Talk:Paranoia (role-playing game)

message: So what happend to paranoia?  I was under the impression that when W.E.G. claimed 'chapter 11', W.E.G. sold some of their copyrights off. I heard a roumer that Wizards of the Coast now holds the rights and is making/has made a D20 system version of paranoia (game).
From Greg Costikyan's personal site, costik.com: "Eric and I finally got the rights back from the now-defunct publishers. Skotos is currently working on a text-MUD version, and we may find someone to bring the game back into print soonish." 64.231.165.143 08:41, 6 Oct 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Possible fodder for an external link? Paranoia XP Design Blog DanaJohnson 02:57, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: General

message: I feel that some mention should be made of ParanoiaXP's rather humorous in-character bout of "Product Denial" when it comes to some of the... less enjoyable modules made in the past, including the disasterous 5th edition.  I'd do it myself, but I'm worried that I wouldn't be able to keep the academic voice in this case, since I'm a huge fan of the game and find it difficult to NOT use the in-character voice when discussing the game.  Fieari 21:24, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The (non-existant) 5th Edition 

message: Ummm. . . .
:* 1st edition (ISBN 1869893) - written by Greg Costikyan, Dan Gelber, and Eric Goldberg - published in 1986 by West End Games.  In 1985, this edition of Paranoia won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Rules of 1984.
Anville 20:21, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nonlinear time 

message: Commie mutant traitors have uploaded pictures to your friend, the wikipedia, without copyright classification. Copyvio is treason! Andjam 04:44, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyvio is treason 

message: The main blurb states that "Ironically, Alpha Complex is, itself, a communist state, inhabited solely by mutant secret society members". Back in the old days I played some highly enjoyable sessions of Paranoia, enough to remember that much of the fun is derived from the fact that everything is self-contradictory, and that the Computer often "fights" against itself. However, I don't remember the Alpha Complex being communist. Does the rulebook even state this? It is a completely invasive totalitarian state, but that is not the same. In fact, wasn't the Computer built during the cold war in order to fight Communism? To suggest that the Alpha Complex is communist is Treason, Citizen!
(I've modified the original line accordingly; if someone can support the original claim with a link to the rules, I'll have no problem restoring it) 157.92.4.2 20:34, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was referenced in the Paranoia XP rulebook. The original Alpha Complex wasn't communist but it certainly was highly planned and ordered, people had their possessions largely provided by the state and there wasn't much use for money. --Kizor 13:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

text: As they say, people often become what they most fear. It's a few years since I played 'Paranoia', but could certainly agree that Alpha Complex had become a communist state in an attempt to protect itself from communism: though I couldn't find a definitive quote to that effect. Mark Grant 13:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Methinks if it's blindingly obvious enough, you might not need a definitive quote. On the other hand, to quote Arthur C. Clarke, it sometimes takes a genius to see the blindingly obvious ... --Yar Kramer 15:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alpha Complex a communist state? 

message: The society descriptions are a marvellous read and - here's the thing - due to the nature of Paranoia, work far better as descriptions than bland, serious ones would. Whoo. --Kizor 16:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it really notable enough for its own article? To me, it seems like trivia, and if we look at formal criteria, I'm not sure if it satisfies the "multiple independent sources" criterion (all the sources seem to come from the publisher of Paranoia). If it gets in too much detail, the other alternative is to abbreviate the section. I would support split if there existed for example "rpg-philosophical" works that discussed how the secred society system adds to the role-playing experience.Punainen Nörtti 06:49, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tone of "Secret societies" section 

message: Curious as to why the representative picture in the infobox is from the 2nd edition cover rather than the most recent version. TheBrigand 09:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox graphic 

message: I've refined this list slightly - previously it was a list of fifteen or so Paranoia books from all editions of the game ending with "...and many more". Now it's sorted by edition and (I think) includes all published books.
A previous editor put in full book citation entries for a couple of the books, which I've left untouched... Not sure if such extra detail should go here or on a seperate page - Paranoia RPG Publications, or The Paranoia Timeline or something. For the same reason, I've refrained from attempting to put the books in a logical reading/playing order, or subdividing 2nd edition into Classic / Secret Society Wars / Crash / Reboot eras.
Do we need a second page that goes into more detail on the line, what each book is etc? Would that exist alongside wiki pages for each individual book, or replace them?
Dantheman123 14:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The list isn't so long as to justify being on its own page.  Putting a full citation is appropriate (the book acts as its own citation), but if a given book has its own page, the citation becomes redundant (but basically harmless) here (of course the book's own page should have the full citation).  Ultimately I'm not sure it's that important. Nice edits, by the way. — Alan De Smet | Talk 01:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Glad you like 'em. Per the book list, fair enough. I still think a guide to playing/reading order would benefit interested readers, but perhaps this is beyond the remit of an encyclopedia and should be composed elsewhere (and linked to from here). For now I've added a note on Metaplot to the Second edition description, which adds a bit of context to the alphabetical title listing. BTW thanks for tweaking my previous lot of tweaks, I'm fairly new to Wikipedia and I'm not yet up to speed on footnote generation and whatnot :) Dantheman123 12:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Related Publications tweaks 

