Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory - isometric RPG based on the tabletop game

[Morblot]

As much as I am leery of the new edition of tabletop Paranoia

The what now..?

fake edit: Apparently they did release a new edition back in 2016-2017. Hadn't heard a peep of it. I wonder if it's any good? I've only ever played the 1987 second edition.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

with RTwP combat:

my enthusiasm is dead

 

[Zombra]

The posters stink. Cut-rate Vault Boy knock-offs. The PnP art was endearing amateurish, they should've gone for that if they don't have the talent to give it its own look and feel.

My fantasy is that modding in different poster textures will be easy ...

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Please do not let this turn into a goddamn YA novel about noble young people fighting the system.

That's exactly what they are going to do though.

DECLINE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IS MANDATORY

 

[aeroaeko]

i wish i was happy

 

[Jaedar]

If the game is not made in a way where your PCs constantly die in ridiculous ways while often trying to secretly murder each other, it's not really Paranoia

Create and lead a team of four Troubleshooters working for Friend Computer

If you create your party as suggested then I'm likely going to play the game.

Creating your entire party in a paranoia game is like playing both sides simultaneously in an RTS. Basically missing the entire point.

The essential paranoia experience is that you are practically guaranteed to fail your mission(or at least be unable to complete it without breaking half of Friend Computers Rules. Breaking Friend Computer's rules is treason. Treason is punishable by death.), so your actual mission is to make sure you can blame the fuckups on the other party members, while manufacturing excuses so they can't blame stuff on you.

 

[Zombra]

Creating your entire party in a paranoia game is like playing both sides simultaneously in an RTS. Basically missing the entire point.

The essential paranoia experience is that you are practically guaranteed to fail your mission(or at least be unable to complete it without breaking half of Friend Computers Rules. Breaking Friend Computer's rules is treason. Treason is punishable by death.), so your actual mission is to make sure you can blame the fuckups on the other party members, while manufacturing excuses so they can't blame stuff on you.

In a multiplayer game this perspective would make sense. In a single-player game, there can be value in playing both sides, particularly when the game itself fucks with your controls and information, as this will. Anyone who has played Jagged Alliance knows what's up.

 

[Theldaran]

This should be a freakishly difficult game. Nintendo hard. Which is suspicious, because recently people have been complaining about Sekiro being too hard... I don't even...

 

[Optimist]

fake edit: Apparently they did release a new edition back in 2016-2017. Hadn't heard a peep of it. I wonder if it's any good? I've only ever played the 1987 second edition.

It's not the worst RPG ever, but if you're used to 2e it might not be your cup of tea. New authors attemted to 'update' the setting - as far as 'big scare' is concerned, commies are out, terrorists are in, everything is 3D printed, Benevolent Friend Computer keeps track of everyone's Good Boy Points, and your clones' day-to-day life is heavily gamified. Traitorous acts get you GTA-style 'stars' which everybody can see. Also, mechanically, it uses cards for equipment tracking and actions.

It is also written in a pretty annoying tone.

One of the few things I kind of enjoyed about it, was a character creation mechanic in which when you pick a skill your character is good at, another player's character automatically becomes equally bad at it. It kind of sets the mood in that everyone tries to screw everybody else over, but also forces players to depend on each other in action.

Personally, I'm sticking to XP/20th anniversary and not letting it go.

 

[Nutria]

Trying to "update" stuff from the Cold War to present times is always doomed to failure. The threat back then was that at any moment we'd have either a billion people dead in 30 minutes or WW3. That was a very different world from the one we've lived in for the last 20 years.

Unfortunately the people buying games these days are millenials who just graduated from Fortnite, so they drive the market.

 

[Roguey]

Trying to "update" stuff from the Cold War to present times is always doomed to failure. The threat back then was that at any moment we'd have either a billion people dead in 30 minutes or WW3. That was a very different world from the one we've lived in for the last 20 years.

Unfortunately the people buying games these days are millenials who just graduated from Fortnite, so they drive the market.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/scie...bolic-hour-apocalypse/?utm_term=.9141c5d8497b

Just like the Iron Maiden song.

 

[Tweed]

There was no possible way this was ever going to be good. If you wanted to recreate the Paranoia experience you'd need to make something similar to Space Station 13 which is far more work than any developer is willing to do.

 

[Zombra]

There was no possible way this was ever going to be good. If you wanted to recreate the Paranoia experience you'd need to make something similar to Space Station 13 which is far more work than any developer is willing to do.

