[Paranoia] GNS and actual play (split)

[Bill O'Dea]

Actual play, huh? You got it.

I was the GM for an online Paranoia game with 5 other players, only a few of which I knew beforehand. One of the new guys was a bit ... odd ... and kept doing really annoying things with his character, e.g. try to kill the NPC hero for no reason, argue with me over why he failed a die roll, etc. In other words, if he wasn't power gaming, he was trying to get attention by ruining the game. (I'm sure all of us have encountered this type of player at one point in our gaming experience.) Most of his hijinx weren't against the rules, but they sure disrupted the game for everyone else.

Normally, the only thing you can do is physically remove the player and wait for them to grow up. But in Paranoia, the rules take a back seat to having a good time. As GM, I am always right. So when he tried to kill the NPC hero ... his gun malfunctioned. When he argued over a die roll ... the police came by and hauled his character away. Eventually, he got the message and began to play nice. We ended up having a great game, but only because the rules gave me such freedom.

While I'm no GNS expert--I'm hardly even a GNS newbie--I think this brings Paranoia closer to the Narrativist side of things. The concentration is on a fun experience rather than obeying the rules. Heck, I've GMed Paranoia in the past without any dice, cards, or anything; I based all decisions on what would be fun. But there's also a Gamist component, as players compete against each other. Unlike many other games, Paranoia encourages--no, it demands--players backstab each other. (For those not familiar with the game, don't worry. Each character has six clones, so you can die five times and still play.)

I'm not sure I agree with Ron that Paranoia is "... playing about playing." The satire in Paranoia isn't about games; it's about humanity, bureaucracy, government, religion, etc. Paranoia does, however, break the 'fourth wall' all the time. It wants the players to feel fear and paranoia, not just the characters. It also doesn't take itself seriously. It recognizes that it's a game, games should be fun, ergo it should be fun. Anything that makes it not fun should be ignored, taken away, etc.

I think it's this quality that makes it difficult to fit into GNS theory. In my opinion, lots of other games concentrate on themselves: the rules have to be airtight, the players and GM have to work together, the setting must have internal consistency, and so on. I'm not knocking that! And I realize that 'fun' is a relative concept and some folks find complex simulationist rules to be most fun. But those rules focus on simulation as the method of having fun. Gamist rules use competition as their method, and narrativist rules use drama and story as their method. Paranoia doesn't use any of those as its method; it focuses on the people playing the game--players and GM--as the method.

Wow, that's deeper than I wanted to get on one cup of coffee. Thanks for the soapbox!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Yay! I was hoping for a post like this.

I split it from the First Thoughts thread [Paranoia] GNS and short attention spans because it really deserves its own Actual Play status.

I'll post a reply in a bit, but anyone who's interested, hop on in. Yay! Paranoia!

Best, Ron

[Calithena]

Hi Bill,

Gamism and Narrativism have more to do with the people playing the game than 'rules' or 'drama', FWIW.

I think the scope of Gamism in serious RPG play is often under-realized. One example from a lot of traditional games - the 'political adventure' that shows up in D&D, Vampire, Ars Magica, Warhammer, lots of places - seems like it must be 'Simulationism' or 'Narrativism', because after all 'hardly any dice are thrown', and there's heavy roleplaying and serious character identification going on all over the place.

Now, of course those adventures can be any GNS mode - we're talking about content here and the same content can be produced by, and satisfy, any Creative Agenda. But I've noticed that a lot of immersive roleplayers who like political adventures have a group dynamic that's very much Gamist in character, even if they might not acknowledge this, because they associate Gamism with rolling dice, fighting monsters, getting treasure. But actually what's going on there (again, in some groups) is a largely free-form, systemless competition to manipulate NPCs, events, the GM, the situation, the gameworld in some neat and interesting way, relying mostly on imaginative interchange alone, with the combat system sitting as a vague threat in the background and a brake on certain kinds of direction for action. And often the rewards from this are the satisfied 'aha, we got away with THAT!' or 'that's so cool, we got our guy to be KING!' type thing that, properly understood, are very much gamist-type rewards. IMO.

