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Game News Cyanide and Black Shamrock's Paranoia RPG revealed as Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory

aratuk

Cipher
Joined
Dec 13, 2013
Messages
466
What they most emphasize in their reveal trailer is that they rely heavily on dystopian clichés. They could not have colored more safely within the lines, if they'd tried.

No idea how much of that is drawn from their PnP source material, & of course, it's possible to have fun within the confines of genre tropes, if there's an interesting twist to them or the gameplay is just really well-executed. But there's no indication of any twist, and they don't say shit about gameplay.

It's all drawn from the PnP source material. The trailer presents the premise of Paranoia, the PnP game, nothing more, nothing less.

Only difference of note is that in the edition I played, the place was infested by Communists rather than terrorists. (Nobody remembered exactly what Communism was though.)

I guess the past 35 years of authoritarian computer stories haven't been kind to the freshness of the premise, not that it was exactly original then, either. Could require more renovation than 'Communist' to 'Terrorist'. Or maybe the idea just needs serious fleshing out. As presented, and in the absence of possibly mitigating gameplay details, it sounds way too simplistic.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Could the trailer be any more explicit? I'm not sure I understood the message. Is mandatory happiness bad? Is there a possibility that an AI can go totalitarian and insane? I am really not sure. I hope this game can spoonfeed me some platitudes.
 

Spectacle

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 25, 2006
Messages
8,363
Could the trailer be any more explicit? I'm not sure I understood the message. Is mandatory happiness bad? Is there a possibility that an AI can go totalitarian and insane? I am really not sure. I hope this game can spoonfeed me some platitudes.
The message you're missing is that Paranoia has never been about subtlety, but over-the-top gonzo craziness. It's a comedy, not a dystopian portrayal of the dangers of AI and groupthink.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
There was a Paranoia/Cyberpunk crossover module for that. It was like a really bad case of DT.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Could the trailer be any more explicit? I'm not sure I understood the message. Is mandatory happiness bad? Is there a possibility that an AI can go totalitarian and insane? I am really not sure. I hope this game can spoonfeed me some platitudes.
The message you're missing is that Paranoia has never been about subtlety, but over-the-top gonzo craziness. It's a comedy, not a dystopian portrayal of the dangers of AI and groupthink.
Well, the trailer also fails at being funny, so I dunno, man.
 

Xzylvador

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Sep 26, 2015
Messages
388
Location
The rich part of Europe
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Fully agree with the above.
The trailer's failure to be funny really doesn't bode well for a game whose sole raison d'être (ed.: expression has nothing to do with raisins) is being funny and silly.

I have fun memories playing the tabletop game; don't really think we ever managed to get far past the introduction before we started killing each other though... Really wonder how/if they'll manage to squeeze that in a PC game.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Fully agree with the above.
The trailer's failure to be funny really doesn't bode well for a game whose sole raison d'être (ed.: expression has nothing to do with raisins) is being funny and silly.

I have fun memories playing the tabletop game; don't really think we ever managed to get far past the introduction before we started killing each other though... Really wonder how/if they'll manage to squeeze that in a PC game.
Easy: make it a Battle Royale.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,496
I'll give this a 90% likelihood of being a complete flop.

I had tremendous fun playing PnP Paranoia but the fun was all about finding creative ways to fuck each other over, and I can't see how that would work in a cRPG. They'll have to find something else. It is possible someone will, but not all that likely.
They could if they take inspiration from space station 13. Of course that would require work to implement such deep gameplay. No going to happen ever.
 

Kiste

Augur
Joined
Feb 4, 2013
Messages
684
Could the trailer be any more explicit? I'm not sure I understood the message. Is mandatory happiness bad? Is there a possibility that an AI can go totalitarian and insane? I am really not sure. I hope this game can spoonfeed me some platitudes.
The trailer wasn't explicit enough. Paranoia takes the dystopian Big Brother concept, cranks it up to the point of ridiculousness und throws the player into a madhouse ruled by an insane computer that is utterly convinced that there are Commie Mutant Traitors who want to bring down society. Of course, due to generations of cloning and radiation, everyone is a mutant. Also, everyone is a member of one of various secret societies that want to bring down Friend Computer, i.e. everyone is a traitor. The secret societies fight each other as much as they fight Friend Computer.

The players are so-called Troubleshooters tasked with rooting out said Commie Mutant Traitors. A P&P RPG session usually consists of the group of troubleshooters getting some sort of suicide mission and a bunch of equipment that is either dangerous to handle and/or ill-suited for the task or both. Players are also supposed to advance the cause of their respective secret societies, often with additonal tasks that are incompatible with the mission goals. The players are constantly trying to backstab and screw each other over while trying to fulfill their secret society's goals as well as stay alive, i.e. not give any reason to be terminated by Friend Computer, and get promoted to a higher security level.

The P&P game is competitive rather than collabortative since it pits the players against each other. It needs players who are mainly interested in roleplaying, chaos and comedy and who are willing to more or less forget about character developement and fulfilling the mission. Not sure how you can turn something like this into a CRPG.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
What they most emphasize in their reveal trailer is that they rely heavily on dystopian clichés. They could not have colored more safely within the lines, if they'd tried.

No idea how much of that is drawn from their PnP source material, & of course, it's possible to have fun within the confines of genre tropes, if there's an interesting twist to them or the gameplay is just really well-executed. But there's no indication of any twist, and they don't say shit about gameplay.

Not encouraging.

The idea is interesting and could work. But right now it looks a bit too much "in your face" in the computers orders. Hope the rest of the writing isn't like that.
 

Angthoron

Arcane
Joined
Jul 13, 2007
Messages
13,056
Could the trailer be any more explicit? I'm not sure I understood the message. Is mandatory happiness bad? Is there a possibility that an AI can go totalitarian and insane? I am really not sure. I hope this game can spoonfeed me some platitudes.
The trailer wasn't explicit enough. Paranoia takes the dystopian Big Brother concept, cranks it up to the point of ridiculousness und throws the player into a madhouse ruled by an insane computer that is utterly convinced that there are Commie Mutant Traitors who want to bring down society. Of course, due to generations of cloning and radiation, everyone is a mutant. Also, everyone is a member of one of various secret societies that want to bring down Friend Computer, i.e. everyone is a traitor. The secret societies fight each other as much as they fight Friend Computer.

The players are so-called Troubleshooters tasked with rooting out said Commie Mutant Traitors. A P&P RPG session usually consists of the group of troubleshooters getting some sort of suicide mission and a bunch of equipment that is either dangerous to handle and/or ill-suited for the task or both. Players are also supposed to advance the cause of their respective secret societies, often with additonal tasks that are incompatible with the mission goals. The players are constantly trying to backstab and screw each other over while trying to fulfill their secret society's goals as well as stay alive, i.e. not give any reason to be terminated by Friend Computer, and get promoted to a higher security level.

The P&P game is competitive rather than collabortative since it pits the players against each other. It needs players who are mainly interested in roleplaying, chaos and comedy and who are willing to more or less forget about character developement and fulfilling the mission. Not sure how you can turn something like this into a CRPG.
Thanks. My point was mainly that the trailer was unfunny trash, but the original premise does sound interesting.
 

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