Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

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gschmidl: Sep 3, 2011; watch with knife hands

Thanks everyone for the nice words. Yeah, I assume shipping to the US would be a colossal nightmare for everyone involved.

Leperflesh posted:

We do have some Eurogoons in TG, and pricing may come down to whatever you can get for them, e.g. ask for offers and then decide if you'll take one or not. Parting the collection out on eBay might be the maximally profitable option although eBay is rife with fraud these days. Is Facebook Marketplace active in your country? It seems to have taken over for craigslist and eroded into eBay for local sales and nerd stuff, in the US.

I don't need to extract max profit, really. I prefer they go to someone who wants the game to play it, but I also don't want to give it away. On eBay, I'm limited to $200 for whatever reason, I've been a member for decades, and they take 11%. I'm not sure if there's a Facebook Marketplace, but probably. There's also a local-only platform, but they only do fixed price, so I'd need to figure one out before offering it there... so back to square one.

# ? Jul 3, 2023 23:00

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# ? May 24, 2024 21:45

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

You can list something on SA-Mart without having a fixed price. Just ask for offers and see if you get one you are OK with?

# ? Jul 4, 2023 00:22

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

ninjoatse.cx posted:

How are they supposed to be like us, the super smartiest, if they aren't even reading Asimov?

Funnily enough, Asimov said something like "It's easy to think nobody needs help when you yourself didn't" regarding Heinlein's politics. Asimov was a sex pest, but he was on the leftish side of the mainstream. Notably, he also didn't write much that was "military," either.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 06:06

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

There's a couple of decent FB groups for selling boardgames and RPG stuff.

Boardgame Trading and Chat UK (green and white group photo)

and

Boardgames & RPGs buy and sell UK &EU only (big red meeple in group photo.)

# ? Jul 5, 2023 06:32

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

Nessus posted:

Funnily enough, Asimov said something like "It's easy to think nobody needs help when you yourself didn't" regarding Heinlein's politics. Asimov was a sex pest, but he was on the leftish side of the mainstream. Notably, he also didn't write much that was "military," either.

Asimov wrote an essay taking apart 1984's issues from a vaguely left perspective that was interesting too. Basically pointing out the dystopia is shown as most horrifying because it makes it uncomfortable and unglamorous to be upper-middle class.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 08:18

LatwPIAT: Jun 6, 2011

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Asimov wrote an essay taking apart 1984's issues from a vaguely left perspective that was interesting too. Basically pointing out the dystopia is shown as most horrifying because it makes it uncomfortable and unglamorous to be upper-middle class.

Did he do two? Because I�ve read one review he did of 1984 and it was mostly the worst stereotype of a science fiction nerd nitpicking a book he doesn�t like, slamming it for things like being a political allegory, not having realistic science, and not being creative enough in its worldbuilding. My favourite stand-out bit:

quote:

The great Orwellian contribution to future technology is that the
television set is two-way, and that the people who are forced to hear and
see the television screen can themselves be heard and seen at all times and
are under constant supervision even while sleeping or in the bathroom.
Hence, the meaning of the phrase 'Big Brother is watching you'.
This is an extraordinarily inefficient system of keeping everyone under
control. To have a person being watched at all times means that some other
person must be doing the watching at all times (at least in the Orwellian
society) and must be doing so very narrowly, for there is a great
development of the art of interpreting gesture and facial expression.
One person cannot watch more than one person in full concentration, and
can only do so for a comparatively short time before attention begins to
wander. I should guess, in short, that there may have to be five watchers
for every person watched. And then, of course, the watchers must themselves
be watched since no one in the Orwellian world is suspicion-free.
Consequently, the system of oppression by two-way television simply will not
work.

It�s the threat that you may be watched, Asimov. It�s a panopticon. Orwell didn�t even invent the idea, it�d been around for over a hundred and fifty years when he wrote about it. He also dismisses Newspeak:

quote:

Orwell makes much of 'Newspeak' as an organ of repression - the
conversion of the English language into so limited and abbreviated an
instrument that the very vocabulary of dissent vanishes. Partly he got the
notion from the undoubted habit of abbreviation. He gives examples of
'Communist International' becoming 'Comintern' and 'Geheime Staatspolizei'
becoming 'Gestapo', but that is not a modern totalitarian invention. 'Vulgus
mobile' became 'mob'; 'taxi cabriolet' became 'cab'; 'quasi-stellar radio
source' became 'quasar'; 'light amplification by stimulated emission of
radiation' became 'laser' and so on. There is no sign that such compressions
of the language have ever weakened it as a mode of expression.
As a matter of fact, political obfuscation has tended to use many words
rather than few, long words rather than short, to extend rather than to
reduce. Every leader of inadequate education or limited intelligence hides
behind exuberant inebriation of loquacity.