Now, to bring this back to Paranoia. In Paranoia you've got heavily lethal combat, lots of players turning on each other, plots within plots with the secret societies, multiple clones to support keeping this whole thing up for longer, revenge and double-cross. To my mind Paranoia is in this light very much a Gamist-facilitating design, and one of the relatively few (especially with trad RPG mechanics) to get 'Turnin'' (player vs. player competition) into play squarely and effectively. That's how our group played it, anyway, and we had a blast.

Could you use Paranoia for Simulationist or Narrativist ends? Sure, though I would argue that the humor elements and extreme character fragility combined with endlessly iterable clones make this sort of more difficult, and thus make the game less suited for these.

[memolith]

I'm an avid fan of Paranoia (XP). I devoured it obsessively for a solid year and a half, and ran it for a large group of players, weekly for about 5 months, which culminated in a fantastic three-session finale of "Hunger". Here are my thoughts about it:

Paranoia breaks the Great Impossible Thing. There is no "The GM creates the world, but the players drive the story" sentence in the book. It's all about force.  It makes no attempt to fix the G.I.T.; Paranoia doesn't pretend to be other than what it is, which is a lesson in GM coercive tactics. Normally this would be a terrible thing, but since everyone knows it, everyone loves it.

The GM creates the mission, and uses all of the coercive tactics at his disposal to force the players into it. To this end, he has The Computer, IntSec, the Armed Forces, extensive security systems, and the advantage of knowledge...since the players aren't allowed to know the rules. It's arbitrary, in most cases.

Likewise, the GM works to foil the players' attempts to succeed at the mission. He throws obstacles in their paths, including pointless bureaucracy and armed resistance, but most importantly, through carefully crafted webs of hatred and rumors that he spreads amongst the players, to make them hate each other.

Thus, you have an intentionally dysfunctional system, and everyone knows it and works within that framework. The system enforces the very spirit of Alpha Complex, and the deranged mind of Friend Computer.

I would place it in the Sim camp for the reason that the game attempts to put people in the schizoid mindset of the setting, but it also has a competitive element (the reward system doesn't really matter, but drives play nonetheless). I don't think it was designed with any intentional GNS goal in mind.

In response to your concerns about disruptive players:
You need to explicitly define which mode you're playing in: Zap, Classic, or Straight. It's extremely important to specify this beforehand, as it establishes the social contract before the game begins. Otherwise, you've still got GNS issues, they've just called ZCS issues in Paranoia.

[Bill O'Dea]

Paranoia doesn't pretend to be other than what it is, which is a lesson in GM coercive tactics. ... The GM creates the mission, and uses all of the coercive tactics at his disposal to force the players into it.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you somewhat. The point of giving the GM such control is to craft an experience for the players, not just a 'lesson in coercive tactics.' The GM has the responsibility for making sure players are enjoying the game moreso in Paranoia than other rpgs I've read, because Paranoia characters have so little control over the game world. The game also wants players, not their characters, to enjoy fear and paranoia much the same as a horror movie controls what the view sees to induce enjoyable fear. As a GM, I have never worked harder than running a Paranoia game.

This is why I think Gamist doesn't quite apply. The competition and 'Step On Up'  qualities are definately there, but it seems to me that both are dependent upon consistent rules creating a level playing field. Otherwise you run into favoritism, unfair play, etc. Yet Paranoia embraces those problems and makes it part of the experience. I think Narrativist can have competative elements, but the focus is more on the story and plot. Paranoia doesn't worry about plot per se, but it does worry about story--players are practically railroaded through a mission's story.

In response to your concerns about disruptive players: You need to explicitly define which mode you're playing in: Zap, Classic, or Straight. It's extremely important to specify this beforehand, as it establishes the social contract before the game begins. Otherwise, you've still got GNS issues, they've just called ZCS issues in Paranoia.

Back then, I had specified beforehand that the game would be Classic. But what's a ZCS issue? I've never heard of that.

[Ricky Donato]

Hi, Bill,

I don't anything about Paranoia but I wanted to comment on one statement in particular you made.

This is why I think Gamist doesn't quite apply. The competition and 'Step On Up' qualities are definately there, but it seems to me that both are dependent upon consistent rules creating a level playing field.

Gamism does not require a level playing field. A player can agree to an unlevel playing field intentionally, to change the nature of the challenge. For example, a very skilled player can intentionally handicap himself against a weak player. Similarly, a system that provides an uneven playing field can still support Gamism very well. (D&D3e comes to mind.)

