A easy approach to creating your own complex is to take a decent gimmick, and expand on that gimmick, until you get a good enough setting. You could do this with any sort of weird idea. Some examples:
- "What if a right-wing radio talk show host controls his own complex?" - Burton Dome
- "What if aliens controlled their own complex?" - Alien Complex
- "What if Alpha Complex is merely a computer simulation?" - Alpha Matrix
- "What if Alpha Complex is just an immobile robot?" - Bot Complex
- "What if Alpha Complex actually worked?" - Complex Mu
However, an easier approach to generating a complex to take an existing secret society in Alpha Complex and then think about what if that society "won" and took over the complex. Some examples:
Another idea (though one that I have not seen used often) is to take an existing service group in Alpha Complex and then think about what happens if that service group took over the complex. I only really saw this gimmick twice (Operation FLUSH dealt with an Internal Security takeover, while AFCOM dealt with an Armed Forces takeover), but it may be something to think about (imagine what might happen if CPU or HPD&MC takes over).
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Many Alpha Complexes can also double as settings for PARANOIA games (examples include Alpha State and Alphacology). Actually, let me correct that statement. All Alternate Alpha Complexes can serve as PARANOIA settings if you're clever enough.
But it does require more than simply coming up with a gimmick. The new setting has to invoke the same sort of paranoid mood and style that the "stock" Alpha Complex invoked. At the same time, you don't want to simply just change all the names in the "stock" Complex ("Let's call Friend Computer...uh...Friendly Computer!") and think you came up with something original.
The forum "Mandatory Community Mission #3" (hosted on PARANOIA-Live) attempted to codify some guidelines for how an PARANOIA setting might work (though one can obviously deviate from this format to keep players off-base and to engage in experimentation). As PARANOIA-Live is dead, I'm typing this list up from memory (and will happily edit it with more criteria as soon as I remember them).
- Humor - PARANOIA is a darkly humorous game, after all.
- The Enemy - Every complex needs a scapegoat to blame their problems on and to justify their existence. This scapegoat may, or may not, be real. But that's rather irrelevant. The Enemy is more useful as a tool of social control than it is as an actual threat.
- Catching Treason Is Rewarded More Than Mere Loyalty - The complex is far more concerned about finding and punishing lawbreakers than they are with the more pedestrian tasks of running the complex. This helps to make the society more dystopian (as loyal citizens are left to suffer in the food vats while vile traitors are able to gain promotions simply by leading witch-hunts).
- A Legal Hierarchy - You have a boss, and that boss has a boss, and that boss has a boss...all the way up to the top leader (whether that leader is The Computer or some other entity). Failure to follow orders in the hierarchy can lead to punishment. Officially, the hierarchy is in charge, but it's unclear whether that hierarchy actually has any real power (or merely claim they do). In the "stock" Alpha Complex, this is represented by the security clearance system.
- Illegal Hierarchies - There are treasonous conspiracies in your complex, and if you are a part of them, then you report to a boss, and that boss has a boss, etc., etc. These conspiracies can help you out (due to having a significant control over the setting), but you must follow their treasonous orders in return. Naturally, belonging to an illegal hierarchy is illegal, so you must conceal your connections. In the "stock" Alpha Complex, the illegal hierarchies are represented by the secret societies.
- Illegal Sources of Power - "Illegal sources of power" are, naturally, illegal, but you may still want to take them because they help improve your chances of survival. In the "stock" Alpha Complex, these would be mutant powers and anything that is above your security clearance.
- Legal Divisions - Divisions within society encourages conflicts and feuds between citizens, preventing them from truly unifying against a 'common threat'. Even if someone is truly loyal to the complex and avoid the 'illegal hierarchies' and 'illegal sources of power', they still have a conflict-of-interest as they need to follow orders from their legal 'faction' (and those orders may not necessarily be in the best interest of the complex as a whole). In the "stock" Alpha Complex, these would be the service groups.
- Ways To Recover From Punishment - Players should still be able to quickly come back to life after getting punished for treason, so that they can continue to play. In the "stock" Alpha Complex, these would be the clone families (and you could easily introduce something similar to that).
