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› Censure: Public Hating for Fun and Profit

Is there somthing wrong with summary executions?

In the old days of PARANOIA, there was really only three ways for a GM to punish a character who was caught being naughty: medication, demotion, or termination. The inevitable march of progress catches up to this situation in PARANOIA XP, and now GMs have more options for corrections: demotion, probation, censure, medication, brainscrub, termination, and erasure of a clone's DNA template.

Of all of these, censure seems the be the red-headed stepchild of the group--which is a crying shame. Censure can be the most funny--and fun--of all the corrections to be inflicted upon insubordinate or treasonous citizens.

Here we'll try to explain how censure can be done correctly, some pitfalls to avoid, and some examples for your stealing-and-using-in-your-own-game pleasure.

I'll never cut in line again! Just let me play with you guys!

All forms of correction share the same goal, and it's not to punish a character. The Computer doesn't necessarily want revenge on a citizen who stole several cases of Bouncy Bubble Beverage. Correction is behavior modification; the goal is to change the citizen's behavior so they won't steal anymore. Censure does this through one of the strongest forces known to sociology: peer pressure.

Censure is a very public form of correction, and other citizens who see the censure are encouraged to get into the act. For example, let's say Fred-R-JDI-2 was caught with a YELLOW candy bar. Now poor Fred must wear a sign that says, 'I took YELLOW candy bar!'

As Fred walks down the hall to his job, all citizens RED and higher make a point to chastise and belittle Fred-R. The INFRAREDs under his supervision in the food vats mumble and chuckle under their breaths. No one sits with Fred-R in the cafeteria for lunch. He can't get a seat on the transbot home. People keep asking if he realizes he's only RED clearance. At dinner, the food staff suddenly runs out of ColdFun when it's Fred-R's turn. His roommates laugh, call him names, and won't let Fred-R join their reindeer games.

Remember how such things happened in school? Remember how they can really hurt and make you feel lonely? That's censure.

Sandwich board? Do people even make those things anymore?

Censure works. Even the most insidious traitor will start to rethink their actions after a week of being ignored, spit upon, and otherwise treated like a pariah. Humans need the approval of other humans, and The Computer knows this.

Like all corrections, censure is handed out when the offense is too severe for simple fines but not severe enough to terminate. The Computer will not assign censure to a clone caught singing L'Internationale. Refer to pg. 246 in the PARANOIA XP rulebook for suggestions on what offenses can merit a censure.

Ah, but what kind of censure? There's lots of ways to torture someone stupid enough to get caught. Here's a list of censures in order of severity. Small offenses should require a public apology, while major offenses should result in repeated rounds of public hating. Let's assume a citizen has been caught throwing away some HotFun:

My favorite is a 'Kick Me' sign

Now for a bit of honesty. Censure is really, really fun, but it can be a tough on a GM. If you force a character to wear a giant neon sign that says, 'Please remind me that I'm only RED clearance!' then every NPC should comment on it. That could be a lot to remember, so try not to give out too many censures and leave yourself notes about the active ones. If you censure a character and forget about it, players won't fear it anymore.

Also, make sure the censure fits the crime. Don't give someone a tattoo if they only hesitated before taking an experimental drug. A simple public apology would do nicely. Save the tattoos for when some idiot repeatedly refuses to take their gelgernine. (Which happens about every other mission.)

Making up your own forms of censure is easy and tons o' fun. Simply focus on what made the behavior an offense in the first place, then force the guilty citizen to be publicly reminded of why that behavior is offensive. For you busy GMs out there, here are some examples of common offenses and related censures.

But I reminded 50 citizens not to spill their B3!

How long should the censure last? Oh, c'mon. You know the answer by now. As long as the GM thinks it should last. But we understand that's a bit vague, and that some of you would like a more rule-based answer. No problem, we aim to please. The rulebook recommends lifting censure when the character documents and scolds other citizens who are committing the same offense.

For example, a character censured for disobeying an order from a higher-clearance citizen could escape censure by reporting other citizens who disobey orders. How likely is that going to happen? Not likely, but if the character didn't want the censure, then he shouldn't have been caught in the first place.

As the GM, it's up to you to decide how often a censured character gets to see others committing similar acts. Our suggestion is to use this as a reward for good role-playing. If the player runs with the censure and gets a few good laughs out of it, let him document a few similar occurrences and get out of censure.

If the player whines or ignores the censure, terminate the boring son-of-a-bitch and censure his replacement clone as a preventative measure.

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