"Go to the sign of Marvel's Axe, a dubious inn on the edge of the Thieves Quarter, in the City of Greyhawk, and look to your own wrist. If you perceive a bracelet and dangling dice, watch for the next throw in the war between Law and Chaos and be prepared to follow the compelling geas." -Signal

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Alice Through the Mirrorshades, Chaotic Arcana



Paranoia is one of the games I have always liked from the moment I played it. I  have said before it takes a special group of players to have any sort of fun  with it. Given the very idea that all of the players have their own agenda in  addition to the overall agenda of the adventure can make for a stressful  situation if there are any underlying animosities in the group.

Alice Through the Mirrorshades is the first in a trilogy of modules that take  place after the Iceman Returneth. The module plays off the results of that  module and tries to remedy the situation. The premise is that a group of  troubleshooters will be sent back in time to makes changes in history to prevent  the crash.

This module has often been spoken ill of for some reason in may reviews I have  seen in the past. I myself don't find it to be a bad idea and if you are playing  Paranoia you should have come to expect silly by now. We have a module that  mashes up Alice in Wonderland with 12 Monkeys though it was published long  before 12 Monkeys. I have to wonder if the author of the module had seen Le Jetee?

The module is also one that allows for crossover with Cyberpunk characters since  there is an element of time travel involved. There are NPCs for that system  included if the GM does not have the game and the module includes advice on how  to translate the systems for characters.

I would say that if you can handle your adventures light of heart and a little  silly then this would work for you. If you are not a fan of silly then why are  you playing Paranoia anyway? This is for the second edition of Paranoia but I  think players of any edition would appreciate it. Why is there no Paranoia love  in the OSR?

Published: 1989
Pages: 40

From the back cover:


Help us, Troubleshooters... You're our only hope!

The Computer has crashed ... and that puts a lot of High Programmers out of  work. Rather than stand for the ignominy of the welfare lines (not to mention to  avoid a chainsaw haircut at the hands of disgruntled Infrareds), the High  Programmers conceive a desperate plan: retroactively prevent the crash by  traveling back in time to execute the man responsible. The success of the plan  hinges on a squad of six crack Troubleshooters - the Vulture Warriors of  Dimension X.

Which only goes to show how desperate the High Programmers really are. 




Spell:

Chaotic Arcana


Level: Fifth
Range: None
Duration: Instantaneous
Area of Effect: Caster
Components: V
Casting Time: One Segment
Saving Throw: None

When this spell is cast the magic user is able to reset the number of spells  that they can cast for the day. The spell is random in nature and the power does  come with a cost in the way of spells.

When this spell is cast the magic user loses all of the remaining spells that  they have memorized and will have them replaced with all new ones. The spell  replaces can replenish all off available spell slots though more often than not  this will not be the case.

The spells that replace the forgotten ones will be chosen totally at random from  the spells that the caster knows for each of the levels that have spells  replenished. The caster will in no way be able to determine what spells are used.  There can be no duplication of spells though so they won't get five Find  Familiars but they won't get five Magic Missiles either.

The spell has a 25% percent chance to restore all of the spells just as if the  caster had just fully memorized their allotment for the day. There are other  possible outcomes as well though. The chart for this is as follows based on the  roll of a d4:

1 - Cater gains their full compliment of spells for each level
2 - Caster gains no first level spells
3 - Caster gains no spells of the highest level they know
4 - Caster Gains one less spell than normal for each level

Disclaimer: The spells that you will see, for how ever long the write ups last,  were all written up or conceived of back in the 80's so the terminology may not  appropriate for anything other than 1e and depending on how well I did back then  it may be slightly off for that as well. If there is any duplication of spells  that exist now it is most likely I wrote mine first :) Please feel free to  comment on them but try not to be too hard on me. If anyone wishes to use these  in anything they print please let me know in advance and all I ask is proper  credit.

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