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New set even has a kitty-god! Kitty-god's card hasn't been revealed yet. April fools!
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# ? Apr 1, 2017 21:29 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:08 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:The problem with Paranoia
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 01:32 |
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I appreciate and am thankful for Alpha Complex, Friend Computer!
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 01:43 |
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I'm sorry, that doesn't look like anything to me.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 02:01 |
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Hot fun is delicious. Cold fun is delicious.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 04:28 |
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Yawgmoth posted:Eventually they'll do Return to Lorwyn and you'll get your wish. Lorwyn was the best gosh damned set. And the most fun to draft ever.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 04:33 |
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Wow, you just reminded me that Forums Cancer was a thing that existed.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 07:13 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:The problem with Paranoia is that it let itself get overtaken by its own meme jokes. I played it for the first time 12 years ago and I found it to be some monkey cheese bull hockey and never touched it again. Lol! Friend computer keels communism! Grow up.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 12:05 |
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grow up and play a mature roleplaying game
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 12:10 |
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Like Maid
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 13:24 |
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I feel like a Paranoia game could be fun in a bleak humor kind of way, especially if the players buy into the idea that they're there to screw each other over in pursuit of their hidden agendas, while trying to mantain an appearance of fealty to Alpha Complex and Friend Computer. But I have a weakness for hidden agendas.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 14:26 |
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Paranoia can also be a lot of fun played completely straight, a la THX 1138. Takes the right group, though.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 16:23 |
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paradoxGentleman posted:I feel like a Paranoia game could be fun in a bleak humor kind of way, especially if the players buy into the idea that they're there to screw each other over in pursuit of their hidden agendas, while trying to mantain an appearance of fealty to Alpha Complex and Friend Computer. But I have a weakness for hidden agendas. Falstaff posted:Paranoia can also be a lot of fun played completely straight, a la THX 1138. Takes the right group, though.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 17:22 |
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I'm sure there's a way to enjoy Paranoia, but just never when I played it.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 18:20 |
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It's... not that hard? It's like any other comedy thing. Do bits and goofs, build energy with the other people at the table, and try not to be insufferable.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 19:06 |
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For a more standard Paranoia experience, I find the best GM's for the game are those who aren't convinced they're comedic geniuses. That way, the humour emerges from the gameplay rather than being imposed from above. Mind you, I'm basing this on a sample size of two, so I could be way off-base.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 19:10 |
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It's a blast if everyone is in the right mood. Some of my favorite gaming memories are from Paranoia one-shots.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 20:35 |
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Haystack posted:try not to be insufferable.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 20:46 |
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Yeah if there's no baseline of normal/serious, then there's no setup for comedy, only zaniness and punchlines without pretext.
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# ? Apr 2, 2017 21:51 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:XP/Mongoose Edition did a lot of work in making the "Straight" playstyle possible, with support for playing Paranoia as a dark black comedy game. There was also a book of dark adventures called "WMD" that all generally revolve around the PCs being involved in the slow unfunny death of Alpha Complex. The Hunger from WMD was utterly amazing in play - it's a Straight adventure that's all about rapidly promoting the PCs behind their competence and hosing them through success rather than failure.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 00:24 |
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Falstaff posted:Paranoia can also be a lot of fun played completely straight, a la THX 1138. Takes the right group, though. I find the "straight" style still has some humor, it's just closer to Brazil or Catch-22.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 01:00 |
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Paranoia is good when the GM keeps in mind that he's not telling the players jokes, but rather playing the role of the audience at an improv show that shouts out things for the comedians/players to riff off of. So mostly it's bad. Running it taught me a lot about running games in general, though, and how to stay out of my players' way to make a better gaming experience for everyone so I'm glad it exists.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 01:21 |
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The key to Paranoia is that it isn't about jokes per se. It's intensely goofy and weird but you have to play that goofy weirdness straight, even in the most Zap! of formats. It's the players having to go around through an abandoned set of tunnels because the hallway to their mission was blue and while they're on that adventure Troubleshooter CAL-CU-LO goes through three clones because the Happiness Officer refuses to acknowledge that Friend Computer would allow ANY hazards inside Alpha Complex and the Hygiene Officer won't allow them to continue until they return to the showers to wash off the slime monster they (barely) defeated. Then they get to their objective and it turns out it's been fixed for years and every team of Troubleshooters just returns and lies to Friend Computer but when the Leader suggest they do that she gets terminated for treason.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 01:27 |
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xiw posted:The Hunger from WMD was utterly amazing in play - it's a Straight adventure that's all about rapidly promoting the PCs behind their competence and hosing them through success rather than failure. That's my favorite adventure in the book for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that it's based on something that happened in real life with a very similar outcome.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 01:36 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:That's my favorite adventure in the book for a lot of reasons, not least of which is that it's based on something that happened in real life with a very similar outcome. Can you fill us in on both the adventure and its inspiration?
