The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues
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The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues was one of the first true missions for the Paranoia role-playing game. It was written by John M. Ford and won the H. G. Wells Award for Best Role-Playing Adventure of 1985.
The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues consists of 4 sub-missions that aren't related at all, save for the constant appearance of a mysterious Black Box. All of the PC Troubleshooters have orders to capture the box for their own secret society before their fellow Troubleshooters do. Unfortunately, everyone else they meet has the same orders as them. What follows is a constant, massive brawl for a single box that contains... well, that would spoil the secret.
What matters is that this adventure used a couple ideas that have become Paranoia standards:
- Everyone (not just the PCs) vying for a single MacGuffin, often leading to...
- Massive firefights with a half-dozen or more groups battling it out. The PCs are in the middle of it, of course.
- Situations of pure madness in which the PCs can either flail about helplessly or sit back and try to survive. (In this case, the Dance Routine From Hell.)
- The escalating briefing gag.
- Seemingly fatal events that the PC can survive, provided they don't do anything (like try to survive).
- Two endings: a semi-serious one and a bring-the-house-down one. (Literally; Alpha Complex doesn't survive the latter.)
One of the best Paranoia adventures ever published, full of hilarious scenes and twisted problems.