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Introduction? We need an introduction? It's a gamemaster's screen! Four pages/panels wide! Cardboard! Stands up by itself! Okay, there's no Jim Holloway art (except on the throwaway cover sheet), but you can still hide your papers from those miserable players. And there's an insert. It's called the Manditory Fun Enforcement Pack (MFEP). The gamemaster's screen has one side of charts and tables from the Paranoia XP core book, and the MFEP contains the Mission Blender, forms, and reference sheets. The rest of the review is semi-spoiler, so players should stop reading and cringe in fear now.
Gamemaster's Screen
The glossy side of the screen is for the players, in glorious red, white, and black. A vaguely bluish computer eye stares at the players, with the words PARANOIA XP above it. All the slogan / flavor-text on the lower-right hand pages of the core book grace the sides of the baleful eye. Your players should consider themselves lucky. The other side is for the gamemaster, and contains the following charts (left to right, top to bottom), conveniently divided into rewards & equipment, violence, and treason:
- Reward Chart
- Equipment Chart
- Tension levels by location
- Clone backup costs
- Damage steps
- Weapon Chart
- Boost Chart
- Armor Chart
- Hit location
- Insubordination
- Treason Chart
Manditory Fun Enforcement Pack
The Manditory Fun Enforcement Pack contains the Mission Blender, forms for the players to fill out, and reference sheets summarizing the mutant powers and secret societies.
Mission Blender: This is my favorite part of this supplement. Fifteen pages of random charts, a la AEG's Toolkit, allow you to design a mission on-the-fly. Toss away the first two pages, and you can flesh out any side-trek and add color to any scene in a mission. Want to know what the briefing or debriefing room looks like? How about who runs the IR Market? Need a secret society or service side-mission? And how about the mission outcome? The location generator is particularly well thought out. Locations are divided into Public and Secret, and these are further divided into Safe, Dangerous, and Unusual. Objects are also divided into Safe, Dangerous, and Unusual (hehe), as well as Valueless and Valuable. Weapons, armor, equipment, vehicles, and bots have their own tables. Yes, there's a Malfuction table. NPCs have charts for each security clearance, including their Secret Society, and Mutant Power. Although the descriptions are brief, they're definite improv material ("Vulture Squadron flybot repair tech"). Gold.
Forms: The MFEP contains six forms, some last seen in the Paranoia 2nd edition rulebook (?): Mission Report Form 1A/887-2, Information/Equipment/Weapon Receipt Form 44AA93/-[2]<2>{2}/, R&D Experimental Equipment Testing Report Form, Equipment Complain Form B4379-10(398)/ 7R, Accusation of Treason/Termination Voucher Request Form, and the almighty Termination Voucher (including a reference to the lost gag of the Traitor's Tongueprint). Not only funny reading, the forms are useful to kill player time (before killing the players, of course).
Player Reference Sheets: The MFEP ends with a summaries of the Paranoia mutant powers and secret societies "a typical Clearance RED citizen of Alpha Complex knows". Each summary is one page each. The mutant powers summary includes which Play Style (Classic, Straight, or Zap) the power is found in. The secret societies summary includes the Friends of, Enemies of, and Advancement in the secret society. Myself, I'm ambivalent of telling players **any** information about powers or secret societies. The mutant powers sheet, however, should be more useful for improvisation than looking up the power in the core book (not that you weren't making up stuff all this time...).
Conclusion
If you've wanted a Paranoia XP Gamemaster's screen, here it is. The Manditory Fun Enforcement Pack's Mission Blender will be great for improvising missions and side-treks, and the forms and reference sheets should come in handy. The more budget-minded looking for premade adventures will prefer Crash Priority, but I'm certainly happy knowing that my Battle Armor (6) Works great. Once. Ever.
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