Paranoia (RPG)
Geek & Sundry had a cheesy 80s RPG on it's Twitch stream earlier this week (here on youtube, if you have a few hours to spare), called Paranoia.
The players are all Troubleshooters, working at Alpha Complex: an Aperture Science / VaultTec style dystopian futuristic colony place run by The Computer. Nothing can be permitted to get in the way of science and progress: not history, not evolution, and most certainly not those Commie bastards from the old world. Troubleshooters are utterly disposable: if they show signs of sedition, or get their legs blown off in a tragic lab accident, they can be vapourised and reconstituted as a new clone with little or no hassle. You work your way through all manner of puzzles and obstacles and thinly veiled cult references, solving them with a mix of wits, mutant powers, and sheer absurdity, while the GM does everything he can to kill all of you before the end of the session.
On top of all that, there are all sorts of silly bonus objectives too, like tricking other players into saying the word "pistachio" on three separate occasions, provoking other players into killing you so that you re-clone, and stuff like that. There's a lot of secret note passing as well: if one of your team mates has a super awesome spoon that can only be seen under ultraviolet light, and you want to steal it, you slip a note to the DM and all that stuff happens without the other players being told what's going on.
It's really really silly (the Geek & Sundry game included a tank powered by a hamster wheel, and Felicia Day hiding a laser pen up her hoohah to stop Wil Wheaton killing people with it), and it's one of those play for a few hours and then done sort of games, perfect for drunken shenanigans and stuff - sorta like Fiasco, but with Portals.
It'd be great to play in person next time we have a nerd get together... but since the next one is a while away, does anyone fancy getting together for a few hours one weekend and giving this a go?
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