This, too, is science fiction (it�s deliberately engineered linguistic relativism), but Asimov just scoffs at it as mere abbreviation and treats the idea as silly and unfounded, ignorant of the context 1984 was written in.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 13:10

Magnetic North: Dec 15, 2008; Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

Nessus posted:

Asimov was a sex pest

I hadn't heard this, but yeah, it's there on his Wikipedia page. That is so weird to me considering how utterly sexless much of his work is, until he finally capitulated in the later Foundation books. Also, I haven't read it in a long while so I might be misremembering but (cw for sexual assault, slightly :nms:

) considering the fact that Bliss used her Gaian powers to gently elevate a woman's existing desire to have sex with the protagonist for the purposes of getting her onside for their adventure might reflect some views he had. :nms:

# ? Jul 5, 2023 13:22

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

LatwPIAT posted:

Did he do two? Because I�ve read one review he did of 1984 and it was mostly the worst stereotype of a science fiction nerd nitpicking a book he doesn�t like, slamming it for things like being a political allegory, not having realistic science, and not being creative enough in its worldbuilding. My favourite stand-out bit:

It�s the threat that you may be watched, Asimov. It�s a panopticon. Orwell didn�t even invent the idea, it�d been around for over a hundred and fifty years when he wrote about it. He also dismisses Newspeak:

This, too, is science fiction (it�s deliberately engineered linguistic relativism), but Asimov just scoffs at it as mere abbreviation and treats the idea as silly and unfounded, ignorant of the context 1984 was written in.

The link isn�t working but I assume it�s a thing about the Third Reich. Out of curiosity was that LTI thing published by 1947?

I think Asimov was right that a lot of the books thrust was Orwell beefing with Stalin (quite justly of course)

# ? Jul 5, 2023 15:08

Lurks With Wolves: Jan 14, 2013; At least I don't dance with them, right?

Nessus posted:

The link isn�t working but I assume it�s a thing about the Third Reich. Out of curiosity was that LTI thing published by 1947?

I think Asimov was right that a lot of the books thrust was Orwell beefing with Stalin (quite justly of course)

This link might work? tl;dr, Lingua Tertii Imperii, translated as The Language of The Third Reich, which is the work of a German professor analyzing how language changed during the rise and reign of the Nazis via his diary notes/observations from the period. A lot of talk about linguistic relativism and how Nazi jargon was mostly redefining old terminology and so on.

Also, literally published in 1947.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 16:00

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Cool, I was just curious. The link did work. I had wondered since if that work had come out in 48� hardly implausible� it would have been more of a parallel mind wave.

If this is the review I�m thinking of, Asimov discusses how from Orwells perspective Stalin WAS an unstoppable monster who even WW2 had only strengthened. Stalin had the momentum of a runaway freight train when Orwell died.

Then Stalin died.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 16:22

Ominous Jazz: Jun 15, 2011; Big D is chillin' over here
Wasteland style

Orwell was a snitch who reported people for being gay who cares what he thought

Edit: he was making a list for the UK's secret anti communist propaganda branch and talking about how certain authors and "travelers" had homosexual tendencies and "anti-white" biases

Ominous Jazz fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Jul 5, 2023

# ? Jul 5, 2023 17:32

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Linguistic relativism is sufficiently silly that it�s very difficult to anything seriously once that�s in the mix.

It makes Lemarckian evolution seem well thought-out by comparison.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 17:56

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Asimov's whole review is great, but the best part comes early on:

quote:

He also turned left wing and became a socialist, fighting with the
loyalists in Spain in the 1930s. There he found himself caught up in the
sectarian struggles between the various left-wing factions, and since he
believed in a gentlemanly English form of socialism, he was inevitably on
the losing side. Opposed to him were passionate Spanish anarchists,
syndicalists, and communists, who bitterly resented the fact that the
necessities of fighting the Franco fascists got in the way of their fighting
each other.

