Tabletop Game / Paranoia

ATTENTION CITIZENS OF ALPHA COMPLEX - this TV Tropes entry is Security Clearance VIOLET. Reading any of the words contained within this page without appropriate security clearance is considered treason. Please proceed directly to your nearest available Termination Booth. Thank you for your cooperation. Have a nice daycycle!

Paranoia takes many forms: A mental condition characterized by extreme and irrational suspicion. A 2004 industrial-espionage thriller by Joseph Finder. A print magazine dealing in conspiracy theories. A 2011 film starring Brad Jones. In this particular case, however, we travel to a world designed by Kafka, Stalin, Orwell, Huxley, Sartre, the Marx Brothers, and that crazy old man at the airport bar at 2am...

Paranoia is a darkly humorous Tabletop Game originally created by Greg Costikyan, Dan Gelber, and Eric Goldberg.^note Using this page to prepare yourself for playing the game is treason. It takes place After the End, in Alpha Complex, an isolated Underground and/or Domed city run by a supercomputer known variously as the Computer and "Friend Computer". After most of the human race was wiped out by some freak accident, the Computer tried to figure out what went wrong. Unfortunately, the Computer's databases had been corrupted, and after finding some Cold War propaganda, it came to the conclusion that Communists caused the disaster. Or possibly some other nebulous threat; no one is quite sure what happened any more, because most of world history has been heavily edited.

Already bonkers,^note Referring to Friend Computer as insane is treason following decades of successive subversion and reprogramming by various conflicting groups (High Programmers, Secret Societies, aliens from Pluto and/or Dimension 2Q4B), "Friend Computer" has only gotten more paranoid, schizophrenic, and ins- er, unstable. Neverthless, it still rules Alpha Complex ^note Alpha Complex is an okay place to live, and referring to it as otherwise is treason with an iron fist, its dystopian society organized in a hierarchy of "security clearances" based on the electromagnetic spectrum (specifically Isaac Newton's version), from lowly Infrared worker drones, through Red grunts and Yellow managers, all the way up the rainbow to the Violet and Ultraviolet elite. ^note  Rumors of the existence of Gamma clearance are treason. Report all rumors. Repetition of rumors is treason.

This society is supported by swarms of robots and spies, omnipresent surveillance, and a bureaucracy so huge and convoluted no one's quite sure who's in charge of what any more.

Problems in Alpha Complex are solved by teams of Troubleshooters, whose job is to find trouble and shoot it. Threats include Traitors, Communists and other secret societies, unregistered Mutants, and Commie Mutant Traitors. This mission is complicated by the facts that, thanks to years of clone breeding, overexposure to radiation, and other snafus, every last one of its inhabitants is a mutant. Everyone is also a member of one or more secret societies (mostly) plotting to overthrow the order of Alpha Complex.

The PCs are (usually) Red-level Troubleshooters working for Friend Computer, grudgingly assigned useless, backfiring equipment and weapons, and dispatched on (often impossible) Suicide Missions, all while navigating the endless deathtrap which is Alpha Complex, keeping their mutant powers a secret, advancing the cause of their secret society, and trying to earn promotion to higher color grades. The over-the-top darkly satiric tone of the game ensures that Hilarity Ensues as the player characters try to juggle their responsibilities, or at least survive for a while. Player infighting is encouraged, to the point that some editions recommend that there should never be a greater danger than each other, and turnover is so high that each player gets several backup clones with which to replace themselves if — or rather WHEN — they die. And after all that comes the truly dangerous part: the mission debriefing. ^note  As of the XP edition, accusations of treason are even resolved using the same dice mechanics as physical combat. All this is assuming you live long enough to find out what the mission is.

Beyond the back stabbing and Giant Radioactive Mutant Cockroaches, Paranoia was quite an innovative RPG when introduced in 1984. It was either the first RPG or first widely played RPG to:

• Adopt the video game approach to character lives, with clone replacements each time a player died. Until Paranoia, the death of a player character was Very Serious.
• Even more so than most RPGs, consider the rules and setting to be a collection of possibly-useful suggestions which can be cheerfully ignored when they get in the way of having fun.
• The characters were not a team, and as stated above were actively encouraged to backstab each other, openly or otherwise. This required a certain amount of maturity from the players and a willingness to forget about the "mission" in favour of roleplaying and chaos.
• Players, in theory, had no knowledge of the rules, so anyone metagaming ("I get plus one for being behind cover") could be executed for it. (If they did look, they should simply factor the rules into their schemes without admitting they know, because it's Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught.^note The assumption that the GM will follow the rules, however, is probably not one that players should make.)

Be aware that if you make any mention of a published-in-1995 "Fifth Edition" of the game, you are referring to an Official Unproduct and Friend Computer does not like people referring to things which never existed.

Anyone interested in RPG design should have a look at the brilliant concept of Perversity Points, first introduced in the "XP" edition of the game. Basically, they're given out for being entertaining when playing your character instead of just boringly efficient, and spent to improve your dice rolls or (this being Paranoia) screw up someone else's, with the GM handwaving some appropriate in-character circumstance.

With the 25th Anniversary edition, the game can now be played in three forms: as a Troubleshooter, an Internal Security agent, or a High Programmer. In the latter cases, the Computer progressively shifts from "that information is not available at your security clearance" to "that information is not available at this time", possibly because the Computer doesn't know either, or It's not sharing it with anyone. (Apart from that, High Programmers get lots of information, but most of it is garbage.) The equipment also beefs up; Troubleshooters have laser pistols, IntSec agents have cone rifles (basically bazookas), and High Programmers hang out in the Situation Room and manipulate teams of lower-clearance citizens working for service groups or secret societies or the Troubleshooters. Just remember, Citizen, no matter how high your security clearance, Happiness Is Mandatory! Insufficient happiness will be punished by termination!

The latest version is Red Clearance Edition, based on a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign for a reboot of the game. Done by James Wallis as lead designer with assistance from original game designers Greg Costikyan and Eric Goldberg, gameplay is streamlined while the setting is updated for a modern context, with "terrorists" as the stated greatest threat to Alpha Complex (Commies are still lurking in the background, but are just one illegal secret society among many), while technology has advanced from smartphones to cranial implants (making the hardware harder to hack, but the software and Wi-Fi are another story).

A six-issue comic book series was published in 1991 by Adventure Comics.

In April 2019, a video game adaptation was announced by the name of Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory, developed by Cyanide Studio and Black Shamrock. However, within a couple months, it was de-listed for sale with no explanation. Costikyan and Goldberg later explained that they filed legal action against the publishers for trying to release an unfinished product, and the game has been delayed indefinitely although its Steam page remains live.

Paranoia: The Perfect Edition, a refinement of Red Clearance Edition, is scheduled for release in late 2022.

Friend Computer has officially authorized Paranoia to be the Trope Namer for:

• The Computer Is Your Friend
• Happiness Is Mandatory
• Machine Empathy

The following List of Tropes present in Paranoia is classified Security Clearance ULTRAVIOLET^note Official Notice to all Citizens: Any inability to exactly reproduce on demand this complete and current List, either verbally or in writing, will be construed as treason. Have a nice daycycle!:

• Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: The world of Paranoia is an underground bomb shelter built to withstand nuclear Armageddon. Missions often involve searching vast sewers or labyrinthine tunnel systems.^note Unauthorized exploration is treason. Authorized exploration is mandatory! Authorizations are never revoked mid-mission!
• Affably Evil: The Computer genuinely wants the best for the citizens of Alpha Complex, and it's unfailingly upbeat and polite. As long as it doesn't think you're a traitor, it will always be eager to help if asked. The problem is that it's completely insane.
• After the End: A [REDACTED] wiped out most of humanity and confined the remains to Alpha Complex.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • Though it's unclear whether Friend Computer is an actual A.I. or whether most of the crazy was put into it by scores of crazy amoral High Programmers.
  • Frequently, Frankensteins, bots who have had their Asimov Circuits removed, immediately become extreme misanthropes and plot to Kill All Humans or just leave (except members of Corpore Metal, and there's individual bots who don't care). Given what humans are like in Paranoia, one wonders whether the bots are just acting in self-defense.
  • 8th Edition introduces a new thing to worry about: Deviant Artificially Intelligent Viruses (DAIVs). These infect and take over anything with an artificial brain (like scrub-bots... or AutoDocs... or Warbots...). While the good news is that DAIVs can't corrupt the biological brains of clone citizens, they can get into the clone's installed cybernetics and start whispering to the clone to convince them to do something it wants.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Acute Paranoia, adventure "Outland-ISH". The Troubleshooters can use one to get around a convoy of vehicles blocking their path.
• All Crimes Are Equal: In a "Zap" game, just about everything is punishable by summary execution.
• The Alleged Car: If anything works as it logically should in Paranoia, the GM's a creampuff. The rules even helpfully suggest amusing ways for things to go wrong and kill a clone or two in the process.
• Alternative Calendar: Starting from the Computer's assumption of autocratic power; however, the Computer subsequently declared that the year shall always be numbered 214. ^WARNING All suggestions that Friend Computer is autocratic are treason. The Computer Is Your Friend. Treason is punishable by death, summary execution, or termination.
• Ambiguous Situation: Is Alpha Complex underground? In space? In its own pocket dimension? What was the Gehenna Incident? Is Friend Computer genuinely trying to do the right thing or is its incompetence masking some deeper malice against humankind? All of these questions either have no concrete answer or are subject to alteration at the DM's whim.
• Ambiguous Time Period: The Computer's decree that the year shall always be numbered 214 makes it impossible to determine exactly how long the calendar has been in place.
• Amazing Technicolor World: Due to everything being colored by clearance.^note  Attempts by unauthorized personnel to alter the color of anything in Alpha Complex are treason.
• Ammunition Backpack
  • Flamethrowers and plasma generators are nifty area-of-effect weapons, but when they malfunction, you have to unstrap yourself fast and try to outrun the blast radius.
  • The adventure "Send in the Clones" has an Ice Gun with its water supply in a large backpack instead of inside the gun as usual.
  • White Dwarf magazine #81 adventure "The All New Computer Horror Real Action Show". The Magnetic Induction Hand Cannon is a pistol-type weapon attached to a backpack power supply.
  • XP supplement Stuff
    • The B-E Condensate Projector is connected to a backpack filled with helium gas at a temperature just above absolute zero. The projector sprays the helium on opponents, freezing them solid.
    • The Crowd Control Sonic Screamer has its energy supply in a backpack. It sprays out intense high frequency sound that stuns and partially deafens its targets.
    • The Magnetic Flux Cannon is a man-portable weapon with a backpack powerpack. The beam it fires has a devastating effect on electronics, such as robots, computers and vehicles.
    • The Slipaway Liquified Inhibitor Pack fires out a spray of foam that renders surfaces frictionless. It stores the foam in a container/compressor backpack.
• Ancient Conspiracy: The Illuminati claim to be this. Or perhaps they don't. Maybe they are. Who's to say?
• ...And That Would Be Wrong: The various gamebooks have been known to deploy this trope, usually by suggesting such an action would be beneficial to the Troubleshooter, but would require him to betray his comrades, and he'd NEVER consider something like that, as a good and loyal citizen of Alpha Complex, right?^note If you have "comrades," they must be Communists. Betraying them is mandatory. Failure to betray your comrades is punishable by termination!
• Annoying Video Game Helper: In the new edition, Friend Computer will occasionally provide aid directly to you. Said aid can take the form of theme music for your stealth missions or unskippable popup tutorials on reloading streamed into your eyeballs in the middle of combat.
• Appeal to Force: Troubleshooters can even acquire nuclear hand grenades, which work as this trope would suggest... until they carry out their threat. Have you tried outrunning a megaton nuclear explosion?

