MegaCon Paranoia LARP

I ASSURE YOU WE ARE OPEN

2011-01-28T21:39:00.003-05:00

hey everyone,

just wanted to put up a post to let you all know that paranoia live 2011 will be happening this year at megacon. more info will be up in this space soon.

we've had some troubles with the site since blogger changed some stuff around, so please excuse our mess. we are "under construction," mid-90's juno website stylez.

[insert animated gif of a dude digging a hole here.]

email us if you have any questions!

paranoialarp at gmail dot com

[Insert plug here]

2010-03-26T17:56:00.010-04:00

Note: The rest of the Troubleshooter panel is up on Thursday's post.

Quick time out from Paranoia stuff; I wanted to share a few comedy videos with you all that were written by Alex Kane, former G-D and one of the founding creators of PARANOIA Live!

Alex is up in New York these days, and his current sketch group Gorilla Gorilla* often performs at the UCB Theatre on Maude Night.

Figurative Language Bomb - watch more funny videos

*I am not on the "face-book," so let me know if that link does not work. I have no way of knowing, since it will be a cold day in Sector HEL before I sign up for a "face-book" account.

Good news, everyone!

2010-03-25T02:37:00.004-04:00

Movie sign!

Big thank you to Stephanie Falcon, former PARANOIA Live! G-D, for filming and editing the first of our 2010 panels.

Here are parts one through three of "PARANOIA Live! Troubleshooting 101." The rest of the panel will be added once it is uploaded.

Part One of Six (New Window)
Part Two of Six (New Window)
Part Three of Six (New Window)

--- New! 3/26/10 ---

Part Four of Six (New Window)
Part Five of Six (New Window)
Part Six of Six (New Window)

videos coming soon!

2010-03-23T18:47:00.002-04:00

Hey folks, we're still trying to process everything from the game, but we hope to be posting some videos soon. This week, maybe! In the mean time, here are some pictures from the game to keep you entertained (including a shot of me beside an Ecto-1). I'm also hard at work trying to get the pics arranged and into our picasa page, as well as getting the finishing touches on the article I'll be sending to Mongoose.

Here's a nice shot of G-Ds Joe F. and Jenna holding down the ticket booth.

Pre-game, getting the awesome *new* Service Group backdrops put together.

Here I am, addressing the 'shooters.

Here's a nice panorama-ish set of shots of players.

Alpha News Net High Programmer Cal-U-MET.

At the Reactor Core with HP Kill-U-DED.

Happ-Y-TYM Re-Education Center HP Tilt-U-WHL and an unnamed Internal Security agent.

Finally, as promised.

Hopefully this will temporarily sate you the viewer's hunger for new content while we wait on those videos.

Professor Oddlove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Great Old Ones - 2010

2010-03-19T20:27:00.011-04:00

Greetings NERDS...

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting nearly as good a turn-out as we ended up getting for this game. Last year, we had about 10 participants, and while the game went remarkably well, we were still disappointed that a number of great characters didn't get played. Out of 31 characters this year, we only had one remaining on the table by the time the doors were closed.

The LARP started out quietly and awkwardly, as games of this variety frequently do. All of the players sat at the large square table with their fingers laced before them, scoping out their contacts or frantically thumbing through the contents of their packets.

Within the first twenty minutes of the LARP, words rang out above the bickering that influenced the course of the rest of the game, uttered by our resident insane corn lobbyist, Olaf Reddenbacher.

"CORN IS NOT A WEAPON!"

Despite the childish, tittering laughter erupting from the GM table every time the lobbyist exclaimed something about the sanctity of corn, the game went on with remarkable fluidity. All in all, our players handled the situation thrown at pretty darn professionally. International riots ensued and were promptly quelled, Cthulhu rose and was nuked the crap out, and only a few people didn't live to see the game descend into chaos.

Oh! Most amusingly, magically-resurrected zombie-Hitler was walking around and hanging out like a bro; he survived until the end of the game.

Now that's a good war room.

Later days LARPers,

Dylan a.k.a. Fanc-I-PNT-5

BUY'N TO THE LEFT!

2010-03-19T17:50:00.004-04:00

Greetings, Citizen, how can I help you todaycycle?

Yeah, I've said that a lot. I mean a LOT. Name's Grun, and I run the sales counter at troubleshooter HQ. I think I've been at sector CON for every major problem except two. If you've ever bought a laser pistol, grenade, or Computer-Help-Us, a nuke, you've shuffled a few plasticreds in my direction. Or I shot you. That happens too, sometimes.

