Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[AFDia]

[Psy-Kosh]

[Snate56]

Psy, that's pretty much what the game's about!
The game I ran I had the troubleshooters ordered to Research and Development to test an experimental vehicle. They get there to find a tank-like device and one 'volunteer' is selected. He is told to strap in and press the big red button. He does so and the tank transforms into a 15 foot tall robot! Everyone is thinking hey, this is cool! I gotta get me one! Then they notice the growing puddle of red at its feet...

It also illustrates why Savaging it wouldn't work. In each of these cases you would have to roll dice for damage, go to the injury table, players would want to spend bennies, etc., when the loss of the clone should pretty much be hand waved.
The secret to surviving the game is how good a fast talker you are to be able to get out of the situations, not necessarily survive them.

And as others have said, it's a brilliant read!

SteveN
_________________
"We've got a blind date with destiny... and it looks like she's ordered the lobster." <The Shoveller>

[Sitting Duck]

You could always house rule that bennies can't be used to Soak.
_________________
The rabbit is cuddly. Kids like little cuddly sidekicks. I mean-- The rabbit-- It's a time-tested-- Okay, the rabbit bites.
Blog: http://sittingduck1313.livejournal.com
Evil Wig Enterprises Minion #10 - The Fink

[Clint]

[razorwise]

[Judge Holden]

Well I ran it last night and it was a blast.

While I was prepping for the game I was wondering just how far into the first module (Mr Bubbles) I should have ready because a usual RPG is gonna have about 3 scenes with my group, maybe four maybe less depending on how much combat and new rules there are. We completed the whole module. Almost every scene starts with some kind of railroading into a chance for them to kill each other, or to die suddenly and unexpectedly.

Where my group is usually asking, "OK, so why are we going here?" this time nobody cared because they were too busy making sure they were at the back of the marching order and trying to draw their lasers without anybody else in the group seeing them.

We had a complete Roleplaying noob come out and he had a blast. There are no rules to explain. "Just roll that d20. Make sure its the red one..." He got into the swing of things pretty quickly. "I think I'm gonna eat him" or "I chuck a grenade at his feet..." in the middle of the transbot that the entire team (including himself) is sitting in.

The Team Leader had a tic where he would repeat back everything people said to him, and he got everyone in the mood at the start of the session by doing just that.

Recording Officer: So you are the Team Leader?
Team Leader: I'm the team leader?
Recording Officer : Ya, so whats your name?
Team Leader: You want to know what my name is?
etc

We had a Happiness Officer who was constantly handing out happy pills in the middle of laser battles and a Recording Officer who never put down his camera, he would just draw his weapon with his left hand. Those two killed each other a lot "Heh man, its not me.. its the game!" Which is to say these two kill each other in every game but at least this time they could blame it on the game.

We all had a double-plus good time and I think the noob is gonna come back next week. We might even have a full time new gamer on our hands
_________________
I once shot a man just to watch him die... but then I got distracted and missed it.

- Dave Foley

[Mr. Freak]

A quick conversion for you.

Characters are all human clones and start with 5 attribute points, 15 Skill points, and $100. Red reflect armor (+2), a Laser , and a Red Laser Barrel (3d6 damage AP 4, ROF 1, 6 Shots, Range 30/60/90)

All characters receive the Arcane Background: Mutant instead of the free edge.

All characters have six clones each new clone receives their starting bennies and any left over bennies from the previous clone.

All characters start with a random Secret Society that provides them with a free d6 in one skill.

All characters start with a random Service group that provides them with a free d6 in one skill.

Characters can take two minor and one major hindrance as normal.

Characters can take any edge regardless of Rank requirement, but all other requirements must be met.

Bennies can be spent to soak, re-roll any player roll (even another players or damage), or subtract 1d6 from any player roll (even another players or damage).

Arcane Background Mutant gives the character 10 power points and one random arcane power. Remember using a mutation is treasonous.

Using the Machine Empathy power (Puppet with the trapping that it only affects computers and robots) is punishable by instant execution if a character is caught using it.

Knowledge (Computer Programming) is treasonous.

Armor increases by +2 for every color rank.
Laser Weapons AP increases by +2 for every color rank.

The soak roll is allowed as normal, but after three wounds the character is dead.

