Your Mission
The Computer has generated the following mission for your team. It has been carefully designed to ensure the maximum safety and satisfaction for your team.
Paranoia is the Irrational Fear Someone is Out To Get You
(Fear) Dominant type of fear to install in the PCs: Alpha Complex works with terrifying efficiency.(Irrational) General kind of weirdness or irregularity that prompts The Computer to assign a mission to the Troubleshooters: One kind of technological object (Old Reckoning artifact sought by three secret societies (Computer Phreaks, Anti-Mutant, and Pro Tech)) is behaving far too well.
(Someone) Person, people, organization or agency responsible for the situation: A senior CPU efficiency consultant, who overreacted in imprudent ways in an effort to get proper paperwork filled out. (The identity of the Someone need not be obvious at the mission's outset, and in fact things may play out more appropriately if the Someone is not discovered until late in the proceedings.)
(Out To Get You) General apparent threat posed by the situation, or the consequences if the situation is left unresolved: Roll three times on this chart. Everything you roll is happening at once, and the PCs are caught in the chaos. Good luck running this one. The threat is a lie.
(Out To Get You) General real threat posed by the situation, or the consequences if the situation is left unresolved: A minor malfunction in RED (Tension 6) MemoMax archive vault may grow into a major problem. The PCs must fix the malfunction and deal with the problems already created.
Mission Alert: Relayed through a public confession booth, read in the scrolling "Credit Due" message on a vending machine or overheard in a communal area. Briefing time is wrong. The alert itself is damaging-text message contains software virus that crashes PDC or vidscreen, physical alert has toxins or is radioactive, etc.
Briefing: Briefing is in Museum of Famous Forms. Briefing officer is weird invalid (e.g., suspended in sound-dampening gel in a swimming pool communicating through a bizarre array of tubing).
This Mission: RED (Tension 5) abandoned hospital intensive care is having problems processing promotions. Go help out.
Outfitting: PLC: Serv-Yourself warehouse that makes every citizen find his own equipment.
Debriefing: Debriefing conducted solely by R&D scientists. They ask many questions about equipment, giving the impression the only reason for the mission was to test equipment. After the scientists leave, The Computer covers the treason accusations.
Find weird phrasing, clearly erroneous output, or other signs of filthy commie mutant traitor sabotage? Copy the offending passages and email them to the High Programmer for investigation.