it? Or am I wasting my time?

If I were do game with PC trying to escape from a dystopian complex, I would use any other rule set aside from Paranoia. Players that are familiar with Paranoia are going to have expectations on how that game is to be played and you will be fighting an uphill battle to maintain a different tone. 

It never got old for me. There were 3 playstyles: one was basically slapstick, one down the middle (some dark humor, some seriousness), and one played completely straight.

If you want the serious mode, just play it straight. It has tons of material to last forever.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on December 02, 2021, 03:01:03 PM
It never got old for me. There were 3 playstyles: one was basically slapstick, one down the middle (some dark humor, some seriousness), and one played completely straight.

If you want the serious mode, just play it straight. It has tons of material to last forever.

I would be interested to hear stories about the completely straight playstyle.

Quote from: Aglondir on December 02, 2021, 06:48:35 PM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on December 02, 2021, 03:01:03 PM
It never got old for me. There were 3 playstyles: one was basically slapstick, one down the middle (some dark humor, some seriousness), and one played completely straight.

If you want the serious mode, just play it straight. It has tons of material to last forever.

I would be interested to hear stories about the completely straight playstyle.

It's like being a character in 1984 or Brazil.

Clever concept but I never really got into it. I like dark moody games, but it's a bit Tom & Jerry for my taste.

Paranoia is the game I would break out as a one shot from my regular campaign when interplayer tensions get high. It gives them a chance to blast each other as traitors, and the in game humor is so good, IME it's a great palliate cleanser. However, I've never tried it as a long term campaign. I fear like others, there are certain in game expectations that would make it a challenge.

And as I read this, I realize that *I* am in fact a traitor, and need to turn myself in to the nearest commie vaporization facility.

I ran it a few times, but never tried to turn it into a campaign.  It was a fun break from our long running D&D game.

I really enjoyed playing the modules even thought I never got to play most of them.  They were among the most entertaining RPG material I've seen.

He's right you know...

I'm not liking the new edition of Paranoia so much... seems to have lost a lot of the old humor and flavor, but that's neither here nor there.

But there's most certainly a way to have fun playing Paranoia perfectly straight, managed to have one good dystopian campaign that lasted a year, without most of the usual slapstick that tends to be the norm in most paranoia games, it works best with a small group (2 or 3 players at most, any
more and it will inevitably degenerate into the usual happy chaos) by scaling back the death toll a bit and giving SOME (not many) rewards to the PC's for thier loyal service to the computer, think "the carrot and the stick"... usually Paranoia is just the stick, adding a few carrots (some higher end equiptment that just might work or better quarters and options from secret societies goes a long way to helping them progress through the troubleshooter ranks)
and it REALLY does help if everyone's seen Brazil (a fine film to watch regardless)

I used to occasionally have one of the PC's be a non-mutant who wasn't in a secret society who actually WAS a loyal servant of the computer... the other PC's never figured on that one...

Otherwise, play as normal and have fun when everyone dies at least once on the way from the mission briefing to RND, as is almost guaranteed in any
published module, the few i have made the Tomb of Horrors look like a walk in the park by comparison.  2nd Edition is my favorite, though i have a certain
nostalgic fondness for the first Edition still despite the obtuse skill system that 2nd vastly simplified.

Not sure if this needs to be moved to the politics forum, but:

Paranoia was created in the 1980s to mock anticommunism--the Computer is obsessed with rooting out commies and the like.

I forget who holds the IP on Paranoia now, but some enterprising righty could easily rework the concept to make fun of social justice advocates--they have the ideological purity test obsessions and the like. All the jokes about 'intersectionality points' could very easily be turned into an actual point-buy system.

I think there is at least some potential to get people in the middle as even not particularly conservative people are sick of being policed.

Mongoose (not sure why they're still listed as green, not yellow) own the IP now... and the Commies are gone as the main antagonists now (though they're
still a secret society)

I'm not at all sure i'd say the game was made to "mock anti-communism", so much as it was simply a game rooted in it's era.  It's never explained exactly
WHY Alpha Complex exists, but the likely scenario most of us came up with was a post-nuclear exchange with the Russians, as the cold war was just then
ending.  I'd say it mocked Communism just as much as it mocked anti-communism, along with the Sierra Club, bad 80's sitcoms, bottled beverages,
Def Leppard, RPG tropes ect. ect. as it was satirical and not meant to be taken too seriously.

Nobody by the late 1980's took communism seriously anymore, as the collapse of the U.S.S.R. became more apparent.  Perhaps we should have given how
bad things are now, but at the time no one would have believed we'd be going down that path in a few short decades.

Quote from: Sanson on December 07, 2021, 01:47:04 PM
It's never explained exactly
WHY Alpha Complex exists,

My 1e PARANOIA has a clear explanation. Alpha Complex's Computer was damaged and interpreted a big meteor strike as a Soviet nuclear attack.