All non-combat rolls target number should be 8 instead of 4

Now then the way to play this is fast, loose, and deadly. Don’t scale encounters to your players they should always be out gunned and over matched. All enemies should have weapons that cut through their armor like butter and do deadly amounts of damage. Throw every trick, every tactical advantage, and every dirty little thing you can think off at them. Hit them with ambushes, let the enemies get the drop, throw tricks at them right and left, gang ups, etc… just pile on the combat badness.

Healing should be rare and almost as deadly as get wounded. Doc in the boxes, Docbots, and even drugs should all be defective with a random chance of damage, setting off mutations, or other effects.

Also the characters should have several different reasons to screw over their party members. Their should be more character deaths from other players then from encounters.

Finally hose jobs should come from higher ranked NPCs. No NPC should ever tell the PCs the truth, should always send them off in wrong directions, or just kill them out of hand.

Savage Paranoia could work, it could be really fun, but you just have to remember that just because the players know the rules does not mean they get to win.

[Judge Holden]

I guess I shouldn't say it isn't possible, but I still question whether it should be done. Last night I made the mistake of starting to explain how the 'raises' work in the Paranoia XP rules. Which led to very non-fun questions about how to spend Perversity Points, and hypothetical questions that began to bog down the combat. Leaping forward with both feet into the feel of Paranoia I simply called the hit a wound and told them that rules questions were not fun, this is bogging down the game. Not having fun is treason. Therefore rules questions are treasonous. Roll the dice.

The cardional rule for the night was that if its a low roll, good things happen. If its a high roll, bad things happen. It reminded me alot of playing D&D when I was very young and had no idea how the rules worked. It totally freed up the system from the rules and made it about doing things.

the Recording Officer (a notorious rules lawyer and time waster in every RPG or board game we play, lord love him anyways) wanted to argue about a ruling at one point. The Happiness Officer told him he needed to shut up and take a happy pill. When the ruleslawyer muttered 'You should never trust the computer" in what I must assume was a freudian slip meaning you should not trust the GM - everyone at the table yelled Treason! and went for their blasters.

We went through about a dozen combats. Most of them ended with large explosions. I can't believe how many of the pre-generated characters had grenades.

One last story. The Troubleshooters were fighting a scrubber warbot. The Happiness Officer was trying to guage how much room he had to chuck a grenade and not get hit - obviously forgetting himself and assuming that we would be using Savage Worlds blast templates. He was taking a long time to declare his action so I said "thats it, times up. you just stand there stupidly at the back of the room with your jaw open trying to judge distances." Everyone laughed and then the next round of actions were declared. He got to declare last and this time he drew his pistol and shot the Recording Officer in the back of the head. Then once the laughter died down he jumped up and said "It was an accident! It wasn't my fault! he just jumped right in front of my laser!"
_________________
I once shot a man just to watch him die... but then I got distracted and missed it.

- Dave Foley

[Sitting Duck]

[Mr. Freak]

[Sitting Duck]

[Rachan]

I don't think Paranoia should be savaged at all. I mean, you COULD make up some rules system to cover it, but it would just lose ALL the flavor that makes the game what it is.

Savage Worlds, as much as I love it, is still your "typical" RPG—situations happen, characters react to them, and the dice actually mean something. The GM builds the adventure, and the players figure out their characters' relationships to each other and the story.

In Paranoia, it's all backwards. The rules aren't rules, they're a tactic used to guide the players into the most dramatic situation; the dice only count when they happen to AGREE with the fun. The GM builds all the character relationships, and the players make their own encounters trying to figure them out.

Plus, look at the actual mechanic. Other games, you roll a bunch of dice and compare the result to a target. In Paranoia, you roll one die, and compare it to a bunch of targets, like Treason scores, Scene Tension, and finally the actual thing being rolled for—that's a critical diffence! This is telling you you can never do just one thing, that even the most benign skill check can have HUGE repercussions you couldn't possibly imagine, and most of the time aren't even aware of (until it catches up with you …)!

This is what really makes the tone of the game. There are no "good" dice rolls, only rolls that lead you to a different set of complications. Even in victory, you're still screwed.

I don't think it's even possible to savage THAT. Remember: treason, tension, access, skills, all in a single roll. If you could do it, it wouldn't be Fast! Furious! and Fun! And if you left it out, it wouldn't be Paranoia.

[Snate56]

I tend to agree. Though I love Paranoia, I find the rules all but unplayable.
If someone could Savage the game, it have to be much more than simply doing a few conversions.


