Greg Costikyan has “announced”:http://www.costik.com/weblog/2004_02_01_blogchive.html#107719898782841523 the return of the classic roleplaying game Paranoia for the new millenium. I’m happy to note that Paranoia XP has “its own blog”:http://www.costik.com/paranoia/, where the developers plan to offer updates and steal ideas from readers. It’s only just begun, so the talk thus far is about “the philosophy of the game”:http://www.costik.com/paranoia/2004_02_01_blogchive.html#107719871081058833 and not so much about system. I do have some worries about system, only because Paranoia XP will be published by “Mongoose Publishing”:http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/. Those guys make stylish stuff, but they’re a D20 publisher, and their Babylon 5 RPG exemplifies for me the “problems with using D20 as a universal system”:http://www.polytropos.org/archives/000048.html. If there’s a game and a setting that _demands_ its own system instead of a cookie-cutter framework, it’s Paranoia. But there’s zero indication so far that PXP is going to be a D20 game, so I’m probably working myself up over nothing. Besides, I’m happy. Very very happy. Happiness is mandatory.
UPDATE: You know, if I had just read the whole dang press release carefully, I’d have noticed this bit in the Q&A:
Player: Are you using the d20 rules system?
The Computer: No. PARANOIA is fun. D20 games are not fun. The Computer says so.
So there ya go.