How to Design a Paranoia Character

Paranoia characters are very simple to design, which is important because
they don't last very long.  I plan my missions to kill an average of 3-4
clones per clone family, which means everyone generates a new clone family
every session.

There are two things that you should know about your clone family before
you arrive, and there are at least three things that you should not know.

THING ONE: Your name.  Your clone's name needs to be of the form
<something>-R-<three letters>-1.  The R indicates that you are Red
security clearance, and the 1 indicates that this is your first clone this
clone family.  You are welcome to have the <something> and the <three
letters> be whatever you like, but I am very poor with names, so I will
generally just call you by your given name, or on occasion "hey, you!"

THING TWO: Your Mutant Power.  Your clone does not have a Mutant Power, of
course.  Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.  You need to decide what Mutant Power
he doesn't have.  The only grounds I have thus far encountered for
rejecting a Mutant Power is that it would allow you to kill the rest of
the party and get away with it.  

Most of the really effective powers, ie, the ones that allow you to mess
with and/or mercilessly slaughter other clones, tend to produce
"sparklies" when used.  Knowledge of what exactly sparklies are is beyond
your security clearance, but the people around you will definitely notice.

Aside from that, be creative.  If you don't ask for that really cool
power, you won't get it.

THING THREE: Your Secret Society: When you arrive at the game, you may
receive a packet of secret information, which may state that you are part
of a Secret Society.  You don't need to decide what Society you're a
member of beforehand.

THING FOUR: There's actually a whole bunch of other information that's
attached to a character, but it is beyond your security clearance to know
what it is ahead of time.  So why worry about it?

THING FIVE: Personality.  Some players like to engage in "role-playing": 
the practice of doing things which are obviously suboptimal, with the
excuse that one's character isn't smart enough to act correctly.  I try to
discourage this.  The excuse I give is that Paranoia clones don't live
long enough to develop more personality than a general desire not to get
killed, and perhaps a secret society affiliation.  The actual reason is
that clones that are deliberately acting stupid aren't as much fun to
kill.

Of course, I do not discourage clever comments (either in-game or out),
and I'm quite in favor of forcing clones to justify their actions to
whoever is nearby.  I just feel that "character" should be seen as a
constraint to work around, not as an objective to work toward.