1st Edition Gamemaster's Handbook
Although "winging" an expedition is an ancient and honorable practice, few gamemasters can pull it off consisently. Prepare at least the outlines of an adventure in advance. The structure of Paranoia makes adventure preparation much easier than in other games; in Paranoia, players are assigned a mission, and have little choice in the matter. In other games, players can always refuse a quest and do something for which the gamemaster is not prepared; Paranoia allows the gamemaster a greater degree of control.
There are two sorts of adventures: "packaged" ones published by West End or another company, and ones entirely invented by the gamemaster. The designers admit a prejudice to the latter: we get a kick out of spending time and effort creating twisted entertainment for our friends. We think you'll have the same kind of fun from designing your own adventures.
However, not everyone has coupious free time to fritter away on frivilous hobbies, and we flatter ourselves in thinking ourselves more twisted than most, and therefore supremely fitted to design inspired PARANOIA adventures. So buy our adventures.
Seriously, we find packaged adventures useful for five reasons:
1. When running the first few sessions of PARANOIA, a gamemaster may find that a packaged adventure helps him get a better feel for the game.
2. A packaged adventure gives a new gamemaster a good model for organizing and preparing the materials necessary for an adventure.
3. A gamemaster will often find that he doesn't have enough time to prepare his own adventure in advance; when this happens, it is helpful to be able to pull out a packaged adventure on short notice and run it.
4. Even inspired gamemasters like ourselves will occassionally come across very entertaining ideas in packaged adventures. We cheerfully steal these ideas and incorporate them into our own diabolical plots.
5. When we're short on time, and hot for a game fix, we can always go to a good packaged adventure for the basic structure of an adventure, then improvise to our heart's content.
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When a gamemaster designs his own adventure, he will need to develop the same kind of information provided in the packaged adventure - although the same level of detail is not needed. When designing his own adventure, a gamemaster will find that sketchy notes often take the place of what, in a packaged adventure, is extensive description. When thinking about what an adventure will be like, a gamemaster will have many ideas which will return to him as he looks over his notes.
2nd Edition Gamemaster's Handbook
Sophisticated (and sometimes snobbish) roleplaying gamers often have a prejudice against published adventures: the notion being that published adventures are for clots too unimaginative to design their own. It's certainly true that there is great satisfaction in designing a neat adventure; we World Famous Game Designers (WFGDs) get a kick out of spending time and effort creating twisted entertainment for our friends, and we know folks that play Paranoia are likely to get the same kick from designing their own adventures.
However, there are some valid reasons why you should run out Right Now and buy every Paranoia adventure ever published.
1. Inexperienced gamemasters get a lot of support from Paranoia adventures. We try to teach the rudiments (and esoteric refinements) of the gamemastering arts, and give plenty of tips and materials that help you present an adventure.
2. Published adventures provide useful models for organizing adventure information so it is easy to reference and present. After you've read a couple of adventures, you get a good idea of what stuff you need to prepare yourself and what you can expect in a game session.
3. Using a published adventure reduces a GM's pre-session preparation time considerably. If you can't afford time to design an adventure, or you rather spend time playing than designing, you can't beat a published adventure.
4. Even inspired gamemasters like ourselves find lots of wonderful and entertaining ideas when we read published adventures. We cheerfully steal these ideas and incorporate them into our own diabolical plots.
5. You can always take a published adventure, use its basic structure or premise, then twist it in whatever direction you like. There are no Game Design Police who will come to your home to make sure you run an adventure the way it was published. In fact, for Paranoia, this is our recommended method - use the published adventure for structure and inspiration, then create and improvise to your heart's content.
6. We want your money.
7. Our marketing people really want your money. I mean, they really want your money. Even more than we do. And our marketing people promise us that if they get all your money, they'll let us design more appalling Paranoia products.
Sounds okay to us.
Introduction to "The Yellow Clearance Black-Box Blues", printed in PARANOIA Flashbacks, by John M. Ford
It has come to The Computer’s attention that many end-users of products such as this mission do not use them in the intended fashion. Instead of operating the adventure as written, these users merely use it as a source of ideas for their own games.
Good.
In the first place, it is understood that copies of the mission text may fall into the hands of citizens not cleared for them. This is, of course, treason; yet for our own protection we must admit that treason exists and make allowances for it. Gamemasters who suspect their players may have access to classified material should prepare ingenious dooms triggered by the use of such material. The Computer recognizes no laws against entrapment.
Second, it is not possible to anticipate every action or idea players may come up with during the course of play, brilliant or peculiar or both. Anyone who thinks otherwise is referred to the Maginot Line as an instructive example. Even if advances in behavioral psychology made this possible, it would not be desirable—if you’re not in it for the interplay of ideas, you might as well play chess against a computer. (Discussions of a computer-interactive version of PARANOIA are not available at your security clearance at this time. Rumors are treason. Thank you for your cooperation.)
Second-and-a-half, because any game session above the level of intellectual sterility (approximately 7th level, in most game systems) depends on a continuous supply of interesting plot twists and unexpected but logical events, there is no such thing as an excess of ideas. In PARANOIA, where the atmosphere is the game, there is extra pressure to come up with events that maintain the spirit of consistently amusing terror, without being 15 more iterations of Whoops, Your Equipment Blew Up.
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Because we expect most of you will use this text as a source of ideas rather than The Book of Law, it was thought A Good Idea to make reading it as pleasant an experience as possible. I think we succeeded. If you laughed while you were reading, then we did. It is our hope, and our creditors’, that thousands, tens of thousands of you will purchase this mission and laugh. (This will make you all traitors. Some things just cannot be helped. Thank you for your cooperation.)
I will now boggle my estimable colleague Greg Costikyan (an event worth points in Greg’s game TOON) by saying that PARANOIA seems to me to be the most genuinely science-fictional roleplaying game out there—that is to say, the one that most reflects science-fiction as a form for thought experiments about society, not a collection of genre clichés. Everything else out there falls under the headings of Militaristic Space Opera or Post-Holocaust (or, The Rover Boys Go Survivalist). I’ve worked in both those forms, and they’re fine, but it was about time for something different. PARANOIA’s black-comic inferno is reminiscent of Robert Sheckley or Ron Goulart. I also thought of Philip K. Dick, in whose work the truth about Reality is only available to the characters in hints and flashes (alert readers will notice a respectful reference to Dick in these pages).
Of course, there are rayguns. And there could be spaceships. Perhaps there’s an Alpha Complex on the Moon. (Rumors are treason.) I could discuss these and many other topics, but The Computer is requesting me to report for immediate termination, and I must dispatch a team of Troubleshooters to find out what the trouble is, and shoot it.