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The premise behind Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues (YCBBB) is that every secret society, and eventually even the Computer, are trying to get their hands on a mysterious wooden Black Box. The players are sent on four separate missions, each of which coincidentally places them in a position to attempt to get their hands on the mysterious Black Box for their secret societies or the Computer. In the process of doing so they get shot at, electrocuted, vaporized, executed, etc. You know, the standard deal.
And that’s one problem right there. The fact that they are sent through four separate missions. Not four mini briefings catapulting them deeper into plot. They are four completely separate missions each with briefing, debriefing and stuff in between. Each is very short and really lead to a general feeling that something is missing.
Anyway, let me go through each mission in turn: (SECURITY CLEARANCE ULTRAVIOLET)
Mission 1: “Bop till you drop.” This mission is actually pretty well done. The troubleshooters are told to locate a Communist cell that is tapping into the Alpha Complex broadcasting network, and to eliminate it. The briefing is very nicely done, and right from the mission alert things are as insane as you come to expect from any decent Paranoia product. This however is where to good points end. The troubleshooters are sent out with a tracking device to locate the source of the disturbances. Here the GM is encouraged to waste some time and take the players through a nice tour of Alpha Complex as they follow the beeping of the tracking device. Yawn. Eventually they find the Commies. They literally turn a corner and the firefight begins. They see the black box and give chase. The chase leads to a large warehouse housing food vats. Here a massive melee ensues as members of every secret society struggle to gain control of the box, a melee that is ended only by a sudden onset of boogie dancing (reasons for this are too long to explain). The black box gets away. It is actually a pretty classy little game, with a nice ending to it.
Mission 2: “I was a mutant for the FBI.” The computer blames the insanity of the mission 1 climax on mutant powers transposed through the black box. The characters are thus sent to retrieve the box and to apprehend the leader of the mutants. To level the playing field they are allocated experimental R&D devices that will “give them” mutant powers. This is the best part of the entire game. The devices are absolutely hilarious, and guaranteed to paralyze your players for several minutes with laughter. Anyway, they take their gadgets and go to the enemy hideout (they are given the address). They get there and blast them. They see the black box but it eludes them. They do however capture the leader of the traitors. Just more fighting.
Mission 3: “No one gets out of here alive.” After the failure of mission 2 the players are all allocated as target duty in the troubleshooter rifle ranges. They stand there, get shot a bit and are rescued by another mission alert. This time they are to follow instructions given by the apprehended leader from mission 2 on how to reach the main base of the communist traitors. They are to get there, kill them and seal off the entrance via which they are gaining access to Alpha Complex from the outside. To get there they must travel through a series of abandoned tunnels and sewers underneath Alpha Complex. Read dungeon crawl. Complete with random encounters. More fighting, more meaningless waste of time. They get to their location eventually, kill all the traitors, and seal off the gap. Yeai. Follow up a dungeon bash with more fighting. The Black Box makes an appearance, but only to justify inserting this time waster into YCBBB. No chance of the players even touching it. If fact, the GM is just told to let them glimpse it whenever he deems appropriate, and that is it.
Mission 4: “Why don’t we do it in the road?” For this mission the characters are told to travel into the Outside and locate some ancient pieces of hardware, including the Black Box. Of course, they are not given any directions on how to find this hardware. To do so they must ask the local gangs of the Outside. This is where GM support just fades away. You are given a short description of the gangs and what they know, and told to just go for it. Slot in some random outside encounters and just keep he players busy until you let them find their destination. Once they finally arrive at their destination they must deal with an invisible tank (which is actually a pretty good idea) and get themselves a black box. Then as soon as they touch the box the chase begins. Every outside gang comes after them as they try to make it to Alpha Complex. In arrive the armed forces in their flying craft giving chase, and every secret society of Alpha Complex. The Computer declares them as traitors and Great Cthulhu rises up to get them as well. The game ends with the world chasing them. In other words – no ending.
So how does all this break down? The adventure is dated. The jokes are so old that anybody less than 35 will have a hard time understanding them. The constant briefings and debriefings have to be rushed, taking away from the big Paranoia fear of the inevitable debriefing – the most feared thing in the game next only to the briefing itself. The R&D gadgets are the best part of the game, but are used only in the shortest of the four missions and only during a firefight. Missions 3 and 4 are silly to the point of being unplayable. All the potential with the characters hiding the Black Box or fiddling with it to try to figure out its purpose is wasted, as they only get a hold of the box at the very end (or lack thereof).
I couldn’t bring myself to run YCBBB. What I did do however was take the R&D devices, and slot them into an expanded version of mission 1, which as it stands is quite a good mission only too short. This proved to be quite a nice introductory game for my players, and at least allowed me to get some use out of this otherwise worthless adventure. Why anybody would choose to run YCBBB nowadays instead of the myriad of other far superior Paranoia modules is quite beyond me. Maybe you can use the individual scenarios as quick stand alone games, but really – go play Alpha Complexities instead.
Style: 2 - Mission 1 is actually classy enough to give this a little boost of rating here. Substance: 1 - So much wasted potential. Run something off the cuff and you'll do just as well.