[Rob MacDougall]

I'm not sure I agree with Ron that Paranoia is "... playing about playing." The satire in Paranoia isn't about games; it's about humanity, bureaucracy, government, religion, etc.

Bill: I think you may be right that not that many people play Paranoia as a metagame ANYMORE (playing about playing), but I think historically, there's a lot of truth to Ron's idea that Paranoia was conceived in part as a satire of other games and game behaviors. I said something about this in a longer post about Paranoia at the 20x20 Room from way back before XP came out:

So I hinted a few months ago that Paranoia was a meta-game, that is, a game about gaming. Here's my evidence. Listen to the second paragraph of those designer's notes from the original 1984 edition of Paranoia. Gelber writes:

In my fantasy role-playing campaign, I had seen the more forceful player characters repeatedly bully the weaker ones, become powerful, become complacent, and then turn on the game master. The world of Paranoia makes the dangers of passivity so apallingly clear that even the milquetoasts among the player characters become able to resist the Machiavellian play style of a Mike Rocamora or an Eric Goldberg. Best of all, Mike and Eric transferred the aggressive responses of their characters from the gamemaster to one another.

Get it? As a satire of modern society, Paranoia was kind of scattered. Where it worked, though, was as a cheerfully vicious satire of gaming circa 1984. The Computer, you see, is the Dungeon Master. It's all powerful yet painfully ignorant, capricious and death-dealing, caught up in baroque schemes and paranoid fantasies. The troubleshooters are every player. They're trigger-happy, violence-prone, vicious, backstabbing little punks. They're skinny and juvenile too, trapped by hormone suppressants in perpetual spotty adolescence. And all of this takes place underground, see, where the troubleshooters stumble around at the Computer's behest, squabbling and slaughtering one another on ill-defined missions for no particular reason. It's D&D! It's a series of 20' by 20' rooms! They're even marked with color-coded "levels." [Read the rest]

And to keep this tied to actual play, here's a little more anecdotal evidence from my own gaming history: I know my Paranoia games from back in the 1980s played on this dynamic, even when we couldn't articulate it. You probably recall the adventure Clones in Space, in which the PCs extra clones come along with them on the spacecraft as NPCs, and the GM is encouraged to play the extra NPC clones as really annoying versions of the PCs. Well, but those Paranoia characters were just freshly rolled up, so how were we to know what a really annoying version of each character would be? Easy: we played the extra NPC clones as really annoying versions of each player's primary D&D character! I also think the way bits and pieces of Paranoia-speak ("I'm sorry Citizen, that information is not available at this time.") got riffed on and folded back into our other games speaks to the fact that even as kids, we "got" that Paranoia was in part a goof on the way we played other games.

As far as GNS or the Big Model go, I'm no expert, but my gut instinct is that Paranoia is incoherent, GNS wise, yet that that doesn't matter much to its fans, given the game's other charms. I think groups that play it repeatedly and successfully probably fall into one of two patterns similar to groups that play a lot of successful Call of Cthulhu: they are either enjoying a kind of Sim celebration of setting-style-source material or a hard gunning desparate player vs player Gamism.

best,
Rob MacD

[Silmenume]

Hi Bill,

First I wanted to say that I am delighted that you found a way to solve the problem with the one player that worked such that he was able to functionally play in your group.  Good on ya for creating a solution that worked and allowed the game to become fun again!

Regarding said difficulty regarding what GNS "category" your game falls into I have two major observations.  The first is your game now seems to be functioning very well with all the players so there is no "need" to worry about what GNS category your game is.  IOW all is right in the world so there is no pressing need to diagnose the CA's so that may be addressed and corrected as an issue.  Whew!  It appears you don't have anything to worry about there.

Second, that you do have an interest in diagnosing the CA of your group I would like to offer you some thoughts to consider.  There is no such thing as "Complex simulationist rules."  There can be complex rules sets (sometimes referred to as mechanics if I recall correctly), but that is not Sim "tell."  In fact I think such complex rules sets not only interfere with Sim play they are the equivalent of Theme in Nar play.  IOW they are the end product of play.  Having large complex rules systems doesn't give the players anywhere to go as they are already near or are at the end of the process.

