<$BlogRSDURL$>

Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Anonymous Traitor 

Well, the Traitor Recycling Studio now has an undercover member. In real life he works for a Catholic school, and when his boss found out he writes for a (gasp!) roleplaying game, she hit the roof and bounced twice. So he's going into stealth mode and trying to separate his real name from PARANOIA, especially in search engines -- though I have to think that particular genie is already long out of the bottle.

You know this unfortunate Traitor as Citizen Biggles on Paranoia-Live.net, and he hosts FriendComputer.net, and he's the principal author of the January PARANOIA supplement Criminal Histories, so it's not like he's got a secret identity or something. I suppose it's still safe just to call him "Bill." But I'd guess I'd better not use his full name too often any more on this blog, and maybe I'll edit some old posts to remove his last name. I'll ask you all to refrain from mentioning his last name in the comments, too. I genuinely wouldn't want bad Google mojo to blight his career. (Unfortunately, it's too late to take his name off the Criminal Histories credits.)

Sheesh, what a totally asinine situation. But it's ironically characteristic of Alpha Complex....

Comments:
This offends me more as a Catholic than it does as a gamer. I am a regional director for the Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games (CAR-PGa), an international research and advocacy group, so let me know if there's anything that I can do; ignoring discrimination does not make it go away.

In service,
M. Alan Thomas II
CAR-PGa Regional Director, US region 2
CrazyDreamer*at*crazydreams.org
 
Much as I disagree with what caused this, I want to help out Biggles however I can. I have removed his name from everywhere on P-Live I could find it.

It makes me sad.
 
For some reason this reminds me of a mobile phone service called "Google on Demand", or as they like to say in their slogan "Ask GOD".
 
Thanks everybody! I am truly appreciative of your help and support. Obviously, I cannot comment further in a public forum. But know this: I will continue to write PARANOIA and work as an educator.

Heck, where do you think I get most of my material? If only we had a supplement planned on Junior Citizens ....
 
Hello All,

I feel like I need to comment on this. I'm a Catholic who is in love with his Church and intends to become a priest.

What I'd like everyone reading this to understand is that the Catholic Church is not, was not, and (most likely) will never be against RPGs in general.

It seems to me that this is a situation where the boss in charge of a Catholic school (principal, perhaps?) has taken matters into her own hands and has not taken the official stance of the Catholic Church on RPGs (which is nonexistant) into account.

Obviously certain RPG supplements are going to be considered immoral (The Book of Erotic Fantasy comes to mind here) and will break the Codes of Conuduct of many Catholic schools because of their potential to be exposed to children.

It seems to me, in the few minutes that I've spent looking over PARANOIA, that the game is just a game and is meant to be fun and not an outlet for lewd or immoral thoughts or activities. If that is the case, then I can say that the boss of the school is blowing things out of proportion.

There may be rules in the school's CoC about ANY materials that are intended for mature/older audiences not being accessible to the students while in school. If that is the case then the boss may just be taking an over-zealous precaution.

Keep in mind that these comments are based upon speculation of the situation and my personal knowledge of the Catholic Church's teachings about RPGs.

I would really appreciate an e-mail with additional information about the situation. I would like to get the word around to some Christian RPG sites but I don't want to jump the gun.

Biggles, I feel for you (a sentence I never thought I would type). I still want to give everyone involved in this situation the benefit of the doubt. If you can e-mail me some more information about the jam you're in, like I said I'll get the word around.

Hey, if you want you can give me your boss's e-mail (though that may be crossing the line and could get you into more trouble) and I'll see if I can't get her side of the story and maybe get her to take it easier on you.

Later.

-Colin Singleton
 
Post a Comment

Copyright © 2004-2013 by Greg Costikyan and Eric Goldberg. All your rights are belong to us. No bloody Creative Commons here! Bwahahaha!
No, seriously. If you make non-commercial use of stuff here, that's fine, but we reserve all commercial rights, and all rights to prepare derivative material on things posted here. In addition, posters of comments must be aware that we reserve the right to use whatever material they post here, and/or derivative works therefrom, in PARANOIA, supplementary products, licensed products, or derivative work, without any compensation whatever, for all time to come and throughout this universe and any alternate universes that may be discovered. At our discretion, and without obligation, we may, if it strikes our fancy, make a good faith effort to credit you for stuff we use, but we can't promise it won't slip our minds, in the hurly-burly of meeting deadlines. (Actually, we intend to do that, but it's possible we'll screw up.) By posting comments, you grant us a non-revocable, perpetual, non-exclusive license to use whatever you post, in whatsoever fashion we deem useful, here or in any other forum, in PARANOIA or in any and all future products, including but not limited to derivative works, and specifically but not exclusively including the microbrewery beer, ale and porter; salty and sugary snack; and tattoo design rights deriving therefrom. Woohoo! Is that enough legalese for you? The Computer is Your Friend.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?