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One of the main changes in Paranoia XP is the emphasis on Alpha Complex as a capitalist society. Previous versions of the game had always made the city pretty much a communist state, which was part of the irony as your players were supposedly fighting against communism. With the new edition though Mongoose have tried to update the game in line with changes in the real world and the introduction of financial rewards and penalties, being able to buy new clones and buy equipment on the IR market is a whole new aspect of the game. This is probably what will prompt you to buy "Stuff" in the first place, hoping to find a source of cool items for your troubleshooters to buy. Although it fulfills this role in some ways it has a number of major flaws.
For a start it is not a book you should just hand over to your players. If they have it, take it back off them. Included in every items description is GM only information explaining how the item works and how it goes wrong. There is also no division between items of different security clearances so players will be able to look through higher security clearance items at their leisure. We all know that telling players to only look at certain parts is a waste of time, the temptation to read the rest of the page always becomes too much.
Dissapointingly the layout of this supplement is one of its major flaws. Instead of providing a simple illustration of each item, the only description you get for each is a block of text. This makes it extremely dull to read and when flicking through you only have the name of each item as a clue as to what might be interesting or fun to use in a game. Instead the writers have opted to use supposedly funny adverts for various Alpha Complex products in between the large blocks of text. These are simple computer generated pictures like those you get in ClipArt, and it gives the product a cheap amateur feel to it. Did Jim Holloway have the week off or something ?
The actual content is far from encouraging either, with a lot of items being surprisingly dull and uninspiring. Some of the items are fairly standard sci-fi equipment with no funny catch to it whatsoever. Other items are vaguely amusing but unusable in a game. Only a few are definate winners, which you could introduce into a game and get a some laughs from. Considering all the funny Paranoia items which have been written about over the years this is a bit of a let down.
The one joke they do seem to have focused on is to copy the E-Bay style for describing each item. Every item has a players description, then some comments from other users, then a note on "customers who bought this also bought..." and finally a GM description with some useful information. This layout is funny for exactly five minutes and then you start to get irritated. Its the same joke throughout the book and as I already mentioned you can't show these adverts to players without revealing the GM's notes at the same time. It would have been so much better to have had a picture of the item for the player and the GM's desciption seperate. I'm not sure whose idea this layout was but it has really not done anything for this product.
Aside from the actual items there is little else in this supplement to pad it out. A list of "What can I buy for X Credits" seems somewhat pointless without also including security clearances. While at the back there are two pages waffling on about delivery options. Instead of discussing various ways to screw over your players and make cheap jokes these are actually fairly serious and a side bar even notes that these rules are best used in Straight style games ( making them pointless to the majority of Paranoia players ).
In all then this supplement is a bit of a dead loss. It is probably best used by GM's who might search through it for ideas for R&D items or for stuff troubleshooters find on mission. To use it as it is would involve flicking through on behalf of your players, finding items they are cleared to use, photocopying or reading out the description for their benefit, then for every item they buy marking each page so you can find it again in game. I am largely unimpressed by "Stuff" and would advise against buying it, especially considering its high price tag ( £15 or $21.95 ). You are better off inventing some items yourself or re-using items from other published adventures.