Yes, service with a smile is job one down at HQ. Along with checking paperwork, signing out termination vouchers, and generally 'helping' the Glorious Troubleshooters.

It's pretty fun, really to sit there in my chair, watching(engineering) the shootouts, missions-gone-wrong, and traditional team-kill-slash-suicide-grenade-attacks that make up a year at ParanoiaLIVE. This year was no exception. I have to say, this year may have had some of the best bribery I have ever seen. It's amazing how much a little chutzpah and an outrageous amount of money will get you. The only thing I really missed was the skull cannon. I love that thing, it's guaranteed to kill SOMEONE every time you pull the trigger. I promise it will be brought back next year.

See you next time,

Grun-G-GUY-04.

[I'll make sure the skull canon gets back in. I forgot about it when i was re-doing the weapons! Also, apologies for the blurriness of the photos. I somehow managed to turn off electronic vibration reduction and set the focus mode on marco extreme close up. Mistakes were made. --James B.]

MDK 2010!

2010-03-18T00:05:00.001-04:00

PARANOIA Live! turned 145 clones into a fine red mist this yearcycle. In unrelated news, soylent-fun sales are up 145% at Sector CON Food Vats. MMM, clone starch rations!

Here are all the pages. Large picture warning!

Page One (New Window)
Page Two (New Window)
Page Three (New Window)
Page Four (New Window)
Page Five (New Window)

"Spontaneous Combustion" was a popular way to die this yearcycle. Given that this was Project PURGE members' starting mutation, perhaps this wanton disregard for personal safety helped secure their victory.

My favorite cause of death this year is on line one of page three, wherein citizen Thund-O-CAT-2 perished due to a "laser to the face."

teh winx0rz!

2010-03-17T17:10:00.003-04:00

More updates to follow, but for now let's get our PARANOIA live! 2010 winners listed up here.

First up, Team B won first place by completing enough missions to score 22 points for the gold.

Team A took second place silver with 18 points.

Project PURGE kicked much arse, winning the daycycle for their Secret Society.

We had lots of awesome schwag to give away courtesy of Mongoose Publishing, including two copies each of the following books: Paranoia Troubleshooters, Paranoia Internal Security, Termination Quota Exceeded (mission), Treason in Word and Deed (mission), Paranoia Forms Pack, and Paranoia Games Master's Screen. And let me just mention that the GM screens are the nicest GM screens I have ever seen--absolutely beautiful, four panel, full color front, and made out of high quality heavy board game material.

We gave away four prize packs, each with a main book and the players choice of two supplements.

Our two best troubleshooters this yearcycle were citizens Monst-B-MSH and Protag-G-NST (photo pending).

IntSec award went to Major Mill-O-PED.

Finally, our High Programmer winner, hailing from Robotic Engineering, Design, and Services (REDS), and head of Project PURGE, was citizen Tets-U-OOO.

More pics and videos to come! And again, anyone who played can send us photos or links to youtube videos at paranoialarp(at)gmail(d0t)com.

Best yearcycle ever!

-James Barratt
PARANOIA Live!

2010 games: success!

2010-03-15T02:37:00.003-04:00

both the paranoia and call of cthulhu games this weekend went great. we had 35 or so players for cthulhu, and around 70 for paranoia. it's been a loooong weekend, and we're still going through all the recovered materials, so i hope to have a more substantive post up early this week with pictures and whatnot.

big thank you to everyone who played in our games!

if anyone has photos or video we'd love you forever if you shared them with us. you can send us photos and youtube links at paranoialarp(at)gmail(d0t)com, or just leave us some comments. we're also looking to interview players, so let us know if you are interested.

The evening before the con

2010-03-11T22:40:00.002-05:00

The setting was a dark corner of a small Italian restaurant. Not all of us knew everyone's names, and some of the new members found that quietly comforting. James told us to order our food... we'd have plenty of time to discuss the plans while our food was settling.

Mussels were the shared with out regular entrees. Shadows cast along his face as our ringleader looked up from his drink. His voice was slow and paced and caused a silence to fall over the chatter at the table.

"This weekend... will determine if our plans will end up as a fabuous sucess or a Hindenburgian display of horror and beauty"

I picked up my drink to toast Jame's statement, but realized that it was not my time to take the floor. I steadied my hand , brought the drink to my lips and allowed the alcohol to slide over my tongue. The orchestrator of this great game continued.

"There's gonna be a lot of death this year. I'm not exactly sure how you're gonna handle all the bodies Juan"

our eyes turned to the man at the end of the table. He wiped his goatee as he spoke up with confidence... He knew.