A 1:1 recreation of the original game isn't the only way something can be good.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I will say I do hate the Pip Boy ripoff art. I wish the posters had been done in the style of Jim Holloway:

It looks like fallout because they're both emulating the same style(a mix of ligne claire, googie art, and 50s art deco.)
I wouldn't classify it as a "ripoff", but they are obviously trying to go for the same style. I like it so I won't complain.

 

[Tweed]

A 1:1 recreation of the original game isn't the only way something can be good.

No, but a game like Paranoia depends entirely on the interactions of the players and the GM who is trying to get them killed in the funniest ways possible. It's not like copying over D&D's ruleset and then stretching it around a single player game to tell whatever story the writer wants to tell. Paranoia has less to do with rules and crunch and a lot more to do with having fun in ways you can't account for in a computer game, it's going to be a sterile experience. If anything they should have made an adventure title.

 

[Zombra]

Paranoia has less to do with rules and crunch and a lot more to do with having fun in ways you can't account for in a computer game, it's going to be a sterile experience.

Who said a single damn thing about copying the ruleset? Nobody but you. The unreliable narrator trope absolutely can be applied to computer games and can be extraordinarily effective. Your lack of imagination has no bearing on whether this can be good.

 

[Tweed]

Who said a single damn thing about copying the ruleset? Nobody but you. The unreliable narrator trope absolutely can be applied to computer games and can be extraordinarily effective. Your lack of imagination has no bearing on whether this can be good.

Let's try reading what I said again.

Paranoia has less to do with rules and crunch and a lot more to do with having fun in ways you can't account for in a computer game

Paranoia has little to do with rules, but to bring this game over as an rpg they need to make some kind of ruleset that locks the player into a linear game. I never implied copying Paranoia's own rules which are easily broken for the sake of entertainment. I implied that this game won't be any good because it won't be anything like Paranoia because of the limitations of computer games. However, I just might be wrong about that, but whatever the final product is most certainly will not be Paranoia. You'll also note that neither of your cited games are RPGs, one is a billed as a "First person exploration" game and the other is some kind of freaky VN fakeout.

 

[Darth Roxor]

At the very least, a Paranoia crpg would need to have a very prominent, but also very liberal, focus on player death. Sorta like PS:T.

 

[Zombra]

I never implied copying Paranoia's own rules which are easily broken for the sake of entertainment.

Then why bring it up? This argument isn't about dentistry!

I implied that this game won't be any good because it won't be anything like Paranoia because of the limitations of computer games. However, I just might be wrong about that, but whatever the final product is most certainly will not be Paranoia.

And again, I never said otherwise. I object to your assertion that it's impossible for the game to be good. Let's try reading what I said again.

A 1:1 recreation of the original game isn't the only way something can be good.

That is still true and you have done nothing to refute it, or to defend your dumb assertion that this game will necessarily be bad.

You'll also note that neither of your cited games are RPGs

... So what?

 

[Latro]

Funny you should mention that, DoS2 ended up being Paranoia-like for me in co-op. We started out chummy and working together, then getting near the end it turned into a flat out brawl with him teleporting my ass in the middle of nowhere and me dropping a meteor on his head, and then in the final encounter I backstabbed him just as the final boss was about to fall and stole my desired win. Which at the time was a mild pain in the ass since there was a lot of shittalk going on rather than the comfortable evenings playing a CRPG together, but the upside to it was it was certainly memorable. And in my defense he's the traitorous son of a bitch who first kicked off hostilities so he deserves every meteor he got.

that's half the spirit in the sourcebook, there's no way to really capture that without significantly altering it for the game

i remember reading the paranoia sourcebooks for fun about a decade ago, besides the mutant communist stuff and all the factions, I really enjoyed reading about all clone and backstabbing shenanigans, I have no idea how they could capture this in a straight CRPG. one game that DOES remind me of paranoia, is Xcom Apocalypse. Large number of factions in a sprawling techno over-world, doing something, anything, can possibly piss off any obscure faction and create enemies, this was the closest thing in spirit to paranoia, I think.

 

[Infinitron]

i remember reading the paranoia sourcebooks for fun about a decade ago, besides the mutant communist stuff and all the factions, I really enjoyed reading about all clone and backstabbing shenanigans, I have no idea how they could capture this in a straight CRPG. one game that DOES remind me of paranoia, is Xcom Apocalypse. Large number of factions in a sprawling techno over-world, doing something, anything, can possibly piss off any obscure faction and create enemies, this was the closest thing in spirit to paranoia, I think.

