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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.

Saturday, January 02, 2010

PARANOIA: 2009 in review 

The Computer's loyal servants in Housing Preservation & Development and Mind Control report greatly increased happiness metrics associated with Year 214 across all polled sectors. Congratulations to all sector entities that achieved performance review ratings of Acceptable or higher, and best wishes to the successors of those that didn't. Following recommendations by the HPD&MC Committee for Applied Social Tranquility Resource Allocation and Technical Optimization (CASTRATO), The Computer has instructed all service groups to repeat Year 214 until further notice.

The first edition of PARANOIA, from West End Games, debuted at Gen Con in August 1984. In 2009 Mongoose Publishing marked PARANOIA's 25th year in high style with two new anniversary rulebooks: Troubleshooter, for RED-Clearance missions (a "point-one" revision of the 2004 edition), and Internal Security, for BLUE-Clearance missions. For each of these rules sets, Mongoose issued a companion mission collection: Treason in Word and Deed for Troubleshooter, and Termination Quota Exceeded for Internal Security. Soon the new year will bring another Troubleshooter mission collection, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Termination Booth, and -- ta dahh! -- the third and final anniversary rulebook, High Programmers (for ULTRAVIOLET-Clearance missions). The companion High Programmers mission collection, None of This is My Fault, will include a partial adaptation of Sam Shirley's 1987 West End PARANOIA adventure, The Iceman Returneth.

These fine books were all written by one gifted designer -- Mongoose's ever-industrious staff writer Gareth Hanrahan. Gareth also wrote Citizen's Guide to Surviving Alpha Complex, published this past spring for Free RPG Day. All told, in 2009 Gareth wrote or adapted over 700 pages of PARANOIA -- around 400,000 words! He also found time to write Aslan and Scoundrel for Traveller and an ongoing webcomic, Fish for Fish. We are fortunate Gareth has chosen to use his powers in the cause of good.

At this writing PARANOIA ranks #14 of 1,422 core rules systems in the RPG.net Gaming Index, and #18 overall of 13,550 products. Among RPGs originally published in the 1980s, only King Arthur Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu, Talislanta, and Warhammer Fantasy rank higher, with Fantasy Hero close behind. Fine company!

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Posted by: Allen Varney / 1:03 AM

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