"Bodies. you bring me the bodies, and i'll deal with it."

We all smiled.

=SCENE=

well that's how i saw it. We've got the game in the bags and ready to play! tomorrow are the panels... i'm sure they will go fine. We're all excited, and i think it's going to be amazing this year.

almost game day!

2010-03-11T09:15:00.001-05:00

hey folks, sorry for the lack of updates. been real busy here in g'ville putting the finishing touches on the game. we're heading to orlando today, so hopefully i can post something more substantial later. in the mean time,

STAY ALERT! TRUST NO-ONE! AND KEEP YOUR LASER HANDY!

at long last

2010-02-26T20:28:00.004-05:00

headbands are finally done!

while i have your attention, i need a small favor from you readers:

our current FAQ refers to our old version of the game. i want to update it, but it's hard to think up questions to ask yourself for an FAQ. help me out here by suggesting FAQ questions in the comments, or email me at paranoialarp (at) gmail (dot) com.

tomorrow, maybe troubleshooter character packs get done.

intsec guide preview

2010-02-25T23:39:00.003-05:00

just here to tantalize you loyal viewers with a shot of the inside of the internal security badge and guide book.

intsec agents start with just the guide, and have to earn their badge and "star" ratings. this is what a major in sector CON's internal security looks like.

and would you look at all those weapons! pew pew pew!

headbands will be done soon, hopefully. finally got the art printed onto the transfer paper. i'd like to build the character packs tomorrow. hmm, i wonder what those "rules lawyer" headbands might mean... it's as though we've completely re-tooled and improved the game...

cash money!

2010-02-24T05:55:00.002-05:00

got the credits, mutant powers and combat drugs, CLUE cards, and internal security badge folios printed and processed today. i feel like i never want to see the inside of a copy shop again, but i still have more copies to make later in the week. apparently fancy new copy machines lack basic, clear functionality like "contrast" and "brightness." who knew. in their place arrive super helpful features, like randomly deciding i should be printing on 11"x17" paper, or that everything should be "centered," except that just means that the image is wherever mr. copier decides to put it.

well, at least i got some stuff done. tomorrow i'll get to the headbands i hope.

pretty neat stuff, right? i bet some of you are super curious about those intsec badge folios i mentioned earlier. shiny, shiny badges...

as the daleks might say, LAM-I-NATE! LAM-I-NATE!

2010-02-23T04:40:00.003-05:00

we're three weeks or so away from paranoia live 2010, and i am quite excited. got all the character sheets laminated today. probably going to try and get the headbands done tomorrow.

pictures finally live!

2010-02-22T21:07:00.003-05:00

i wish i'd gotten the section done sooner, but cest la vie.

<-- check it!

pics and stickers*!

*stickers not included.

quick update, re: panels, etc.

2010-02-13T06:14:00.004-05:00

hey folks, just here to drop a quick update. we're running lots of panels this year, and i've got the times and rooms!

also--side note here--apparently blogger is dropping ftp support for old style blogger pages. sadly, that means us. that's why there haven't been too many updates lately. we're still trying to figure out what to do. so hey, if you design web pages (and are willing to work for free!) we might need your help. email paranoialarp (at) gmail (dot) com. someday we'll have a nice website, *sniff* *sniff*

on to the panels!

**********

PARANOIA Live! Troubleshooters 101 panel
Friday, 2:50pm Room 221a

Somebody's crooked in Sector CON, and every clone from Troubleshooter, to High Programmer, to Internal Security is on the trail! Who exposed the infrared-market in Sector CON? And more importantly, who's gonna take the fall?

Curious about PARANOIA Live? Never played a LARP before? Learn the rules early and have all your questions answered before the game on Saturday! This panel is an opportunity for first time and returning players alike to brush up on our LARP version of Mongoose Publishing's RPG of a darkly humorous future. This panel will teach players how to be a Troubleshooter. If you enjoy fast paced Gamist play, and games like D&D or classic Paranoia, this is the panel for you.

Players attending this panel will also receive additional starting equipment for their character.

**********

PARANOIA Live! High Programmers 201 panel
Friday, 3:50pm Room 221a

PARANOIA Live! 2010 features two brand new character classes for experienced players! This panel will teach potential High Programmers the duties of the job. High Programmers are at the top of the food chain in PARANOIA, the powerful puppet masters behind the scenes, and each will be in command of their own Secret Society of Troubleshooters. Attendees will be tested, and only the best will be chosen. If you enjoy strategic Simulationist play, and games like Shadowrun or chess, this is the panel for you.