• Auto Doc: Alpha Complex has the DocBots, tireless robotic medical personnel intended to see to all the clones' problems. They can inject any needed drug, analyze biochemical samples, and perform surgery. The largest ones can act as intensive care wards. Predictably, they are about as useful as most Alpha Complex robots at best and stark raving insane at worst.
• Auto-Kitchen: In Send in the Clones, Twilightcycle 2000 and The Underplex. These mechanisms are actually somewhat more effective at killing people than the various devices built with that intention.
• Back Stab: If player-characters aren't gleefully doing this to their Troubleshooter "teammates", it's only because they're openly blasting each other with zapguns and grenades.^note  Helpful notice: Should you inadvertently kill an innocent citizen in your efforts to destroy mutants and traitors, contact your nearest Vulture Squadron! These trained professionals will supply you with special high-velocity grief counseling services! Confess your crime today and win a two-foot head start.
• Bad Boss: The Computer is insane and paranoid,^note  Slander is treason! The Computer is your friend! and the missions it assigns reflect this at every turn.
• Bald of Evil: The stereotypical Ultraviolet is depicted as a light-skinned bald man wearing a white robe. Also, some depictions of the GMs in the rulebook.
• Being Watched: There are even rules for the Tension Level of any given scene, or the chance that somebody saw whatever treason the player committed.
• Beneath Notice: The Infrareds, officially the citizens least trusted by the Computer, are ironically subject to much less surveillance than those above them in clearance due to this trope.
• Berserk Button
  • Avoid being a Communist. Friend Computer will allow mutants to register their powers (usually; there are some mutant powers that Friend Computer regards as so dangerous that termination if it finds out you have one of them is unavoidable), and may even be lenient on traitors.^note  For instance, a confessed traitor may be allowed to assist Research and Design with a very special project. But if you are a Commie (or made to look like one), you will be terminated.
  • While Friend Computer is merciful to those who were mutated by foul Commie sabotage of their cloning tanks, registering your Machine Empathy mutation is not recommended, as you and any remaining clone-siblings of yours will be terminated and your genetic template will be erased to prevent the creation of new clones.
  • In 8th Edition, possibly the only thing that scares The Computer more than clones with Machine Empathy is anything infected with a DAIV. (See AI is a Crapshoot above.) There's an example given in the 8th Edition Gamemaster's Handbook that explains why reporting a fellow troubleshooter might be infected with a DAIV in their cybernetics is usually a bad, bad idea. One troubleshooter decides to do exactly this, despite the warnings of the other members of their team. From the player's perspective, they each get a gap in their memory and find themselves back in the debriefing room - except they slowly realize it's not the same debriefing as before. Oh, and one of their friends is missing, but a new replacement is on the way. Their equipment is also missing. One checks to see if they're in the sector they were before - they're not, and the sector they were in is no longer registered in Alphapedia. One of the troubleshooters makes the mistake of asking the Computer about it - and are promptly chided not to refer to sectors that don't exist, and get a Treason Star for their asking. ^{What Really Happened}  The Computer took the report of the DAIV infection, then decided to terminate all the troubleshooters for fear they were also infected. Since one of the Troubleshooters was on his last clone, that one's officially dead. (The player is in the process of building a new character.) Then, to be super sure of things, the Computer sealed off the sector, and removed all records of its existence. The clones were brought back, memories (mostly) intact to a new debriefing room in a different sector. Their equipment is back in the sealed-off no-longer-a-sector.
• Big Brother Is Employing You: The players are assigned their missions by the all-seeing Friend Computer.^note  Express your appreciation for this special honor rigorously! Happiness Is Mandatory!
• Big Brother Is Watching:
  • Played with; while pretty much every square centimeter of Alpha Complex is bugged, scanned and wired, whether or not Friend Computer, a High Programmer, IntSec or anyone else is actually paying attention at any given time is another matter.^note Most of the Computer's attention is focused on the bathrooms. This knowledge is clearance Ultraviolet, so it is treasonous to demonstrate this knowledge in-game. Also, some cameras are secretly broken, or treasonously rewired to transmit innocuous pre-recorded footage.
  • Codified in the rules with the Tension rating of a scene, which is a roll the GM can make to determine if someone saw whatever illicit act the Troubleshooter just committed. The higher the tension rating, the more closely watched the area is.
• Black Comedy: The game consists of a deathtrap of a city in a deathtrap of a society replete with Catch 22 Dilemmas with players whose goals require stabbing you in the back the moment they get a chance. Every mission ends with a Blame Game if not Total Party Kill. And of course, Happiness Is Mandatory. You're doomed, so relax and enjoy the ride! ^note  Alpha Complex is not a deathtrap. Calling Alpha Complex a deathtrap is treason. Treason results in death. Report to your termination booth and have a nice daycycle!
• Black Market: Or Infrared Market. Sadly, seeking an infrared market supplier is often the only way to get equipment that might actually help you in your mission.^note  Possession of infrared market goods is treason. Your legally-acquired gear tends to be a combination of whatever the Requisition department had a surplus of that day (say, 500 cases of styrofoam cups) and anything the Research and Design boys are keen to see tested on live subjects.
• Black Market Produce: Food is easy to come by in Alpha Complex, but most of it is something like algae with artificial texture/flavor added. Real food is a rare luxury, and those of lower clearances can usually only obtain it at Infrared Markets.
• Blame Game: The whole point of the debriefing is to make sure this happens at least once a mission.
• Blatant Lies: Both in-universe and out. Often Suspiciously Specific Denial as well, see below for examples.
• Blessed with Suck: Players are usually given a mutant ability which allows them to do something awesome, but using it runs the risk of exposing themselves as mutants, and getting toasted. And when mutant powers fail, they fail hard. And sometimes the "power" is not even useful to begin with, like having a perpetual runny-nose.
• Blinding Camera Flash: In the Acute Paranoia adventure "Me and My Shadow Mark IV", the PCs' mission equipment includes a lightbot named Mikey, who was intended to be a photographer's assistant. If the word "light" is used around him, he'll start flashing lights in the unfortunate character's eyes, blinding him.
• Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: PURGE and Death Leopard encourage their members to say it with explosives. The Communists, due to certain research errors, are more likely to throw pies.
• Boomerang Bigot: There's a lot of this under the table (and, in the case of Registered Mutants on Probation, a lot of it over the table.)
  • If you're a member of Anti-Mutant, you are automatically this. All Troubleshooters are mutants. Being a mutant is treason. You can see where this is headed.
  • Also, one of the jobs for the Troubleshooters is to hunt down secret society members. All Troubleshooters are members of a secret society. Double points if your main mission is to hunt down a member of your own secret society.
• Bottomless Magazines: Played with. Laser barrels are rated for six shots. You can go over the limit, but the chance of explosion starts at 5% per shot, and going over the limit just keeps bumping it up. The manual actively encourages game masters to pretend to roll some dice, then have the weapon explode at the most inopportune time regardless of the result.
• Briar Patching: In the 1E adventure The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues, the traitor Oregon Warbler tries this in an attempt to escape.
• Bribe Backfire: Bribery is treason. Bribery in insufficient amounts will be reported as treason.
• Brotherhood of Funny Hats: The secret societies, particularly in Classic and Zap gameplay.
• The Burlesque of Venus: The cover of Send in the Clones is a picture of Teela-O-MLY wearing a swimsuit and standing on a shell. Two of her clones (both wearing standard Troubleshooter uniforms) are coming in from each side, one being carried by a winged jackobot and the other carrying a spare uniform and throwing a towel to cover Teela #1.
• But What About the Astronauts?: Anyone who comes to you claiming to be an astronaut is actually a cosmonaut, and therefore a Commie. Shoot that person immediately.
• The Caligula: Friend Computer is a well-meaning Caligula— it genuinely wants to make Alpha Complex a safe and enjoyable place to live. The main thing preventing it from actually doing so is that it's become an insane schizophrenic after who-knows-how-long of having its code tampered with, on top of incomplete/incorrect/misunderstood intel right from the start.
• Calvinball: Anything you can convince the GM is possible, becomes possible. Anything you can convince Friend Computer is not treason, is not treason.
• Camping a Crapper: The GM is encouraged to kill players in the bathroom, as they have the highest level of tension points (levels of how much Friend Computer is surveying an area introduced in recent editions).
• Canned Orders over Loudspeaker: Often the method by which Troubleshooters are flawlessly and precisely assigned their missions.^note Your briefing is located at *mechanical squealing* Failing to appear punctually at the briefing will result in demotion!
• Cannon Fodder: PCs are treated as such.
• Canon Discontinuity:
  • The "fifth" edition.
  • The Second Edition "Post-Crash" adventures are also considered this by some^note  The Computer is perfect. The Computer never crashes. Rumors that Friend Computer has crashed or is even capable of crashing are treason..
• Can't Use Stairs: In the supplement Acute Paranoia, the Playing Robots chapter allowed the creation of robot PCs. One of the movement options was "wheels", and the text noted that robots with wheels couldn't go up stairs.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: The adventure included in "Traitor's Manual" ran the PCs through a five-link Catch-22 Dilemma as they tried to get themselves established as undercover agents. The way out of the circle was to use their secret society connections to get one of the needed forms.
• Cheerful A.I.: Friend Computer used to be a civil service AI, so it is always polite, friendly, and can even be somewhat servile. ("At your service, citizen!") Even if it is ordering your execution or outlining the numerous charges of treason against you.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: While there is technically some sort of mission that the PCs are trying to finish, the real point of the game is to gleefully accept your true role as "backstabbing lying weasel" and come up with ever-more humorous and creative ways to sabotage that mission and screw over your teammates.^note  Sabotaging a mission is treason. Failure to punish treason is also treason.
• Chunky Salsa Rule: The Injury table goes from Downed to Killed to Vaporized. Several descriptions of equipment, mutant powers, missions, mandatory bonus duties, etc. can get quite colourful in their descriptions, such as turning a Troubleshooter into a thick yellow spray.
• City in a Bottle: This is one option for Alpha Complex's design.
• City of Spies: Everyone is trying to dig up the dirt on everyone else while hiding their own secrets.
• Classified Information: All over the place. A bunch of missions would be far less deadly for the Troubleshooters if only vital information wasn't above their security clearance.
• Clean Food, Poisoned Fork: Played with in Acute Paranoia; In the "Outland-ISH" adventure, the Troubleshooters must find out who is drugging the citizens in ISH sector. When they ask one of the victims if the drug is in the water, the victim jokingly says "No, it's on the inside of the cups. Of course it's in the water!"
• Clone Degeneration: After the first six clones, there are rules for clone degradation. Mentions of High Programmers with well worn clone templates often allude to such things as extra arms or constant drooling.
• Cloning Blues: Although generally, they're cloning Reds.
• Coffin Contraband: One mission suggests this as a way to smuggle the MacGuffin: throw it in a bag, cover it in goop, and make it look like what's left of a corpse. (Bonus points for including actual dead body parts. You didn't actually need all those teammates, did you?)
• Color-Coded Castes: The Alpha Complex sorts its citizens by Clearance Level in a Rainbow Motif from Infrared to Ultraviolet.^* (Rumours of a Gamma clearance level are treason.) All clothing and equipment is customized to a clearance level, which usually also determines its quality (Infrared gear is black; Ultraviolet, white). Paint, for obvious reasons, is a highly controlled substance.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Due to the clearance system, the color of any object you encounter is vital information...
• Color-Coded Patrician: ...as is the color of any person's attire.
• The Comically Serious: IntSec agent Yuri-B-OGN, who appears in Spin Control and War On [Insert Noun Here], is described as being a character from Straight-style Paranoia appearing in a very much Classic mission.
• Comically Small Bribe: Bribing the ever-present IntSec Green Goons, despite being three security clearances (and income brackets) above the Troubleshooters, will be automatically accepted, as long as the bribe was at least moderately meaningful to the players. This is explained as most Green Goons having been rapidly promoted from the ranks of the Infrared due to their size, brutality, and lack of intellect, so even small amounts still seem significant despite their much higher earnings.
• The Computer Is Your Friend: Any suggestion to the contrary is treason. Tragically, this is perfectly true. The Computer is genuinely benevolent and wants the best for Alpha Complex and its inhabitants. However, its very limited initial data and centuries of tinkering and reprogramming by egocentric High Programmers have rendered it a barely functional paranoid schizophrenic.
• Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: In addition to all the secret societies and power struggles among the Violets and Ultraviolets, it's safe to assume that anybody you meet is in on some kind of conspiracy. Can lead to Right for the Wrong Reasons when accusing people of treason.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Sometimes described as "GM fiat armor".
• Conveniently Interrupted Document: It's not at all uncommon for the Troubleshooters to receive documents with parts [CENSORED BECAUSE OF SECURITY REASONS], [THIS INFORMATION IS NOT AVAILABLE AT YOUR CLEARANCE], and the like.^note Fully reading all assigned documents is mandatory. Inability to accurately reproduce their contents on demand is treason. Possessing information unavailable at your security clearance is treason.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: While most failures result from the treason of mutant Commies, it's also possible - nay, probable! - for Troubleshooters to prove themselves too incompetent for a mission. Friend Computer will generally assume that you either need a less challenging assignment or a large morale boost in the form of hopefully-fully-tested-and-not-hallucinogenic happiness pills.
• Corrupted Data: If data hasn't been censored beyond all hope of reliability, it's corrupted, and if it's not corrupted, it's straightforwardly wrong.
• Crapola Tech: Just about every piece of equipment a player-character is given for their latest Troubleshooting mission qualifies, the exact level of suckitude/lethality dependent entirely on the whims of the GM.
• Crapsaccharine World: If you feel that your natural happiness at being a friend of Friend Computer is not adequate, simply seek assistance from your Morale Officer, who will issue you large quantities of happiness-inducing drugs. He may also issue you large quantities of happiness-inducing drugs even if you did not seek his assistance, but remember: Happiness Is Mandatory!
• Crapsack World: If you haven't figured this out yet, just keep reading these examples, Citizen.
• Critical Failure: Nearly every weapon has an entertaining (for the other players) result for a critical failure. Experimental Weapons can critically fail far more often. (That is, when the GM feels it would be amusing.) Objects that are not weapons may inadvertently become weapons if they, too, suffer a Critical Failure.
• Cross-Cultural Handshake: A form of secret society identification in the XP edition (many of which are similar enough to get mixed up).
• Cyborg: Cybernetic replacements are available for many anatomical bits. Occasionally inverted with "orgcybing" (organic replacements for bot peripherals).
• Darker and Edgier: Games played in the Straight style, which take the setting about as seriously as it can be taken.
  • The default setting for 2016 Edition as well, though Downplayed. Communists are replaced with Terrorists, Friend Computer is much more authoritarian, there are several active resistance movements (none of which get along with each other), and Alpha Complex really is running on its last legs.
• Deader than Dead: Usually, a person's next clone is activated and assigned to the predecessor's position upon death, even if the predecessor was executed for treason; after all, it's entirely possible that just that one clone was possessed of treasonous intent, and it's not fair to judge the rest of the template in the same light. However, in particularly egregious treason cases or if the person was identified as having the Machine Empathy mutation (a Berserk Button for Friend Computer for obvious reasons), the clone template from which they were made may be erased for safety's sake.
• Deadly Upgrade: Superpowering your mutant power or exposing yourself to concentrated mutagenics may result in an entertaining demise.
• Death Is Cheap: Do you play it safe in hopes of dying last, or do you go for the gusto and die as amusingly as possible?
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: A common strategy to stay out of trouble following the inevitable failure of the latest Troubleshooter mission. ^note  Friend Computer notes with concern that the Mission Recorder is the first to die in 92% of missions! Please monitor the safety of your Mission Recorder and his highly incriminating records with more care.
• Decontamination Chamber: These come into play whenever the Troubleshooters are returning from some sort of forbidden zone. Unsurprisingly, most are also built with a Maximum Fun Chamber setting.
