The nwe Paranoia role-playing game is out and here is anRPGnet: Review of Paranoia XP. This post is mostly for Jason who's the only Paranoia player I've ever known. I stuck to more traditional fare like D&D and TMNT in middle school.

The original PARANOIA is one of the best roleplaying games ever published, a classic ranking alongside D&D and CALL OF CTHULHU. When it came out, it was an effective subversion of many of the shared assumptions of roleplaying at the time (player characters cooperating to reach a common goal, a general adherence to the rules as written, the GM being fair and honest), and on top of that, the first successful stab at "black comedy" and dystopian satire in the roleplaying medium.

The Visionary

For his birthday a couple years ago, I bit the bullet and bought Gabe a Tivo. I did this because, to a very large extent, the parameters of his life were defined by which shows came on at what times. Certainly being able to manage your stable of programs is a positive, humane development - but the main reason I have it is so I can skip commercials.

I figured I'd let all the real bloggers post their thoughts about the presidential debates last week. First of all, I think it's a bit of stretch to call them debates - they really were more like simultaneous campaign commercials. I am glad though that people from both sides were able to listen to both of the candidates, something I don't do myself either. But then again, I get my news from the daily show so I'm just a stoned slacker.

I think Kerry came off looking as the better prepared candidate. Bush kept saying the same things over and over no matter what the question was. I was also quite annoying that he kept asking JIm Lehrer for extra time to answer Kerry's responses - sort of a "What I meant to say...".

The most memorable Bush moment was in response to being asked, essentially, why Iraq was such a mess. His answer sounded like "Well, we didn't expect to win so fast. When it came time to fight us, the insurgents wouldn't face us directly and resort to guerrila tactics." Well no freakin' duh! What exactly did he expect an insurgent force to do against a much, much better prepared, trained, and equiped force. Is he trying to resurrect military tactics more popular during the 16th century? Is each side supposed to be drawing up their lines and facing each other as civilized gentlemen? I remember another insurgent force that had to face a bigger, better equipped invading army, it's a bit hazy but I think I learned about it in my American History classes...

Finally, since its related to how the current administration is running their campaign for another four years, I suggest you all view this movie to see how Bush and the GOP use terrorism and 9/11.