**********

PARANOIA Live! Internal Security 202 panel
Friday, 3:50pm Room 223 a+b

PARANOIA Live! 2010 features two brand new character classes for experienced players! This panel will teach potential Internal Security agents the duties of the job. IntSec agents will wield never before seen investigative tools and powers, and will be the thin blue line keeping back the corruption and chaos of Sector CON, enforcing the will of Friend Computer with wide latitude. Attendees will be tested, and only the best will be chosen. If you enjoy character driven Narrativist play, and games like World of Darkness or Call of Cthulhu, this is the panel for you.

**********

Call of Cthulhu Live! LARP panel
Friday, 4:50pm Room 221a

Curious about Call of Cthulhu Live? Never played a LARP before? Learn the rules early and have all your questions answered before the game on Friday night! This panel is an opportunity for first time and experienced players alike to learn how to play. This year's game is entitled "Professor Oddlove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Great Old Ones," and is a humorous take on the mythos inspired by the famous "Mary Celeste" LARP.

p.s. i hate "smart quotes." always messing up my posts. making me go back and edit things. grr.

MegaCon 2010 Paranoia/Cthulhu update

2010-01-30T21:15:00.006-05:00

I'm hoping to make some updates to the site soon, but for now here's the early scoop on our LARP plans for MegaCon 2010.

We're re-doing to the system to allow for three different character classes this year!

Also, last year's panel was so successful, we're doing more this year--for the Paranoia and Cthulhu LARPs. More info on that pending!

**********

PARANOIA Live! LARP
March 13, 2010
Saturday, 1pm-5pm
$6, Sign up at the Games and Anime Information Booth, 13+ only

Somebody's crooked in Sector CON, and every clone from Troubleshooter, to High Programmer, to Internal Security is on the trail! Who exposed the infrared-market in Sector CON? And more importantly, who's gonna take the fall? PARANOIA Live! is back and better than ever with a brand new edition of the game, now featuring three playable character classes: Troubleshooters, High Programmers, and deep cover Internal Security Agents.

PARANOIA Live! is the Massively Multiplayer Live Action RPG of a darkly humorous future. In PARANOIA, a well meaning but deranged computer protects its citizens in an underground warren from all sorts of real and imagined enemies. The players are part of a team of elite agents, tasked with searching out and destroying these enemies. Generous prize support for this year's game courtesy, as always, of Mongoose Publishing. Please visit www.mongoosepublishing.com

Game starts at 1pm SHARP, but all players are advised to show up early. Players wishing to receive 'Officer Training' are advised to show up at 12:30pm, and will receive early rules explanations and extra starting equipment. Register at the MegaCon Games and Anime Information Booth, and get there early--this year's game is limited to 100 players!

Troubleshooter players may also attend an optional Friday panel. Players wishing to try our new character classes--High Programmer and IntSec--must attend the appropriate Friday panel. See the onsite book for full panel descriptions.

**********

Call of Cthulhu Live! LARP
"Professor Oddlove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the
Great Old Ones"
March 12, 2010
Friday, 7pm-11pm
$5, Sign up at the Games and Anime Information Booth, 13+ only

The President has instituted Defcon 2 and he has gathered together many of the finest minds Washington DC has to offer. US Air Force Brigadier General Jack Springheel has gone rogue with a strategic bomber wing, threatening the world with nuclear annihilation and that's the least of everyone's worries. A newly arisen island in the South Pacific, flying saucer abductions, mass coordinated riots, strange bugs infesting the brains of world leaders... And worst of all, the threat of a mine shaft gap with the Soviets!

world famous!

2009-05-02T03:26:00.002-04:00

check out my article on paranoia live 09 in this month's edition of signs and portents, mongoose publishing's in house rpg magazine!

mongoose, of course, are the publishers of paranoia. :)

all hail friend computer!

signs and portents number 68

(article starts at page 46)

troubleshooter: the musical

2009-04-06T02:34:00.001-04:00

jazz hands. hillarious.

how to turn yourself in for bunny*

2009-04-03T23:19:00.001-04:00

*wherein "bunny" stands for treason.

another video? i must love you guys!

-james.

how to wash your hands & not trip over stuff

2009-04-02T05:52:00.004-04:00

holy cow, more new content! number three in a series of five troubleshooter training videos courtesy of alpha news net. hail friend compuer!

-james.

alpha news net videos!

