Some roleplaying game fans assert PARANOIA doesn’t permit an ongoing ‘campaign’ of linked missions with a continuing cast of player characters. How could it, when they die so often? The game is fine for a change of pace, they say, but that’s all. In response, other fans point to their own long- running PARANOIA games.
The campaign concept remains controversial among experienced Gamemasters. We never disagree with any GM, because the GM is always right. But we can pass along suggestions to make anti-campaign GMs even righter than before.
First, ‘campaign’ connotes a grand scale, an over-arching plot developing from story to story. The PCs initiate or get caught up in mysterious early events; gradually the GM reveals the bigger picture. In Alpha Complex there is no picture. There is only a constantly shifting zone of crisis immediately surrounding the PCs, with utter darkness beyond. So the word ‘campaign’ doesn’t really fit. How about ‘miniseries’?
Second, what about the fatality rate? Easy: Treat the players themselves as the continuing characters. A player has one Troubleshooter now; he’ll have another next time; so what? Let all his characters know what he knows. Let the player carry his knowledge of deathtraps and proper conduct forward from one Troubleshooter to the next. Is that any more implausible than the whole identical-clone-backups device?
In PARANOIA, unlike a lot of other (non-fun) RPGs, many players regard their characters not as roles to play but as mere puppets or placeholders. This is fine—in fact, it may be the best way to play. The Computer requires all Alpha Complex citizens to think and behave pretty much alike. So regardless of his PC’s specific background, a player has ample rationale to just play the character as if he himself, the player, were there in the briefing rooms and corridors, doing what he himself would do. This works out well, as long as the player feels the fear and insanity of the setting.
Then, too, there are ways to keep even individual Troubleshooters alive. Under the Straight rules for treason accusation and clone backups, experienced and careful players can keep their characters around long enough to reach decently high clearances. At that level the nature of the game shifts to a less immediately deadly form. We may describe high- clearance professions, and rules for creating PCs at these clearances, in future PARANOIA supplements. If we remember.
So it isn’t inherently crazy to envision a long series of related games. The players see more of The Computer’s varying personalities; they hear more about the high-clearance celebrities of the Complex, and maybe even meet them; they come to appreciate perks like real food that are meaningful only in the longer term; and they learn at every new clearance, as the fruit of long experience, to stay alert—and to trust no one—and to keep their laser handy.