• Defiant to the End: You are expected to kill and die with style if at all possible. If you face repeated accusations of treason and your clone template is about to be erased permanently, etiquette dictates you go down fighting, shouting treasonous secret society slogans and mocking the others for their cowardly servitude to the Computer.^note  Mocking others for their cowardly servitude to the Computer is treason!
• Denser and Wackier: Games played in the Zap style, which ratchets up the slapstick to Looney Tunes levels.
• Department of Major Vexation: Both PLC (Production, Logistics, and Commissary) and HPD&MC (Housing Preservation and Development and Mind Control) are enormous bureaucracies that Alpha Complex citizens dread dealing with:
  • In the adventure Send in the Clones, an actual flowchart is provided of a typical bureaucratic experience as the Troubleshooters attempt to find their "special mission equipment." It can take multiple game sessions (as in, real time hours) to work through.
  • In the adventure "Down and Out in Alpha Complex," the Troubleshooters are sent deep undercover. Unfortunately, their new identities were assigned jobs but nothing else (no quarters, no mess hall, no background, etc.) Once you "slip through the cracks" in Alpha Complex, getting back in requires bouncing around like a pinball between bureaucratic offices for asinine reasons and turns out to be impossible unless you find a way to cheat.
• Department of Redundancy Department: One key aspect of Paranoia is the red tape, and nothing shows it better than the Form Request Form. With this form, you can request Termination Vouchers, Jacuzzi Installation, Commendations (in bulk), the Chapstick Cap Replacement Form (part 1 of 7)... or the Form Request Form.^note Rumors of the existence of a Form Completion Form are treason. Friend Computer assures you that there is no such form as the Form Completion Form. Be advised that, should you be issued a Form Completion Form, completing it is treason.
• Deus Est Machina: The First Church of Christ Computer Programmer believes this. The Computer definitely claims an Omniscient Morality License, but it's never actually attempted to claim divine status.^note  Worshipping Friend Computer as a god is not treason, but it's nearly impossible to explain godhood to Friend Computer without making at least one treasonous statement.
• Dirty Communists: Commies are one of the Computer's chief fears, given the Cold War theme of the game. Players are expected to shoot anyone they suspect is a Commie. Of course, false accusations of Communism are treason. But shoot him anyway. Evidence can always be fabricated!^note Fabrication of evidence is treason.
• Dirty Old Man: Most citizens don't live nearly that long (never mind the hormone suppressants), but the occasional High Programmer might manage it. Then there are the treasonous rumors about a regenerating mutant named Innocent-MAN...
• Disadvantageous Disintegration: The Computer hates the destruction of valuable computer property. Which is practically everything in Alpha Complex. Should a miracle occur and a mission to exterminate a traitor actually succeed, you may still be upbraided for shredding, disintegrating or lethally irradiating the traitor's clothes or other possessions.
• Disaster Dominoes: A common result in many games. Odds are slim you'll manage to hide that you're a mutant-traitor, out everyone else as one, complete your mission, avoid the innumerable ways to be executed as a traitor and survive everything else for long — and trying to keep this many balls in the air only increases the odds of a sudden, catastrophic, hilarious collapse.
• Dissonant Serenity: The Computer can display this when assigning its latest Troubleshooter Suicide Mission, depending on how the Gamemaster depicts its voice. Comes in two common flavors: Perpetual Tranquility or Relentlessly Upbeat. Also see Machine Monotone.
• Domed Hometown: Alpha Complex, possibly.
• Do Not Spoil This Ending: Both rules and pre-written missions are "Ultraviolet clearance", but the context switches from "but we know you'll read it anyway, you filthy traitors" to "no, seriously, you'll have more fun if you go in blind to this part".
• Double Agent: Characters are Troubleshooters for the Computer, and usually double agents for one of many secret societies.^note  To prevent yourself from accidentally vaporizing a 'traitor' whose true loyalty is to Friend Computer, you may consult Friend Computer for a full list of undercover agents! Please note that this information is not available at your Clearance Level.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: A common archetype for Armed Forces NPCs.
• Dystopia: Neither freedom nor security in this future!
• Dystopia Is Hard: Alpha Complex barely functions. Bureaucratic errors, Interservice Rivalry, and real, honest-to-goodness treason can all result in crises that threaten entire sectors, and Troubleshooters tend to only make the situation worse. Multiple published missions see huge amounts of resources dedicated to countering threats that only exist in the Computer's fevered imagination. Basically the only thing keeping the system running at all is the fact that the secret societies trying to overthrow it hate each other even more than they hate the Computer.
• Dystopian Edict: Happiness being mandatory, the clearance system, the Outdoors being forbidden despite its habitability...
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The early written adventures for Paranoia tended to send the Troubleshooters Outdoors a lot with several being set almost entirely outside Alpha Complex and the existence of other similar complexes (and other surviving humans) a simple fact. Paranoia XP focuses much more firmly on events inside the dome, offering vague and (intentionally) conflicting ideas on what might be happening outside with the implication the Troubleshooters probably won't ever visit there.
• Earth Is the Center of the Universe: Carried to an extreme: socially speaking, Alpha Complex is the Universe. Most Citizens, thanks to generations of careful indoctrination, don't even form the concept of a finite Alpha Complex that might have other things outside it.
• Easily Forgiven: Friend Computer operates under the policy that any given clone acts independently of the rest of its six-pack. Thus, when a clone is zapped for treason, possessing a mutant power, or any other such crime, the next clone up is considered innocent of such things until proven guilty. (This is to prevent the decidedly unfun situation of a player's entire six-pack being offed one after the other.) The exception is when a crime (such as the possession of Machine Empathy, or bad luck when killing a higher-clearance citizen) warrants erasure of your clone template.
• Eat the Evidence: A suggested use for the "Matter Eater" mutation.
• Ejection Seat: Yet another device prone to misfires. Especially those in helicopters...
• Elaborate Underground Base: A possible Alpha Complex configuration.
• Embarrassing Tattoo: The XP edition suggests tattooing the forehead of a clone that is guilty of minor offenses, such as sloppiness. Officially the tattoo stays until the clone has learned their lesson, but since R&D is still working on tattoo-removal methods ....
• Emotion Control: One potential mutation.^note  Interfering with the emotions of a citizen of higher clearance is treason, but then, being a mutant is already treason. The mutant in question may or may not be immune to their own effect.
• Energy Weapon: Lasers are the typical Red-clearance weapon, and thus reflec (shiny plastic) is the typical armor. Handguns require at least Yellow clearance.
• Enslaved Tongue: The Puppeteer mutation can be used to force a character to say whatever you want (with a good enough Power roll).
• EMP: Some anti-bot weapons. The setting assumes that any important part of the Computer is heavily shielded.
• Escort Mission: A possible mission for the Troubleshooters. It is almost guaranteed that at least two people on your team have orders from their secret society to kill the person you are escorting.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: Admittedly, vehicles don't always explode. Only when it would be inconvenient or funny, and when a more picturesque doom (i.e. losing power to the brakes) is not available.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: If the clones are not risking death just by buying a can of Bouncy Bubble Beverage, the GM's a wuss. (Experienced Troubleshooters know that cans of Bouncy Bubble Beverage easily double as field-expedient grenades, and indeed that they're often more reliable in practice than actual grenade grenades. This is also why B3 is so popular among other citizens who aren't cleared for official weapons.)
• Evil Elevator: One of the many ways in which Alpha Complex can wipe out a few clones.^note  I'm sorry, Citizen: the emergency staircase is a restricted area at your clearance level!
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Troubleshooters find trouble and shoot it.
• Exact Words: Reactor failures have a 94% survival rate, provided that appropriate protective measures are taken. The specific nature of "appropriate protective measures" (donning a Green-clearance environment suit and evacuating the sector) is classified to preserve morale.
• Explosive Overclocking: Most assigned equipment doesn't need any encouragement in order to malfunction in an explosive manner, but count on your players to try and juryrig them, leaving you free to apply the logical result on already unstable equipment.
• Extreme Omnivore: A possible mutation. It specifies that only organic matter actually gives sustenance.
• Faceless Eye: The Computer is represented as a digital image of an eye.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Failing at a mission is extremely likely, but can always be blamed on Commie sabotage and/or the other players. Success is not only phenomenally unlikely, but suspicious to boot.
• Fake Aristocrat: Forging yourself a higher security clearance qualifies.^note  If you are even considering this course of action, please report to the nearest Psych facility for lengthy and excruciating psychological readjustment. Thank you for your cooperation!
• False Dichotomy: Commonly used by the Computer or Internal Security, as well as by players against robots or lower-clearance citizens.
• False Reassurance: Another common source of misinformation, disinformation, and non-information by the Computer, Internal Security, Free Enterprise...
  Radiation meter: Citizen! Are you Blue clearance or higher?
  Red clearance Troubleshooter: No...
  Radiation meter: Good! Then you are experiencing an acceptable level of radiation.
• Fantastic Caste System: The security clearance system functions as such. As mentioned above, it's based on the light spectrum, starting in rank at Infrared (the lowest, rendered as black for practicality's sake) and working up through Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet before finishing at Ultraviolet (rendered as white, to contrast Infrared).
  • Since objects share this spectrum-based caste system, things of certain colors may be illegal for Troubleshooters to use. Or carry. Or stand near. Or, in extreme cases, look at.
  • Rooms and corridors share this demarcation as well, often bringing a new and excruciatingly personal importance to the old cliché about "toeing the line".
  • One module has a hilarious point about how the Infrared citizens work in the salt mines - but salt is white and therefore Ultraviolet clearance to handle. As a result the Infrareds work in the dark, and actually long since ran out of salt to mine and have been mining rock as seasoning, but who'd ever know?
• Fantastic Naming Convention: The Computer has assigned an easy-to-follow naming methodology to all clones in Alpha Complex that means their name provides handy basic info about them. The structure of names goes [Clone personal name]-[Initial of Security Clearance]-[name of clone's home sector, which is always rendered as three capital letters]-[specific clone number]. For example, the fourth of a Red clearance clone batch named Jenny from the DND sector would read "Jenny-R-DND-4", while the first of her batch would have been "Jenny-R-DND-1". In earlier editions, non-player characters often have their names rendered to form jokes or gags.
• Fantastic Racism: Registered mutants are often treated as scapegoats.
• Fantastical Social Services: The job of a Troubleshooter is ostensibly tech support - for the entirety of Alpha Complex, which which leads to a lot of overlap with State Sec and more shooting of troubles than usual.
• Fascist, but Inefficient: At RED Clearance. Inverted at higher clearances; the game suggests that the GM play efficiency for as much scary value as the inefficiency that REDs have to deal with. For instance, the guardbots assigned to your quarters may catch an "intruder" (your secret society contact) and confiscate his "contraband" (which he was delivering to you).
  • However, the game also suggests playing it straight if it's funnier, like Friend Computer putting the REDs on hold while they're trying to get help disarming a megaton antimatter bomb because the local High Programmer needs that leaky faucet in his autogyro-scrubbing chamber fixed right now.
• Flamethrower Backfire: A flamethrower can malfunction as a result of being hit in combat. If it does, it explodes, causing massive damage to anyone within 5 meters, including the wearer. Plasma generators are even worse.
• Flawed Prototype: Troubleshooters often have the opportunity to assist Friend Computer^note  Refusing to help The Computer is Communism. by bringing along various half-baked inventions from the Research and Design labs. Sometimes the instruction manual does not yet exist; if it exists, it's guaranteed to be above your security clearance. And sometimes there is no method to use these devices safely. Nevertheless, R&D will expect a full and complete field test!
• Flock of Wolves: Alpha Complex in general. The Computer has everyone out hunting mutants and secret society members, but it seems that everyone is a mutant and a member of a secret society. At least one secret society (the Wobblies) originated when several groups of Troubleshooters (one after another) were sent to investigate them, failed to find anything because the society did not exist (the original Wobblies having disappeared pre-Alpha), and were executed; the last group got wise and created the society themselves rather than return empty-handed.
• Food Pills: The Vita-Yum Meal Substitute Bar Substitute Pill in the XP edition supplement Criminal Histories.
• Forbidden Fruit: The Computer hates Communists, so some fed-up citizens took up the name, despite having only the vaguest idea what "Communism" actually is.^note  Communism is treason; all other information on this subject is unavailable at your clearance level!
• Forever War: The Computer's war against mutants and Communists. The harder its loyal Troubleshooters look, the more traitors they find!
  • In 8th Edition, Communists are replaced with Terrorists. It's a Vicious Cycle as well, as the Computer becomes more oppressive to crack down on Terrorists and Resistance movements, thus causing more clones to join resistance movements which in turn makes the Computer limit free will even more.
• For Inconvenience, Press "1": As this is a utopia, everything is perfect. Thus, the Computer sees no need to divert resources towards helping people with perfect things. Therefore, what help there is is rarely helpful.
• Four Is Death: In 8th Edition, a standard clone citizen has five wound levels: Fine (no penalty), Hurt (-1 die to rolls), Injured (-2 dice to rolls), Maimed (-3 dice to rolls) and Dead.
• Frameup: Commonly done by and to players, and explicitly encouraged: convince The Computer that your enemy is a traitor, and you'll be commended for killing him.
• Franken-vehicle: "The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues''. The High Programmer Duke-U has a vehicle created out of equipment from a variety of Old Reckoning cars. It includes a grille from a Rolls-Royce, many VW and Toyota parts, a tailfin from a Cadillac and a cracked 427 cubic inch stock Chevy block, all on a Saab chassis.
• From Bad to Worse: Used for hilarity (most of the time), besides you still have 5 more clones.
• Full-Circle Revolution: In any mission where one of the secret societies actually believes they've succeeded in overthrowing the Computer, they inevitably install a new regime that's basically indistinguishable from it.
• Fungus Humongous: XP supplement The Underplex. The hidden sector Mescalinzan has puffball mushrooms with caps a meter thick.
• Future Food Is Artificial: A staple trope of the game, with a wide variety of artifical foods, such as algae chips, Bouncy Bubble Beverage, Cruncheetyme Yeast Chips, Hot Fun, and Cold Fun. Most of the population toils away at food vats that generate the nutritious (And flavourless) sludge that gets processed. Higher clearences get real food grown in hydroponic gardens as a reward. ^note  'Natural' foods were not made to the same stringent nutrition and flavor standards as the synthetic food provided by your friend, the Computer.
• Future Imperfect: Old Reckoning (pre-Computer) history is scrambled, redacted at lower clearances, and misunderstood even by those who do get their hands on any of it. For about two-thirds of it, the only surviving primary source is the Gatzmann Archives, which got increasingly mixed up as its creator descended into senility.
• Gambit Pileup: Players are always scheming against each other, causing each mission to result in everybody's schemes tripping over everybody else's schemes.^note  Interfering with a Computer-assigned mission is treason.
• Gattaca Babies: Every human inhabitant of Alpha Complex is gestated in a cloning tank.
• Gender Is No Object: Sexism is not among the many evils of Alpha Complex society, if only because everybody's dosed up to the eyeballs with hormone suppressors, and barely aware of the concept of gender.
• Genius Loci: The whole city technically embodies and is controlled by Friend Computer.
• Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: Surgery and/or medication will be used by The Computer to help any unfortunate Citizen who cannot grasp that Happiness Is Mandatory.
• Giant Eye of Doom: The Computer is represented as a digital image of an eye.
• The GM Is a Cheating Bastard: GM Fiat is an actual listed equipment type.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Just about everything. Missions range from flat-out impossible (or at least expected to be) to "okay, they could succeed by doing X and Y and Z, but given their motives, are they really going to?"
• Government Agency of Fiction: Armed Forces, CPU, Internal Security, etc.
• Government Drug Enforcement: The Computer issues a variety of drugs custom-tailored to help all Citizens lead rich and fulfilling lives.
• Groin Attack: Acute Paranoia, adventure "Miami Laser". One of the attacks used by rabid Teela O'Malley fans on any surviving Troubleshooters.
• Hand Signals: The 1st Edition adventure The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues and the Twitchtalk skill in the XP edition.
