Post originally by Zild at 2004-10-05 22:37:20
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I honestly think you are missing out on a treat there, Ezekiel Black. Having read the bulk of the First Edition and all of the Second Edition of the rulebook (and Paranoia XP has been described by some as "even more perfect than the Second Edition"), I think at the very least you'll be missing out on some good humour.

If your only concern is Paranoia being about tactics, you have nothing to worry about - Paranoia has always been intended to have a fast, humorous combat system. The Second Edition did include rules for hit locations, movement rates and the like, but the book recommended that none of these ever be used. The aim is to keep combat fast and humorous when it occurs, and it succeeds in this.

Perhaps more importantly, combat shouldn't be occuring all that often. In your classic (original) or straight games, a 6-clone family should last most or all of the way through a whole campaign - the way to keep them alive there is not to use highly-tactical combat, but to role-play your character well, including subtle use of treason.

True, the Zap style is more combat-based, but it's still not tactical. At most, I'd say it was on a par with tic-tac-toe / noughts and crosses in terms of tactics.

My understanding is that Zap games are designed to last a single session, so the true flavour of Paranoia cannot be witnessed from a Zap game. However, the online community over at www.paranoia-live.net has recently seen a large growth in membership, so I think you'll find a large number of GMs there (including new GMs) are running more single-session Zap games that Classic or Straight to allow the newcomers a chance to at least experience some Paranoia, if not Paranoia at its full potential. In typical Classic or Straight games, executing another clone is treason, unless the player can provide very good reason for doing so - this rule is simply watered down (heavily) in Zap games.

Regarding the fact that some Paranoia fans see it as a tactical game, I think there must have been a misunderstanding, or a freak occurrence. Paranoia is intended to be different, but it is not intended to be tactical.

As for the comments about there being no story, I would like to stress how wrong this is in "typical" Paranoia games. Again, I think this may have been something that people have picked up on as a result of the heavy lean towards Zap games right now. (I think this might be true offline as well as online, as many GMs try Paranoia for a one-off session to see if their players like it.) The Classic and Straight styles do have locations, characters and plots that are sufficiently detailed, often with much more detail than the players ever find out. Just take a look at some of the supplements from the earlier days, and you will see the amount of detail that they go into. The thing is that most players do not find out this information - one of the key Paranoia concepts is to keep the players in the dark.

Finally, as for the questions about do the players actually play the roles of the characters, I would have to say that they do in any version of the game. For example, players will often charge vastly superior foes, clearly comething most of us would not do in real life. There are two main reasons for players to do this - charging foolishly and entertaining the other players is within the spirit of the game (and thus is rewarded by more-favourable dice-rolls by the GM), whilst staying in cover might well be considered treason... So charging into a vastly superior force sounds stupid, right? Why would the characters do this? Simply put: drugs. The typical clone in Alpha Complex is severely intoxicated with a wide variety of drugs, with results including hyperactivity, extreme happiness and reduced fear... Make sense now? Furthermore, with every player a member of a Secret Society and a Service Group, and with individual mutations, there are a number of sources effecting how a character acts and thinks. Good players role-play these aspects. Add to that things like "tics" and even rules for playing as robots, there is a lot of material to inspire players to role-play well. I don't think you can blame the rulebook if the players don't role-play well.

Ezekiel Black, I understand you not wanting to buy a book if you think it will not be to your liking, but it sounds to me as though you should at least put further consideration into it. If you can find a store near you where it hasn't sold out, might I suggest you leaf through it, at least?