OK, after trying it out I'm not impressed with the new edition Paranoia rules. They have some good ideas, but badly done. I'm staying with the old XP rules when I run games for friends and at conventions.
Now, to start with we did need a new edition. The goals of simplifying Paranoia and making it easier for new players are admirable. I agree that Paranoia XP, even split into Troubleshooter / Internal Security / High Programmer, was too complicated and needed to be streamlined. What I was hoping for was something back to the level of the old 2nd edition rules. (Still fondly remembered by many gamers I know, even though the books themselves have long since fallen apart.) That's not what the new edition is.
For me, there are three really bad decisions in the new edition:
* Changing the attribute scale and dice mechanism
* Doing away with Perversity Point modifiers
* Doing away with Outdoors
1. By far the worst is changing the attribute scale and dice resolution mechanism. In previous editions the scale is from 1 to 20. To resolve a problem you roll a single D20, and if it's less than your attribute/skill, good. Greater than, not so good. 20 is bad. This is really simple and easy to learn, and doesn't get in the way of experienced players. The scale is linear, not some kind of curve. 20 sided dice are not quite as readily available as 6 sided, but they're not exactly hard to find. And you just need to roll one of them.
We have this really simple mechanism, familiar to existing players and easy to learn for new. And I base this opinion on a couple of decades running Paranoia games for my regular roleplaying group, for friends of my regular group who wanted to try Paranoia out, and for complete strangers at RPG conventions. And the new edition throws it away.
This is what I find so infuriating about the new edition. I like the simplification of the character design and sheet. But it would have worked just as well with the old attribute scale.
And now we have dice pools. If your attribute + skill + modifiers is N, roll N dice. Count the number of 5s and 6s as successes, 1s are failures. Unless N is negative, in which case any roll not a 5 or 6 is a failure.
This is not simple. A surprising number of people haven't played Shadowrun. Really.
Oh yeah, there's this extra dice that you roll, and if you roll a 6 The Computer will intervene. Unless you're in a dead zone, in which case, um, something else maybe? And the loss of Moxie railroads players into "losing it" through no choice of their own: you can't choose not to roll the Computer dice.
And of course there's the zero dice singularity. The rules explain what to do if your attribute, skill, and modifiers are a positive number. Or a negative number. But zero isn't covered! Seriously, how on earth did these rules get as far as being printed without someone asking that question?
I'm sure someone will argue that dice pools are success counts are more flexibile or something. In my opinion, if you think dice mechanisms are important in Paranoia, you're Doing It Wrong.
(If I say that dice mechanisms aren't important, why not change? Because complexity and confusion do matter, and that's what the new mechanisms create.)
2. On to the next bad decision, doing away with Perversity Points. (PPs from now on.)
In my opinion, PPs are one of the great roleplaying innovations. In XP they are easy to explain and easy to use. Players get to decide whether they want to improve their own chances or nobble someone else, and to what degree. They can be as creative as they like. PPs simplify the rules by doing away with heaps of modifier tables.
The new edition replaces this wonderful game mechanic with cards and spending Moxie points.
Again, I think the cards are a good idea. The unlimited flexibilty of PPs can be daunting to players. Cards give inspiration, ideas that the player might not have thought of otherwise. But I see no reason why cards (and Moxie points) could not have been combined with the existing PP mechanism. Cards could have a PP value but with restricted area of application, and players could choose between a small number of PPs with unlimited use or a larger number of cards.
3. And finally, why get rid of the Outdoors?
Previous editions of Paranoia were sometimes criticized for sending Troubleshooters into the Outdoors too often. I've always found that such adventures are a really good way to introduce Paranoia to new players because it simplifies the game.
Outdoors is traditionally portrayed as a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Players already know how this works, thanks to decades of bad sci-fi books / TV / film. This allows them to concentrate on their characters and the basic mechanisms of the game. They can learn how to betray each other without being overloaded with information about service groups and universal surveillance and color clearances ... After a trip or two Outdoors, players are much better prepared for life in Alpha Complex itself.
The new edition declares that Outdoors is unknown and nobody in Alpha Complex knows about it. Maybe this could have been justified, but it only lasted until the publication of Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues. In which - spoiler alert for those who haven't bought it - the Troubleshooters are sent Outdoors into a post-apocalyptic wilderness.
If the very first published adventure has to break one of the core game assumptions, that's bad design in my opinion.
