 Goto [ Index ] |
Think back over your life as a gamer and I bet there are a few adventures which stick in your mind more than others. Adventures which stood out from the rest as original, entertaining and more than usually enjoyable. This is a book full of such adventures ! The missions that make up “Paranoia Flashbacks” are adventures which gamers still remember today 10 or 20 years after playing them. Strange beardy types who sit around in bars talking about the time they had to guard the Mark 4 warbot, or the time they had to fight hundreds of Teela O’Malley clones armed only with a crate full of mirrors. If you buy this book you too could become one of these people, assuming you age 20 years and grow a beard. If you already are one of these people this book provides 256 pages of fond memories in a more solid format than previously encountered.
Indeed “Flashbacks” is so far the only other Paranoia supplement other than the rulebook to be produced as a thick hardback book. Its price tag reflects this ( it costs the same as the rulebook ), but you sure get your money’s worth. Essentially what you have in these pages are five full length ready to play missions and seven smaller mini-missions which can be expanded or played as is to fill in some time. That’s a lot of Paranoia to cram into one book, it took me several weeks to find time to read it all, and it will take several months to play it all.
In the meantime the book has looked good propping up my other Paranoia supplements as it’s a pretty solid manual, which should withstand a fair amount of wear and tear. The cover art is a little odd, an Alpha Complex take on Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Its nice to see a female troubleshooter represented but I have to admit its not my favourite Jim Holloway painting. Fear not though, the inside is filled with many more black and white illustrations from the great man which set the scene admirably for many of the adventures.
“Flashbacks” starts with an introduction from Allen Varney, the designer of Paranoia XP, which explains the reasoning behind the book and why they are not just trying to rip you off by re-publishing old material. Instead these adventures are the best of the previous West End Games version of Paranoia, before it all went a bit pants. Far from trying to save money Mongoose Publishing have appeased many gamers who wanted to play for themselves these out of print classics. I only wish more games companies would do the same for some of their old adventures.
Following the introduction we have three of the mini-missions I mentioned before – “Robot Imana 665 C” “Trouble With Cockroaches” and “Das Bot”. These are not the best of the selection, as they are simple one encounter missions which may be a bit of a let down if you are looking for a big bang to start things off. If I have one big criticism of this book it would be that the layout could have been improved somewhat. The most obvious way would have been to have the lower clearance missions at the front building up to the higher clearance missions at the back. But perhaps that’s too obvious. Whatever the reason the book starts with these little snippets of life in Alpha Complex almost as a starter before the main course. If you don’t like them, hide them under your napkin and move on to the next course without worrying too much. Things get better from here on in.
The first full length adventure is “Vapors Don’t Shoot Back”, a mission that dates back to the heady days of 1985 when Paranoia was young and fresh, like Bambi, just before his mother gets shot. Like all the adventures in this book “Vapors” is a mission in the classic style rather than a straight or zap style game. Back then there only was one style, but its worth noting that all of these adventures have also been updated slightly to fit in with the current edition of Paranoia. Not only that but each of these adventures also has pre-generated characters, which have also been updated to the current edition. This is a sure sign of the computers generosity and saves you having to use conversion tables or any other such time consuming nonsense I’ve seen in other games. With such updates in place “Vapors” certainly does stand the test of time ( although not the test of spelling as there is a “u” missing in “vapours” ). The plot revolves around two high programmers competing with one another and using the troubleshooters as pawns in their nefarious game. In the adventure the troubleshooters are sent on three different missions without really knowing what’s going on. Although this is nothing new for Alpha Complex this adventure could have been improved slightly if there was some explanation at the end for the players, which there isn’t. However the missions do include the mother of all warehouse shoot outs, some impromptu skydiving and a fight against some pirate bots in a big water tank. So its unlikely any of your players will know or care about the plot with all that going on. In all I’d give this adventure 4/5
Adventure number two is the famous “Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues”. Once again this is a series of missions based around a theme, and should take several sessions to complete. This time the troubleshooters find themselves encountering a mysterious black box which their secret societies are all eager to get hold of. The box itself is the perfect macguffin for getting the troubleshooters all killing each other, and if that doesn’t work there are numerous deadly encounters and a trip outdoors to do the job for you. Unfortunately this adventure is slightly flawed by a number of in-jokes and cultural references that few people will get. These are explained in the text but they are going to be harder to explain to your players. Still, it can’t be helped, at least you can pretend you are in on the joke and your players are not, thus making them even more paranoid. I’d give this adventure a 3/5