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 02:04 |
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LeSquide posted:Can you fill us in on both the adventure and its inspiration? I can when I'm home and not tablet posting, yes.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 02:33 |
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In the meantime, have a tag contest. Tag contests make you happy, right? Right.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 03:10 |
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Okay, so...the "Hunger" adventure in Paranoia's WMD book.a sidebar, bolding mine posted:The Great Leap Forward took place in 1958. The Great Leap Forward was Mao [Zedong]’s attempt to modernize China’s economy so that by 1988, China would have an economy that rivaled America. [...] The basic idea is that one daycycle, Friend Computer comes to a realization about the food-production processes in Alpha Complex. As people who're familiar with Paranoia know, all food is just various forms of algae that are kept in vats. These vats are round, because keeping the algae growing requires it to be constantly gently stirred. The vats are round because if they were (for example) square, the algae in the corners wouldn't be mixed. A second's thought will bear this out. Friend Computer looked at the arrays of cylindrical vats, and noticed all the wasted space between the vats due to them being round. In order to get that space and increase efficiency, it was decided that one food production facility would switch to square vats, and once that succeeded (as it would), the rest of the production facilities throughout the complex would follow suite. The Computer has also determined that "Any action done daringly always succeeds," and this whole initiative is part of that idea. So the PCs aren't Troubleshooters, but PLC vat guards or Red-clearance paper pushers. At least, that's what they are at first. They're picked to spearhead this project, which means that they'll be in charge of the food vats. They're given a budget, a bunch of Infrareds, and a production goal that they BETTER hit. After all, The Computer has said that this will work. So the basic idea is that the food production processes of the sector are being crippled by the new methods (due to the production process, the square vats aren't producing any usable product), but the PCs are held responsible for hitting production goals. And since the idea is that this is a better way of making food, they have to actually surpass goals. Failure to do so will get you terminated, and your clones will have to pick up right where you left off with the same goals and everything. Success, on the other hand, means you get promotions and huge cash bonuses. It also means you have to hit your next goal with more people watching you because these are the people who're going to be adopting your methods. So the only way to get anywhere is to fake success. Raiding food warehouses, padding crates with garbage, bribing inspectors, and so on. This'll get you the aforementioned promotions and cash. But while you're doing that, no food is being produced. quote:However, in 1959, things started to go wrong. Political decisions/beliefs took precedence over common sense, and communes faced the task of doing things which they were incapable of achieving. Party offi cials would order the impossible, and commune leaders, who knew what their commune was capable of doing or not, could be charged with being a ‘bourgeois reactionary’ if [they] complained. Such a charge would lead to prison. For as much as Alpha Complex is a dystopia, it has one thing over modern day: everybody eats. Every citizen, regardless of position, gets three meals a day. The concept of "hunger", in terms of "not having access to food hunger", is completely unknown to them. This whole initiative will literally starve Alpha Complex to death. What's more: no matter what, the PCs can't fix the problems. They can't tell Friend Computer this isn't working for obvious reasons, they can't tell their superiors because they don't want to look bad in front of the Computer, they can't fix the vats themselves because the new method just flat-out can't produce usable food. What's more, the more the PCs "succeed", the more the rest of the Complex adopts this new square-vat idea. And the longer people go without food, the harder it'd be to get them back up to healthy levels. The whole adventure is based around the idea that, no matter what the PCs do, they're utterly hosed. They can either fake it and try to surf the catastrophe curve for as long as possible, or try to fix it without the resources needed to fix the problem. No matter what, they (and the whole Complex) are dead. And the frighteing thing is that this basic concept is drawn from The Great Leap Forward, which was an attempt by Chairman Mao to turn China into an economic powerhouse by changing how the entire infrastructure of the country worked, and ended up causing about 55 million deaths in a four-year period. It was basically what happens when a) the person in charge tries to change basic processes work without understanding how they work, b) the people in charge not accounting for potential failures, c) the man in charge can't accept that he's wrong, and d) the middle management types just tell the people in charge what they want to hear because they know that if they suggest that the man in charge is wrong, they'll be executed as traitors. Thankfully, that doesn't happen anymore. Corporations don't execute people as traitors.