JUSTIFIED ANXIETY

Basically - I write well with Chris, who I'm doing The Spire and Unbound with. But we're best friends, and we have a great respect for each other and each other's work, and basically we work as one mind. With Paranoia, I wrote the bulk of the initial rules - and my momentum-based game design (write, iterate, destroy, re-write, iterate, destroy, re-write, maybe playtest, re-write based on an idea I had on the bus, etc) meant that I did them early on in development. So when James rocked up and suggested other rules... well, honestly, I didn't think they were as good as the ones we'd already had. And we talked it back and forth, but he had authority over the project, so he won out. And: they're not bad rules! I just wouldn't use the initiative system we have currently, and the mechanics for character generation are inscrutable in a way that reads funny but doesn't gel with what I want for the game. I'm happy with how the book turned out in general, though. I feel we pushed Paranoia forward a decade or two past XP into something interesting and storygamey that will maybe attract new players to the franchise, which is nice.