2009-03-30T00:24:00.004-04:00

as promised, here are a couple videos from our alpha news net station from this year's game. the basic premise of the mission was that commies had ruined all the old troubleshooter training videos, and players needed to make new one.

my good friend and co-worker nick cecere fixed up the videos for us. the audio is still a bit hard to hear, but it was loud in the con and only so much could be done. if we run a mission like this again i will borrow a directional mic from someone.

hey! i'm going to be fixing up a few of the spots on the site soon that are still "under construction," so the photos page should hopefully become functional in a week or so.

for now, photos are still here.

also: there is a mini megacon happening in august now. my buddy dave michael and i are thinking about taking a firefly larp to that. thoughts?

-james.

paranoia live 09 crew!

2009-03-13T05:22:00.005-04:00

From 2009 paranoia live

From left to right, standing: Jenna Mutatia (R&D), Dylan Bruno (C-Bay), Grayson Blackmon (CPU), Michael Coxson (R.E.D.S.), James "Juan" Decola (C-bay), James Barratt (Food Vats), Luke Stram (IntSec), Joe Favuzza (Re-Edu). Kneeling: Channing Ogzewalla (R&D). Inset: Shawn "Glypher" Dalton (A.N.N.), David Richards (Reactor). Not pictured: Kim Faught

should be uploading more pics to the picasa page soon.

click here for pics!

picasa wont let me shuffle pics around without renaming everything, so new ones are towards the end.

kaiju super budget brawl footage!

2009-03-10T21:29:00.003-04:00

i think this might be the only video we have of any of the fights, but check it out!

mutatia VS. the samurai sentinel!

i am currently hard at work trying to get an article about the game written up for mongoose.

we should hopefully also get videos from alpha news net up soon.

billy crudup's giant blue wang

2009-03-06T18:57:00.002-05:00

(via one of my favorite blogs, jeff's gameblog.)

not paranoia or larp related, but who cares. here are my thoughts on the new watchmen movie. i'll try to keep this spoiler-free.

so the watchmen movie was pretty good. not great, but pretty good. i would describe the experience like an amusement park ride based off a movie. it was fun, it was exciting, but perhaps it lacked the nuance of the source material.

it did feel somewhat disjointed. like they were just presenting you with a series of scenes from the watchmen. "hey, remember this from the comic? how about this? did you enjoy those last two scenes? here's another." and for a movie with a lot of violence and stuff exploding it was strangely quiet.

the music at times seemed somewhat inappropriate, and i was surprised at which scenes were played for comedy. the film also needlessly luxuriated in bloody violence. i know the comic was violent, but the twisted limbs and bloody arterial sprays got an awful lot of porny slow-motion treatment.

again, enjoyable. but different. i guess i'm looking forward to the kajillion hour long director's cut dvd? i still wish that this had been done as an hbo miniseries, or something like that.

oh, and john cusack totally should have been cast as nite owl.

overall, three stars out of four for me. recommended.

here's roger ebert's review. i think he nails it down pretty well.

murder-death-kill count

2009-03-04T17:45:00.004-05:00

paranoia live 2009 ground up and spit out 176 clones this yearcycle. but don't be sad, citizen! rejoice; there's a completely unrelated sale on soylent-fun at sector CON foodvats!

here are all the pages. large picture warning!

page one
page two
page three
page four
page five
page six

i think my favorite cause of death is on page six. i assume the clone died after having a mishap with a tacnuke:

Spine-Y-TAP-7, "Did not read tacnuke manual."

patriotic troubleshooters, assemble!

2009-03-03T16:50:00.001-05:00

some pics from budget brawl...

2009-03-03T02:40:00.004-05:00

more after action reports from the game soon! in the mean time, check out these shots from the finale!

also, our picasa page is go. i'll integrate it with the photos link soon, but for now click here not only for my pics from this year but pics from all eight years of our game!

From 2009 paranoia live

oh! and hey: IF YOU PLAYED OUR GAME AND TOOK PHOTOS, WE'D LOVE YOU FOREVER IF YOU EMAILED THEM TO US!

paranoialarp (at) gmail (dot) com

yours in service to friend computer,
-james.

photos and such forthcoming!

2009-03-02T23:53:00.003-05:00

i'm trying to figure out picasa. it is being irritating.

if you'd like to follow along, here's the picasa page so far.

http://picasaweb.google.com/paranoialarp

anyhow! paranoia live 2009 was rad--more details soon!

-james.

kaiju super budget brawl x009 was a success!

