Paranoia should go SPLAT!

[Just a player]

Hi there,

Has anyone considered the possibility of creating splatbooks for Paranoia? The various service departments, the secret societies... maybe it's just me, but there's a lot to explore there, and doing so could be funny as all HE-double hockey sticks. You'd have fresh Paranoia material for years that way, not to mention stuff to hang an actual campaign on. Does anyone agree?

 

[Allen Varney]

In times past (2006 or so), the Traitor Recycling Studio was considering a Troubleshooter's Revenge Book, a player's handbook, or possibly a series, that described the workings and resources of the eight service groups in Alpha Complex. The Revengebook would have given Troubleshooter PCs clues that may -- may -- help them navigate and exploit one service group. The information may possibly help them -- if they use it in imaginative and entertaining ways -- to survive particular deathtraps, scam equipment, escape surveillance, and frame their teammates.

The book would have offered many pages of group-specific benefits (Bennies) that work in specific circumstances. For instance, the Armed Forces Revenge Book would offer a Bennie that lets the Armed Forces PC, in certain circumstances, gain free military equipment.

In game terms, the Revengebook was intended to develop the concept of Access, heretofore little attended in PARANOIA. The book would have given location, NPC and resource descriptions keyed, either overtly or by implication, to a PC's Access score. The player never knows his Troubleshooter's Access score -- that information is Gamemaster-only -- but this book would have encouraged the player to try his luck, to risk spending his Access points and thereby gamble with victory and disaster.

But all this was conceived back when there was a market for PARANOIA supplements....