Paranoia: The Uncooperative Board Game

Paranoia takes me back to student tables full of clones who barely had time to warm a chair before being denounced, shot, and replaced, with the Computer naturally having the final word. That is why I approached this board game half-heartedly: the setting does not obviously belong on a board, and Modiphius has not exactly earned blind confidence of late. Still, this version at least understands that Paranoia is no place for dignity.

The game moves through actions, attacks, and openings to make everybody else miserable, as players execute, betray, and derail one another with very little concern for logic or balance. Take-that is not seasoning here. It is the whole meal. You can visit a dispenser, pull a miniature nuclear bomb, and suddenly half the map has a much worse day than you do.

The first two or three deaths may put you off, especially if the table decides your job is to spend twenty minutes being slaughtered while barely getting to play. Get past that and a warped strategy begins to show through the accidents and backstabs. The central mechanism has something of Combat Commander about it, not because the subjects overlap, but because a ridiculous incident can become the story everybody retells afterwards. Then somebody sells you out for a joke. They enjoy it too.

Ten years ago, I might have defended it much more loudly against every passing eurogamer. Now I can see it plainly: it is not balanced, it is not welcoming to anyone without affection for the setting, and it needs a very particular group in a very particular mood. Even so, at a Dungeon Derby-style event with people who know they have come to be betrayed, I would happily put it on the table again.