Post originally by Wart at 2004-09-26 15:36:58
Converted from Phorums BB System

Paranoia, a strategy game? Erm, no.

For a start, most skirmish wargamers would rightly sneer at Paranoia's combat system. It's got nowhere near the lack of detail you need to set up a proper tactical/strategy combat game.

Secondly, in my opinion Paranoia only needs to descend into people shooting at each other at random (cleverly designated as the "Zap" style in XP) if the players and GM don't actually get the joke.

If you look at the 1st edition and 2nd edition rulebooks (which are pretty interchangable except for the system and the sample mission), it's fairly clear the original intent was for players to spend their time not simply shooting each other for treason but (as another player has said) try to avoid being killed for treason.

There are subtle differences. It means that you don't want to be killing people like a loony unless you're pretty damn sure you can get away with it; that means being sure that there aren't cameras watching you from the walls, inside your gun, from the sky (if you happen to be in the Outside), in your pants...

It also means that you are going to have to try and get other PCs killed for treason on occasion, as a purely pre-emptive thing. But you do have to do your groundwork if you don't want to get punished for false accusations of treason or unauthorised executions.

The cleverest thing Allen has done with XP is split the game into the "straight", "classic", and "zap" styles. It really helps in choosing exactly how much pre-accusation groundwork is appropriate for your game. I also like the way the various "straight", "classic" and "zap" features are kept separate from one another. It's like having a mixing desk with loads of sliders: if you want you can quite easily run a game with Zap-style combat, a Straight treason system and Classic mutant powers, for example.