Maybe lower your expectations! How did the Shadowrun RPGs capture their setting? By just being linear story RPGs.

For a developer making their first ever isometric RPG, seems pretty likely, no?

 

[Tweed]

I never implied copying Paranoia's own rules which are easily broken for the sake of entertainment.

Then why bring it up? This argument isn't about dentistry!

Because, as you might have missed (again) in order to bring this game to the computer you need to create some form of ruleset for the computer to follow, this creates a problem with trying to make a game that is like Paranoia, it may be called Paranoia, but it will probably not be like Paranoia. I did however agree that the game might not be terrible, but the final product will most certainly not be Paranoia.

A 1:1 recreation of the original game isn't the only way something can be good.

That is still true and you have done nothing to refute it, or to defend your dumb assertion that this game will necessarily be bad

I didn't refute it, because I agreed, I said and I quote:

No, but

No, it is not the only way. However, I went on to explain why there might just be a problem and then I went on to concede that it might not be terrible after all, but it will still probably not be Paranoia except in name.

... So what?

Different genres, different type of games, different types of playing, different method of storytelling.

 

[Darth Roxor]

i remember reading the paranoia sourcebooks for fun about a decade ago, besides the mutant communist stuff and all the factions, I really enjoyed reading about all clone and backstabbing shenanigans, I have no idea how they could capture this in a straight CRPG. one game that DOES remind me of paranoia, is Xcom Apocalypse. Large number of factions in a sprawling techno over-world, doing something, anything, can possibly piss off any obscure faction and create enemies, this was the closest thing in spirit to paranoia, I think.

Maybe lower your expectations! How did the Shadowrun RPGs capture their setting? By just being linear story RPGs.

For a developer making their first ever isometric RPG, seems pretty likely, no?

oh shut the fuck up

jesus christ

will you ever stop talking about shit you have no idea about

 

[Zombra]

Because, as you might have missed (again) in order to bring this game to the computer you need to create some form of ruleset for the computer to follow, this creates a problem with trying to make a game that is like Paranoia, it may be called Paranoia, but it will probably not be like Paranoia. I did however agree that the game might not be terrible, but the final product will most certainly not be Paranoia.

For the first time ever, a computer game will not be identical to its source material? Gasp!

It will still probably not be Paranoia except in name.

And your argument for that was that computer games can't be meta. I showed you a couple obvious examples of games that are brilliantly meta. So ... can games be meta, or not?

Spoiler

Hint: yes. Yes they can.

The developers have already shown some of their plans to make the game meta. There's no reason what they've said can't be done. The developers of the original tabletop game have vetted their ideas and found them substantially in keeping with the source. Do you know something about Paranoia that Greg Costikyan doesn't?

Different genres, different type of games, different types of playing, different method of storytelling.

Again ... so what?

Dentists can't drive.
Sure they can. Lots of people can drive. I can drive.
But you're not a dentist! I've proved it! Dentists can't drive!

 

[Tweed]

For the first time ever, a computer game will not be identical to its source material? Gasp!

And your argument for that was that computer games can't be meta. I showed you a couple obvious examples of games that are brilliantly meta. So ... can games be meta, or not?

Spoiler

Hint: yes. Yes they can.

The developers have already shown some of their plans to make the game meta. There's no reason what they've said can't be done. The developers of the original tabletop game have vetted their ideas and found them substantially in keeping with the source. Do you know something about Paranoia that Greg Costikyan doesn't?

We seem to keep having this problem of you putting things in my mouth, I sure hope you're a dentist. I never ever said that computer games cannot be meta, the same way I never said to copy Paranoia rules. I said that it is not like copying d&d rules and that computer games must have rulesets to follow which tends to make them a linear or sterile experience. A game such as Paranoia, where even knowing the rules is treason, is built entirely around player and GM interaction, I do not believe that this will translate well into a singe player computer crpg, but we shall see as I already conceded that a 1:1 isn't the only way to make a game. Furthermore, Cyanide and Greg Costikyan can say and vet whatever they please, recent history has shown that veterans can make games just as bad as newcomers.

Again ... so what?

Dentists can't drive.
Sure they can. Lots of people can drive. I can drive.
But you're not a dentist! I've proved it! Dentists can't drive!

K.