I have been following the discussion on what is approved and what is not
with some amusement. It seems to me that we should be arguing whether or
not the stuff is still useful, not whether it is approved/official or
not. Each game/judge can then decide whether or not to use it. It is my
understanding that approved never meant official anyhow, just that you
could use it if you wished. Note that parts of Paranoia's Scouts and
Assasins and Merchants and Merchandice were both superceeded (at least in
part) by later GDW books. This basically gave you a choice on which to
use and certainly if you were established under the earlier stuff you
would not want to change. The fact that SORAG is mentioned in the later
GDW stuff certainly means that the SORAG manual still has some revalence.
Also the subsectors which came out of Paranoia are probably still used.
As for GDWs reluctance to make an official statement, it seems to me
pretty natural. After all any set of roleplaying rules can only serve as
a guide not the ultimate source of knowledge for any situation. All rules
sets have ambiguities and errors (unfortunately too many in recent GDW
stuff, but they do seem to be working on it and at least they are aware of
the problem) and judges have to make interpretations. An announcement
would upset a judges ability to tailor his campaign to his ideas and erode
a judges authority in general; those are the last things GDW would want.
Personally I've never set any of my campaigns inside the Imperium and I've
frequently made up new skills to cover characters upbringing or special
situations. I even added a new character trait at one point to cover how
I was handling Psionics. I also used major wounds to age characters not
time. At any rate so long as the judge lets each player know how these
changes affect him he shouldn't be restricted by official pronouncements.
Non Cuniculus Est,
Tom Harris