Paranoia XP: The Traitor's Manual

Overall score:

The Traitor’s Manual is the first released expansion/sourcebook for Paranoia XP, and covers the theme of Secret Societies. It contains a wealth of useful information for both Players and GMs, and while none of it is strictly essential, it’s a good book to have.

The Traitor’s Manual is much shorter than the Core book of Paranoia XP, weighing in at a little under one hundred pages, and is, fairly, priced at a cheaper pricepoint. I paid around Sixty-Five dollars Australian for the core book, while the Traitor’s Manual was forty. [Ed. Note: That's around $50 and $30 respectively in real money ~SE] Unlike the core rules, the book is softcover, bound in a thick card. While it’s not weak, and I don’t expect it to fall apart anytime soon, it’s certainly not too sturdy, and after a few weeks of heavy use and carriage by stuffing it into an overstuffed bag, is looking a little worse for wear. I plan to bind it with clear contact plastic to be on the safe side. In an interesting move, the cover is ORANGE, with the main book being RED. The next expansion, Crash Priority, is YELLOW, so the books are changing colour in according to Security clearance. I eagerly await the eighth book, to see if they make it out of radioactive GAMMA materials, or just start over at RED. Gareth Hanrahan’s writing style is a little more dry than that of the core rules author, Allen Varney, but is still wildly entertaining, and, compared to a book such as the Dungeons and Dragons manual (Which reads like a legal brief) is actually an enjoyable book to read in its own right. The art is frequent and well done; it is in the same style as in the Core rules, and is both humorous and tone setting.

Since, as expressed in the introduction of The Traitor’s Manual, it would be a rip-off to write a book for each Secret Society, but more importantly, it would be near impossible, given the limited nature of each society, so instead, they’re all in the same book. After the introduction, we get a chapter on Secret Societies in general, which explains their nature as well as the way the relate to the characters, the mission, and the game. In short, it explains in useful detail how a Secret Society can be very useful some of the time, but is typically a very awkward thing that is likely to get the character killed more often.

Following this chapter is the meat of the book, a chapter for each Secret Society. This is greatly expanded on the three paragraphs every society in the main book gives, which was a little lacking. While every Secret Society is basically a collection of Clichés, the main book didn’t make these quite so clear as the small picture of the typical member at the start of each societies chapter. These chapters provide a lot of background detail: A conversation between two members starts each chapter, and an example of propaganda can be seen floating around each one. We get a few paragraphs on the society’s beliefs, Recruitment and Initiation techniques, any Code Names they may use, The Society’s history, structure, and attitudes to various things, and subfactions. We also get information on a member’s Duties, Benefits, sample missions, and what can be done to advance within the society. This is well written and useful information – I find myself frequently flicking through the book to find a piece of information (Very quick and easy to do) instead of making it up myself, which speaks for itself, really. Although it’s perfectly possible to play without this information, I already find it indispensable.

The final chapter is designated ULTRAVIOLET, or GM only, and provides information on how to use Secret Societies. It also contains a new rule which I promptly completely ignored, a few ideas on having fun with Secret Societies, and a handy chart showing how IOUs work.

The rest of the book is taken up by the Mission “Down and Out in Alpha Complex”, a mission somewhere between Straight and Classic style. I played it yesterday. It was good. Very good. Running it in classic, it wasn’t quite as good as Mister Bubbles from the main book, but extremely entertaining nonetheless.

So, do you need The Traitor’s Manual? Not at all, it’s quite possible to play without it, and I never thought I needed it until I read it. Do you want The Traitor’s Manual? If you play Paranoia XP more than occasionally, yes. It’s fun to read if you never use anything from inside it. Is it Perfect? Not at all, and one of it’s biggest faults is that it is simply a sourcebook that you don’t need, and if you don’t have a bunch of money lying around, might feel like skipping. But, of course, the main question here is this: Should you buy The Traitor’s Manual? I would recommend it.

Useful Links:

Paranoia Live – Home to a great Paranoia Community, and an excellent program for playing online.

Mongoose Publishing – Contains a free download of a five-page chapter removed from the book before publishing due to space restrictions.

Paranoia XP Blog – An Interesting Blog by the Paranoia Creators, and the first place for new news.

Omega Complex – Another Blog on all things Paranoia.

Discuss this review or The Traitor's Manual in our forums. JamPaladin is the token Australian, and is a fan of awesome awesomeness. He is a ninja, and so has probably already taken any awesome awesomeness you may have had.

Written by JamPaladin on December 25th, 2004