So this is from Origins 2002? 2003? I got to see a Paranoia LARP play out in real time. Sadly, this is one of those stories where brilliant creativity is sacrificed at the altar of utter and staggering assholishness.

Origins, like many conventions, will Comp someone's ticket, if they volunteer to run a certain number worth of hours of a game. The game-master for this game had given the Con a script and outline for his game which would have, in one session, bought him a three-day weekend pass, and had gotten his game, and his comped attendance approved.

Where the shattering level of dickery enters the picture is two-fold.

The first, was a large bowl of M&M's that the GM had set by the doorway. For any of those of you who are familiar with conventions, you are aware exactly how likely it is that this bowl was gonna last from the point in time when the doors were opened, to the point in time the game started. The GM sitting, and watching the bowl the entire time. The bowl filled with a whole rainbow of different... colored candies.

It was a 1-clone-per-person game. Anyone who touched the candy got *Zap!*'d as soon as the game started, for interacting with material outside their clearance level. This cut the field from about fifteen players to about three, right at the start.

The second was the "Briefing Room". Which was a red tablecloth on the floor of the room which had been reserved. Following the opening briefing, as with any game of Paranoia, the Troubleshooters then need to make their way to their designated supply depot.

Which meant leaving the Red Tablecloth. Surrounded by Blue Carpet.

I was the only one who managed to make it to the Supply Depot, by killing my other two troubleshooters, and painting a path from the Briefing Room to the Supply Depot with their blood; at which point the game automatically failed, as the guy who had written the module for the Con had constructed it so that Friend Computer's R&D had an item that needed testing, which was a two-part dead-man's Atomic Grenade; each half set up so that if the other half's biometric reader stopped transmitting, it would activate the device.

Guy spent twenty bucks on M&M's, and $3 on a cheap plastic tablecloth, and bought himself a $75 convention ticket. He also screwed a whole bunch of people out of a supposed six-hours of Paranoia LARP by running the game exactly as the rules were written.

What a motherfucker.