The communists, who were the best organised, won out and Orwell had to leave
Spain, for he was convinced that if he did not, he would be killed.

From then on, to the end of his life, he carried on a private literary
war with the communists, determined to win in words the battle he had lost
in action.

Anyway, Orwell's awful, and as with most anticommunists all his ideas boil down to "everyone is stupid except me".

# ? Jul 5, 2023 18:41

ItohRespectArmy: Sep 11, 2019; Cutest In The World, Six Time DDT Ironheavymetalweight champion, Two Time International Princess champion, winner of two tournaments, a Princess Tag Team champion, And a pretty good singer too!
"When I was an idol, I felt nothing every day but now that I'm a pro wrestler I'm in pain constantly!"

my favorite orwell writing is his book about his time as a colonial police officer in burma where he describes the locals as having nothing behind their eyes

# ? Jul 5, 2023 19:18

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Having played my opening card, I want to cycle back around here:

LatwPIAT posted:

Did he do two? Because I�ve read one review he did of 1984 and it was mostly the worst stereotype of a science fiction nerd nitpicking a book he doesn�t like, slamming it for things like being a political allegory, not having realistic science, and not being creative enough in its worldbuilding. My favourite stand-out bit:

It�s the threat that you may be watched, Asimov. It�s a panopticon. Orwell didn�t even invent the idea, it�d been around for over a hundred and fifty years when he wrote about it. He also dismisses Newspeak:

This, too, is science fiction (it�s deliberately engineered linguistic relativism), but Asimov just scoffs at it as mere abbreviation and treats the idea as silly and unfounded, ignorant of the context 1984 was written in.

There's a few notes to make about the screen thing (people have already discussed the Lingua Tertii Imperii, but maybe the most important point to make there is simply that Orwell is extremely unconcerned with the Nazis and is writing an angry screed about the Soviets in specific).

First, Asimov notes in his very next paragraph that 1984 itself acknowledges and corrects for the impracticality of what he's pointing out by making it clear that close surveillance is only reserved for Party members and so on. I haven't read the book in years and, god willing, never will again, so I can't speak with authority as to the extent to which Winston's own thoughts and/or an omniscient third-person narrator describes people as definitely being surveilled rather than possibly being surveilled. Possibly we only see Winston think about always being watched, such that we should understand him as having been fooled by what's really a completely shoestring operation, but possibly it's meant to be taken as read that everyone (of a certain rank) really is being watched at all times, such that targeting limitations rather than uncertainty are what make it practical.

But we have to read this in the light of a more detailed criticism Asimov makes later in the review of Winston's job and the general preoccupation of 1984's society with information control:

quote:

Second - rewrite history. Almost every one of the few individuals we meet
in 1984 has, as his job, the rapid rewriting of the past, the readjustment
of statistics, the overhauling of newspapers - as though anyone is going to
take the trouble to pay attention to the past anyway.

This Orwellian preoccupation with the minutiae of 'historical proof' is
typical of the political sectarian who is always quoting what has been said
and done in the past to prove a point to someone on the other side who is
always quoting something to the opposite effect that has been said and done.
As any politician knows, no evidence of any kind is ever required. It is
only necessary to make a statement - any statement - forcefully enough to
have an audience believe it. No one will check the lie against the facts,
and, if they do, they will disbelieve the facts. Do you think the German
people in 1939 pretended that the Poles had attacked them and started World
War II? No! Since they were told that was so, they believed it as seriously
as you and I believe that they attacked the Poles.

To be sure, the Soviets put out new editions of their Encyclopaedia in
which politicians rating a long biography in earlier editions are suddenly
omitted entirely, and this is no doubt the germ of the Orwellian notion, but
the chances of carrying it as far as is described in 1984 seem to me to be
nil - not because it is beyond human wickedness, but because it is totally
unnecessary.

