[RPG]: Paranoia XP, reviewed by Dan Davenport (4/5)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13649.phtml

Dan Davenport's Summary:

The classic game of a darkly humorous future returns with a revamped system featuring some fiendishly funny twists.

Go to the full review for more information.

[C.W.Richeson]

Thanks for the great review, Dan!

Oddly, my experiences with mutant powers have also been that players tend to forget about them. Maybe a lot of folk see the risks of using them as being a lot higher than the benefits?

[Spinachcat]

Great review. I am a big fan of Paranoia 1e and I have not seen a need to buy the XP edition, but your review has certainly piqued my interest with the Perversity and Tension mechanics. I like the additional backstab.

Kinda surprised they didn't define the effects of the drugs. The old versions did not really and we generally left it to roleplay...or the machinations of the Happiness Officer.

The Straight play doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the tone of the rules and the game as presented. Possibly a good idea if it was a stand-alone game "Dark Paranoia" where the art / flavor text / examples were all aimed at that style.

Zap-style Paranoia has always been a terrific one-shot game where the award usually goes to the player who lost the most (or fewest) clones.

[Sensei]

Yeah, thanks for the review. I'm glad you did a thorough job because I love 2nd Ed, but my only copy is kinda' crappy. (I got it real cheap of eBay, but it musta' gotten wet or something, because it's a bit smelly, and warped.) I've been thinking of getting a new copy, and if so, I had been wondering about XP, and this review makes me think it would be worthwhile.

So, my question for Paranoia lovers out there is, if you've played both the 2nd Edition, and XP, which one would you recommend I purchase? Stay with 2nd Ed, or change up to XP?

Any opinions would be appreciated.

[Kai Tave]

Any day where there's a new review by Dan Davenport is a good day.

[Allandaros]

Note: I'm a member of the Traitor Recycling Studio (freelancers on the PARANOIA line) who's working on a PARANOIA supplement at the moment, so my perspective on the line is very much the Party Line, as it were. Not that I'm a Communist or anything. No. Loyal Citizen, that's me.

Firstly, I believe that there is some new art for P:XP (though much of it IS recycled). The only one that I know of is the "babies-being-decanted" illustration, which appears mostly similar to the earlier version - but the current one has one of the babies mooning the viewer, which wasn't present in the original.

Originally Posted by C.W.Richeson

Oddly, my experiences with mutant powers have also been that players tend to forget about them. Maybe a lot of folk see the risks of using them as being a lot higher than the benefits?

I'm willing to bet on the second rather than the first. One tends to see it as an ace-in-the-hole which you bring out as a last resort.

Originally Posted by Spinachcat

Great review. I am a big fan of Paranoia 1e and I have not seen a need to buy the XP edition, but your review has certainly piqued my interest with the Perversity and Tension mechanics. I like the additional backstab.

Kinda surprised they didn't define the effects of the drugs. The old versions did not really and we generally left it to roleplay...or the machinations of the Happiness Officer.

The Straight play doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the tone of the rules and the game as presented. Possibly a good idea if it was a stand-alone game "Dark Paranoia" where the art / flavor text / examples were all aimed at that style.

Zap-style Paranoia has always been a terrific one-shot game where the award usually goes to the player who lost the most (or fewest) clones.

I'm surprised you don't feel that the flavor text matched up with Straight. I know the Holloway art doesn't (but who else can illustrate Paranoia but Holloway?), but I felt that the callout texts, especially the stuff from 1984 and Memoirs in a Bathtub, hit Straight on the nose.

Straight play also gets support with stuff in the support line, especially a mission called "Hunger".

Originally Posted by Sensei

Yeah, thanks for the review. I'm glad you did a thorough job because I love 2nd Ed, but my only copy is kinda' crappy. (I got it real cheap of eBay, but it musta' gotten wet or something, because it's a bit smelly, and warped.) I've been thinking of getting a new copy, and if so, I had been wondering about XP, and this review makes me think it would be worthwhile.

So, my question for Paranoia lovers out there is, if you've played both the 2nd Edition, and XP, which one would you recommend I purchase? Stay with 2nd Ed, or change up to XP?

Any opinions would be appreciated.

I haven't played 2nd Edition, but I do have the 2e rulebook, and I've gone through it quite a few times. In my admittedly biased opinion, Paranoia XP takes the best stuff of First and Second Editions, and improves them. There are some things I liked better about Second (such as the overarching Service Groups, rather than the smaller Service Firms of P:XP), but P:XP offers a much cleaner system, kickass GM advice and setting background (far more than was in the 2e rulebook), a hardback binding (which is a minor point for some people, but I know I like my rulesbooks hardbound), and so forth.