Rebuilding Paranoia OSS Style

hapwned writes "In the latest Escapist issue, Allen Varney explains how he built the latest version of the Paranoia RPG from the ground up in an Open Source fashion. From the article: 'Fans vetted the playtest rules and contributed lots of material, like coders on an open-source software project. It wasn't really open-source; everyone knowingly surrendered their material to PARANOIA's owners, without hope of compensation. (The blog disclaimer read, 'All your rights are belong to us. No bloody Creative Commons here! Bwahahaha!') But - this is the key point - they pitched in anyway, hoping they would benefit by getting an improved game.'"

Re:Paranoia Has Rules?!

[snorklewacker]

The way I learned to play (and eventually the way I GMed) Paranoia was to liberally ignore all of the stats, charts, dice rolls, modifiers, and all of the other "technical" aspects of the game.

That is entirely the way you're supposed to play it. A player challenging the GM on the rules must have read the rules. The rules are classified Ultraviolet. Instant termination. Since this is the player we're talking about, not the character, the GM doesn't have the player terminated immediately, but arranges for rather unfortunate things to happen, like this:

"Okay, you're right, after much laborious argument, I concede your point. I confess, I rigged that roll. I promise to do everything by the book now. By the way, while your character was standing by, internally raging against pondering the unfairness of life, 100 mutants have moved into position and each one has launched a rocket at you. Roll dodge. For each one. I promise not to fudge."