Treason: when, where, and how rapidly?

[Eve-I-LGM]

I'm new to paranoia, having just picked up and read through the Paranoia XP book, so my questions may seem trivial to seasoned paranoia players from ages past, but I have a couple questions about treason in general.

When and how should the Treason Univ.Host. Formula be applied? It doesnt seem to allow for the spontaneous blastings of fellow troubleshooters at the slightest sign of a fur cap.

What about the treason codes recorded by the players, like SS/2? Are they supposed to be acts the computer has witnessed, and will deal with later? then why have the players record them? If they are instead supposed to be treasonous acts that the players have witnessed and are to bring up as evidence, why have them encoded?

anyway, if you can answer even one of these questions vaguely, I'd really appreciate it. Or alternatively you can tell me that I'm a foolish simpleton with the inability to think laterally and make my own damned decisions...

 

[PaulB]

When and how should the Treason Univ.Host. Formula be applied? It doesnt seem to allow for the spontaneous blastings of fellow troubleshooters at the slightest sign of a fur cap.

Consider this kind of treason as a non-weapon weapon attack. Mid-fight Bob-R notes that Fred-R accidentally hits a modified scrubot the team have been assigned with an oddly yellow blast from his seemingly RED clearance laser. After the Commies they faced have been pacified (some permanently), Bob-R requests the attention of The Computer and fires off two accusations of treason - damage of assigned equipment and possession of illegal equipment, vis a YELLOW clearance laser barrel. Now, Bob-R could have saved this accusation until debriefing, or logged it secretly and sent it through for review by IntSec along with carefully recorded Multicorder footage, or kept it for some other convenient moment during the course of the mission. Hitting another character with an accusation of treason is as easy as pulling a laser on them.

The second and third paragraph of Chapter 30 specifically highlight the practical spontaneity of accusations. Or, you can choose to make things more ordered and manageable by having players record accusations on a sheet of paper and put together a treason report at the end of each mission.

What about the treason codes recorded by the players, like SS/2? Are they supposed to be acts the computer has witnessed, and will deal with later? then why have the players record them? If they are instead supposed to be treasonous acts that the players have witnessed and are to bring up as evidence, why have them encoded?

These are more than likely saved for the mission debriefing, unless the mission is particularly long or odd and necessitates an earlier calculation of accumulated offences. The various codes are summed up and applied during the debriefing (along with relevant orders to attend immediate mandatory brainscrubbing sessions or shorts holidays at the nearest convenient Bright Vision Re-education Center).

 

[Eve-I-LGM]

that makes a lot of sense, and thanks for drawing my attention to those paragraphs.

I'm running a game soon to introduce my group to the world of Paranoia, and now that I have an idea of what Im doing, it should work out far better.