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Send In The Clones
Send in the Clones is a Paranoia adventure for Gamemaster and 2-6 players. Someone is singing treasonous old hit songs over the Alpha Complex public address system, and the Troubleshooters must track the Commie traitors through - yes - the sewers.
- GenresRole Playing Games
48 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1985
6 people want to read
About the author
Allen Varney
61 books15 followersWriter and game designer based for many years in Austin, Texas, USA; currently in Ithaca, upstate New York. Designer of the 2004 edition of the classic science fiction roleplaying game PARANOIA. I operate the Bundle of Holding ( bundleofholding.com ), which presents time-limited offers of tabletop roleplaying game ebooks.
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August 10, 2022
Send in The Clones is the Paranoia adventure that introduces one of the game's touchstones: Teela-O-MLY. The starlet of Alpha Complex propaganda videos. The righteous example of a proper Alpha Complex citizen! And you get to kill her! If you live long enough.
The adventure begins with the players in the sewers encountering a pack of precocious (and heavily armed) kids, devious traps, and a crazed ex-Troubleshooter. This leads to the players encountering something they shouldn't have and precipitates the rest of the mission. There's a long stretch getting equipment from HPD&MC with a bureaucracy flow chart to really drive home the monotony until it stops being funny and/or give anyone who's ever been stuck transferred around a call center a flashback. There's an extended trivia game show sequence and finally a massive shoot out against altogether too many Teela clones. It's great fun.
The structure is a series of set-pieces and it's a really good adventure for giving a wider picture of Alpha Complex, specifically in using propaganda production as a way to make Hollywood jokes. But there's also an up-close-and-personal encounter with Paranoia's crushing bureaucracy. I think this is my favorite sequence in the adventure as it comes with a flowchart showing how the party can get bounced around. It's a good mix of encounters and gives the pregenerated PCs ample opportunities to stab each other in the back.
Paranoia modules are structured differently. They are railroady but the game isn't about "how will the players resolve the plot?" It's about what they do at the edges and fringes of that plot. If they try to go off the railroad, there'll be a happy vulture squadron nearby to escort them back on to the tracks. So instead of refusing to engage with the module, think of how you can plant incriminating evidence on your buddy over there. There's plenty of room for enacting your own subplot of revenge and triumph in the cracks of the plot you're forced along in. The story is generally to give you something to push along when things are otherwise getting boring. Paranoia modules also use a frank and conversational tone and frequently talk about the intent behind the design or why an encounter is the way it is. It's great GM-facing advice that speaks bluntly about what it intends and gives you tools to play with. But, Allen Varney *is* one of the luminaries of Paranoia and tabletop gaming so one should expect no less.
Paranoia is a different sort of game and its structure exemplifies that. You have a playground in the spaces between the encounters and how you pull off your personal goals in that environment is where the game shines. Nobody remembers how many Teela clones they shot down. Players remember how they slipped communist propaganda into Com-R-ADE's pocket and then tripped him revealing it to several bystanders and getting him executed.
The adventure begins with the players in the sewers encountering a pack of precocious (and heavily armed) kids, devious traps, and a crazed ex-Troubleshooter. This leads to the players encountering something they shouldn't have and precipitates the rest of the mission. There's a long stretch getting equipment from HPD&MC with a bureaucracy flow chart to really drive home the monotony until it stops being funny and/or give anyone who's ever been stuck transferred around a call center a flashback. There's an extended trivia game show sequence and finally a massive shoot out against altogether too many Teela clones. It's great fun.
The structure is a series of set-pieces and it's a really good adventure for giving a wider picture of Alpha Complex, specifically in using propaganda production as a way to make Hollywood jokes. But there's also an up-close-and-personal encounter with Paranoia's crushing bureaucracy. I think this is my favorite sequence in the adventure as it comes with a flowchart showing how the party can get bounced around. It's a good mix of encounters and gives the pregenerated PCs ample opportunities to stab each other in the back.
Paranoia modules are structured differently. They are railroady but the game isn't about "how will the players resolve the plot?" It's about what they do at the edges and fringes of that plot. If they try to go off the railroad, there'll be a happy vulture squadron nearby to escort them back on to the tracks. So instead of refusing to engage with the module, think of how you can plant incriminating evidence on your buddy over there. There's plenty of room for enacting your own subplot of revenge and triumph in the cracks of the plot you're forced along in. The story is generally to give you something to push along when things are otherwise getting boring. Paranoia modules also use a frank and conversational tone and frequently talk about the intent behind the design or why an encounter is the way it is. It's great GM-facing advice that speaks bluntly about what it intends and gives you tools to play with. But, Allen Varney *is* one of the luminaries of Paranoia and tabletop gaming so one should expect no less.
Paranoia is a different sort of game and its structure exemplifies that. You have a playground in the spaces between the encounters and how you pull off your personal goals in that environment is where the game shines. Nobody remembers how many Teela clones they shot down. Players remember how they slipped communist propaganda into Com-R-ADE's pocket and then tripped him revealing it to several bystanders and getting him executed.
Displaying 1 of 1 review