2009-02-28T21:56:00.002-05:00

holy crap i'm tired. game went great. 82 players signed up; giant robot finale was amazing. pics and more info to follow after the weekend, once i've had some sleep.

don't forget, however, that we are also running a live-action call of cthulhu game sunday! "professor oddlove, or, how i learned to stop worrying and love the great old ones" still has some spaces open. game is from 2pm to 6pm, room 221e, only $3. sign up at games/anime information booth!

yours in service to friend computer,
-james.

operation panel: success!

2009-02-27T22:52:00.004-05:00

our first ever paranoia live! panel was a rousing success. here's some shots of the room as it began filling up.

and here's a nice shot of our ticket line after said panel's conclusion.

it was a great friday and a great start to our weekend. at the end of the day we had sold 53 tickets--more than halfway to our goal of a sold out game.

i'm too tired to write much more, and we have a long day to look forward to tomorrow, so i'll leave you with this picture of some of the guns from fellow larp friends and airsoft enthusiasts terrorwerks.

PARANOIA LIVE! 2009 IS TOMORROW!

STAY ALERT! TRUST NO-ONE! KEEP YOUR LASER HANDY!

Orlando is a nice place to visit.

2009-02-26T23:18:00.005-05:00

James and I got in to Orlando around 6pm, and after a delightful dinner with his parents, we caught up with the (which i like to call) the "o-town terror crew"... the lesser mentioned, yet highly effective craftwerks that make most of the paranoia magic come alive.

Bots, Mutants, and an entire city's worth of buildings have finally taken shape through the magic of spraypaint, duct tape, zip ties and cardboard. These creations that can only be described as "typical paranoia style" aka "effing craptacular" will be revealed during the game and the climaxing feature to the entire event... the Kaiju Super Budget Brawl.

We're all super-stoked about the game and the great people we end up meeting every year. Of course we will have destructive weapons, bot and mutant upgrades and a fantastic team of GMs that will delight and amaze even the seasoned paranoia larper.

We also wanted to mention that the "pre-party" aka "The Paranoia Live Pannel" will be happening tomorrow. The members of the panel (your superstar GMs) will be describing the game and taking questions from players. We're putting this panel together in the hopes that players will get a stronger grasp of the game rules and give the players an idea of how Paranoia Live is run. we encourage everyone to attend even if you're not playing... it's sure to be a fun time.

IMPORTANT PARANOIA LIVE PANEL INFORMATION:

4PM in room 223 at the Orange County Convention Center Hall D1-D2

Everyone that attends the panel and signs up to play will be receiving a special weapon! This weapon will be unique to the players that attend the panel and will not be issued during the game.

Through the love and glory of Friend Computer,

Geraldo-I-VRA

Alpha News Net

big money, big prizes, i love it!

2009-02-25T21:47:00.004-05:00

we have about $1000 in prizes that we are giving away for this year's game, courtesy of mongoose publishing. first up, every single player will receive with their ticket a copy of the little red book, a player manual for tabletop paranoia.

first and second place medals will be given to the two teams that score the most points. each mission a team completes is worth up to 5 points.

winning secret society will be determined by which secsoc completed its goals best. this is determined largely by number of widget pairs collected. winning secsoc members get an attractive, suitable-for-framing award.

finally, superlatives such as best player, best traitor, or best kill or death will be awarded to individual players. these players will receive more mongoose paranoia schwag! we have two copies of paranoia's main rulebook to give away, along with three copies each of stuff and stuff 2.

here's a nice shot of 2007 winner (and 2009 GM!) channing ogswala enjoying the spoils of victory.

'09 fliers!

2009-02-24T03:40:00.001-05:00

pics from the first paranoia live game

2009-02-23T17:14:00.002-05:00

i wish i had more left from that first 2001 game. sadly, these two photos were all we had the presence of mind to take.

death to mutants!

2009-02-22T23:43:00.004-05:00

this year--i believe for the first time in any of our games--the anti-mutants are one of our available secret societies. what sets them apart from the other secsocs (other than their hatred of dirty, dirty mutants) is that instead of receiving mutant powers during the course of the game, anti-mutants get special legal alternatives, such as combat drugs or other helpful items.

anti-mutant's cards work the same as mutant power cards, but they have the added benefit of not getting you termintated for using them.

Pictures of Two Robo-Kaijus

2009-02-21T21:08:00.007-05:00

FCCCP's Cross-bot and Anti-Mutant's Samurai Sentinel, both in their 90% complete iterations.

world of widgetcraft

2009-02-21T18:48:00.006-05:00

Here's an overview of the way our game functions. After the initial large-scale rules briefing, players break off into Secret Society cohorts for a SecSoc briefing. To make things easier, each Service Group is a front for one of the SecSocs. During this briefing, they are explicitly told who their enemy SecSoc is, what the secret handshake is, and what the SecSoc's objective is for the game.

