Paranoia

I've never played as a troubleshooter, but I have hosted many games.

Basically, I like to take everything the players say and use it against them. The players should never feel safe. If a player jokes about shooting someone in the head, make them roll an Energy Weapons check immediately.

Also, reward them for throwing their fellow troubleshooters under the bus. This is a game about treachery. Encourage players to look for ways to accuse their teammates of being mutant-commie-traitors.

I'll say one last thing. Confuse and mislead the hell out of your players. I make the session more about them trying to make it to the mission location alive rather than actually completing the mission. Alpha Complex should be full of dead ends, crowded corridors, abandoned rooms, broken lifts, and anything else that will get in the way of a team of troubleshooters. Troubleshooters will come up with the most hilarious and backwards ways to make the best of any given situation, if you put enough pressure on them.

Example: After the mission brief, a player was given an experimental megaphone that was to be tested. It had no particular value for the specific mission, but Friend Computer always appreciates volunteers to test technology. The troubleshooter team came to a hallway where the floor was painted completely orange and was filled with orange-clad citizens. They were too paranoid to step on the orange floor, for they were only at red level clearance. The player with the experimental megaphone used it to try and shout over the hubbub and get directions to the mission location. When he lowered the megaphone, all of the orange citizens had been exploded, and the entire hallway was painted red with gore. The hygiene officer ordered some cleaning bots to the area, and they then proceeded down the red hallway.

My usual way to run Paranoia games are to come up with a fairly ill-defined mission that needs doing then throw in secret society jobs for the players that are some combination of "mutually exclusive with the goals of the actual mission", "mutually exclusive with another job given to another player", "sort of against the actual goals of the secret society in question", "one hundred percent certainly against the goals of the secret society in question" and "deceptively simple".

They give the players some toys which they can use to complete their mission. That coupled with their mutant powers will usually be enough rope to hang themselves with. In my experience, that's usually the trick - a group that's into Paranoia will simply need to be given their sandbox, a flimsy reason to play in it and some toys to throw at one another and the game will work itself out.

Planning a few scenarios can help to speed things up when things start to slow down, and it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with these based on the mission and the secret society jobs you've handed out - you know what everyone is mostly aiming towards.

As much as I love Paranoia, it really requires a group that's on board to play it. I know that sounds really fucking stupid, because the same is true to some extent in all roleplaying games, but players that don't "get" it can sap the enjoyment right out of it.

>>52764658
I never ran or played actual Paranoia, but I did run something quite similar. The players were
members of special forces during the peak of cold war tasked to investigate a secret govermental lab facility which stopped responding to communication. They were randomly picking from premade character sheets and before the mission started, they were warned that there might be a spy or a traitor among their ranks so they should watch their backs.

The thing is, actually everyone was a traitor with some kind of different secret agenda going on and everyone was 100% convinced that they were the only one. Shit was fun as hell. I might describe it in more detail if you're interested

>>52764658
I got ripped in half by my rocket boots more times than I car to remember. And yet every time it seemed like a good idea.

>>52766408
STORY TIME

>>52766408
Do go on

>>52768529
>>52768547
Ok, just give me a sec to write it down

>>52765887
>but players that don't "get" it can sap the enjoyment right out of it.
This pisses me off so much. Why agree to the game if it's "not your cup of tea".

fuck you Shaun you dick, you could have just said it to me and leave, not be a passive aggressive cunt stain and make it a slog for those who were enjoying it

>>52766408
>>52768529
>>52768547
>>52768665
So, for a little background, the facility in question was a secret governmental lab, working mostly on developing weapons, especially, but not only, biological and chemical ones. It was located in the middle of Arizona desert, most of it underground. The goal of the latest project developed there was finding a use of "accelerated mutation technology" developed for the government by a private corporation, for military reason. Obviously, the project created some messed up mutants which overran the facility and killed or mutated everyone inside. Cliché, but that's not really important. Theoretically no one except for the mission leader knew what the mission was about and how much information he wanted to share with his team depended on him. As for the team, I prepared 7 characters, but as I played with only 5 players 2 of them remained unused:

>The mission leader: Secretly a CIA agent tasked with blowing up the base, destroying all the evidence and leaving no survivors or witnesses(including his team, althrough they technically could be dealt with later)
>Close combat specialist: Secretely employed by the genetics corporation which developed the mutation technology to deliver them a sample of mutants and destroy all evidence linking them to the accident
>Engineer: Secretely a member of anarchist movements, tasked to gather and deliver as much evidence of the accident as possible(he had a spy camera to help him with that) and if possible, to use the military radio station in the compound to transmit his movements' manifesto
>Medic: Secretely a Soviet spy, tasked to steal the project's documentation and as much other valuable data as possible
>Heavy weapons specialist: Secretely a member of a nationalistic paramilitary group wanting to take control over the country by putsch. His task was to gather as much evidence linking the government to the project as possible and to release it at one of the nearby towns, in order to create a scandal and chance for revolution
>Assualt specialist(unused): Secretly a member of a doomsday cult which percieves the mutants as "glorified new race of humans" or some bullshit like that. His task was to make sure none of the other players leave the base alive and that it wouldn't be destroyed
>Explosives specialist(unused): The only "normal and innocent" guy in the team, just a soldier following orders. He wins if he survives the mission and none of the other players complete their assignments.

