In two days, I will begin the first playtest of my hybrid 4E/Paranoia game, temporarily titled Kingdom of Teria. How exciting! How nerve-wracking!

Some people have wondered how I can combine such different games. Not easily, I can tell you that.  I started by creating some new roles that focused on how players can screw with each other. (Like D&D roles, they are focused on combat.)

This gave me much more focus when designing new classes that, while working within D&D, could also fit into the Paranoia paradigm. The new classes are:

• Disconcerter: Disconcerters use magic to create problems for others, usually a specific person. They create vulnerabilities, warp senses, or otherwise open others up to devastating attacks. If you want to pick on one ally at a time with a powerful debuff, play a disconcerter.

• Evangelical: Arrogant, proud to a fault, and completely convinced of his inevitable sainthood, evangelicals use guilt and fear like an artist uses brushes and paint. If you want to guilt people into protecting you and make them expect, even seek out, punishment, play an evangelical.

• Feral Mage: A natural magic user who escaped the High King’s purges through luck or conspiracy, feral mages have immense power but no training to control it. If you want to hurt friend and foe alike in a burst of magical fire, cause everyone to suffer, and somehow emerge unscathed, play a feral mage.

• Officer: Trained in shouting loudly and expert at making other people do stupid, dangerous tasks, officers send others to their deaths so they may live. If you want to slide other player’s characters around the battlefield and win debates through sheer volume, then officer is a good class to take.

• Prankster: Physical jokes are always funny to the prankster, especially if they hurt someone. If you want to knock allies about, embarrass them, then claim it was all a joke, play a prankster.

• Zealot: Power-mad is the perfect term for these: they have holy power and they are crazy enough to think they know better than the gods what the gods want. If you want to wield barely-controlled power that can take out the unworthy in groups (and only you are truly worthy), play a zealot.

I am proud of these classes and I think they’ll work well,  but we’ll see on Saturday how well these all work together. Or not, as the case may be. After all, there is a lot of Paranoia in my 4E these days.