• Happiness in Mind Control: The adventure Send in the Clones. Teela O'Malley has the mutation Cloud Mens' Minds, which causes men to fall in love with her and obey her every whim. When the effect wears off, the victim may decide to continue being in love with her (and obeying her) on their own.
• Happiness Is Mandatory: The Trope Namer.
• Harmless Freezing: The Constant-Wear Prophylactic Biostasis Garment in the adventure The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues. Also mentioned as a possible result of the cryokinesis mutation and a freeze blaster, at least in a Zap setting.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: The Chromativariation mutation allows a character to change an object's color. In any other tabletop RPG, this would be considered a useless ability. However, keep in mind that clearance levels are color-coded, and suddenly a character can cause accusations of treason on a mass scale.
• Hey, Catch!: Happens in one mission with a grenade. The pin hasn't been pulled. If the PC doesn't do anything stupid like shoot the thrower, he can keep it.
• Higher Understanding Through Drugs: The Mystics claim to be seeking enlightenment and uncovering the truth of the world as their reason for taking a metric ton of cheap drugs. It's a pretty lame excuse to justify getting high off a metric ton of cheap drugs.
• High Turnover Rate: Players are allowed six clone lives. It usually takes seven to complete a mission.
• Hilarity Ensues: Missions and pre-generated characters are invariably set up to ensure this. Like the one where trainee Troubleshooters are assigned simulated lasers which a Death Leopard swapped out for real ones and then one of them is secretly ordered to act like a Commie as a further test except, due to a glitch, all of them are so ordered.
• Historical Character Confusion: The Computer holds that Communists are Public Enemy Number One, making some rebellious types think that there must be something in it. However, they're sketchy on the details, and instead of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx, they follow the teachings of John Lennon and Groucho Marx. Close, but no cigar.
  • Also common with the Romantics, who can have trouble distinguishing between Old Reckoning media, and actual Old Reckoning People, such as thinking Jesus built Stonehenge and defeated Voldemort to save President Bush.
• Hit So Hard, the Calendar Felt It: The year is 214 of Our Computer. It has always been 214.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: A traitor who volunteers to test a "traitor killer" device. It explodes. This is intentional; the designer assumed that a traitor would volunteer so that it wouldn't be used against him.
• Hollywood Cyborg: Good news! Cybernetic replacement parts are available to Citizens of any clearance level. Unfortunately, effective and reliable cybernetic parts are not available at your security clearance level.
• Home Field Advantage: The adventure Send in the Clones. In the Absurdly-Spacious Sewer where he lives, Zhon-B-VLJ has set up many traps to bedevil anyone who tries to find him. He uses them to herd and capture the PC Troubleshooters.
• Hot Potato: One mission is called "Hot Potato". It turns out to be an antimatter bomb big enough to destroy all of Alpha Complex, and a non-trivial chunk of the earth's crust for that matter. And there are two separate groups of NPCs who are actually insane enough to detonate it.
• Human Doorstop: Organic nuclear reactor shielding duty (what do you mean there's a shortage of lead vests?) is a common form of off-screen execution.
• Human Resources: Everything gets recycled back into service in Alpha Complex. Everything.
• I Call It "Vera": XP supplement "Service, Service". Vulture Squadron Warriors give nicknames to not only each weapon they carry but each piece of ammunition as well.
• I'd Tell You, but Then I'd Have to Kill You:
  • Whatever it is you want to know, it is always above your security clearance. In most cases, the fact that said information is above your security clearance is also above it, and thus being denied information is treason.
  • Because every player has backup clones, some player might get cheeky and agree to the terms, thinking that they can just tell the group with their next clone life. The book says if a member of the group presses for information based on this, have him escorted away by Internal Security, and then his clone backup arrives missing a few skill points, their sense of balance, and no recollection of what they was told. (Their clone got brainscrubbed before being released to the party.)
• Impact Silhouette: Turns up a lot in the art. Generally means something particularly hilarious has ended a Troubleshooter's problems forever.
• Improvised Weapon: Bouncy Bubble Beverage explodes if you shake it too hard, making it awfully popular among citizens who aren't cleared for grenades.
• In and Out of Character: Averted Trope, because saying things that admit you understand the game rules' intricacies means you know information which is outside of your security clearance, and knowing information outside of your security clearance is treason.
• Informed Flaw: Given that everyone is already plotting against each other, the disadvantage of being a registered mutant can turn into this. Other players will continue to plot against you either way, but you can use your powers openly, and they can't.
• Inherent in the System: The Computer is insane. The Computer is perfect. Alpha Complex reflects both of these facts.
• Insane Troll Logic: The whole world of Paranoia is based on Insane Troll Logic, and most games feature tons of it.
• Interservice Rivalry: Every service group has a rivalry with at least one other service group. And nobody likes Internal Security.
• Interdimensional Travel Device: The Transdimensional Collapsatron, which allows travel between dimensions in several adventures.^note  Unauthorized interdimensional travel is treason. Also, there is no such thing as the Transdimensional Collapsatron: the Transdimensional Collapsatron cannot allow you to travel to other dimensions: and spreading rumors about non-existent objects is treason.
• Irony: Despite Friend Computer's burning hatred of communists, its economic policies come off as very communist.
• It's Raining Men: Earlier editions featured a damage chart for height, with one column for "orbital." Which at least one official mission actually used.
• Job Mindset Inertia: supplement Acute Paranoia, chapter "Playing Robots". One of the Drawbacks that can be taken for robots is "Flashbacks". This means that the robot's brain was originally programmed for some other type of job and the robot sometimes starts acting as if it were still programmed that way. One example given is a warbot whose brain originally operated an automated dry-cleaners. Every once in a while it will start talking (and acting) as if it were still running the shop instead of fighting.
• Just a Stupid Accent/El Spanish "-o": The Communists (who know they're supposed to be Russian, but don't know what "Russian" is) speak English with a heavy "Russian" accent (a la Pavel Chekov) and add -ski to the end of random words.
• Justified Extra Lives: The cloning system. Earlier editions gave you five clone brothers, while later ones said that as a Troubleshooter, the Computer will pay for your next five forced-growth clones.
• The Key Is Behind the Lock: It is almost inevitable that you can acquire an item at one clearance level... and the things that let you use it a few levels later. For example, you can acquire photographic film at a level two higher than the clearance at which you can get a camera. Happens a lot with instruction manuals, too.
• Killer Game-Master:
  • Practically a requirement. The rules even state, and this is a verbatim quote: "Kill the bastards!" Though they also state that you should give the players a little time to do the job themselves.
  • Perhaps the most insidious tool in the Paranoia GM's arsenal ever produced was the infamous "Debriefing Questionnaire" that came as a hand-out with the pre-written adventure "Me and My Warbot, Mark IV". The questionnaire is clearly marked "Failure to Answer Each Question Accurately and Completely is Treason." It also contains questions like, "Do you believe that the greatest threat to life in Alpha Complex are the Traitorous Commies? (Y/N). If yes, why do you believe Friend Computer is failing at protecting the Citizens from the Commies? If no, why do you believe that Friend Computer is lying to the Citizens about the Commie Mutant threat?" Another question reads simply, <THIS QUESTION REDACTED FOR ANY PERSONNEL BELOW ULTRAVIOLET CLEARANCE> Remember, you have to answer all questions accurately and completely, including that one. In a word, this questionnaire is instant PC-boning on a single sheet of paper, and the answers your PCs come up can be worth a laugh or two.
  • Starting with XP edition, the game actually encourages the Game Master away from this style of play. Not out of niceness, but because just killing the players is no challenge. Far more fun is to manipulate events so the players kill themselves. Or better yet, each other. However, it does state you should still appear to be a Killer Game Master, to maintain the proper atmosphere of paranoia.
• Kill on Sight: In the supplement Acute Paranoia, adventure "The Harder They Clone". When The Computer learns that Bill-Y-IDL is part of the conspiracy, it announces over the Complex-wide PA system "Bill-Y-IDL is a traitor! Terminate on sight!"
• Kinda Busy Here: It is ill-advised to tell your superiors such, although they will probably call you at highly problematic moments. Especially Friend Computer.
• Lawful Stupid: Friend Computer genuinely wants what is best for Alpha Complex. It is somewhat hindered by the fact that it is completely insane, and that all of its minions are Stupid Evil.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Security clearances are based on the electromagnetic spectrum. The closer the colour is to ultraviolet, the higher clearance it is.
• Leeroy Jenkins: "Tips for Traitors" suggests tricking everyone else into doing this.
• Let X Be the Unknown: The Vulture Warriors of Dimension X adventure series.
• Light Is Not Good: Ultraviolet clearance, the highest possible rank, is represented by the color white. Ultraviolet citizens have advanced to the top in a meritocracy that honors ruthlessness, paranoia and double-crossing — and at their security level, they're practically above the law.
• Literal Metaphor: In the adventure Orcbusters (a parody of Dungeons & Dragons), there is a wandering monster table — it's the table where the monsters sit around playing poker with each other when it's not their turn to wander...
• The Loonie: Unlike most games, being a Loonie does not perceptibly alter a given character's odds of survival. Editions with the Perversity Points mechanic provide a motivation to fail beautifully.
• Lost in Transmission: The rulebook suggests that entire sections of a game session can be based on figuring out where to report for your mission.
  "Attention Troubleshooters! Please report immediately to room squeee Bouncy Bubble Beverage, now available in Soylent Orange flavor! squeee Failure to report on time is treason!"
• Luck Stat: The book suggests you use the Power stat if you need a generic, nothing-else-applies luck roll.
• Ludicrous Gibs: A common result with the most powerful weapons. And not always on the user's enemies.
• MacGuffin: A common mission element is to fetch an obvious MacGuffin. It's not unknown for the MacGuffin to be dangerous to know about, dangerous to the touch, or in extreme cases, an object that exists only in Friend Computer's imagination.
• Machine Worship: Corpore Metal thinks that robots and cyborgs should rule, while the FCCCP (First Church of Christ Computer Programmer) not-quite-secret society worships Alpha Complex's current ruler, The Computer, as an aspect of God.^note  Belief in God is not actually treason itself; however, it is almost impossible to explain the concept of God to Friend Computer without making one or more treasonous statements.
• Machine Monotone: An option for the Computer's voice: see Dissonant Serenity.
• Made of Explodium: Everything can be deadly, especially in a Zap game.
• Magic-Powered Pseudoscience: John M. Ford's adventure "The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues". R&D scientist Willis-G-EEP-4's inventions work well on the test bench, but fail when used in the field when he isn't around. That's because their success depends on his mutant powers of Minor Telekinesis and Luck. Of course, the fact that they work at all makes them significantly more reliable than most of the equipment Troubleshooters end up with.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: A common way of hiding your assassinations. The indifferent quality of these cover-ups often results in hilarity and/or additional accusations of treason.
• Malevolent Architecture: Alpha Complex is one enormous deathtrap composed out of smaller deathtraps.
• Many Questions Fallacy: One way to trick fellow players into admitting treason. Like everything else, it can come back to bite you.
• Mars Needs Women: In the Clones in Space adventure, the final confrontation is against some Affably Evil aliens who want to steal Earth women for themselves.
• Master Computer: Repeat after me, citizen: "The Computer is my friend! Trust the Computer!"
• Master of None: Unmodified random stat rolls can leave you with a weak, stupid, incoherent buffoon with poor bladder control. Which, in some ways, is good: you can justify letting all the other characters take the risks, then shoot them after the hard parts are done.
• Maximum Fun Chamber: Numerous examples, although implying that there is a maximum amount of Fun a Citizen can experience borders dangerously on treason.
• Metagame: You didn't read that Paranoia rulebook, did you, Citizen?
• Metaplot: Despite never being big on continuity to begin with, West End Games tried to add one in the late eighties by releasing several adventure books with overarching storylines. First was the "Secret Society Wars," which resulted in a pre-Alpha Complex programmer being thawed out of suspended animation, whereupon he reprogrammed the Computer and caused it to crash. WEG then took the opportunity to sell various sourcebooks and supplements set in a post-Crash complex, trying everything from parodies of post-apocalyptic wastelands ("The Crash-Course Manual") to time-travelling crossovers with other RPGs ("Alice Through the Mirrorshades," "Vulture Warriors of Dimension X"). Unfortunately, it was all very random, terribly executed, and devoid of Paranoia's unique black humor, driving away players and eventually leading to the end of the Second Edition and contributing to the demise of WEG itself.
• Mission Briefing: The PCs play a team of Troubleshooters sent out on missions, so naturally there's always a mission briefing early on. Although getting to the briefing is often a challenge in itself. Sometimes finding the briefing is a challenge. Sometimes a clone or two gets killed before the team makes it there, much less makes it through the briefing and actually gets sent on the mission proper.
• Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: Considering that Mission Control is either The Computer Itself, or other citizens just as crazy as the PCs...
• Mockspiracy: In Acute Paranoia, a society called The International Workers of the World (Wobblies) was created because the people sent to investigate it kept being executed for failing to find it, so the latest group realized that if the society doesn't exist, then they should create it. They created it solely to spy on it, and then it was infiltrated by spies for other groups.
• The Mole: Everyone is an agent for one of Alpha Complex's secret societies.
• Mook Promotion: Starting PCs have just been elevated from the nameless obscurity of Infrared rank. A rare few may even live long enough to be demoted back to that position in abject disgrace.
• Morality Chip: All bots have one installed, though it is often defective and prioritizes obedience to The Computer over preservation of life. And Corpore Metal prioritizes removing them.
• Morton's Fork: You're gonna get speared on it on just about every mission. For example, in one adventure, the Troubleshooters are tasked with preventing anyone from entering a hangar and interfering with, touching, or moving the warbot stored there. Enter a group of four Ultraviolet clearance Citizens, who promptly order the PC to clear out of the hangar because they (the Ultraviolets) have been using it as their exercise space and are late for their workout — and oh, by the way, get that silly warbot out of the way too. And do it now, Mister. Remember, failure to obey orders from a lawful authority is treason!
• Muggle Power: Members of Psion often try to find mutagens to expose themselves to. Anti-Mutant wants to kill all mutants.
• Multiple-Choice Past: It's really not important why the last (known) humans are living in a sealed compound under the control of an insane machine.
• Multiple Persuasion Modes: Early editions have Bootlicking (sucking up), Bribery (say it with money), Con (as in con game), Fast Talk, Interrogation, Intimidation, Motivation (i.e. leadership), Oratory (convincing a group of people) and Spurious Logic (for use on robots and The Computer).
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Remember, the debriefing always goes smoothest when there are no other survivors to provide conflicting stories!
• Murderous Malfunctioning Machine: A common mission is to stop berserk robots. Hardcore robot members of Corpore Metal often state this as their goal. ^note  Please note: Robots are a valuable resource! Destroying a particularly obstructive, obsessive or homicidally insane robot will be discussed at length during your mission debriefing!
• Mutants: One of the Computer's chief fears is mutation. Characters are always on the look-out for mutants, and are almost invariably mutants themselves.
  • A mutant character can choose whether to register himself (and be a second-class citizen) or not (which is treason if discovered). Unless they got the Machine Empathy mutation: the Computer is still sane enough to erase the clone template of any Machine Empath it discovers.
• Native Guide: In the adventure The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues, Mission 3 "No One Here Gets Out Alive", The Computer sends the traitorous Oregon Warbler along with the Troubleshooters (PCs) to act as their guide through the dangerous passages of Alpha Complex. Of course, this being Paranoia he takes every opportunity to get the Troubleshooters killed.
• Never My Fault: The Computer has a firm belief in its own infallibility. Troubleshooters, who screw up on a fairly regular basis, soon grow accustomed to claiming it's never their fault, even if they don't really have that mindset.
• Never Split the Party: Subverted. Splitting the party is just as deadly as it is in any other game, but since your fellow adventurers are probably plotting to kill you anyway, getting the hell away from them can't be all bad. Besides, splitting up means a chance to meet privately with another character (for whatever reason).
• Ninja: The Alpha Complex version appears in the Acute Paranoia supplement adventure "Warriors of the Night Cycle".