To show how this framework might work for you to generate your own setting, let's pretend we're creating a setting called "Anarchist Complex" (an alliance between Communists, PURGE, and Death Leopard to build a society in the Underplex to fight against Alpha Complex). This society claim to be truly egalitarian, meaning there isn't a security clearance system. Power, however, is based on popularity - the more popular you are, the more likely it is the mob will respect your wishes. The most popular demagogues are able to control the complex outright...at least until their popularity gets smeared, and then they are at the mercy of the mob they once led.
- Humor - The contrast between the utopian rhetoric of Anarchist Complex and the less-utopian reality. Seeing how revolutionary secret societies actually try to build a revolutionary complex from scratch.
- The Enemy - Alpha Complex's Internal Security, duh. Throw in some FCCC-P evangelists in there (they want to save these lost souls who have abandoned the glory of Alpha Complex to instead partake in treasonous hedonism and socialism). Surprisingly, the FCCC-P evangelists can be pretty effective here - hedonism does tend to get boring after a while.
- Catching Treason Is Rewarded More Than Mere Loyalty - Pretty easy to start up a witch-hunt against IntSec Spies and FCCC-P Preachers, and it's a good way to gain popularity (much more than simply scrubbing the food vats).
- A Legal Hierarchy - There is no hierarchy to speak of, officially at any rate. Unofficially, there's a simple equation: Popularity = Power.
- An Illegal Hierarchy - FCCC-P is divided into multiple sects, and Internal Security is divided into multiple cells. FCCC-P is focused on conversion (and would be fine with converting members of rival sects) and Internal Security just want to meet their "traitor termination" quota (and would be fine with just terminating members of rival cells). So, theoretically, you could work for FCCC-P and Internal Security without getting caught.
- Illegal Sources of Power - Technically, most things are legal in Anarchist Complex (Death Leopard lobbied very hard to protect clones' right to rock and roll, after all). But if you can establish treasonous connections with FCCC-P and Internal Security, you might be able to get some resources from Alpha Complex proper, and those resources tend to be more functioning than the stuff built in Anarchist Complex.
- Legal Divisions - PURGE acts as the Armed Forces, Death Leopard serve as Internal Security, and the Communists are busy running the planned economy. They step on each other's toes - PURGE is really focused on Smashing The Computer, Death Leopard wants to catch subversives, and the Communists tries to keep everyone from starving.
- Ways To Recover From Punishment - If you are famous enough, you might be able to get some dedicated fans to follow you around. Your character could then write a will to give all your equipment and status over to a loyal fan, so that if your character die, the dedicated fan could then "take over" (and you can then play as the dedicated fan).
...Interestingly, the more you details you write, the more ideas you can get, and you can then transfer and reuse these ideas elsewhere, even if you do decide not to run a PARANOIA game in 'Anarchist Complex'.
For example, if you merely wanted to use Anarchist Complex as just the background for for the "Spy From Another Alpha Complex" society, it's easy to come up with missions for them, based on what we know from this simple checklist. Anarchist Complex could send spies to Alpha Complex to find and eliminate the spies coming from Internal Security and FCCC-P before they make it over to Anarchist Complex (while also aiding local Communists/Death Leopard/PURGE factions - they could serve as useful distractions to keep Alpha Complex's Internal Security busy).
One last note - PARANOIA settings do not have to be Alpha Complexes. That was, in fact, part of the point of the Brave New Complex supplement: coming up with alternate ways to play PARANOIA that radically breaks with the "stock" Alpha Complex that we all know and love. The forum "Mandatory Community Mission #3" and the topic "Brave New Complexes: Players' Turn" both deal with fan-made attempts to create brand new PARANOIA settings, but we have lost them to the midsts of time. If you like an example of a PARANOIA setting that is not an Alternate Alpha Complex, you can look at Omega Complex's blog posts about the Avignon Papacy (a PARANOIA setting that was intended to be in Brave New Complex).
"Anarchist Complex" was actually a real setting that was created in "Mandatory Community Mission #3" (disclaimer: I was the one who invented it). There were other ideas too: a zombie apocalypse, a society after the zombie apocalypse (where the zombies are actually dead but the leadership pretends they're still alive to keep power), a post-apocalyptic government that segregates families into rural farms, a mega-corporation, a cruise ship, a prison system (memories of life outside of prison is erased, and as you gain security clearance, you get more privileges and access to your pre-prison memory), lairs of an evil genius, termite colonies, etc. Interesting stuff.