Played: Paranoia

Greetings, citizens! This guest blog is brought to you by your friend The Computer! Comments are mandatory!

For those of you living under the rubble of ROK complex for the past 20 year cycles, Paranoia is a tabletop Rocket Propelled Grenade, or RPG, that takes place in the exciting world of Alpha Complex. Alpha Complex is inhabited by the genetic progeny of the sole survivors of the commie mutant invasion of [DATE CLASSIFIED], who all work together to make Alpha Complex a cleaner, happier, and less treasonous place to survive within! Don't worry, sub-ROK complex citizens, Troubleshooters will be arriving to rescue your DNA soon!

To The Computer's mind, the Paranoia RPG, specifically in its most recent incarnation, has the most brilliant game mechanic this side of Panty Explosion. Other, less fun RPGs give lip service to a Golden Rule: The GM is always right. Yet in practice these less fun RPGs often descend into arcane rules arguments, as both players and the GM battle over the modifiers that affect monk skills while upside down in a black hole. Paranoia bypasses this hurdle entirely, as players are forbidden from knowing the rules. Knowledge of the rules requires Ultraviolet clearance. Players suspected of understanding the rules are subject to punishments that range from character death to worse.

What's worse than a dead clone, citizen?

Players who argue about rules are obviously unhappy. Therefore, their characters are unhappy. The Computer doesn't like it when citizens of Alpha Complex are unhappy. In order to improve their attitude, The Computer might ask a citizen to visit the nearest karaoke booth and perform a song on this week's Top Happy Playlist. Obviously, failure to keep your rock meter out of the red means you're a commie mutant traitor.

And since this is Paranoia, the GM might not give any notice about what songs are on the list, or that this is likely to happen in next Sunday's session, anywhere other than his blog.

This has been The Computer. Thank you, Canned Food and Weakpuns! Remember, comments are mandatory!