GG: Paranoia: Mandatory Bonus Fun Card Game

Paranoia is a curious game; the only winning move is to play it as often as possible. The game is played with a bevy of cards and tokens. Players are represented by not one but two cards (one contains the name of the character and some basic rules, the other contains the character’s ‘security clearance’, which determines the number of cards and the amount of wounds and treason points they can shrug off before dying) and a six-pack of clone tokens. Knowing the rules of the game is considered treasonous and punishable by death and the objective is supposedly to ‘serve your friend, the computer’ (a malevolent AI dictator in the vein of Harlan Ellison’s AM), however the ending condition of the game suggests that your actual objective is to cause as much havoc as possible without drawing attention to yourself.

The crucial flaw of this game is the balance of power, which arises from a couple of factors. The ending condition of the game is that one player loses the last of their six ‘lives’ at which point the winner is declared to be the surviving player with the highest security clearance. Gameplay is rife with backstabbing, with players using action cards to betray their comrades in order to gain a higher security clearance. A higher security clearance allows the player to draw more action cards, which in turn makes them a more effective backstabber. Thus, if you draw out ahead early... you will be set upon by a pack of rabid dogs unwilling to let you pull out too ahead of the pack, which is as it should be in a multiplayer game. However, if you fall behind early, you are stuck with fewer resources, fewer remaining lives and much more likely to be killed when a player hoping to force an early game finish hides a grenade in your backpack. If you play the game with timid players, establishing an early lead and brow-beating those furthest behind makes it all but impossible to lose. I believe, however, that you are as likely to be in front as you are to fall behind and if you play your cards right (i.e. with a good sense of gaming politics) any situation is tenable.