Difference between revisions of "How to Run:Paranoia XP"

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(xferred PXP advice from original thread)
 
(How to run Paranoia XP:)
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'''1) Keep your cool.'''<br>
 
'''1) Keep your cool.'''<br>
Paranoia GMing is not about having vast surreal conspiracies competeing in a distopian world from which the PCs can't escape. It's about appearing to have all that stuff. Things can make very little sense to you, as long as, from any of the player's perspectives, the whole thing may one day click, provided they just find that one piece of information. To paraphrase someone or other, "Surrealism is not about having no rules. It's about having rules you don't understand."
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Paranoia GMing is not about having vast surreal conspiracies competing in a dystopian world from which the PCs can't escape. It's about appearing to have all that stuff. Things can make very little sense to you, as long as, from any of the player's perspectives, the whole thing may one day click, provided they just find that one piece of information. To paraphrase someone or other, "Surrealism is not about having no rules. It's about having rules you don't understand."
  
 
'''2.3] Keep a sense of hope'''<br>
 
'''2.3] Keep a sense of hope'''<br>

Revision as of 05:12, 4 November 2006

Another one from the original thread, posted by Stantz--which got multiple commendation points from PXP author Allen Varney.

How to run Paranoia XP:

1) Keep your cool.
Paranoia GMing is not about having vast surreal conspiracies competing in a dystopian world from which the PCs can't escape. It's about appearing to have all that stuff. Things can make very little sense to you, as long as, from any of the player's perspectives, the whole thing may one day click, provided they just find that one piece of information. To paraphrase someone or other, "Surrealism is not about having no rules. It's about having rules you don't understand."

2.3] Keep a sense of hope
Serious. Stop laughing. Part of the fun of Paranoia GMing is screwing with the players' heads. If they ever reach a state of dull fatalism, you've lost. Make it seem like there is some way to win. Make it seem that every time the players don't succeed, it's all their fault. Who cares if this is actually true.

Three: There is no rule three.
There never was.

D> Too much information is better than nothing.
Common rookie mistake is to respond to every question with some variation of "That is above your clearance, Friend Citizen." Fun for a while, but try giving them all the information they could ever want sometime. None of the information that they actually need, but plenty of it. Not only does this help create a world, but when they try and act on the next clue, see rule 2.3.

And above all:
Give the players reason to fear each other.