July 10, 2026
The comedy of Paranoia set in well before play began. You might think this comes from the rulebook - there's plenty of games that have some good jokes in there - but no, it came from an interaction with the game master.
hey, can you shoot me a copy of the book? or is that also deliberately denied to us
the book does say that the ideal state of paranoia-related knowledge a player can have is as close to 0 as possible, and displaying knowledge of the rules is an explicitly punishable offense
So that's how I went into a game of Paranoia: Troubleshooters without a single goddamn clue what the hell was going on!
We all agreed to use pregen characters, and I was handed one with 4/4/4/8/8/8 stats. I assumed this was the standard, but nope! stats are rolled as half a d20, rounded down. I'm sure it's not uncommon to get a pattern that looks synchronized, but I got a full house and change. There were some other unintuitive elements, too. Secret Skills are listed as (+X), which I thought was similar to the +X in subskills, like +5 Chutzpah under 4 Management - but no, they're rolled alone. This might be on the GM - I don't know how the book says to write these things. Some of the gear was pretty self-explanatory, like a "laser pistol body" - the "body" implying that munitions are separate - but plenty was less so, like an "ME Card", "MBD Gear", and "Gelgernine (Very Happy) Tablet" - the last of which I assumed was a computer tablet until I learned that actually, no, the "PDC" is that thing.
Even though I didn't know exactly what any of the numbers meant, I could intuit somewhat that my character's 8s were better than 4s, and I assumed it was substantial - meaning a character good with software, wetware, and violence, and bad with other things. An "8" isn't all that good, I learned after the game: the dice system is d20 roll-under, so it's not even a 50/50 without a subskill coming in, of which my character had only four.
I did know some things about Paranoia going in, from memes and stories - the first two things on the second page of the character sheet, which could have been a shock, among them. These are "Mutant Power" and "Secret Society", both of which are treasonous to have. Both are also something every single player character has. This is part of what makes Paranoia tick - every character has something to hide, and every mission comes with a hidden goal from the secret society - often, perhaps always, to undermine or kill another PC. Every single one in our group was of this nature!
The backstabbing nature lends itself to strong character personalities, as well - one of ours was a huge coward, running away and abandoning everyone at the first sign of danger. She alone survived the mission.
The secret societies are a lot of fun, with strong flavor. My character was a Romantic, which in Paranoia means "A Trekkie." They're a secret society interested in old-world media and culture. Their secret sign is the Vulcan salute. I'm not a huge trekkie, but it's such a cultural touchstone that a bit of reference humor came easy, entertaining the whole group.
Failure to be entertaining is, of course, treason.
We only saw one mutant power during the game - my own character's - and only once, going wrong. She was trying to stretch her arm long to get something from a tube, but instead made it wide, causing a whole scene. The characters' "capability with their own mutant powers" score is something hidden from the players...
I don't 100% like the low level of knowledge players have going in. It's interesting, but I think I'd want to know more if I played again. There's some basic stuff that a troubleshooter should Just Know that I didn't, and I think it goes a bit far - things like "What is MBD Gear" or "What is a PDC". I learned via context that a PDC is basically a PDA or smartphone, and via contact what Romantics and Old Reckoning culture are.
My character was part of a secret society and had a +10 skill, and I (and thus her as portrayed by me) did not know what that society or skill were about until over an hour into play. My character knew what her mutant power was but not her actual capability with it - nobody can convince me that someone with a power isn't messing with it behind closed doors to learn what they can do, and what can go wrong!
I get that it's part of the bit, but I think Paranoia takes it too far. It's hard to play a character in a space where you have no knowledge of anything, and not in a fun way like a challenging tactics game - it's frustrating! My character was told to review certain documentation, and I thought "okay, that's probably going to be delivered at the briefing." This was not the case, so she nearly showed up unprepared, and committed treason twice in the process of avoiding that. Apparently there were designated places to pick up documents - I had no idea! It was, admittedly, very funny to have her show up onscreen for twelve minutes and commit treason twice over paperwork, but to me the frustration overshadows that comedy - this is trouble that should have been easily avoided, as opposed to trouble that is inevitable. There was also plenty of that, with plenty of resultant comedy, to be sure!
I'll give Paranoia: Troubleshooters a solid 4/5. It does what it sets out to do, but I think a few more handouts and a bit more public information could smooth it along - leaving the frustration, agony, suffering, and just blatant horseshit for the many very intentional places it is sent out for the PCs to deal with.
