Hey there,
I ran “Mr Bubbles” a little while ago and I want to give some feedback.
I should point out that this was my first ever Paranoïa game. I decided to give it a try as a challenge to my usual “the bleaker the better” gaming style. I had five players, most of which were also new to the game. I know each of them pretty well, and we’ve been gaming together every three months or so for years.
The game itself was cool. Style-wise, I intended on running it somewhere between Classic and Zap, as that’s what seemed easiest. That’s pretty much how it turned out, even if it was a little more Zap than intended.
That was one of the two main points we discussed after the game. I don’t know if it was because of my GMing style or because of the players, but everything was a little bit “over the top”. Lots of violence, lots of grenades … the clone-count just kept running. It was great fun, but the characters’ tics and backgrounds almost didn’t get played at all. Although we all had a blast (no pun intended), we’re determined to try something Straight next time, with emphasis on physical and emotional pain rather than quick death, to get more role-playing out of Paranoïa. Maybe it’s just a question of experience with this game. Maybe I just need to keep better track of who does what and who belongs to which secret society etc. I definitely think that having a GM who’s played Paranoïa before is a big plus.
The other thing was that the players thought there were just too many things for them to keep track of. I understand this is one of the ways to keep the players under pressure, but maybe it’s not such a great idea for an introductory scenario. *** SPOILER ALERT *** In particular, they thought the imaginary characters they were asked to play for the “Shooters” vid were too much.
That’s about it … feel free to comment !
Cheers,
JC
I ran “Mr Bubbles” a little while ago and I want to give some feedback.
I should point out that this was my first ever Paranoïa game. I decided to give it a try as a challenge to my usual “the bleaker the better” gaming style. I had five players, most of which were also new to the game. I know each of them pretty well, and we’ve been gaming together every three months or so for years.
The game itself was cool. Style-wise, I intended on running it somewhere between Classic and Zap, as that’s what seemed easiest. That’s pretty much how it turned out, even if it was a little more Zap than intended.
That was one of the two main points we discussed after the game. I don’t know if it was because of my GMing style or because of the players, but everything was a little bit “over the top”. Lots of violence, lots of grenades … the clone-count just kept running. It was great fun, but the characters’ tics and backgrounds almost didn’t get played at all. Although we all had a blast (no pun intended), we’re determined to try something Straight next time, with emphasis on physical and emotional pain rather than quick death, to get more role-playing out of Paranoïa. Maybe it’s just a question of experience with this game. Maybe I just need to keep better track of who does what and who belongs to which secret society etc. I definitely think that having a GM who’s played Paranoïa before is a big plus.
The other thing was that the players thought there were just too many things for them to keep track of. I understand this is one of the ways to keep the players under pressure, but maybe it’s not such a great idea for an introductory scenario. *** SPOILER ALERT *** In particular, they thought the imaginary characters they were asked to play for the “Shooters” vid were too much.
That’s about it … feel free to comment !
Cheers,
JC