These are all Sim tells when they are given primary importance to the play process –

• "The concentration is on a fun experience rather than obeying rules."
• "I've GMed Paranoia in the past without dice, cards, or anything; I based all decisions on what would be fun.
• "It recognizes that it's a game, games should be fun, ergo it should be fun.  Anything that makes it not fun should be ignored, taken away, etc."
• Finally – That "[t]he game also wants the players, not their characters, to enjoy fear and paranoia..." - is a profound Sim tell.  IOW if the GM is pulling out all the stops, such as keeping "rules" hidden from the players so that they must infer them from the SIS is a dead on 10 ring Sim "tell."

That the game has elements such as "humanity, bureaucracy, government, religion, etc., does not preclude such play from being Sim.  In fact, if one is "Simming" and that which is being "Simmed" is a dystopic human world then all those qualities and institutions must be present in play.  If they were not present in important ways, how could one effectively create the visceral feelings of paranoia in the players you seeking to facilitate.

Glad to hear that your game is working out for you!  Sounds fun!

[NN]

Paranoia is Gamist: the setting is a gamist challenge-factory, not something to be dreamed in,

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Sadly, this discussion is suffering from a disease which is most often observed in D&D threads.

The disease is the tendency for person A to tell every other person, out there in the universe, what Paranoia is. For everyone. At times. As inherent in the game. As obvious to anyone with a brain. As with D&D, and for similar reasons (although with a twist), Paranoia tends to establish a sense of ownership in people who play. They will not tolerate others' ownership. They will state the terms of their ownership ("Paranoia is ...") in certain terms.

This disease needs to be rooted out and sprayed with disinfectant, and killed dead if this thread is to continue. I don't care if you've played the game for twenty years. I don't care if Paranoia was the One True Gaming Experience of your life. I don't care if you own the rights to the game. I don't care if you're Greg Costikyan.

Whoever you are and whatever Paranoia means to you, don't tell other people what Paranoia is, as an essential feature. Especially not as a means of bludgeoning or opposing what they say it is.

And all of this, for your information (everyone), is an abomination in terms of Creative Agenda anyway. You can talk all about the CA that might have been operative during your play of Paranoia. Such talk is welcome and wonderful here, and I was hoping for some. But don't talk about this red book in a red box as if it had a CA. Creative Agenda is a property of play, not books. Once we talk about the play, then we can talk about how the system being used facilitated it, or didn't.

This thread has gone as far wrong as I'm going to let it. I'd like to see it go somewhere good, instead.

Best, Ron

[Calithena]

Bill, I have a question for you, if you're still around:

You mention using GM fiat to 'break' a player in the sense of bringing him into line with group expectations. That's - what it is, but I'm curious a little about those expectations. The arguing about die rolls thing, OK, I understand that - that's enforcing 'we're playing this game' using stuff in the game, a method some might cavil about, but I understand where you're coming from - but what's the problem with shooting the NPC hero?

Were there other moments like that where you felt like the player was interacting with the imaginative content in the 'wrong' way, and used GM fiat as a corrective?

Can you list some more of those? Any general patterns emerge for you?

[Web_Weaver]

There can be no doubt that Paranoia has always been a deliberate pastiche of "geek culture". It has consistently parodied other forms of games, introducing references to D&D, CoC and others. It has taken sideways views of familiar genres, Mirror Shades (cyberpunk), Clones in Space (space opera), Don't Take Your Laser to Town (western).

Essentially it is an esoteric joke for gamers.

If, and only if, the GM is attempting to present the joke to his players and get them to join in with him (which I know is not universal from listening to other peoples Paranoia war stories) then that seems like a simulationist agenda. In that the clear aim is "lets all interact with this cool and funny background and express ourselves through an exploration of the joke".

GNS wise, I have no idea how these agendas are supported or hindered as I have only played it and never cared what the rules said, but it didn't appear to hinder the various GMs overall agenda of having fun with the joke.

I have been told of games where it was taken far more seriously in a campaign setting and everyone attempted to keep the silliness in check. I have been told that the rules support this style well. I have a suspicious feeling that they didn't laugh as much.

It would be interesting to go away and design rules that supported my play experience and then compare them to the actual rules. I suspect they would differ markedly.

---
P.S. is there anyway of getting the Spell Check to recognise our jargon?

