The Little RED Book - Is it any good?

Does anyone have a copy of this book? What's it like? Is it just a cut and paste of the Player's Section from the main rulebook or is there new material?

Olaf the Stout
 
*Just* got mine. Actually I got 2, ordered 5. Still waiting on the last 3 - got to keep those players sufficiently distracted from the main rules, you know.

For starters, the word "little" is very apt. I've never seen such a tiny Amazon box before...even for single CDs. It's about 5.5" x 8.5" (13.97cm x 21.59cm) and less than 1/8" (3.2mm) thick. The print is also about 2 points smaller than my other Paranoia book.

It's essentially identical to the Player's Section as near as I can tell, although some of the nonessential pages appear to have been trimmed out.

Oh, and the cover is different.
 
So basically I would be better off getting the updated PDF version of the main rulebook (I have the first printing) and giving that to my players instead of getting copies of The Little RED Book. That way I would get the errated version of the main rulebook as well as being able to print out the Player's Section for my player as needed.

Olaf the Stout
 
I haven't noticed any new material in the LRB, and while I'm pleased to own a copy for my collection, I was staggered at the size for price ratio.

At $9.95 US (plus postage, Ugh), I was hoping for a little more than the barest essentials for players. It clocks in at 24 pages only and in truth is really good for novelty value only. The Rulebook has about 42 pages in the Players Section, so you'll find the more detailed sections missing. The only illustrations in the LRB are the occasional Monitor with the usual comical FC quote.

The Underplex, by comparison is 48 pages at $14.95 US and full of crunchy goodness. Try as I might, I can't make the difference in page counts and prices add up.

Perhaps in hindsight, this should have been released as a Free PDF on the site to encourage new users, and more sales, for the game. As a commercial release, it would have been more useful if it contained at least the total rules content of the players section of the Rulebook minus the graphics and extra funny bits.

It's the first 'new' Paranoia book I wouldn't recommend.
 
I find it's the perfect book to give a person interested in Paranoia to describe the universe.

It sums everything up without being intimidating.

If you have a group of people who are experienced with the universe, then it's not worth the buy, they already know all of it.

I'm planning on running a few Demo Games, so it'll give me a quick and easy thing to read from to explain the system without pulling out the bigger main rulebook!
 
I've just finished writing a little red review of this for RPGnet, which should appear there shortly.

Essentially it is a copy of the players section of the rules, but its more convenient to have it in a seperate booklet. It explains the background, character creation and what the skills mean. Although you could download treasonous PDF files of these rules, or even more treasonously photocopy a large portion of the main rulebook, it is nice to have it in a little red book to hand to your players. I've seen more stupid things available for other games such as character log books, which are around the same price.

Its a luxury item admittedly, but its not all bad.
 
I still feel that this would have been far more useful, if it was the COMPLETE players section and not just part of it...
 
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