message: A recent edit to the security clearances section says "even Ultraviolets reprogramming the Computer is treasonous"... I don't think that's true. Can someone who has the rulebook to hand check it out? I thought they were entitled to reprogram the Computer, hence the name "High Programmers".Dantheman123 14:15, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nope, it's absolutely false. "High programmers" = "the Computer trusts them enough to alter its code." —Yar Kramer 17:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thought so. I've removed the offending sentence, and added a note near the beginning of the section which emphasises the role of trust in security clearance.Dantheman123 10:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ultraviolets reprogramming the Computer 

message: Alan, I see you've started standardising the list to include full citations; while I can see the reasons for this - this is an encyclopedia after all - the resultant list is not very readable. Once you've completed the annotations, is there a way of formatting it that improves readability and usability without violating Wikipedia guidelines? Also, can some repeat information (such as the publisher) be stated only once in the list? (Just asking at this stage; I'm not going to randomly format or alter your edits)
I suppose one way of dealing with the info-density of the resulting list would be to have wiki entries for each individual book, those pages having bibliographic info and perhaps a guide to where they fall in the "continuity" of editions. That's a fairly big project, though... Dantheman123 13:36, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I saw that one of the existing entries used the template, so I figured, "What the heck" on the theory that more information is better than less.  As you say, it does harm readability.  I'm hesitant to start new articles these days, my tolerance for notability deletion fights is pretty low these days, but I'm not against it.  Perhaps another solution is to stick the full citation in as a <ref>.  It's a bit weird, but arguably the full listing is a reference showing the books existance? I'll give that a try. — Alan De Smet | Talk 22:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Another possibility is to tabulate the data. Like on this D&D books page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_adventures Then if anyone fancies a crack at creating a new page for a particular Paranoia module, they can. Otherwise they get the bibliographic data, and maybe a one-sentence summary of the book content, laid out in a more retina-soothing fashion. Either way, it's appropriate to have the biblio detail in there *somewhere*, so the layout is something to think about after that's done.Dantheman123 08:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've started doing this on my own inititive, with tables.  Anyone able to fill in holes, please do so!  Those intrested in Paranoia matertial other than the books (i.e. magazine articles) may want to check out http://www.paranoia-live.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5985 EllePollack (talk) 22:21, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  That publications list (again) 

message: Just so you know. One other company made them remove the XP from the game title. So the newest PARANOIA is not PARANOIA XP its just PARANOIA. With caps.. And they removed it a long time ago.. Source: http://www.costik.com/paranoia/  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.142.214.215 (talk) 06:59, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What's te problem?  The edition was called Paranoia XP originally, and the name was changed.  The article notes this.  (That they want the name in ALL CAPS is marketing and irrelevant.) — Alan De Smet | Talk 01:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theres no XP in PARANOIA 

message: Do they exist as separate volumes ? There are traces, but nothing sure... As Sweep of Unhistory/My First Treason does exist as a standalone as well as in ACN2, I'd like to know if Collapsatron or Spin Control exist as standalone volumes.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.225.77.163 (talk) 20:12, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Collapsatron (a proposed Zap! collection which would include the reprint of Orcbusters) was never published; it and "Outdoors Sector" (Clones in Space and The People's Glorious Revolutionary Adventure) became Flashbacks 2 instead. EllePollack (talk) 22:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Collapsatron & Spin Control 

message: Appropriately enough, “Friend computer” is a redirect to here.  But, guess what?  There's no explanation in the article that “Friend Computer” is one of the names by which the ruling AI is known.  Which communist is responsible for this?!? —SlamDiego←T 03:07, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Nothing worth mentioning links to Friend computer, so I don't think it's necessary. — Alan De Smet | Talk 05:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: While Wikipedia articles often do and should provide infrastructure for other Wikipedia articles, that's not their primary purpose.  There are allusions “out there” to “Friend Computer”, and standard accounts of the game often mention the name. —SlamDiego←T 19:55, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  “Friend Computer” 