In our game, we have things called "Widgets." Widgets are 16 different junk item cards. When teams complete missions, they are paid out in a mix of Widgets and creds. Each SecSoc is looking for a different pair of these Widgets. For example, perhaps the Commies need "Sonic Screwdrivers" so they can dismantle the Reactor Core. Commie players would want to seek out the Widgets marked "Sonic" and "Screwdriver." Since there are 16 different Widgets, players will have to trade these cards amongst themselves, and with other teams they come across.

After the SecSoc briefing players form into their specified teams, marked A-L. Teams can then travel to any of the eight Service Group stations and perform that station's unique mission. Missions must be completed in 30 minutes or less for the team to receive the full five points for the mission. Completing missions is how they earn credits and Widgets.

When players have one of the Widget pairs their SecSoc needs, they can turn it in to their SecSoc rep and receive a Mutant Power. What's great about this is that it marries team objectives and SecSoc objectives. In order to fulfill the SecSoc objective they must complete missions. When they do, they are rewarded with a cool power.

Inspired by Fallout 3 weapons like the railway rifle, this year we are also experimenting with player craftable weapons. After collecting together certain Widgets, players can trade them in at C-Bay for one of four interesting and powerful weapons. Here's one of my favorites.

Finally, a weapon that's based off the Chutzpah stat!

Off to work with me.

(I should probably mention that all of our Widget art is blatantly stolen from the wonderful American Science & Surplus website. Please don't sue us! You are totally rad, and a great source for stuff Paranoia LARP GMs might need!)

a dead guy is you

2009-02-20T06:02:00.001-05:00

so close!

2009-02-19T05:09:00.003-05:00

finished all the GM packs today.

here are the GM basics baggies, with colored dots, termination vouchers, weapons, widgets, mutant powers. oh, and a pen. musn't forget the pen. hard to write term vouchers without one.

and here are the completed GM packs!

kind of amazing that our game essentially fits into two little shipper boxes. i still need to print out armor stickers and secret society awards, but i'll need to borrow someone's color printer to finish up those tasks.

after that, i think i might just be done. go team gainesville!

comrades, rejoice!

2009-02-18T19:49:00.002-05:00

your champion, THE INFRARED SCARE!

he enjoys long walks through the breadline and gutting capitalist pigbots.

Professor Oddlove

2009-02-17T20:58:00.006-05:00

A little mood music to set the pace of things. Assuming everyone doesn't kill each other in the first half hour, it should be a pretty damn entertaining game. If I've done my job right, people will be too busy to beat each other to death.

On a game note, Oddlove can offset sanity losses by making reference to his old "leader" and saluting appropriately.

-Luke

P.S. If anybody's interested in the soulless technical aspects of nuclear war.

food vats need some upgrades...

2009-02-17T15:24:00.002-05:00

some lucky troubleshooters will no doubt be pressed into service to install them.

also, let no one say that i don't love and respect our players.

well, at least not to my face.

game continues to build, and things should get finished with time to spare. next project for me is finishing the GM packs. hopefully i can work on that a little more after work tonight.

ancient history

2009-02-16T21:35:00.003-05:00

check out this blast from the past. while looking through my many boxes of game materials, i stumbled upon these artifacts from our 2004 game.

we used to use a deck of playing cards for resolution, and the item cards were modified by whatever card you pulled out of the deck. yeeks. that was back when players had HP, too. the fact we could never get anyone to actually track their HP was the chief reason we finally ditched it.

the other slip is an amusing piece of business from our secret society GM (yes, we used to only have one, to serve every player) from 04, alex. to keep from getting bored, he would send non-playing convention goers--infrareds--to suicide bomb our players.

ah, memories.

in which i nerf all the weapons

2009-02-15T23:39:00.004-05:00

no! just kidding. in all seriousness, however, i've been meaning to edit the weapons we have for some time now. some are too powerful or too cheap, but the biggest problem is that many are not powerful enough, or are too expensive. that was a huge problem in the melee weapons department.

i'm making some changes for this year. here's a few so far.

grenades, or "team wipers" as we affectionately think of them, are going up to 2 creds this year. in their place as the go-to 1 cred thrown weapon i've made vibroknives dual usable as melee or thrown. i think this is fair.

anyhow, paraLARP09 is on track to completion and i am grateful and glad to have the time to edit the weapons. they've needed it for a while, but it was always one of those back-burner projects.

character packs are done!

