Reading Paranoia XP: The Mutant Experience

Another old RPG book review. You know what to do: read it if you like, or skip it if you don’t. 

This time, I’m looking at The Mutant Experience supplement for Paranoia XP edition. 

The XP edition of Paranoia is an incredibly rich system, especially if you have all of the supplements. What was, in 2nd edition, basically a comedy RPG got expanded into a full-fledged… well, it was still a comedy RPG in the XP edition, but it was also endowed with a fully-developed setting and tons of options for the GM to include, toss out, or choose between. 

This, of course, means that that at least some of the books are going to see either more or less use by any particular GM, mainly depending on how much she or he wishes to spice up the ol’ Alpha Complex.  

R. Eric Reuss’s The Mutant Experience—a supplement for Paranoia XP—is a good example of this. On the one hand, it’s mostly just a more in-depth look at the mutations outlined in the core rulebook, with expanded explanations of each power, plus some more new mutation thrown in. Which kind of makes the book sound less than useful, right? 

But the “mutations” section, which takes up most of the book, includes a long list of mutations, categorized both by whether they’re Metabolic or Psionic, and to which kind of playstyle they’re best suited. (Am I the only one who suspects there’s a gag in that? In a lot of RPGs with mutations, the dichotomy is Mental and Physical; Metabolic and Psionic reverses the meaning of M and P. A tiny detail, I know, but it stuck out to me.) 

That mutations section also includes, for each individual mutation, suggestions for variations and limitations, misfires, and overkills. This pretty much expands the number of mutations available in-game (without the GM needing to invent new ones) to three or four times the original number, if you consider the variations and limitations as unique instances of mutations, and it also gives you some hints and ideas for busting out unexpected effects during play (if you can remember or get a feel from the “misfires/overkills” material). 

While the descriptions of the assorted mutations available take up most of the book, there’s more to it: there are tables for assigning mutations by playstyle (Zap, Classic, and Straight), tables for rolling up mutations regardless of playstyle, and tips for alternate uses of mutations in character creation, plus GMing tips such as how to particularize the implications of mutations and mutant registration in Alpha Complex, suggested mission ideas and situations, thoughts on the in-games uses of mutations in play—how to use them to increase fear, paranoia, chaos, and more—and even a couple of forms (including a Mutant Registration Form, of course) at the end of the book. 

I think the book would be likelier to see use by a veteran GM playing with veteran players, of course—someone running a long-running series of Paranoia games. If you’re a novice running Paranoia XP, you’ll probably read it, get a few ideas, and set it aside for a while—maybe a good long while—but even then, it will be useful for you in terms of internalizing the core principle of Paranoia: that the only reason you give players any amount of rope is to see what way they devise of hanging their characters with it. 

From what I’ve looked through so far, the supplements for Paranoia XP seem to fall into two categories: expanded setting & character options, and adventures. My observation above—that The Mutant Experience is probably most useful to a veteran Paranoia GM running  for veteran players—seems to be true in general for a lot of the “setting” and “character options” type supplements, for what it’s worth. Being that it’s a character options book, it’s not absolutely essential (because everything you need is in the core rules), but has some good stuff in it of variable usefulness depending on how much (or how often) you play the game, and how much depth you want to go into in particularizing your version of Alpha Complex.

For those who’re running occasional one-shots, I suspect the core book and adventures are likelier to see more use; the character/setting books seem to be mostly useful for those looking to change things up for a group of experienced Paranoia players, or looking for more depth and ideas because while they’re new to it, they are running the game often or in a longer series of (presumably semi-connected) sessions.

That said, like certain other RPGs I’ve reviewed, I think the Paranoia books have been widely enjoyed by gamers who’ve never actually played Paranoia: