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What is different about Straight? In the Classic and Zap styles that made PARANOIA famous, the world of Alpha Complex mattered only insofar as it was useful to confront players with various aspects of a hosejob or laser fight. With the introduction of Straight, PARANOIA started to take itself seriously. … Good, now that you’re back on you chair, let me explain. In Straight, the setting of Alpha Complex has become an important tool to create tension among the players. Shootouts become a lot less interesting if you know that whenever Friend Computer isn’t watching you directly, you can be sure that an IntSec officer or undercover spy or a witnesses happy to tell what they’ve seen in hope of promotion, will be. This means that players have to fight the system and each other using the system and each other instead of their laser pistols. They have to deal with The Computer sending them out to deal with real problems that CAN be solved (not that they will be, or at least not without creating much bigger problems – after all, this is PARANOIA), with all kinds of politics going on behind the screen, with people who are actually able to get things done, with themselves being able to actually get things done (yes, that means your teammates too – scary!), but also with having to deal with the consequences of their actions (or lack thereof), with the chance to see elaborate schemes come to fruition, and with at least the illusion that they have a real chance to succeed.
There is no need to worry that Straight will make PARANOIA just like one of those non-fun games with an unusual setting. The players are just as screwed as ever, have all the reasons not to trust each other, and are still faced with impossible decisions and unexpected twists. Combined with a setting that, in its own right, makes sense, the hope against all odds to be able to make it to the end, makes for a different PARANOIA experience.
The basic meaning of WMD is, of course, Weapons of Mass Destruction. The cover of the book, as always wonderfully illustrated by Jim Holloway, depicts that familiar scene where the hero has only seconds left to cut the right wire before the countdown trigger detonates the nuclear missile, while his loyal sidekick carelessly distracts him. I’m reviewing the pdf, so I can’t tell much about the printed version, except that it’s listed as a softcover and my experience with the physical quality of Mongoose books is generally good. The book is 80 pages long including handouts, not 128 as listed on the Mongoose website. The credits page lists The Computer as the real Weapon of Mass Destruction, a title it rightfully deserves. The next two pages elaborate on the Straight playing style and provide tips on how to ‘Straighten out’ your game. Then it’s straight on to the missions. Each mission starts with a picture, some of which are historical. Layout is the clear three-column print with the occasional Jim Holloway picture or Computer screen with funny text and quotes in the bar at the bottom of every other page, that are the trademark of PARANOIA books (Style 4).
All four missions deal with potential or real mass destruction in the form of a different interpretation of the WMD acronym. I intend to focus on what makes these missions Straight rather than their content, but it’s impossible to discuss them without revealing a little of the content. I’ve kept it to a minimum, but if you don’t want to spoil the surprise, skip ahead to the last paragraph for the conclusions.
-----MINOR SPOILER WARNING----- For ‘Hunger’, Dan Curtis Johnson got inspired by China’s Great Leap Forward in 1958, a countrywide reformation of production processes that led to the delusion of major production increases on all fronts. In the perfect society of Alpha Complex, The Computer has announed a similar Whirlwind Miracle Destiny. The road to this even more perfect society includes a revolutionary food production program. Dan Curtis Johnson provides some useful tips for GMs on how to run this mission.
The basic premise of this mission, is that the players are put in charge of a new production process that is effectively a lot worse than the old one, but since a rival company has shown that the new process works, the players are not allowed to fail. That doesn’t mean that the players won’t fail. They will. Miserably. But since admitting failure is the quickest way to get their clone lines erased, they will do everything possible to make it appear they succeeded and did better than the rival firms on top. Of course, such an excellent achievement is rewarded by The Computer, who then wants the players to implement the new process on a larger scale. The mission continues until all Alpha Complex is starving while food production figures have never been bigger.
So, what makes this mission Straight? In the introduction, the new food vat technology is explained in detail and target production figures are presented. Their initial assignment sends them undercover to familiarize themselves thoroughly with what a successful production site looks like, which sets the example for what they have to accomplish later on. They get no weapons and precious little freedom. They won’t see any treason, except for what they themselves do to try to find out why this is too good to be true, and they can’t report that because they’re not supposed to be there in the first place. In fact, they can’t talk to The Computer at all, because it has designed this process and we all know what happens to traitors who tell The Computer it is wrong. So they have to deal with their superiors, who of course won’t accept having to tell The Computer it is wrong either. In Hunger, NPCs become real characters the players have to deal with on a regular basis. The feeling that they consciously get ever deeper into the quicksand with constant fear of discovery really builds up a dark tension. In that mood, disastrous events like being put in charge of a Troubleshooter team that works in all too familiar ways, is cause for an occasional burst of relieving laughter. The large scale later in the mission works too, because it leads away from the petty treason that characterizes Classic missions. Because the setting works, their ever larger scale treason causes a huge tragedy among the citizens of Alpha Complex. Being personally responsible for such a disaster means they have to deal with the psychological pressure of guilt, which makes of a very different, intense PARANOIA experience.
‘Hot Potato’ (by Jeff Groves) puts an Old Reckoning Weapon of Mass Destruction in the hands of the Troubleshooters. Every group will be eager to take it off their hands, but getting rid of an antimatter bomb isn’t as easy you’d think.
This starts off as a typical Troubleshooter mission, where the Armed Forces order the players to recover some contraband while it’s being traded between to secret societies. This is just a setup for the rest of the mission. When they return to the Armed Forces, the contraband is identified as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. The players end up fleeing the room with the WMD, and continue to be chased by various parties through all corners of Armed Forces Base 44. The real goal of this mission is for the players to decide whom to hand the bomb off to, arranging a meeting and getting there to make the trade while having to handle a WMD on a military base on high alert. The mission gives plenty of details and options on how to stage this.
