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: The PCs suspect a High Programmer is out to get them.(Irrational) General kind of weirdness or irregularity that prompts The Computer to assign a mission to the Troubleshooters: The bureaucracy has provoked an intractable crisis.
(Someone) Person, people, organization or agency responsible for the situation: The Computer-or, if it makes more sense, a buzzing, high on Wakey-Wakey ULTRAVIOLET with the blood of many citizens on his person manipulating The Computer's local CompNode. (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: The Computer believes something horrible has happened, but gives the PCs no details, and forbids them to tell anyone for fear of starting a panic. The threat is real.
Mission Alert: Text message on PDC. Briefing location is wrong. The information is obscured by advertising (pop-up ad, jingle, viral marketing, etc.). Sponsoring advertiser may possibly have record of unaltered alert.
Briefing: Briefing is in refugee traitors making a hardscrabble living in the sewers in the Underplex . 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: Investigate mysterious disappearances of citizens in INFRARED (Tension 3) empty reactor outer core. If they're being captured by Commies, save them. If they're trying to escape Alpha Complex, shoot them.
Outfitting: PLC: Supply clerks recently infected with SellFast.D spam virus, insist all PCs enroll in "Make Credits Fast!" marketing course.
Debriefing: Room is sheet steel with a single chair in the center and a large sign: PLEASE SIT DOWN with arrow pointing to the chair. The debriefing officer spends the session pacing around the chair, and (if necessary) discourages PCs from sitting in it. Chair is harmless.
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.