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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.

Friday, January 23, 2009

TVTropes.org 

Ever since I discovered the TVTropes.org wiki a week ago, I've pushed it on everyone who might plausibly be interested. Now I've found an excuse to push it on you: the TVTropes.org PARANOIA entry.

In itself, the entry won't tell you anything new about PARANOIA -- though it's better-written than the dull and diffuse PARANOIA Wikipedia entry. But start clicking the links and soon you'll be running madly through the vast and comprehensive thematic catalog of (as they define "tropes") "devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations."

Nerdcore in the best sense, TVTropes covers not just television but also film, novels, computer games, and (obviously) tabletop RPGs, often with insight and humor. From PARANOIA, consider going to (for instance) Failure is the Only Option, and then through Genre Blindness, Hanlon's Razor, Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act, Contrived Stupidity Tropes...

Start from a familiar character -- say, Iron Man -- and before long you're loading up on useful terms like Crimefighting With Cash, Reed Richards is Useless, Cut Lex Luthor a Check, Black Best Friend, Race Tropes, and now you see why this thing has engulfed my thoughts.

Enough. I'm passing you the Idiot Ball. It's your problem now!
Posted by: Allen Varney / 6:04 PM

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