Do play Paranoia, by chance? It sounds like a classic Paranoia post. I used to run a Paranoia campaign: link to another game

It's one of my favorite campaign settings/rules.

I got the idea for the post after I was on TVTropes the other day. As is tradition when I browse that website, I enter a rabbit hole of endless tabs open at once. I ended up seeing an entry about Paranoia, and it sounded like fun.

I might've heard the name before (don't remember if I have), but I didn't know what it was. I looked it up a bit and it sounds like a fun concept (though I don't know how to play at all, haven't read the rules or even a description of how it's played).

I did my best to make it sound like straight-outta-AlphaComplex because, though I know little, I thought it would sound cool, and be aesthetically pleasing (I was right! Very happy with Small Caps + Small Text + Centered Text combination, very pretty, perfect for CITIZEN ALERTs)

If the rules are as interesting as the setting, I might turn out to like it a lot :)

--Long Wall of Text is Long, apologies--

(sort of an) Edit: Actually, I looked it up, and I know the name from the video game: Happiness is Mandatory. I remember hearing about it in an advertisement on Critical Role, which I've watched it many times cause it's funny as hell. Sam Riegel is a genius promoter.

My first five,
A characteristic;
But my last two,
An alternative;
And though if may be
the middle word in life,
It is the middle one for me;
For you heed not the words of
Your friends or country,
And find that death may be
Your lasting penalty.

Need a hint..?

I think it might be a crime (guess), and it's probably seven words (unless that's interpreting it wrong)... But I don't have enough for a guess... a hint would be nice, please :)

7 letters, not words.
Not a crime but the person who commits the crime (in the case of "country").

Also, try putting "if" and "it" in quotations and see if it helps.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:44, Tue 09 June 2020.

I was super stumped; so for once I broke my rule and did a bunch of googling.

I though that 'if' was the last two words (an alternative), but decided it must be 'or'...

Also, seven is an odd number, so 2-letter-words can't be in the middle. You probably know that, but it definitely confused me on where to place 'it'... So, i ended up with 'itor'

I was pretty sure janitor wasn't a crime, so I looked up 7-letter words that end with itor.

I was about to give up, because none of the three-letter words in front of itor (3+4=7) were characteristics, except for Her in Heritor, I googled it, and as I suspected, it meant person whom inherets...

I was about to give up, and call it quits, but then I read the riddle one more time, and it said 'MY FIRST FIVE', so i figured there must be overlap between 'IT' and the other 3 letters.

I scanned my (cheat-ass) list, and saw the obvious answer: The only one that was a crime, I had ignored it before, because I was only looking for 3-letter characteristics, not 5-letter SYNONYMS FOR 'CHARACTERISTIC'...

I ended up with the word "Traitor", and I'm pretty sure that's right. If it's not, i give up lol :)

I didn't know if it was better to 'cheat' a little, or to just give up. I didn't know which one was proper forum-ettiquette, so I'm being transparent about my decision.

Anyway, that took far too long, lol.

Traitor is correct!


My first five,
A characteristic; [a "TRAIT"]
But my last two,
An alternative; ["OR"]
And though if may be
the middle word in life,
It is the middle one for me; [Traitor has "IT" in the middle]
For you heed not the words of
Your friends or country,
And find that death may be
Your lasting penalty. [you can be a traitor to your friends or country]

Face me for punishment;
But great news puts me to your ears;
After an elevator, I may be dull;
But setting something to me,
May just make your excitement more full.

Are you music?

Yes!

I can on the surface be,
Any job, any animal,
Any living thing;
Indeed, I can be,
Almost anything;
For love, for play,
Or even to fix a relationship
That may have gone astray.

You sound like a noun

Yes, but that's not the answer...

This is a pretty hard one, I don't have any good ideas.

It can be a noun or a verb. Everyone on this site should know very well what it is.

That is a really good hint, but I'm still super stuck...

Hmmm... Some thoughts about that hint:

 - Roleplay
 - Play
 - Pretend
 - Mimic
 - Mimicry
 - Writing
 - Games
 - Online
 - Fun
 - Entertainment



Yikes... maybe some of these are right answers or similar to the answer:

 - Love
 - Joy
 - Hard work
 - Attention
 - Consent
 - Talking
 - Apologizing



 - Shapeshifter
 - Changeling
 - Imagination
 - Fake
 - Unreal
 - Creation

---

Other possible answers:

 - A riddle
 - A joke
 - A noun
 - A verb
 - An adjective
 - An adverb

One of those is the right answer!

One of my 29 answers was correct? I don't actually have a super confident guess...

Okay, this is getting crazy. As much as I'd love to stay up for an hour going through each answer, mom says I have to go to bed and can't waste time on ASWOT anymore...

So, instead of guessing, I'm going to roll 1d29 and make that my 'final guess'

00:06, Today: Froggychum rolled 23 using 1d29.  guess.

My final guess: "Creation".

Actually... that can't be both a verb and noun, can it?

OH WELL. MOMS PULLING OUT THE PADDLE (not fr tho) ITS MIDNIGHT SLEEP TIME.

Okay. You can do plenty of roleplaying in your dreams.

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Nah, I wish. I just had a dream about beating my brother horribly and perhaps killing him, while we were at a school that doesn't exist. I followed that lovely visual up by getting stormed by police officers and one guy who might have been a police officer, maybe. He still had a gun though. For some reason I had a gun. I think I killed my brother because I saw it on Pokemon, which I don't watch, and doesn't involve people being brutally killed, to my knowledge. There was also a segment about slaying archdemons from Hell, which was less morally corrupt. I hate quarantine, and I hate sleeping from 5 AM to 2 PM and dreaming about crap everynight. Oh well, goin' nuts.

---

Yeah that was a pretty weird post, but it was mostly me trying to excuse myself from a posting 1v1 that I got involved in, 'sillily' (autocorrect says this is not a word, hence the apostrophes).

I could definitely make better guesses from my list, but I'm happy enough knowing I was ~3.45% correct, this time around [1/29x100%,rounded_up]. Also, I'll probably make the wrong guess a few times and feel dumb.

Maybe FourLegged or another user could take a shot at the answer, but I'm throwing in the hat.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:27, Wed 17 June 2020.

LOL. You missed the clue.

I must've been preoccupied with writing my post, but I don't exactly remember why I didn't mention it.

I guess we all know the answer to this one, now. It's not much of a 'clue' if it contains the literal answer within it. But, it doesn't really matter, tbf.

I didn't really like this riddle, to be honest. That's just my opinion though.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:09, Thu 18 June 2020.

They won't all be winners. It's the writing process of them that results in sometimes creating a gem.

For this one's explanation:

I can on the surface be,
Any job, any animal,
Any living thing; [YOU CAN ROLEPLAY PROFESSIONS, ANIMALS OR LIVING BEINGS BUT ONLY ON THE SURFACE, NOT FOR REAL]
Indeed, I can be,
Almost anything; [YOU CAN PRETEND TO BE ALMOST ANYTHING]
For love, for play, [IN THE BEDROOM, FOR GAMES]
Or even to fix a relationship
That may have gone astray. [ROLEPLY USED BY PSYCHOLOGISTS TO HELP RELATIONSHIPS]

I have a tail,
But not a leg;
I have a head,
And yet no neck;
I may be for luck,
Or to win a bet.