Just plain lying, bullshitting, or egging people on doesn't seem to occur to Orwell as an option that the ruling class has. He thinks propaganda works not by creating an atmosphere of general social license that excuses what people wanted to do anyway but by really-and-truly tricking every last citizen. Like, Winston is paid to spend all day doing find-replaces on "Eastasia" and "Oceania". They're hotfixing the Matrix! Bush hid the facts! So in fact I have little doubt that some middle layer of Party members really is watched as constantly and as thoroughly as time allows, because that would be in keeping with how dumb and idealistic (pejorative) the rest of the setting is.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 20:01

PurpleXVI: Oct 30, 2011; Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

I always found Brave New World's dystopia to be more believable than 1984's.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 20:46

Ominous Jazz: Jun 15, 2011; Big D is chillin' over here
Wasteland style

Has anybody ever played Paranoia on its Serious setting? I always think it'd be fun to do but every time someone wants to play paranoia it's IMMEDIATELY just tee hee friend computer times

# ? Jul 5, 2023 20:48

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

I found 1984 to be pretty strong both times I read it. I also liked his Down and Out in Paris and London, although I should revisit it with a better understanding that he was mostly a middle-class tourist of poverty.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 20:49

PurpleXVI: Oct 30, 2011; Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Ominous Jazz posted:

Has anybody ever played Paranoia on its Serious setting? I always think it'd be fun to do but every time someone wants to play paranoia it's IMMEDIATELY just tee hee friend computer times

I think part of the reason that people tend to go for the Zap setting is the player-versus-player backstabbing encouraged by the system, thats a lot less likely to ruin friendships if its in the context of cartoonish clownery than a serious story with characters and personalities that aren't just vapid memes and whom someone might be sad to see blasted to ash.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 20:50

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

I think Azimov is correct that those in power need only assert truthy sounding things, they don't need to edit the history books - we see this in real life - but he's incorrect that this means those in power will be very smart and not bother either - see decades of attempts, sometimes successful, to control the history taught in america's schools, the most recent being an obsession with the invented "critical race theory."

I'm not a huge fan of 1984 but part of Azimov's thesis seems to be a presumption of competence and good strategy on the part of the oppressors, when 1984 does not actually claim that Big Brother is efficient.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 20:54

Ominous Jazz: Jun 15, 2011; Big D is chillin' over here
Wasteland style

PurpleXVI posted:

I think part of the reason that people tend to go for the Zap setting is the player-versus-player backstabbing encouraged by the system, thats a lot less likely to ruin friendships if its in the context of cartoonish clownery than a serious story with characters and personalities that aren't just vapid memes and whom someone might be sad to see blasted to ash.

I think that needle can be threaded and the Serious Mode is less lethal

# ? Jul 5, 2023 21:51

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Leperflesh posted:

I think Azimov is correct that those in power need only assert truthy sounding things, they don't need to edit the history books - we see this in real life - but he's incorrect that this means those in power will be very smart and not bother either - see decades of attempts, sometimes successful, to control the history taught in america's schools, the most recent being an obsession with the invented "critical race theory."

I'm not a huge fan of 1984 but part of Azimov's thesis seems to be a presumption of competence and good strategy on the part of the oppressors, when 1984 does not actually claim that Big Brother is efficient.

I think the noteworthy thing about the "CRT" push is that, besides being pretty recent and incredibly astroturfed, it puts a huge premium on how being taught or not taught certain historical detail is going to make white kids feel rather than whether something is factually true or false. Here the reactionaries actually evince a better understanding of the purpose and effectiveness of propaganda than Orwell does; the point isn't literally fool people into thinking slavery never happened by sneakily editing citations and banning or burning incriminating documents, it's to encourage white pride.

"Competence" is a very ideological idea, but we can't deny that the enormous effort the Party in the novel makes is effective, and that means Orwell is making a bunch of claims about how power is created and sustained that we can very easily criticize. Like, okay, let's read the Party's strategy as being, honestly, pretty dumb and wasteful. ...it's working, though, isn't it? Why is it working, and how did they come to being so dumb and wasteful, and why aren't they refining their methods over time? Within the world of the novel, it seems to be because the masses are a pack of incurious dolts (which is also the foundation of Animal Farm).

# ? Jul 5, 2023 21:52

Small Strange Bird: Sep 22, 2006; Merci, chaton!

Ominous Jazz posted:

Has anybody ever played Paranoia on its Serious setting? I always think it'd be fun to do but every time someone wants to play paranoia it's IMMEDIATELY just tee hee friend computer times

1st Edition Paranoia could be played (semi) straight; even though it said right on the box that it was "darkly humorous", the comedy was pretty deadpan. You could easily run it as a society along the lines of Judge Dredd, a horrible satirical dystopia that nevertheless can provide real adventure and drama if you're willing to let it.

