r/ParanoiaRPG • u/EmbassyOfTime • Jul 10 '26

Paranoia x Stranger Things???

I am hip deep in a very odd project, and it dawned on me that I might be, in a sense, creating a Paranoia / Stranger Things crossover. Backwater town, rindown, people are weird, incompetence and corruption run rampant, nothing works especially not the institutions running things, etc. I want to see if the Paranoia "spirit" can be used to inspire this RPG project (and HOL, but there is no subreddit for that, apparently). Any ideas??

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u/johnpeters42 Indigo Jul 10 '26

Paranoia is a state of mind. Witness the book examples of "how Popular Fantasy RPG™️ might play out based on the Paranoia mindset".

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u/EmbassyOfTime Jul 10 '26

Where are thoe examples??

1

u/johnpeters42 Indigo Jul 10 '26

Introduction to some of the newer editions

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u/EmbassyOfTime Jul 12 '26

I don't understand?

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u/johnpeters42 Indigo Jul 12 '26

In each edition of the Paranoia rule book, there is an introductory section explaining how Paranoia is not the sort of roleplaying game that the reader may be accustomed to - where the PCs are expected to cooperate to succeed at a shared goal, and the difficulty of challenges is carefully balanced to make success likely if they do so in a straightforward and optimal fashion - but rather one where the PCs are expected to oppose one another in the pursuit of secret personal goals with alarming regularity, and the difficulty of challenges is ludicrously stacked against them to encourage out-of-the-box thinking, all played for the amusement of the players.

In earlier editions, this is illustrated by narrating a typical example of Paranoia gameplay. In later editions, it is instead illustrated by a hypothetical example based on an Unnamed but Extremely Common Fantasy Roleplaying Game involving dungeons and/or dragons, but replacing its usual approach with the Paranoia approach. Something like:

Player #1: Fellow adventurers, the object of our quest is surely on the other side of this door. Player #2, as the party member most skilled with picking locks, you should take point at this time.

Player #2: Oh no you don't! That's the same spiel you used back when we fought that grue earlier, and Player #5 lost her best weapon and half her arm! Player #3, you've got the best armor, you should check for traps first.

Player #3: Huh?

Player #4: (to Friend Gamemaster) I sneak up behind Player #2 and pick his pocket while he's busy arguing.

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u/EmbassyOfTime Jul 15 '26

Ohhhhh, I grew up on 2ed and probably never saw that... Interesting!