>>52769423
The funny thing is, I expected the players to start eliminating each other almost straight away, especially since I gave them few quite good occasions to do so without raising too many suspicions, but nope, they worked more or less together up to the point when they were getting ready to leave and realised that they still have to complete their tasks - and they won't be able to with others watching their backs. Then they started conspiring for good half an hour, passing tonnes of notes, suspecting and accusing everybody and later leaving the room in different groups to talk things over secretely. It was hilarious, everyone had some kind of deal with everyone else while at the same time a plan to stab them in the back, there were at least 3 different "groups" at the same time, with their members interchanging, and yet everyone was just waiting for an opportunity to betray the others.

>>52769423
>to release it at one of the nearby towns
Meant the project, not the evidence

>>52769439
So here is how it more or less went, focusing on important stuff:
>The PCs arrived to the base by helicopter and went in, The Leader secretly rigged the helicopter with explosives he had in his starting eq
>They get their fist encounter with the muties next to an industrial elevator leading down to the lab section. They explore the underground facility fighting mutants and making their way to the archives.
>Along the way, The Engineer is taking photos(he didn't try to hide with it and istead told everybody he was tasked by the supervisors to do so, The Leader allowed it for the time being). The Close Combat specialist manages to stealthy take a sample of one of the mutants to a special container provided by the corporation.
>They have reached the archives and found the documentation of the project. The Leader orders them to destroy it. In this moment the Medic realises that he's fucked if this happens. >Unfortunately due to him being rather quiet and passive for the whole game he's currently the most suspicious team member
>He comes out with some bullshit that he's actually a special agent tasked to retrieve this data at all costs and they all will be fucked if they won't listen to him. Others don't fully believe him, but at least start to argue over what to do. They decided to sort the projects into harmfull(like weapons) and non harmful(like vaccines or farming supplements), burn the documentation of first ones and take the others with them

>>52770374
>While searching through projects, they find out that there few small nukes in the facility, the Leader wants to put one on time fuse and use it to destroy the facility. Heavy weapons guy finds out about a prototype chemical weapon releasing rockets which he could use to fullfill his task. He also manages to stealthy steal and hide the mutation project documentation
>Medic tries to do that as well, but is too late. He informs everybody that the documentation is missing, but wrongfully accuses the Engineer, which further raises suspicions towards the Medic and makes everybody forget about the documents, fortunately for Heavy Weapons guy
>While burning the files, The Leader also orders the Engineer to burn his photos with them. He manages to trick everybody though, by burning an empty film and hiding the real one on the inside of his clothes.
>They move to the room with nukes to arm one, and here is when the great conspiracy mentioned earlier began. By this moment:
>Leader has an upper hand - nobody suspects him and all he has to do is to blow up the base and detonate charges in helicopter along with everybody
>Close Combat guy still has to destroy parts of documentation linking the project to his employers, but he doesn't know who has them
>Engineer pretty much only has to escape, but it would be good to get the documents and access the radiostation
>Medic has to find the documents and get out of the base - and everybody is suspecting him at the moment
>Heavy weapons guy has the documents, but he still has to somehow use the chemical weapons on a nearby town - and get out of the facility alive

>>52770391
So after half an hour of plotting, here is what went by:
>The Engineer sets up the time fuse on nuke, but before he gets up he gets shot in the back of the head by the Medic, who has discussed it with the other teammates before.
>Immediately after, the Medic is shot and killed by the Heavy Weapons guy
>At the same time, the Close combat guy sneaks out of the room unseen and makes his wat to the elevator. He wants to return to surface, sabotage the elevator and let the facility blow up along with the evidence
>Near the elevator he gets jumped by few mutants. He manages to kill them but is heavily wounded. Bleeding and stumbling he slowly makes his way towards the elevator.
>Meantime, the others searched the bodies of their former teammates and noticed that Close Combat guy is missing. They rush to the exit to find him.
>They catch up on him just as he's boarding the elevator. Heavy weapons guy stays in the back and fires at both of the remaining PCs, killing the Leader but missing the Close Combat guy who activates the elevator.
>In his last moments, the Leader activates the detonator blowing the helicopter up
>Heavy weapons guy returns to the missile room and disables the time fuse on nuke. Afterwards he fires the chemical missile loaded with accelerated mutation reagent into a nearby town. Meanwhile, Close Combat guy returns to surface, finds some med kit and patches himself up.
>He tries to find some way of transportation to get out of the desert, but without any luck, so he goes outside
>Back down, Heavy weapons guy tries to find some way back up and manages to construct a grapling hook out of stuff in the labs. After few lucky rolls(and one fall, fortunately not from very high), he climbs the elevator shaft back to the surface. Seeing the Close Combat guy outside, he shoots at him from the base's doorstep
Sorry for delay

>>52772515
>They proceed to shoot at each other, the Heavy weapons guy hiding at facility's doorsteps and the Close Combat guy using helicopter's wreckage and smoke grenades as cover
>They both wound each other.
>At this point, Heavy weapons guy decides to actually ask his opponent what the hell does he want.
>They reach a conclusion that they actually can both accomplish their missions without killing each other
>They lower their arms, the Close Combat guy erases all evidence linking the corporation that employed him with the project from the documents while the Heavy weapons guy takes the rest of them and calls the members of his organisation to pick them up.
And so they both won. The end. I hope anyone was still here to read this.

>>52772580
nice, sounds like it was a fun game

>>52772580
Very fun. I'm glad they had the sense to talk it out at the last bit.

Did the players who died early enjoy the show as well?

>Groups hacks into the main cloning database
>Replaces everyone's DNA with that of a party member Bubba, who is not a communist or traitor
>After this is done the rest of the party commits suicide to return as clones of Bubba
>Convince everyone nearby to kill themselves, then convince the new Bubbas to kill non Bubbas
>Communism and traitors eradicated forever
>The Computer congratulates us on our work and promotes us to a higher clearance

It was a good game