Back with another review of an old RPG book. If that interests you, check it out, otherwise feel free to skip it.
This time, I’m looking at the Extreme Paranoia, the supplement for Paranoia XP that opens up higher clearance levels for player characters.
Expanded character options! It’s something every major RPG line has eventually come around to offering, of course, but of course when it comes to Alpha Complex, it’s a little bit inevitable that something had to be written up to cover higher clearance levels. After all, promotion is offered as a reward, explicitly, in the Paranoia XP core rules. That said, the concept of player characters being promoted to higher clearance ratings isn’t new in the XP line: way back in 1986, West End Games published Ken Rolston’s 
Of course, there’s a quiet dignity and decency in that theme song that’s completely out of place in Alpha Complex… but the chaos of the briefing in the first episode of Hill Street Blues does track, and so does the chaos inside the station generally. Mix that with an episode of COPS, and a little slapstick from Keystone Cops, and you get the idea. (Then again, maybe all you need is Hill Street Blues. I mean, a major character protests his captain forbidding him to bite the ankle of a suspect in custody. Plus damn, that soundtrack is funky.)
There’s stuff that’s useful even if you don’t want to have higher-clearance characters, like the new, extra Mandatory Bonus Duties. These are the team member duties that date back to 2nd edition Paranoia at least, and the new additions—including positions like “Public Relations Guy” and “Advertising and Branding Officer”—are more insanity, more opportunities for your players to torture one another in true Alpha Complex fashion. This is followed by a series of short essays by various contributors:
- “The roller coaster”: Allen Varney’s pithy take on life within Alpha Complex’s crazy clearance-levels scheme.
- “Real Estate”: Bill O’Dea’s discussion of the living conditions enjoyed by characters of each clearance level.
- “Happy Fun Job Placement Center”: Steve Gilbert’s piece on the way clearance affects employment in the Complex.
- “EAP Clubs”: Gareth [Ryder-]Hanrahan’s discussion of Elective Activity or Pursuit Clubs. (This is a lightly edited version of the essay that was cut from The Traitor’s Manual, and which was made available on the Mongoose Games website for a while. Here’s a copy of the original version, for those who want to compare.)
All of these are fine, though it’s O’Dea’s and Varney’s contributions that I think provide the most useful material for actual play. I don’t think this book is really mandatory, though, unless you really do mean to have players run characters of different clearance levels. If you’re intending that, then this is of course a goldmine, but I think most groups get by fine just playing Red Clearance Troubleshooters for the duration of their time with Paranoia. Probably it’s best for groups that really love the game, but have played so long that the Red Clearance Troubleshooter formula has become over-familiar to them. In that case, they need new sources of fear and distrust, which this book offers in abundance.
MORE THOUGHTS
Jumping forward, when Mongoose nixed the Paranoia XP line and went on to the 25th Anniversary edition, they simplified back to two higher-clearance rankings: Blue (in the Internal Security rulebook) and Ultraviolet (in the High Programmers rulebook). I haven’t had the opportunity to try the IntSec version (or to read my copy of the book), though I hear it’s a lot like Troubleshooters with changes to accommodate a different range of “play modes” more suited to playing cops in Alpha Complex. High Programmers, on the other hand, is very different from the Red clearance (Troubleshooters) default, which borrows from games like Nobilis and Amber Diceless Role-Playing. It’s great, and I find it amazing how much the original setting is maintained, but at the same time, it feels like a completely different game.(I discussed my very enjoyable experiences with it quite a while ago.)
I haven’t carefully read through the Red Clearance Edition of the game (and don’t have any of the new “Perfect Edition” stuff yet), but I get the sense that it represents a further simplification of Paranoia. The game was at its most complex and filled-in in the XP edition, and it’s been undergoing a process of simplification and paring-down ever since then. For someone interested in the greater setting, that makes XP perhaps the best reading resource, if not necessarily the best play resource (depending on what style and edition you actually want to run the game using). Some GMs, like me, will probably prefer something lighter and more stripped-down; some will be glad of the greater detail and setting complexity in the XP edition. But one of the great things about the XP edition is that it’s a fun read, and a wonderful resource to strip for parts regardless of which edition of Paranoia you actually want to run.