# ? Jul 5, 2023 23:48

Leperflesh: May 17, 2007

Ferrinus posted:

I think the noteworthy thing about the "CRT" push is that, besides being pretty recent and incredibly astroturfed, it puts a huge premium on how being taught or not taught certain historical detail is going to make white kids feel rather than whether something is factually true or false. Here the reactionaries actually evince a better understanding of the purpose and effectiveness of propaganda than Orwell does; the point isn't literally fool people into thinking slavery never happened by sneakily editing citations and banning or burning incriminating documents, it's to encourage white pride.

"Competence" is a very ideological idea, but we can't deny that the enormous effort the Party in the novel makes is effective, and that means Orwell is making a bunch of claims about how power is created and sustained that we can very easily criticize. Like, okay, let's read the Party's strategy as being, honestly, pretty dumb and wasteful. ...it's working, though, isn't it? Why is it working, and how did they come to being so dumb and wasteful, and why aren't they refining their methods over time? Within the world of the novel, it seems to be because the masses are a pack of incurious dolts (which is also the foundation of Animal Farm).

Yeah good points there.

I suppose my outlook is that governments are always big dumb and wasteful, but they work or collapse and maintain control or don't depending on factors other than efficiency. So a government wasting money paying employees to rewrite history books might be wasteful but that doesn't convince me that it's unrealistic such a government would maintain power.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 00:22

ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

Are we talking the modes of Paranoia being Serious, Classic, and Zap?

I think the setting has to be somewhat reworked to be serious, in that there has to be hope, or an outside world, or some fatal flaw in the computer (for the computer, not the players).

The game book itself is littered with jokes and throw away gags, which reinforce the hopelessness of the setting, and the dark humor that comes from "nothing really matters".

# ? Jul 6, 2023 00:26

EightFlyingCars: Jun 30, 2008

ninjoatse.cx posted:

Are we talking the modes of Paranoia being Serious, Classic, and Zap?

I think the setting has to be somewhat reworked to be serious, in that there has to be hope, or an outside world, or some fatal flaw in the computer (for the computer, not the players).

The game book itself is littered with jokes and throw away gags, which reinforce the hopelessness of the setting, and the dark humor that comes from "nothing really matters".

isn't the hope usually that you can get out of RED and maybe enjoy a vaguely better standard of living, and it sure is a shame that the other troubleshooters are directly in the way of that?

# ? Jul 6, 2023 00:34

PurpleXVI: Oct 30, 2011; Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

ninjoatse.cx posted:

Are we talking the modes of Paranoia being Serious, Classic, and Zap?

I think the setting has to be somewhat reworked to be serious, in that there has to be hope, or an outside world, or some fatal flaw in the computer (for the computer, not the players).

The game book itself is littered with jokes and throw away gags, which reinforce the hopelessness of the setting, and the dark humor that comes from "nothing really matters".

I mean, the players can at least try to better their own lot in Alpha Complex and improve their own positions, if nothing else, or advance the goals of their secret organization. I think the biggest requirement for a Serious game to not end up in unhappy backstabbing, would be that the players would have to all be members of the same secret society, or at least secret societies that aren't at each others' throats constantly. But there absolutely is an "outside world" in the game, and as for the computer having a fatal flaw, it is ultimately accepting of some kind of influence from the High Programmers. So someone who can become a High Programmer, or influence one, has a shot at doing some damage to the Computer's control over Alpha Complex's society.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 00:47

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Did a later edition change the play style name from Straight to Serious?

# ? Jul 6, 2023 00:49

Ominous Jazz: Jun 15, 2011; Big D is chillin' over here
Wasteland style

Arivia posted:

Did a later edition change the play style name from Straight to Serious?

i didn't remember what it was called and i didn't google it

# ? Jul 6, 2023 00:56

ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

PurpleXVI posted:

I mean, the players can at least try to better their own lot in Alpha Complex and improve their own positions, if nothing else, or advance the goals of their secret organization. I think the biggest requirement for a Serious game to not end up in unhappy backstabbing, would be that the players would have to all be members of the same secret society, or at least secret societies that aren't at each others' throats constantly. But there absolutely is an "outside world" in the game, and as for the computer having a fatal flaw, it is ultimately accepting of some kind of influence from the High Programmers. So someone who can become a High Programmer, or influence one, has a shot at doing some damage to the Computer's control over Alpha Complex's society.