[Bill O'Dea]

You mention using GM fiat to 'break' a player in the sense of bringing him into line with group expectations. That's - what it is, but I'm curious a little about those expectations. The arguing about die rolls thing, OK, I understand that - that's enforcing 'we're playing this game' using stuff in the game, a method some might cavil about, but I understand where you're coming from - but what's the problem with shooting the NPC hero?

Were there other moments like that where you felt like the player was interacting with the imaginative content in the 'wrong' way, and used GM fiat as a corrective?

Can you list some more of those? Any general patterns emerge for you?

A while back I was playing Day of Defeat online (a team-based first-person shooter for those not in the know). A couple of players joined my side and promptly started teamkilling constantly while sending "Pwned!!!!!" messages just as constantly. In other words, they took great delight in ruining the experience for other players. They technically weren't breaking the rules--the video game's controls allowed friendly fire--but their agenda could only happen at the expense of other players' agendas. (If I'm using the CA term correctly here. Sorry, but I'm still learning it.)

In my opinion as GM, the player in Paranoia I described above is very similar. Perhaps it was from his lack of understanding of the rules or setting, but he seemed take joy in derailing the story. For example, wanting to shoot an important NPC is not bad--unless the player-character has no motivation for it and the player also lacks motivation. "Why not?" doesn't cut it for me. I can't remember everything he tried, but the general pattern made no sense unless you imagined trying to be annoying for the sake of attention. Haven't we all played a session where you could tell that one guy was only trying to annoy the GM rather than play the game?

Yep, I used GM fiat to break him ... and I'm proud of it. Many Paranoia missions, including the one I used that night, railroad players from one situation to the next. If I let the player break that railroading scheme, the mission would unravel and the game session would devolve into player arguing. I felt it was my responsibility to break that player or have everyone else's experience suffer. I liken it to someone shouting out the plot during a movie. He loses his freedom to enjoy the movie his way when he takes away from everyone else's enjoyment. If everyone present wants to shout during the movie, fine. But that's not what was going on when I GMed my Paranoia game.

[Graham W]

Hi Bill,

Memolith, above, was talking about social contracts, and I think he's on the right track. This guy didn't fit into your game of Paranoia (until you "retrained" him). It's possible he might have fitted into another Paranoia game (one where you shoot everything without a reason), but not yours. Do you think that he enjoyed the game, once he got into the mindset? Or did he just never fit in?

I'm particularly interested that your game was online. Usually, in Paranoia, you'd use lots of social cues when you use GM fiat: you'd say "I'm sorry, you've just been dragged away by policemen" slightly tongue-in-cheek, so they know you're actually saying "I'm blocking you: try something else". Without those, I'd imagine it's harder to communicate the Paranoia "house style".

Graham

[memolith]

Sorry for bumping an old forum.

Ron's comment: Don't talk about the Creative Agenda of the book, because it doesn't exist. Talk about the system, and whether it supports the Creative Agenda of play.

Bill: True, the game isn't only a lesson in GM coercive tactics. It's still about everyone having fun. But the game depends on GM Fiat, and openly supports it. Pg 91, there's a section titled "Maintain triple redundancy of character coercion systems"

How does the system support the Creative Agenda? What happens when players aren't allowed to understand and utilize the system?
Page 33 of the core Paranoia XP book:
Player Rules:
Rule #1: The GM is right!
Rule #2: Avoid knowing the rules. Arguing with the GM is incredibly treasonous.
Rule #3: Entertain everyone.

Page 50:
The Prime Rules for the GM
#1: You are IN CHARGE. You are ALWAYS RIGHT.
#2: The players aren't your enemies. They're your entertainment.
#3: Always turn the players against each other, not against you.

I think these six little rules create the spirit of Paranoia, which I think is a simulation of living under the oppressive glare of a deranged computer, and simultaneously a game about a game; a satire of rpg's.

As a player, you have no reliable tools for introducing new content to the SIS; you can only diverge from the GM's plot when he allows you to; when it is entertaining.

I'm not sure if the rest of the system even matters, since no one is allowed to argue, and the GM is encouraged to basically run it however he wants to run it. After all, no one is going to argue. It's like Super GM Fiat. There's even a type of armor in the system called GM Fiat.