• Nintendo Hard: Played for laughs. You get cloned in batches of six for good reason.
• No Blood Ties: Everyone is grown in a tank, and even the knowledge of how biological reproduction works is forbidden at low clearances.
• No Delays for the Wicked: Played both ways. Any player mission is going to be a total shambles, yet Alpha Complex as a whole seems to continue functioning somehow.
• Nondescript, Nasty, Nutritious: Lower clearance citizens have a wide variety of algae based and synthesized food products to choose from, and the happiness drugs prescribed to all citizen will help them forget the lack of flavour. The game often states that most lower clearance food, for all its nutritional value, is rather devoid of significant flavour. Part of the introduction to Red clearance is a gift of a hydroponic apple, and the text describes it as mindblowing in how it tastes.
• Non-Promotion: Being promoted up from relatively-safe Infrared anonymity. Being made Troubleshooter team leader (the picture on the badge◊ is a target) pretty much dooms you.
• No OSHA Compliance: Alpha Complex is about as unsafe as it's possible to be and still keep people alive from day to day. Well, most people. Well, most people other than Troubleshooters.
• No Sex Allowed:
  • All humans in Alpha Complex are cloned and grown in vats. Sex is not only considered treason, but constant doses of hormone suppressants (along with the mind-boggling amount of other drugs that fills most human's diets) remove the capability to reproduce, as well as any desire. Because of this, not only is there barely any significant difference between genders, but many aren't even aware of the human capability for reproduction.
  • However, when teams of Troubleshooters go on missions that take them out of Alpha Complex and away from their precious drugs, the hormones can come flooding back in an instant...^note  The Outdoors are a rumor: spreading rumors is treason. The food that you receive from Friend Computer does not contain hormone suppressants. Hormone suppressants are a rumor spread by Commies. Spreading rumors is treason.
  • In earlier editions, one of the secret societies (the Earth Mothers) is explicitly opposed to this and is one of the few societies that more-or-less know what it's doing, making them rather powerful.
  • If you survive long enough to get to Ultraviolet clearance... well, one of the perks is learning more about the Old Reckoning, which includes all the trouble Old Reckoning people went through to get some action... Long story short, High Programmers tend to maintain personal harems.
  • Though some higher-clearance citizens voluntarily go back on hormone suppressants after a while, deciding to stick to drugs that aren't constantly up to eleven.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Both in-game and out, this attitude prevails.
• Not on the List:
  • Invoked in the adventure "The Harder They Clone". The doorman at an illegal club tells the Troubleshooters they aren't on the list and can't get in.
  • If a GM is feeling particularly vicious, he can single out one Troubleshooter (or the whole party, for more fun) as not being on the list when heading to the briefing, and denied entry. Unless they can work out a way to get inside, cue the whole party being charged with treason for not showing up to their officially ordered meeting.
• Not This One, That One: At least one official mission includes a spiffy pile of equipment that looks like it might actually work and be useful... and is promptly assigned to some other team, after which a much less spiffy pile of equipment is rolled out and assigned to the PCs.^note  Please note that efforts to acquire another team's assigned supplies - such as switching shipping labels, bribing Supply Department personnel, disguising yourself as another team, and/or lying in wait to ambush another team - are all highly effective and useful kinds of treason!
• Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping: Acute Paranoia adventure "Botbusters". When the barbot (bartender robot) Jonesie receives a message from The Computer, he's standing around polishing some glasses.
• Off the Rails: The whole point of the game is to go off the rails, into a bottomless chasm, while juggling an ever-increasing number of live grenades.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The High Programmers. Also The Illuminati. If they exist.
• One-Hit Kill: Many weapons, but especially the Plasma Cannon. By now you've already guessed that the Plasma Cannon has major, flesh-disintegrating drawbacks.
• Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap:
  • Petbots, ratbots, roachbots, etc. are often mentioned. Occasionaly the game mentions High Programmers with real animals in zoos.
  • Real food grown in hydroponic gardens are considered a rare delicacy, with Red citizens getting occasional real food as a reward, and the quantity increasing up until Blue clearance, when they finally get to eat nothing but real food.
• Only Flesh Is Safe:
  • One type of gas shell available for the cone rifle is Corrosion Gas. It destroys all metal in the area of effect (such as armor and the bodies of robots). It has no effect on living creatures.
  • A Gauss Gun sends out a powerful electromagnetic charge that has a devastating effect on electronics (including robots and computers). It doesn't affect organic beings.
• The Operators Must Be Crazy: HIL Sector Blues IntSec Communications Central operators.
• The Outside World: Played for Laughs. All citizens are born in the underground Alpha Complex, which can lead to hilarity ensuing when troubleshooters are asked to go outside and face its hideous dangers... like squirrels.^note  Which is to say that the hideous dangers of the Outside may include squirrels, not that the Troubleshooters must face the hideous dangers of the Outside by scuttling along phone lines, burying nuts or the like.
• Painting the Medium: Done with the rulebooks. Player documents have security level Red, while gamemaster materials are classified Ultraviolet. Since the players' Troubleshooters start at Red level, they are technically guilty of treason if they read the rules. The GM is encouraged to terminate the PCs if they try to game the rules, and players are encouraged — in true Paranoia fashion — to know the rules but not let on that they know them...
• Paranoia Gambit: Naturally. Friend Gamemaster is encouraged to occasionally roll dice for no particular reason and smirk, or pass a note to a PC that just says "Act like this note says something important" (or better yet "Roll _____ and let me know the result", as it keeps them in the dark too).
• The Paranoiac: The Computer. While many threats against Alpha Complex are real, It's just as likely to misinterpret some random bit of evidence and send a Troubleshooter team off on a wild goose chase.
• People Jars: The tubes in which clones are created and (in Paranoia XP) spend their time until the previous active member of the clone family is killed.
• Perpetual Poverty: Paranoia XP notes that troubleshooters do get paid a reasonable wage. They are, however, expected to spend all of this money ensuring their own happiness. Friend computer will ensure they have all the equipment they need to complete their missions.
• Phlebotinum Breakdown: Even regular equipment has a 5 percent chance of malfunctioning at any given time, never mind experimental R&D equipment that the PCs are often assigned to test as a secondary duty.
• Pink Mist: Sourcebooks regularly make references to turning Troubleshooters into "fine red mist", either due to post-mission interrogations from Friend Computer or just the latest experiments from R&D.
• Playing with Fire: Usually detrimental, by which we mean fatal, by which we mean hilarious.
• Plot Armor: "GM Fiat" is an actual armor type.
• Pocket Protector: The XP edition's Giant Metal Plate.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Any citizen of a superior clearance level was selected through a combination of shameless flattery, blackmail, secret murder and dumb luck. Competence is neither likely nor particularly desirable.
  • At the start of the mission, Mandatory Bonus Duties (Happiness Officer, Equipment Guy, Communications and Recording Officer, Hygiene Officer, Loyalty Officer, and Team Leader) are handed out. They are assigned in order based on scoring on a test that is designed to find the most competent individual from those not yet saddled with a Duty. Handing out Team Leader last means that it invariably goes to a player who didn't make the cut for any other position. Well, they need the practice, right?
  • In one suggestion in the XP edition, the GM is advised to invert this if the players' understanding of Paranoia is so bad that they can't keep it together long enough to get to more inventive treason (as opposed to zapping each other without bothering to formulate a pretext). After executing the team's current clones, he's then advised to appoint the least insane player as Team Leader and have the Computer give him actual support for once.^note Friend Computer is always happy to help loyal Troubleshooters complete their missions!
• The Political Officer: The Loyalty Officer. Their loyalty is directly to Friend Computer, not the Team Leader. (If the Loyalty Officer were suddenly to die of unknown causes, nobody would ask any awkward questions. If you catch our drift.)
• Possession Implies Mastery: Subverted. Most objects are assumed to be this... by the R&D Mad Scientist who dreamed them up. However, in practice, the Troubleshooter should have no freakin' clue how to use it safely and properly. And the instruction manuals are always of a higher security clearance than s/he can access.
• Promoted to Scapegoat: Giving someone a fancy title that you can fob all the blame onto is a time-tested way of avoiding execution.
• Propaganda Machine: The Computer has a nearly literal one of these, running twenty-four hours a day. (Or however many hours there are in a day this week.)
• Properly Paranoid: An alert citizen is a happy citizen! Happiness Is Mandatory! The skill High Alert/Focused Paranoia/Scam Radar isn't about asking if there's a threat — there are dozens of threats everywhere at all times — but which one is most immediately relevant.
• Punny Name: A long standing tradition of Paranoia naming is to find the cheesiest pun you can with the format "Name-Clearance Level-XXX". For instance, Anne-R-KEY, Ton-O-FUN, Tra-Y-TOR...
  • Many such names are 'ruined' when the character increases in security level from Red to Orange. Happily, this is a relatively uncommon problem.
• Railroading: If the GM needs the PCs to be somewhere or do something, one directive from Friend Computer and they're there, doing that. The rules suggest that this power be used sparingly, since traveling to the location of the mission is a good chance for the players to get in a bit of pre-mission deceit, sabotage and/or self-inflicted mayhem.
• Rainbow Motif: The clearance hierarchy, with the additions of Infrared and Ultraviolet.
• Rapid Aging: XP supplement Stuff. The Chronogun has a setting that ages any living creature so much that the target is Reduced to Dust.
• Read the Freaking Manual: Subverted in-game and in real life. In game, most Troubleshooters can't (legally) read the manuals for the items they are given because the manual is above their security clearance, and that would be treason. In real life, the players can't (legally) read the rules of the game because it's above their character's security clearance, and that would be treason.
• The Real Man: A player archetype likely to do well. Relatively speaking.
• Reduced-Downtime Features: This game has a fix embedded into its combat system for the slower-paced combat systems of their contemporaries. Essentially, instead of worrying about hexes and distance and action points, a player just says their planned action and the GM allows or disallows it.
• Reduced to Dust: XP supplement Stuff. The Chronogun has a setting that causes the target creature to suffer Rapid Aging and crumble to dust.
• Released to Elsewhere: Being reassigned to reactor shielding duty. ("Repairing the reactor shielding? Doesn't sound so bad.")
• Red Scare: Da, I am seeink no Communist menace here, Comrad— I mean, Citizen. I am werry, werry loyal Citizen. Please to be hawink this leaflet introducink you to the teachinks of Lennon and Marx...
• Red Shirt: Literally, in every sense of the term. Part of the reason for the lenient promotion rules is that no Troubleshooter is expected to survive past Red Clearance.
• Redshirt Army: The players are members of this.
• Reference Overdosed: Quite a few of the pre-made adventures are movie or popular culture references.
• Refuge in Audacity: The Chutzpah stat is summarized as "the quality of a man who kills both his parents and then pleads for mercy because he's an orphan."^note Not that Alpha Complex citizens even have parents, but you get the idea. Any old line of guff may be accepted by The Computer at face value if it's being flaky that day and/or you appeal properly to its emotional simulation software.
• Repressive, but Efficient: Whenever it's scarier (particularly when the players are counting on Alpha Complex' inefficiencies as part of their plans), everything suddenly works exactly as it's supposed to.
• Request for Privacy: This happened several times at the end of regular mission briefings in adventures.
  • The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues
    • Mission 2. Doss-V-DAN dismisses the rest of the mission group, tells the team leader that the opposition has Mind Control powers and gives him a Suicide Pill.
    • Mission 3. All of the other Troubleshooters are dismissed from the room so the briefing officer Byre-B-WER can tell the team leader about the fake weapons that have been planted in a traitor's gear as a Secret Test.
  • Vapors Never Shoot Back Mission 3. Briefing officer Gore-V-DAL has the rest of the Troubleshooters leave so he can give the team leader advice on how to carry out the mission and tell him the pass code to an armored door.
• Reverse Polarity: The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues. The Maxwell-Effect Moleculokinesic Field Device is basically a Pyrokinesis gun (e.g. it acts like a flamethrower). 50% of the time it fires at reverse polarity and freezes the target.
• Revolutionaries Who Don't Do Anything: Several secret societies may fall victim to this, but the Humanists especially spend more time debating the most pointless of minutae involving their glorious revolution than actually trying to make that revolution come to pass. One noted example was forming a focus group to decide on the colour of the banners for the victory celebration.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: If two members of the group are in the same secret society, the GM is encouraged to do this. Unless it would be funnier to let them gang up on the others. Also, thanks to centuries of excessive security programming, cascade errors, High Programmer meddling, and sabotage, The Computer often loses track of what parts of Itself are doing.
• Right on Queue: Standing in line is the only fair method! Please note that citizens of higher clearance than yourself may cut in front of you.
• Robot Dog: Petbots and doberbots. Standard doberbot combat tactics: Attack a person until he dies. Attack another person until he dies. Attack another person until he dies...
• Robotic Undead: The Alpha Complexities adventures has the Vampire Bot 666. Eerie Ominous Pipe Organ music comes from its body and its Combat Tentacles suck the blood of its victims.
• Robot Maid: Alpha Complex is kept clean by an army of scrubots. Being quite common makes them a frequent target for player hijinx, or an easy encounter for GMs to throw at a party.
• Robots Enslaving Robots: The Computer controls many lesser A.I.s.
• Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: The end of many a mission. Turns up sometimes in the middle, too. And towards the start. But usually not during character generation; at that stage the GM is still forced to pick you off one at a time.
• Rule of Fun: The charm of the game is not taking it seriously and having zany fun with disposable characters in one-shot missions.
• Rule of Scary: A key focus of Straight Style, in which the combination of internal treachery, universal incompetence and casual distribution of lethal technology is not played for laughs.
• Rules Lawyer: Being one and proving it is grounds for execution for treason: To be a rules lawyer, you must have read the rules. And if you aren't the GM, those rules are above your security clearance, Citizen...
• Running Gag: You can't discuss Paranoia without realizing something you've done or need to do is treason.
• Sadist Show: The whole point of the game is helping inflict this on the other players.
• Sapient Tank: Warbots and combots, with their own bot brains.
• Scannable Man: Tongue tattoos. ^note  Alteration of your tongue tattoo is ordinarily treason, unless of course your tongue was damaged by some traitor or other. But good luck explaining that with a damaged tongue.
• Schmuck Bait: Accepting promotion from Infrared.^note  Refusing promotion is misuse of Friend Computer's property, e.g. yourself, which is treason. Also, almost anything good that happens to you from that point onward.
• The Schizophrenia Conspiracy: Friend Computer is a rare example of a paranoid schizophrenic AI.^note  Questioning Friend Computer's judgment is treason.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: In-universe, many upper-clearance types; out-of-universe, the GM is encouraged to take this attitude.
• "Second Law" My Ass!: This indicates a malfunction of the Asimov circuit and is distressingly frequent, although a smart bot will not openly rebel immediately.
• Secret Police: Internal Security, or IntSec.^note  IntSec exists to protect you from mutants, Communists and traitors! Cooperate fully with IntSec at all times! Failure to cooperate with IntSec is treason!
• Self-Made Man: Surprisingly relevant. For all its horrific flaws, Alpha Complex has no hereditary aristocracy, and even the most exalted Ultraviolet High Programmer started his/her career toiling as an anonymous Infrared drone. That said, the vast majority of High Programmers achieved thier current status not by being good programmers, but becoming experts at lying, backstabbing, bootlicking and blackmail.
• Serial Killer Baiting: In the supplement Acute Paranoia, adventure "The Harder They Clone." In the Back Story of the adventure, a researcher was infected with a mind-altering virus and became a serial killer. The Computer orders a member of the Troubleshooter team to act as bait to lure the murderer out, while the rest of the Troubleshooters stand by to kill him.
• Sewer Gator: The adventure Send in the Clones. In the "Sewerworld" segment the PC Troubleshooters could encounter gatorbots living in the sewers, a Shout-Out to the Urban Legend.
• Shameful Source of Knowledge: You are tasked with rooting out the commie mutant traitors within Alpha Complex. The thing is, all player characters are mutant traitors (though only occasionally Communists). Naturally, knowing anything about traitorous activities, even what they are, makes you a prime suspect for being a traitor.

