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

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

MSG 

I'm very late in noticing the FREE beta download, through November 25th (today!), of the new satirical science-fiction RPG MSG. Designed by Wood Ingham, with Becky Lowe and Benjamin Baugh, MSG (the abbreviation seems not to stand for anything) casts the players as "Reps" (representatives) of a near-future megacorporation -- or, more accurately, a "Brand." Each player takes a turn playing the Company, outlining a Situation the other Reps struggle to solve.
[The Reps] have to work their way through any number of morally difficult situations. The Company tries to crush the Reps, or gets the Reps to crush other people. The Reps can let the company do this, or they can find ways around it. [...]
[Y]ou can only screw over the Reps directly -- although there may be plenty of indirect screwing-over -- when you are playing the Company. The Company is the faceless body that presents dictates from on high, introduces stupid rules, and makes your Reps' lives miserable.

Perhaps you note a resemblance to another satirical science-fiction RPG. The SF blog io9 comments on the clear ancestry of PARANOIA. That's not entirely to the good, it turns out -- the MSG rulebook's tone is aggressively cheeky and jocular in the manner of late West End PARANOIA. But the layout is attractive and the illustrations quite fine, so check out MSG if you can get the free download before the 25th (today!). Or, if you missed the deadline, the MSG corrected print edition will set you back all of US$3.43.
Posted by: Allen Varney / 1:15 AM

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