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 04:32 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:It was basically what happens when a) the person in charge tries to change basic processes work without understanding how they work, b) the people in charge not accounting for potential failures, c) the man in charge can't accept that he's wrong, and d) the middle management types just tell the people in charge what they want to hear because they know that if they suggest that the man in charge is wrong, they'll be executed as traitors.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 14:05 |
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Yeah, the fun of Paranoia isn't all in the gags and jokes. It's about the Catch-22's and conflicting goals, and about the interplay between within-party conflict and the mission itself.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 15:55 |
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So, how do y'all deal with gamers who can find a problem with any trpg system and aren't afraid to complain about them in front of the entire group? I don't think there is anything wrong with not liking something or wanting to mention it, but I find bitching about it in front of everyone can lower people's fun in the title and makes my job harder when I'm the one who likes the game.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 16:22 |
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Physical violence works wonders OP
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 16:25 |
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Covok posted:So, how do y'all deal with gamers who can find a problem with any trpg system and aren't afraid to complain about them in front of the entire group? I don't think there is anything wrong with not liking something or wanting to mention it, but I find bitching about it in front of everyone can lower people's fun in the title and makes my job harder when I'm the one who likes the game. Make them play Paranoia and if they start complaining about the system, ask them bluntly "Are you suggesting that Friend Computer is malfunctioning or may have a problem?" With any luck, the rest of your players will dole out your justice. Realtalk: You should probably talk to them about their behavior outside of the group and why it's bad, preferably at a bar.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 16:33 |
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Covok posted:So, how do y'all deal with gamers who can find a problem with any trpg system and aren't afraid to complain about them in front of the entire group? I don't think there is anything wrong with not liking something or wanting to mention it, but I find bitching about it in front of everyone can lower people's fun in the title and makes my job harder when I'm the one who likes the game. 1) They only want to play <favourite game> so they poo poo on everything else you bring up so you'll go back to running (let's face it it's D&D or something White Wolf based). 2) "any trpg system" actually just means a number of D&D flavours or White the Wolfenings, and they are completely justified in making GBS threads on your terrible taste in RPGs. 3) They only want to play <particular genre> and their complaints about other games are how they don't handle <particular genre which is very much not what that system is for> well. 3.5) "Verisimilitude" 4) They have stared too deep into the abyss of critique and can only see the flaws in systems. 5) They have stared too deep into the abyss of dissaffected youth and think enjoying anything at all is for dummies and lameos. e: 6) The player does not exist, it's like fight club except instead of Brad Pitt trying to stop you sacrificing your life to capitalism it's Jessie Heimann trying to stop you spending too much time playing elfgames Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Apr 3, 2017 |