I'll end this rant now before I get started on the Action Order DYNAMO...
Now, to start with we did need a new edition. The goals of simplifying Paranoia and making it easier for new players are admirable. I agree that Paranoia XP, even split into Troubleshooter / Internal Security / High Programmer, was too complicated and needed to be streamlined. What I was hoping for was something back to the level of the old 2nd edition rules. (Still fondly remembered by many gamers I know, even though the books themselves have long since fallen apart.) That's not what the new edition is.
For me, there are three really bad decisions in the new edition:
* Changing the attribute scale and dice mechanism
* Doing away with Perversity Point modifiers
* Doing away with Outdoors
1. By far the worst is changing the attribute scale and dice resolution mechanism. In previous editions the scale is from 1 to 20. To resolve a problem you roll a single D20, and if it's less than your attribute/skill, good. Greater than, not so good. 20 is bad. This is really simple and easy to learn, and doesn't get in the way of experienced players. The scale is linear, not some kind of curve. 20 sided dice are not quite as readily available as 6 sided, but they're not exactly hard to find. And you just need to roll one of them.
We have this really simple mechanism, familiar to existing players and easy to learn for new. And I base this opinion on a couple of decades running Paranoia games for my regular roleplaying group, for friends of my regular group who wanted to try Paranoia out, and for complete strangers at RPG conventions. And the new edition throws it away.
This is what I find so infuriating about the new edition. I like the simplification of the character design and sheet. But it would have worked just as well with the old attribute scale.
And now we have dice pools. If your attribute + skill + modifiers is N, roll N dice. Count the number of 5s and 6s as successes, 1s are failures. Unless N is negative, in which case any roll not a 5 or 6 is a failure.
This is not simple. A surprising number of people haven't played Shadowrun. Really.
Oh yeah, there's this extra dice that you roll, and if you roll a 6 The Computer will intervene. Unless you're in a dead zone, in which case, um, something else maybe? And the loss of Moxie railroads players into "losing it" through no choice of their own: you can't choose not to roll the Computer dice.
And of course there's the zero dice singularity. The rules explain what to do if your attribute, skill, and modifiers are a positive number. Or a negative number. But zero isn't covered! Seriously, how on earth did these rules get as far as being printed without someone asking that question?
I'm sure someone will argue that dice pools are success counts are more flexibile or something. In my opinion, if you think dice mechanisms are important in Paranoia, you're Doing It Wrong.
(If I say that dice mechanisms aren't important, why not change? Because complexity and confusion do matter, and that's what the new mechanisms create.)
2. On to the next bad decision, doing away with Perversity Points. (PPs from now on.)
In my opinion, PPs are one of the great roleplaying innovations. In XP they are easy to explain and easy to use. Players get to decide whether they want to improve their own chances or nobble someone else, and to what degree. They can be as creative as they like. PPs simplify the rules by doing away with heaps of modifier tables.
The new edition replaces this wonderful game mechanic with cards and spending Moxie points.
Again, I think the cards are a good idea. The unlimited flexibilty of PPs can be daunting to players. Cards give inspiration, ideas that the player might not have thought of otherwise. But I see no reason why cards (and Moxie points) could not have been combined with the existing PP mechanism. Cards could have a PP value but with restricted area of application, and players could choose between a small number of PPs with unlimited use or a larger number of cards.
3. And finally, why get rid of the Outdoors?
Previous editions of Paranoia were sometimes criticized for sending Troubleshooters into the Outdoors too often. I've always found that such adventures are a really good way to introduce Paranoia to new players because it simplifies the game.
Outdoors is traditionally portrayed as a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Players already know how this works, thanks to decades of bad sci-fi books / TV / film. This allows them to concentrate on their characters and the basic mechanisms of the game. They can learn how to betray each other without being overloaded with information about service groups and universal surveillance and color clearances ... After a trip or two Outdoors, players are much better prepared for life in Alpha Complex itself.
The new edition declares that Outdoors is unknown and nobody in Alpha Complex knows about it. Maybe this could have been justified, but it only lasted until the publication of Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues. In which - spoiler alert for those who haven't bought it - the Troubleshooters are sent Outdoors into a post-apocalyptic wilderness.
If the very first published adventure has to break one of the core game assumptions, that's bad design in my opinion.
I'll end this rant now before I get started on the Action Order DYNAMO...