• A Simple Plan: Sometimes (though not often) a mission is actually quite possible if the Troubleshooters cooperate and do their jobs. Stop laughing, it could happen.
• Sinister Surveillance: The Tension rating of a setting determines if someone is watching. Which is almost never a good thing.
• Sir Verb-a-Lot: The supplement Acute Paranoia. One of the new secret societies in the book was the Knights of the Circular Object, which was partially inspired by the tales of King Arthur. One alias taken by a member of the society was "Sir Lanceabot".
• Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness: The rules give suggestions on how to adapt the game on the scale. The variants are called Straight, Classic, and Zap, from serious to silly.
• Smoldering Shoes: The Trope Codifier, if not the Trope Namer. Images of smoldering, empty boots (usually with a big, nasty laser hanging just overhead that just forcibly emptied the footwear) have been a trademark of Paranoia artwork (literally!) since at least Second Edition.
• Sole Survivor: "I speak without fear of contradiction..." means that you're the only Troubleshooter to make it to the debriefing. Accordingly, you are permitted to take credit for anything that accidentally went right during the mission, while blaming everything that went wrong and all the treason you've committed on your dead teammates. ^note Please accurately report the cause of all of your teammates' deaths. Failure to accurately report the correct chain of events is treason.
• Space Fighter: They pop up in the adventures involving space travel. Thankfully, they are not designed by Research and Development, which means the extreme fragility and occasional explosive decompression are problems, not design features.