This is probably the least Straight mission. The book says it also works in Classic style and I agree. The most important factors to make this mission Straight are a lower lethality level, The Computer not being available, players having to think for themselves of ways that will earn them a promotion in their service group or secret society, and the hope of being able to hand off the bomb and escape alive. With one exception each, locations and NPCs are just generic. The mission benefits from the GM describing the tense environment of a military base on alert. The fact that the players don’t know they can’t detonate the bomb should be played out for maximum fear and to reduce the temptation to resort to violence. This and playing a fast action mission consistent within the setting makes for a Straight experience. Action for the sake of the action will turn it into a Classic mission.
In ‘Infohazard’ (by Bill O’Dea) a whole sector is faced with destruction because its CompNode is taken out by a Wireless Memory Downgrade virus. The Troubleshooters are sent in to prepare the sector for reconnection to the rest of Alpha Complex. Success for disabling the virus will be greatly rewarded. Yes, there’s always a catch.
After a chaotic briefing, the players are sent into an evacuated sector where all electronic equipment, except bots, has been infected with a virus that sees humans as a danger to The Computer that must be eliminated. Their goal is to disable the source of the virus and make some repairs. Getting into the sector is a ping-pong game between IntSec and the Armed Forces blaming each other for previous Troubleshooter that went in but didn’t come out. Once inside, they are confronted with unprecedented freedom as all monitoring systems are cut off from The Computer, as well as with a war between two bot factions. After disabling the source, they are sent to the local CompNode for repairs, where The Computer, or at least its local representation, makes them an offer they can’t refuse if they help it to restore order in the sector and beyond. As help turns to wholescale destruction, The Computer betrays them and the players have to flee. Right back to the debriefing room.
Infohazard skillfully combines a Straight setting with many Classic elements from PARANOIA missions, like promoting backstabbing among the players, petty treason, funny unreliable items, and divided loyalties. What makes this mission Straight, is the consistency of the setting. There’s a logical reason why the virus has caused its damage in the way it has, why all communications with the rest of Alpha Complex are cut off, why certain common items suddenly are dangerous, why the bots are at war, and why local The Computer representation makes the players an offer they can’t refuse. Eventually, it’s this logic that makes the players choose sides, cause massive damage and end up with a very unexpected debriefing, even though they’ve had all the chance to frame, blame and kill each other. This ties the players firmly into the story, which would be much less so in Classic style.
The final mission, actually called ‘WMD’ (by Beth Fischi and Allen Varney) pits the Troubleshooters against Lobot WMD-1, a Weapon of Memory Destruction, and its designers. This mission comes with pregenerated characters and lots of player handouts.
Isolated from their secret societies, the players are given a sequence of travel instructions by a very paranoid briefing officer to find that their briefing is held in a familiar stockroom. After briefing they are sent into an isolated service firm building to capture a very dangerous bot gone “Frankenstein” due to misprogramming. The fact that the building is heavily protected and that the bot has stealth capabilities should get the players on their toes. Inside the building, they find among the chaos hints of what the bots designers (who all used a yucky bug for their code name – go figure) were up to and how things backfired. They are in for a big surprise here, which I’m not going to spoil. The bot tries to play tricks on the players, but eventually it attacks. If the players managed to find enough pieces of the puzzle, they can disable the bot and have a difficult decision to make regarding their future.
This mission is Straight in the way that it gradually builds up tension. The hidden story is well suited to accomplish that and may make the players feel uneasy about themselves. The climax comes with putting together the pieces of the puzzle and seeing the whole picture. The combat with the bot that follows this, is a nice way to release that tension. In this mission, the players have weapons and every chance to backstab each other. However, they need each other to complete the mission or succumb to the Lobot WMD-1. This makes for a fun Straight dilemma so far hardly known in PARANOIA, where backstabbing was the rule and cooperation never even came to mind. -----END OF SPOILERS-----
This book was written to illustrate what can be done with the new playing style introduced in the latest edition of the PARANOIA RPG. These missions are characterized by a setting that makes sense in and of itself and that is more important to the plot than it is in Classic missions. In more than one mission, players are more or less isolated from The Computer and their secret societies and have to work things out by themselves, using whatever their environment and team mates have to offer (with or without their consent). The missions are set up to stimulate the players to work together in order to succeed. Not that they will, but it means they more try to trick someone to get him where you need him to be. That’s what will add to the body count more than an all-out shooting when the lights go out. If they don’t cooperate, that’s their choice and in Straight they will face the consequences. GMs can rub it in their faces they they at least had a chance to win and it’s their own fault that they didn’t. By the way, those consequences don’t necessarily mean getting killed, but rather to experience the results of what they’ve done. In the grander scheme of Alpha Complex, that can become pretty daunting.
So is this Straight? These missions (possibly with the exception of Hot Potato) show how to achieve a different PARANOIA experience than what we were used to. Still, there are a lot of other things that can make Straight work that are not covered. In these missions, not much is done with getting players to scheme and spy against each and build up a collection of evidence of treason in order to make an accusation; with secret societies running projects in the background based on what the players give them; mastermind UVs manipulating big organisations with the players caught in between; dark plots hidden in a bureaucracy that moves slowly but unstoppable; etc. I’m inclined to say that this book is a good first exploration what Straight can be (Substance 4).
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