2009-02-14T04:37:00.002-05:00

and a weight has been lifted from me. :) thanks for the help glyph!

BLENDRO will destroy you all.

Laboratory of Dr. Weird, South Jersey Shore

2009-02-13T20:12:00.001-05:00

gentlemen...

BEHOLD!

my name is...

BLENDRO-ZULA, THE MIC RULA

CHA-CHING

you know what they say about a guy with giant monster feet.

almost done with mutant/bot kaijus. character packs get finished tonight too. pics of completed team gainesville kaijus soon.

-james.

site update and character packs

2009-02-12T15:40:00.000-05:00

got the about page and the FAQ up. big thanks to kerry jordan from the paranoia yahoo group for asking questions... frequently!

also started working on character packs. ironing 100 headbands and laminating 100 character sheets is tedious. after work, more tedium as i begin stuffing character packs!

excitement!

looking forward to friday--team gainesville is finishing up kaiju costumes at glyph's!

-james.

tiny bubbles

2009-02-11T18:36:00.000-05:00

gaze upon my randomizers, ye mighty, and despair!

avoid termination! register your mutation!

2009-02-11T03:13:00.000-05:00

spraypaint party!

2009-02-10T18:42:00.000-05:00

glyph, dave, and myself got together yesterday to work on our giant robots for the game's finale. it's a work in progress, but we're hoping to finish 'em up friday.

here's glyph paper mache-ing the hell out of his bot's helmet.

here are some plasticreds, drying. gotta keep sector CON's economy going!

i'm building a giant mutated blender monster for the kaiju showdown. here i am working on the tentacle arms.

and here's the mutant's head.

it's gonna be a rad game this year.

-james.

paranoia live 2009!

2009-02-09T12:42:00.000-05:00

here's our info for this year.

PARANOIA Live!
Saturday 2/28, 2pm-6p
Main Showroom Floor
$5, Sign up at the Games Registration Booth, 13+ only

It's fiscal budget time in Sector CON! After last yearcycle's budget meeting resulted in casualties numbering in the thousands, Friend Computer has decided it's time to allocate resources to the Service Groups in a new way. How, you ask? By making them fight for their creds with giant robots! Will the Service Groups get their robots built on time? Will the Troubleshooters be sent scrambling for parts and materials? Wasn't this the plot to Robot Jox? Come for the killing, stay for the Kaiju-style Giant Robot finale!

PARANOIA Live! is the Massively Multiplayer Offline Live Action RPG of a darkly humorous future. In Paranoia, a well meaning but deranged computer protects its citizens in an underground warren from all sorts of real and imagined enemies. The players are part of a team of elite agents, tasked with searching out and destroying these enemies. PARANOIA Live! is based on Mongoose Publishing's PARANOIA. This year, Mongoose has donated nearly $1000 in prize support! Every player will receive a genuine PARANOIA prize! Please visit www.mongoosepublishing.com

Game starts at 2pm SHARP, but all players are advised to show up early. Players wishing to receive 'Officer Training' are advised to show up at 1:30pm, and will receive early rules explanations and extra starting rank or equipment. Players may also attend our Friday panel. Register at the MegaCon Games Registration Booth, and get there early--this year's game is limited to 100 players!

======================

PARANOIA Live! Panel
Friday, 4pm-5pm
Room 223

Curious about PARANOIA Live? Never played a LARP before? Learn the rules early and have all your questions answered before the game on Saturday! This panel is an opportunity for first time and returning players alike to brush up on our LARP version of Mongoose Publishing's RPG of a darkly humorous future. PARANOIA is a game of backstabbing, mutants, commie plots, high-powered weapons, clones, and an insane Computer. Players attending this panel will also receive additional starting equipment for their character.

======================

Call of Cthulhu LARP
"Professor Oddlove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the
Great Old Ones"
Sunday, 2pm-6pm
Room 221 E
$3, Sign up at the Games Registration Booth, 13+ only

The President has instituted Defcon 2 and he has gathered together many of the finest minds Washington DC has to offer. US Air Force Brigadier General Jack Springheel has gone rogue with a strategic bomber wing, threatening the world with nuclear annihilation and that's the least of everyone's worries. A newly arisen island in the South Pacific, flying saucer abductions, mass coordinated riots, strange bugs infesting the brains of world leaders... And worst of all, the threat of a mine shaft gap with the Soviets!

testing, testing

2009-02-07T16:20:00.001-05:00

first post. will figure out more later.