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: One of the service groups is breaking down.(Irrational) General kind of weirdness or irregularity that prompts The Computer to assign a mission to the Troubleshooters: A particular drug suddenly has inexplicably altered effects.
(Someone) Person, people, organization or agency responsible for the situation: A High Programmer who mis-programmed a CompNode so badly the entire node must be re-imaged and rebooted (the situation is cover for this.) (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: Surplus Armed Forces weaponry floods the IR market. Citizens (YELLOW sector chemical hazard assayer (indifferent bystander, quietly delusional); ORANGE pharmatherapy dispensing tech (indifferent bystander, meticulous, obsessive-compulsive); BLUE Singalong Superior Administrator (bureaucratic obstacle, paranoid with sonic pistol (S3W energy) and jet suit (Experimental R&D equipment, aerodynamic suit with jetpack))) happily demonstrate their new armaments in many locations (RED (Tension 5) empty reactor shielding; VIOLET (Tension 18) abandoned Junior Citizen creche; RED (Tension 6) crowded Internal Security waiting room). 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 major malfunction has rendered an entire sector uninhabitable; the local environment kills an unprotected citizen in minutes if not seconds.
Mission Alert: Anonymous hardcopy message slipped under door of PC's central entertainment room. Recognition password (to be given to briefing officer) 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 Sewer tunnel. Officer has serious coughing fit every few words, disrupting every sentence, and becomes increasingly angry with every request to repeat himself.
This Mission: Investigate accusations of GREEN Tech Services bot recovery specialist planting evidence against INDIGO (indifferent bystander, drugged (sandallathon, visomorpain)).
Outfitting: C-Bay or other online auction site: Price: 10% off. Delivery: drop point 30 minutes away (BLUE (Tension 14) Death Leopard meeting room (it's empty)). Computer Phreak prankster breaks in during each bid the PCs make, taunting them and deriding their equipment and mission.
Debriefing: A cavernous spherical reactor coolant chamber (recently decommisioned) with the PCs securely strapped into dentist chairs at wrist, ankle, waist and chin. The booming voice of the unseen officer echoes from strategically placed speakers.
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.