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: Mysterious duplicates or analogues of the PCs or other INFRARED sector monitor screen polisher (indifferent bystander, drugged (rolactin, dynomorphin, xanitrick))s are active in Alpha Complex.
(Someone) Person, people, organization or agency responsible for the situation: A senior PLC official, whose division has fallen into strangling bureaucratic torpor and must now be massively overhauled or terminated. (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: A geological event will destroy Alpha Complex (shatter it, open it to the elements, turn it into a cheerily warm volcano, etc.). 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: Surplus Armed Forces weaponry floods the IR market. Citizens (YELLOW troubleshooter dispatcher (amputee) (information source, quietly delusional); RED manager of INFRARED mess hall (information source, believes himself possessed by demons); INDIGO R&D Medication Senior Strategist (bureaucratic obstacle, drugged (thymoglandin, hydropsionic acid))) happily demonstrate their new armaments in many locations (INFRARED (Tension 2) empty recreational resort (if below Clearance GREEN, roll again); GREEN (Tension 11) private slime farm; ORANGE (Tension 7) crowded transtube shaft).
Mission Alert: A drugged INFRARED vendobot Hot Fun supplier acting as a courier delivers alert hardcopy; seeks 10cr 'tip' for the delivery. Briefing location is wrong. The information is replaced by extortion threat from anonymous hacker: "Send 100cr to this Gray Subnet account and I'll send you the data."
Briefing: Briefing is in crowded maintenance duct. Briefing officer sits curled up and rocking backwards and forwards in the middle of the location; muttering under his breath-
This Mission: Members of FCCC-P and Illuminati (undercover as Mystics) are trading illegal stoppered vial of poison gas (s) at Sewer tunnel. Retrieve the goods and the creds.
Outfitting: Infrared Market: The "Someone" (or his allies) responsible for the "Irrational" situation runs this market. Marketeers sell the PCs dangerous equipment (economic object (credit license analyzer, plasticred duplicator, IR market activity scanner); Problem: parasitically bonds with user).
Debriefing: Troubleshooters and debriefing officer sit at a round table. Officer orders them to play a card or board game, while the officer encourages them to reveal details about their mission and about their feelings.
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.