“Send In The Clones” will stick firmly in the minds of anyone who has ever played Paranoia as it features the famous Teela O’Malley. This adventure is a classic hose-job mission where they are ordered to find and terminate the lovely Teela. If they succeed they are screwed. If they fail they are screwed. If they try just about anything else they are screwed. But they will love you for it anyway. As they trudge through the sewers, get saddled with the most annoying bot in Alpha Complex, star on the Alpha Complex game show “Date With Death” and finally get to meet Teela herself this adventure has everything. Its well written, enjoyable to read and full of so many amusing encounters I found myself chuckling evilly to myself just thinking about unleashing them on my players. If I had one criticism it would be the idea of singing the Alpha Complex songbook to them – surely nobody deserves that ! A clear 5/5
The next adventure is rated by many as their favourite Paranoia adventure of all time ( at least that’s what it says in the book ). “Me and My Shadow Mark 4” is an exercise in simplicity. In Paranoia all it takes are enough excuses and opportunities for the troubleshooters to finish each other off that you don’t really need complicated plots. The mission here is simply for the troubleshooters to guard the Mark 4 warbot and not to get into any trouble. How hard can it be ? Well, if the other troubleshooters didn’t make it difficult enough the Mark 4 provides one of the most entertaining NPC’s I’ve seen in an adventure – it’s a tank the size of a football pitch, bristling with weapons and virtually indestructible and it certainly does not need guarding. In fact it objects strongly to the troubleshooters presence. To be honest the troubleshooters are only there for one reason, to get blamed if anything does go wrong. Of course numerous groups want to capture or destroy the Mark 4 and the troubleshooters as usual end up caught in the crossfire. This truly is the classic Paranoia adventure and running it for your players will be a real treat for all concerned. If played right it could make your reputation as a GM and you could be earning free drinks off this for a long time. Another adventure I’d rate as 5/5
Finally the last big adventure in the book is “Alpha Complexities”, an adventure I’d probably describe as more of a zap game than a classic adventure but I guess it depends how you run it. Once again it’s a series of missions, and as a result its going to take more than one session to complete ( unless you like playing Paranoia for 12 hours straight ). The plot involves an enemy complex trying to disable Alpha Complex before a big attack by way of a high programmer spy. It also features the return of the Mark 4 which should raise a smile from anyone who played the last adventure, at least until it starts trying to kill them. This adventure is a little disjointed in my opinion but features some excellent individual episodes. I’d still give it a 4/5
So, that’s the main course out of the way, and for those who are still hungry for more the back of the book includes desert in the form of three more mini-missions entitled “An ARD Day’s Night”, “Reboot Camp” and “Whitewash”. All three of these need a lot of work to make them playable. One even includes the possibility of the Computer having its memory wiped completely in an adventure covering two pages of text ! Obviously such a large event would require a bit more thought and hopefully a bit more build up than given here. These do however provide some food for thought ( hmm, food again, must be getting hungry ).
And so onto the after dinner mint that is “PreParanoia”. This is quite a well written little adventure designed to introduce new players to the Paranoia game. For some reason this is at the back, but you may want to play this one first. However, I would not recommend tearing out the pages to re-order the book unless you want it all to fall to pieces on you. Its not a bad adventure, with some very good staging notes and a nice new form for players to fill out. It might make a good introductory adventure or with some work could provide another full length mission for experienced players with new characters.
Finally ( honestly, I’m almost done ) we do have some conversion notes. These are fairly redundant as all the work has already been done in this book. But if you happen to have some old Paranoia material lying around and want to play it with the new rules these guidelines help you convert old skills into new. And finally finally ( really, honestly this is it ) there is an appendix with all the old pun names that used to exist in the adventures. As explained in the introduction they were taken out as it was felt they did not suit the new edition of Paranoia. If you want you can get a pen and put them all back in again. Or, if you prefer you could use them for your own NPC’s. Personally I like the pun names but I would not relish the task of putting them all back in unless I was attending a particularly boring meeting or seminar and had nothing better to do.
At last then I have reached the end, and for those who decided to skip the middle bit I’ll try to sum up. This book is filled with very good adventures. If you like Paranoia you are going to want adventures like these. The new material produced by Mongoose has had its ups and downs but the adventures in “Flashbacks” have a strong pedigree. This book is a worthwhile investment for any Paranoia GM and will provide many long hours of gaming fun. Its Paranoia’s greatest hit’s volume one, and I only hope that one day there will be a volume two.
Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