SteveN
_________________
"We've got a blind date with destiny... and it looks like she's ordered the lobster." <The Shoveller>

[Poor Wandering One]

One tip for paranoia savaged or not is to use m&m's as bennies/perversity points. The players will be tempted to eat their own resources and you can get them color coded. You could even have players draw blind and put som high clearence m&m's in the mix to play withthe players heads.

~will

[Rachan]

Ooh … that is deliciously evil!


Snate56 >> I wouldn't call it unplayable. But because it's such a different style of game, it needs a different perspective.

Think of it like poker:

Bad players play their hands.
Novice players play the deck.
Good players play the chips.
Great players play the other players.

[geijhan]

I just encountered some game notes from a Paranoia session I ran about a year ago.

I gave all the beerdrinkers a treason point for consuming Yellow Clearance Bouncy Bubble Beverage.

[Sitting Duck]

Maybe someone should have provided a red ale for consumption.
_________________
The rabbit is cuddly. Kids like little cuddly sidekicks. I mean-- The rabbit-- It's a time-tested-- Okay, the rabbit bites.
Blog: http://sittingduck1313.livejournal.com
Evil Wig Enterprises Minion #10 - The Fink

[Poor Wandering One]

[Rachan]

I disagree. Yes, it's entirely a setting game, and yes, watching the players shuffle anxiously through stacks of character sheets would be entertaining as well as give you a neato prop … but I think it would make a TREMENDOUS difference in play.

As I mentioned before, you'd be losing all those markers the GM uses to nudge the story along and circle it back to bite the players—Treason points and Tension, Access and Power scores. These rules are important because not only are they so perfectly crafted to build the flavor of Alpha Complex, they're also amazing tools for helping the GM keep those MILLION little suspicious things that happen during the game organized and in the front of his mind when he needs them. Such as …

An NPC makes a completely innocent and off-the-cuff remark about something, and it reminds a player about something nobody even noticed six sessions ago, it seemed so irrelevant. First he thinks, "No, it can't be … can it?" Then he thinks, "We're playing Paranoia, of course it is!" And then he starts to worry about which other players caught the remark, which of those understand it's significance, which were even there at the time … "Think, dammit!" Now the player is trying to subversively drive the story down his own path to either solve this mystery or stay out of it's way—which is exactly what the GM wants. Less work for him!

You do this to that player maybe two or three times a night, calling back little what-ifs from the start of the campaign. And then you do the same thing to all the other players. Get them second-, third- and fourth-guessing everything. NOW you have, in your players eyes, anyway, a conspiracy of such unbelievable complexity they'll think you're channelling Henry Kissinger's ghost—and you went in with no session plan whatsoever!

There's NO WAY you can keep all that stuff straight without using Treason and Tension, keeping a notebook as you go. And anything you try to plan in advance, ESPECIALLY in Paranoia, will be derailed and wasted before the group leaves the briefing room. If it doesn't, it's probably coming across as a linear adventure and not scaring your players at all.

So all that stuff is lost using a different system.



Then we take a look at combat … Paranoia's got it's own system there that absolutely does not translate to other games.

In other games, the GM describes the scene, and applies modifiers to the players' actions based on that scene—that orc is 100 yards away, hiding behind a tree, so that's -4 for range and -2 for cover, but you've got a +1 against orcs because you're a dwarf, so roll at -5.

In Paranoia, it's the other way around. The players spend Perversity Points on each other's rolls to get whatever modifier they want, and then describe the reason to the GM—Tom spends points to get a +3 because the catwalk that Commie traitor is standing on is very slippery from all the bubbling food vats nearby, and he's trying so hard not to fall off he's basically a sitting duck. Bill spends points to give Tom a -5 penalty because some broken pipes nearby are spurting clouds of gas which provide cover (the Commie has evidence that will clear Bill's name for some crime, so he wants the Commie alive). John spends to give Tom a +4 bonus because Tom's malfunctioning infrared scope started working again. Must've been a loose wire (he wants the Commie dead because he's the one who actually committed said crime!)

Look at all the encounter description the players came up with here! The GM did nothing except drop them in a room with some bad guys! This system puts the GM's burden of making interesting encounters on the players (win for group storytelling), forces the players to take an active role in each scene whether they realize they're doing it or not (win for involvement), and most importantly for THIS discussion, builds that inter party tension the game is all about.

Again, all of this is lost switching to a different combat mechanic.


Sorry this was so long. I didn't have time to make it short.