message: I've done several (relatively minor) things to this article. Most notably, I have moved the old introductory text into the first subsection The Basics and renamed it Overview as a more encyclopaedic title. The old intro was far to long and contained a list of 10 things Paranoia is somewhat similar to. Most of these have been excised as redundant. I have also uploaded a better quality image of the first edition cover, and updated the ISBNs of the core editions to modern 13-digit values, as per wikipedia policy. I have also set the cover image sizes to 150px across the board as the thumbnail tag was producing random sizes, which looked quite odd and unprofessional.
I plan to move all of the references to cites located at the bottom of the page, as in-line cites disrupt the flow of text unnecessarily. I am also planning to move the entire Related publications to a new sub-page, (probably titled Related products as one of the products is a cardgame) as although the info is useful (and I don't want to lose it,) it adds a lot to the article without adding much value for the casual reader. less is generally more in these cases - if anyone reverts or has objections please state your reasoning here, as I don't want to get into an edit-war and discussion is the obvious solution RayBarker (talk) 10:07, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm also strongly thinking about simply deleting the long list of secret societies and their descriptions, as it's simply too specific and irrelevant to anyone who doesn't already play paranoia. We're not meant to be rewriting the rulebooks here, and that level of detail goes beyond what's encyclopedic into copyvio territory. RayBarker (talk) 10:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

text: also I am deleting the "History" section, as it's the in-game history of Alpha Complex (which is something even players and GMs don't need to know) and it is written in an in-universe non-encyclopaedic style - don't think it can be rescued. A section called "History" should concern the history of the game, rather than the history in the game. Accordingly, I will retitle the "Publication" section to "History", which will help to seperate it from the "related publications" section. RayBarker (talk) 16:03, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have left the "other publications" section alone, as I'm not watching Wikipedia closely enough for the inevitable AfD that it would go through. I've also left the "secret societies" subsection alone even though I believe it deserves deletion, because it's well organised - I'm confident some well meaning editor would re-add the information in an inferior fashion. Unfortunately whoever's editing the article from an IP seems to be well-meaning but without regard to redundancy, organisation or comments and with even poorer spelling and grammar than mine. Based on User_talk:212.188.171.250 this seems to be a habit. I shall leave the article alone for now. RayBarker (talk) 19:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  many edits and a rewrite 

message: Just converted all the ISBNs in the article into the modern, 13-digit versions as per policy at Wikipedia:ISBN and modified the layout of the tables accordingly. Left the Games Workshop one as it is, because it's not valid! RayBarker (talk) 03:54, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: ISBNs

message: Curious, really. Is it worth mentioning the inspirations from Paranoia in the game Space Station 13 (SS13)?
The whole Asimov-complex, strict rules (depending on the captain), everyone is paranoid about traitors. I'm not saying the creators of SS13 imported Paranoia into space, but to me, at least, the inspirations are obvious and I do believe SS13 at least deserves a mention in the See Also section.
Your resident Traitor Communist Anonymous  93.166.114.170 (talk) 04:59, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can find a reliable third party source discussing this, it could be added (ideally with an inline citation). However, based on just what you said would consist of WP:OR. Turlo Lomon (talk) 19:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Space Station 13 

message: Excuse. I have confused. What's the meaning authors? and what are correct?
:Wikipedia(current revision)
:*Troubleshooters: (authors)Allen Varney and Gareth Hanrahan
:*InternalSecurity: (authors)Gareth Hanrahan
:Books
:*Troubleshooters
::(Cover)New PARANOIA edition: ALLEN VARNEY
::(Credits)Writer: ALLEN VARNEY
::(Credits)Additional Material: GARETH HANRAHAN, ...
:*InternalSecurity
::(Cover)New PARANOIA edition: ALLEN VARNEY, GARETH HANRAHAN
::(Credits)Writer: GARETH HANRAHAN
::(Credits)Additional Material: ALLEN VARNEY, ... 
--Chiether (talk) 00:50, 24 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Troubleshooters and InternalSecurity Authors are correct? 

message: The article mentions the fact that every player has a mutant power, but gives no explanation or examples.  (Nor does it explain the significance of the fact that most players are unregistered mutants.)  I'd love to flesh this out, but I don't have any of the manuals any more so I couldn't provide any citations.  If somebody who does have access to the sources would put in a small section, explaining how unreliable the powers are and giving a few examples, it would really help readers who've never played the game understand it better.  JDZeff (talk) 23:36, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mutant Powers