# ? Apr 3, 2017 16:35 |
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Splicer posted:Why are they complaining? Please choose one or more: I'll pick option 1, and 7, and 8. Option 6 and 7 are: 7) They have been hacking 3.5 for years and are now obsessed with finding flaws and broken builds and trying to break a system 8) Despite their initial joy at doing so, they quickly grow to hate the fact they managed to do so as it proves the system is flawed. For option 1, I think its worth noting it isn't D&D or White Wolf (well, maybe. Wouldn't be shocked if he wants to do 3.5). In this case, it's 2.5 Exalted (I think: doing Godbound as an alternative to actual Exalted at the moment and he hates Ex 3rd edition for not being silly enough and loves 2.5 Ed for being silly and stupid like he likes it but hates it too for being broken game with turtle combat). It's odd too because even games he likes he kind of hates because he broke them. Like, he likes Masks but also hates it a little because he broke it because he thinks the Doom track is a powegrab till you're on your last advance. Also, he hates how it is so strict in what genres it does that, if you're players don't have buyin, it breaks down so therefore it and a lot PbtA games are deeply flawed but is also interested in them but also wishes roleplaying games would stop simplifying and feels a return to crunch is inevitable. Edit: Great, now me adding in an option 6 and 7 doesn't work. Got to make them 7 and 8.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 16:45 |
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9) Telling people about weird flaws and silliness in systems is a communal bonding activity that everyone participates in, sharing anecdotes about Exalted 2e's recession-blocking swords, peasant railguns, and football-throwing babies.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 16:52 |
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Covok posted:7) They have been hacking 3.5 for years and are now obsessed with finding flaws and broken builds and trying to break a system quote:Also, he hates how it is so strict in what genres it does that, if you're players don't have buyin, it breaks down so therefore it and a lot PbtA games are deeply flawed but is also interested in them but also wishes roleplaying games would stop simplifying and feels a return to crunch is inevitable.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 17:12 |
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LatwPIAT posted:9) Telling people about weird flaws and silliness in systems is a communal bonding activity that everyone participates in, sharing anecdotes about Exalted 2e's recession-blocking swords, peasant railguns, and football-throwing babies. My issue is it often puts me in the position of having to defend the choice of system. No game is perfect, but really hammering in on how a game is flawed when you're trying to run it and how easy it is for online groups to fall apart means you kind of have to defend it and remind people it's worth playing. Evil Mastermind posted:I think we may have found the problem. In fairness, while the first game of Masks we played together was one of the best campaigns I've ever run and he's ever played in (his admission), the second one had a lot of trouble because of a lack of buy-in to the core concept, according to him, so there is that. Though, sometimes, I do feel he just likes to be contrarian. There is a certain tone of voice he takes sometimes that makes me go "I think he's disagreeing just so he can sound smarter." Covok fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Apr 3, 2017 |
# ? Apr 3, 2017 17:20 |
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"No game is perfect," is a poor excuse for not trying, you should criticize the gently caress out of games, and while the cooperative and human-adjudicated nature of RPGs means you can't be quite as 100% "go ahead, try and break the game if you can, if you manage it then the game sucks" as you could with a video game, developers, and to a lesser extent GMs, still have a responsibility to shape the player experience and design systems that don't fall apart under pressures that they themselves incentivized. But you probably shouldn't be arguing about design theory in the middle of a session, especially if it's disrupting other players' experience. You can be completely correct about everything and still be an rear end in a top hat.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 17:25 |
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# ? May 15, 2024 03:08 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:"No game is perfect," is a poor excuse for not trying, you should criticize the gently caress out of games, and while the cooperative and human-adjudicated nature of RPGs means you can't be quite as 100% "go ahead, try and break the game if you can, if you manage it then the game sucks" as you could with a video game, developers, and to a lesser extent GMs, still have a responsibility to shape the player experience and design systems that don't fall apart under pressures that they themselves incentivized. I mean, when I'm playing a game, I'm not developing one nor is it like the developer will ever hear my complaint. It's not like its some holy duty or something, we're just playing a game.
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# ? Apr 3, 2017 17:30 |