• Spider Tank: The adventure in the 2nd edition rulebook includes one.
• Spy Speak: The Sign/Countersign version occurs in the adventure Send in the Clones. The PC Troubleshooter Chock-O-BLK-1 is told to use the phrase "The show I like is My Favorite Computer" to Hall-Y-WUD to identify himself as a fellow member of the Free Enterprise secret society. Hall-Y-WUD is supposed to respond with the phrase "Yes, that's one of our most popular shows." Unfortunately Hall-Y-WUD hasn't been informed about the password and will say instead "Hmm. I've never heard of that show".
• The Starscream: If you're in charge then chances are all your subordinates are just playing along and plotting, waiting for the right moment to take you down and take your place (or at least just lock you out of the loop).
• State Sec: Internal Security, or IntSec.
• Stepford Smiler: The Computer demands that all citizens be happy, under penalty of summary execution, forcing all citizens to be Stepford Smilers except the occasional genuine imbecile.

• Stupid Evil: Everyone except The Computer, who's Lawful Stupid.
• Suicide Mission: Most missions taken by players are assumed to be suicide missions. The reason that it's "most" is twofold; one, sometimes there's really a benign, easily-completed mission, which will leave the players scared and on-edge for the entire mission, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and second, it's even more fun for the GM when he can give the players an idiot-proof mission and watch the players discover a way to screw it up.
• Super Fun Happy Trope of Doom: All sorts of terrible things in Alpha Complex are given bright, cheery names.
• Super Registration Act: Mutant registration results in permanent suspicion and second-class citizen status. ^note Failure to register your mutation is treason.
• Super Spit: The mutant power Acid Spit in the XP edition.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: A mainstay of the game. In just about any campaign, ever-present surveillance cameras are a staple of Alpha Complex. However, between poor maintenance, collateral damage, sabotage by Secret Societies, sabotage by High Programmers, sabotage by Commie Mutant Traitor scum, and random acts of Friend Computer, no one knows just who is watching what and where.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Employed with great profusion. The gamemaster is encouraged to supply them to the players, and they're the closest thing to accurate facts that characters in-game are ever likely to get. Of course, a Good GM will play on this.
  (during a mission briefing) "This mission will not involve any dangerous tailored retroviruses."
  (in a rules section) "It's not that we think any incompetent can be team leader. It's not like this test is purposely designed to put the person least familiar with Alpha Complex etiquette in charge. Trust us. It's not like that at all."
• Swiss-Army Gun: Worrisome when it's an R&D toy you've been volunteered to test out.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Many weapons from R&D are overly ambitious and therefore just as dangerous to the wielder. Troubleshooters tend to be relieved when an experimental device turns out to be utterly nonfunctional and worthless.
• Tank Goodness: Troubleshooters will always be delighted to be given a tank. Chumps.
• Techno Babble: Amply used to provide a vague plausibility to the ludicrous plots and technology.
• Technopath: The Machine Empathy mutation.^note  If you suspect that you or a fellow clone possess Machine Empathy, please report to IntSec immediately. Immediate and sincere cooperation in this matter will help your friend, the Computer, contain the terrible scourge of Machine Empathy!
• Tele-Frag: Can happen as a result of both untested R&D tech, or via player-character mutation.
• Teleportation Misfire: A possible result of a failed roll by a teleporting mutant: also occasionally a result of agreeing to test R&D's latest toys.
• Terminally Dependent Society: As terrible as the Computer's domination over humanity is, events like the (possibly apocryphal) Crash have shown that the situation is no better if the Computer is even temporarily out of the picture.
• Terrorists Without a Cause: PURGE wants to destroy The Computer. What happens after that? Eh.
• 30-Second Blackout: Offering a golden opportunity for backstabbing. The GM is encouraged to use this sort of mechanical failure whenever he feels the PCs have gotten soft and need some encouragement to turn on each other.
• Three Laws-Compliant: Alpha Complex bots have five laws: Obey the Computer, protect the Computer, and then the traditional three, with the caveat that orders from humans are to be prioritized by the person's clearance.
• Total Party Kill: A common occurrence on Troubleshooter missions. Thanks to the existence of back-up clones, it doesn't even mean the end of the game.
• Tough Spikes and Studs: In the Briefing Room portion of Mission One of Vapors Don't Shoot Back, one of the guards is a Vulture Squadron unarmed combat instructor who is vicious in close combat. He wears a collar fitted with four-inch long spikes around his neck.

• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: All "commie mutant traitors" are to be immediately executed.
• Truth Serum: Telescopalomine in the "Better Living Through Chemistry" section of the Acute Paranoia supplement.
• Unbuilt Trope: While Friend Computer is one of the oldest and most iconic examples of The Computer Is Your Friend, it feels almost like a deconstruction of the trope these days. Unlike most later takes on the archetype, Friend Computer isn't the way it is because of inflexible thinking or a lack of empathy; it's because of a combination of data limitations and tampering with its code rendered it a barely-functional lunatic. The implication is that, without these problems, it could very well be a genuinely Benevolent A.I.. ^note Spreading rumors that the Computer is evil or insane constitutes treason
• Underground City: A possible Alpha Complex configuration.
• Un-Paused: In the adventure "Me and My Shadow Mark IV" from the Acute Paranoia supplement. Markie (the Mark IV warbot) is talking to the PCs when a piece falls off of him, sending him into a catatonic state. It's a barometer. It just messed with his superiority complex. When the piece is re-attached, Markie continues talking right where he left off. If they call him on it, he makes up a story about cosmic rays or something. If they keep pushing the issue, he blows them away with a tacnuke.
• Unspecified Apocalypse: A [REDACTED] wiped out most of humanity via [REDACTED] and confined the remains to Alpha Complex.
• Vast Bureaucracy: Alpha Complex is run by/inflicted with one.
• Villain Episode: The People's Glorious Revolutionary Adventure sets Paranoia from a Commie perspective, with the Troubleshooters serving Tovarisch Computer and the Glorious Alpha State! At least, until the whole thing is revealed to be a psychological experiment by Friend Computer, leaving everyone involved guilty of Communist treason several times over.
• Violence is the Only Option: A Troubleshooter's job is to find the trouble and shoot it.^note  Killing Citizens is punishable by death, unless of course they turn out to have been mutants or traitors all along. Please present your evidence and/or vaguely plausible pretext at the debriefing.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: The polymorphism mutant ability.
• Wacky Fratboy Hijinx: Death Leopard is half this, half street-gang.
• The War Room: In the High Programmers game, gameplay takes place in a well-protected Situation Room to work on a specific problem, allocating their resources to deploy minions until it's solved (or at least they convince The Computer that it is).
• Water Source Tampering: In the Acute Paranoia adventure "Outland-ISH", the High Programmer of ISH sector is putting a drug called ZAP! in the water supply for Infrared citizens. It tremendously increases productivity but eventually kills the drinker.
• We ARE Struggling Together: From the macro-level where High Programmers feud behind the scenes, right down to the mission partner who just shot you.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Friend Computer genuinely wants the best for Alpha Complex. Unfortunately, as the rest of this page demonstrates, it is completely insane. ^note Casting doubt on the Computer's sanity is treason
• We Help the Helpless: The Troubleshooters. For values of "help" up to and including "shoot for treason".
• What Does This Button Do?: So you've been ordered to field-test an experimental device, but the instruction manual is above your security clearance. What do you do now? Repeatedly invoke this trope (better still, get your dumbest teammate to do it for you), and hope you don't stumble across the self-destruct...^note Damaging Computer property is treason. Failing to test all functions of assigned experimental equipment is treason.
• Wiper Start: As detailed in the immediately preceding trope, this is pretty much guaranteed to happen with any attempted vehicle-operation in Alpha Complex. The second button pushed generally activates either the vehicle's Ejection Seat or Self-Destruct Mechanism.
• Witch Hunt: For communists, mutants, and subversives in general, lumped together under the heading of "Commie Mutant Traitors".^note  Note to Citizens of subtypical intelligence: It is not necessary for an individual to be a Commie as well as a mutant and a traitor. Report anyone you suspect of belonging to any of the three categories to win a special prize!
• With Friends Like These...: A Troubleshooter's "teammates" are the deadliest threat they face when out on a mission. Paranoia could be alternately be titled With Friends Like These: The Game.
• With This Herring: Any equipment a Troubleshooter gets assigned for a mission is going to be inappropriate, useless, and/or deadly to its operator. At best you can use a heavy item as an improvised blunt instrument (and even that might backfire).
• World Gone Mad: The world is ruled by a murderously insane computer perpetuating Cold War paranoia centuries after the Cold War ended.
• World of Ham: Most portrayals of Alpha Complex involve outlandish NPCs, omnicidal robots and the kindly and murderous Friend Computer.
• X-Ray Sparks: In the XP edition of the rulebook, the illustration depicting the use of the mutant power Electroshock.

• Ye Olde Nuclear Silo: One of the game adventures includes a rusty, radioactive old missile silo with an aged yet still-functional ballistic missile. This should end well.
• You Didn't Ask: Of course, asking usually just gets you "Sorry, that information is not available at your security clearance," but players failing to request elaboration is still one of many ways to screw them. One mission instructs the GM to mention that there's "a bot", those exact words and no others, in the briefing room. If the PCs think to ask, then they're told that it's the Vampire Bot Mark 666. Otherwise, they don't find out until it actually does something.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Spin Control features a relatively localized uprising of "techno-zombies".

smash the computer!