I guess taking out the PvP can make serious work, but I�m not sure it�s really Paranoia. I guess it can work.

The outside world is a hypothetical left up to the GM. One of the options is alpha complex is a space station that got clobbered and is now blasting off in some direction unknown. The high programmers want to make sure everyone knows they are in the best place possible so they never really ask questions.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 01:07

Ominous Jazz: Jun 15, 2011; Big D is chillin' over here
Wasteland style

listen, we've all played the I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream point and click adventure just set it there we'll see what happens

# ? Jul 6, 2023 01:08

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

I�ve always assumed that outside of Alpha Complex everything was perfectly normal. No apocalypse, nothing.

If you ever find the exit it�s just somewhere on the outskirts of Banff. You can celebrate however they do that there. I think it involves curling.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 01:41

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Xiahou Dun posted:

I�ve always assumed that outside of Alpha Complex everything was perfectly normal. No apocalypse, nothing.

If you ever find the exit it�s just somewhere on the outskirts of Banff. You can celebrate however they do that there. I think it involves curling.

I think they openly say as much if you go Outdoors. It's just, like, plants and rivers and some furry animals. It's ambiguous whether they're mutant squirrels with three nutsacks or just, like, squirrels. Maybe slightly larger due to a lack of human predation, other than Sierra Club agents.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 02:02

Capfalcon: Apr 6, 2012; No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Ominous Jazz posted:

Has anybody ever played Paranoia on its Serious setting? I always think it'd be fun to do but every time someone wants to play paranoia it's IMMEDIATELY just tee hee friend computer times

The Fight Together or Die a Clone AP podcast is straight-ish. People get promotions and money is really important.

But they also go on vacation to the MMO sector, so, you know, a complex of contrasts.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 02:05

PurpleXVI: Oct 30, 2011; Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Nessus posted:

I think they openly say as much if you go Outdoors. It's just, like, plants and rivers and some furry animals. It's ambiguous whether they're mutant squirrels with three nutsacks or just, like, squirrels. Maybe slightly larger due to a lack of human predation, other than Sierra Club agents.

In XP's supplement for the Outdoors:

quote:

The default PARANOIA interpretation of Outdoors � and the one we will stick with for most of this book � is that the terrain outside of Alpha Complex is a verdant wilderness, dotted with Old Reckoning ruins and inhabited mainly by furry woodland critters, Giant Mutant Cockroaches and a handful of Alpha Complex escapees or the equally crazy descendents of people who survived the Event. Alpha Complex is a big, partially submerged dome ruled by The Computer, which started out as the San Francisco public transportation management system. If someone goes Outdoors, they find themselves in a muddy field or wooded area.

But also suggests, as one of several alternatives:

quote:

Alpha Complex is a spaceship, travelling across the incredible gulf between the stars for uncounted generations and �Outdoors� is hard vacuum. The Armed Forces don�t go Outdoors except in the rarest of circumstances � they patrol cavernous empty fuel tanks and vast hydroponics bays. The myth of Outdoors is propagated because when people discover that they�re stuck inside a tiny metal bubble in the middle of interstellar space, they go nuts.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 02:15

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

No I mean fine like you can bump into people on their way to work.

The PCs are now in Banff, Alberta, Canada on October 6th, 2009. It�s a Tuesday and Stephen Harper is Prime Minister.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 02:48

Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Xiahou Dun posted:

No I mean fine like you can bump into people on their way to work.

The PCs are now in Banff, Alberta, Canada on October 6th, 2009. It�s a Tuesday and Stephen Harper is Prime Minister.

I thought we weren't doing dystopia.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 02:50

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

I thought we weren't doing dystopia.

You never realize how lovely history is until you try to pick a date in it that was �fine�.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 03:18

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Xiahou Dun posted:

You never realize how lovely history is until you try to pick a date in it that was �fine�.

When I was 12, things were fine and pop media was at its zenith

# ? Jul 6, 2023 03:22

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# ? May 24, 2024 21:45

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Absurd Alhazred posted:

I thought we weren't doing dystopia.

# ? Jul 6, 2023 03:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

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