Introduction

Ladder Climbing in Alpha Complex

In all hierarchies, periodic reviews are used to ensure the best use of resources and the promotion/demotion of personnel. In Alpha Complex, The Computer's latest yearcycle assessment has determined that an additional Ultraviolet-level High Programmer was needed for efficient operations. A search uncovered five Violet citizens for the promotion, but The Computer cannot make a final choice because the candidates are too closely matched. In response, The Computer formulates the following plan: the five clones will be observed; the one who shows the most loyalty (or the least treason) will be promoted.

Ko-V-ERT is the head of Warbots Development in Alpha Complex, and one of the five citizens under consideration. Key to his meteoric rise in the Alpha Complex hierarchy is a secret and illegal data tap into The Computer's memory. Through this, he learns of the competition for the Ultraviolet position, and decides to win it at all costs. His plan is to make The Computer suspicious of the others by framing them as potential traitors while keeping himself spotlessly clean. Naturally, he'll need agents to carry out his schemes; his idea is to fool an unsuspecting Troubleshooter team to do his dirty work under the guise of a secret mission.

Guess who Ko-V-ERT's gonna pick?

31 Flavors

Once upon a time, there was one way to play Paranoia. You had the ever-present Computer, you had players getting into trouble, and you had situations to turn them into fine yellow sprays. Then came the twists and turns from West End Games that sent players and GameMasters into a tailspin. Secret Societies warred, The Computer crashed, Troubleshooters were zapped through time, Simplexes arose, The Computer returned, so on and so forth. While this is good for variety, it's a nightmare for an adventure-writer, who's going to leave some groups out no matter what scenario he writes.

Technically speaking, this adventure runs under the Second Edition Paranoia rules, and is set in "ReBoot Alpha": The Computer has returned and is saving loyal citizens from the evils of Alpha Base, Alpha City, and numerous other factions (this is all well documented in The Paranoia Sourcebook by West End Games). The players are cast as Troubleshooters in service to The Computer.

Since I am personally partial to Paranoia Classic (the original is still the best), this adventure will easily fit into a pre-Crashed, pre-ReBoot background. With a little more work, the adventure can be refitted for an Alpha Base scenario, with the players as freedom-fighters fending off the digital dictator.

Anything else is out of my hands. If you're running a campaign where players are communist Vulture Warriors in Alpha State time-traveling through Dimension X, or your crowd consists of cyborged players co-habitating with mutants in the depths of Alpha, you've got a lot of work ahead if you want to use this adventure. I'd love to cover all the variants, but I do have limits.

Changes for Other Backgrounds

Paranoia Classic: Almost no changes are needed. There are occasional references to post-Crash events or groups, but those can be easily changed to pre-Crash situations.

Alpha Base: Most of the situations can be transposed intact. The only major changes are to turn Ko-V-ERT's Ultraviolet promotion into a spot on the Council, and to make the player character Vide-O-GME a spy for the Conciliator Secret Society instead of an IntSec agent. Most of the other changes are minor, and should be obvious; significant changes will be noted in the text.

Alpha City: Yeah, right. You're running a campaign in than antiseptic haven? Everything in Alpha Base is perfect, harmonized, and boring. Put this away and play Bridge instead.

Pregenerated Characters

As with any good Paranoia adventure, six pre-generated characters have been included for your trouble-shooting pleasure, each finely tuned to produce the most amount of irritation and suspicion among your players. If you'd rather throw out all the hard work and use your own characters, go ahead; just be warned that some details will need to be refined for your characters' backgrounds, secret societies, and allegiances.

Adventure Summary

This soap opera plays as follows:

• Episode 1 - The players are herded off to a mission briefing. There they are given vague orders, random bits of R&D equipment, assorted supplies, halfhearted reassurances, and no answers. In other words, it's a typical Troubleshooter briefing.

• Episode 2 - The players break into the residence of a Violet citizen to plant treasonous items. They have to deal with mismatched maps, security bots, alarm systems, and other fun stuff.

• Episode 3 - The players stage and record a "payoff" to another Violet citizen. They may succeed and get good reviews, or they may fail and get shot at. Either way, they get captured.

• Episode 4 - During interrogation, the players find out that everything they knew was wrong, and that they're to fry for high treason. A set of lucky breaks end with an escape for the players.

• Episode 5 - On the lam, the players realize that their only hope is to find the clone who set them up. Maybe they can stop shooting at each other long enough to figure out who he is. Maybe not.

• Episode 6 - The players face off against Ko-V-ERT and try to make him answer for his crimes. The appearance of the mysterious and dangerous R-Bots ensure the situation is explosive.

• Episode 7 - Everything left over from the first six episodes is sorted out, one way or another. Traitors get shot. Survivors get commendations and promotions. Or they get shot, too. You decide.