A couple of interesting PARANOIA-related blog posts from the last few days:

Unconscious sexism in feedback mechanics

On Gaming as Women — "a collection of thoughts on womanhood and (mostly) analog gaming" — Darla Magdalene Shockley has a short essay on unconscious sexism in RPG design, and specifically in player feedback mechanics. She uses PARANOIA's Perversity point system as her example, not that she accuses the game itself of sexism (whew!):

I absolutely adore PARANOIA. It is an incredible amount of fun. This is also not intended as a criticism of anyone who has GMed PARANOIA for me. There have been several, and they were all great GMs, and are amazing people. At least one even identifies fairly strongly as a feminist.

However, we are all socialized very strongly to view women in certain ways. We expect women to be responsible, do the boring administrative work, and in general shut down the fun. We emphatically do not expect women to be silly. So women are less likely to be silly, and everyone is less likely to notice when they are. The PARANOIA GM (despite being quite the stand-up guy) is less likely to notice and reward it.

Of the many comments, none (so far) specifically criticize PARANOIA. A comment from wundergeek, who has fought a long and often lonely battle against sexism in the RPG field, summarizes the consensus:

[F]eedback mechanics are something that, on their face, should benefit men and women equally. But when sexism is present at the table, even unconscious sexism, they can wind up highlighting social inequality and making women feel bad about their contributions to the game. That's not because the mechanic is sexist. It's a breakdown in the system caused by meta issues at the table.

Topless Robot on atypical RPG settings

On the pop-culture site Topless Robot — which, despite the name, is work-safe — James Daniels lists 6 Excellent Tabletop Role-Playing Games with Atypical RPG Settings. PARANOIA is #2, right after Deadlands. "PARANOIA is much more about fun than silly things like 'success' or 'survival,'" James writes. Commendation point for your wise priorities, citizen!