When comparing Paranoia vs Dark Heresy, the Slant community recommends Paranoia for most people. In the question“What are the best sci fi-themed tabletop RPGs?” Paranoia is ranked 4th while Dark Heresy is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose Paranoia is:
There is a lot of tongue in cheek and black humour in this dystopian setting.
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Pros
Pro Humourous in tone
There is a lot of tongue in cheek and black humour in this dystopian setting.
Pro Perfect for One Shots.
Paranoia offers a different experience to a typical roleplaying game, and tends to lead to characters suffering multiple deaths (they have 6 clones = 'lives'). While it doesn't lend itself well to long campaigns, it has a tight scenario-design formula, which makes running games off the cuff quite easy for the referee. Players don't normally need much encouragement to get into the spirit of the game - making it ideal for a short notice, one shot game.
Pro Semi-competitive play
Secretively backstabbing other players is encouraged, setting it apart from many of its peers.
Pro In-Depth character creation and well-supported for long campaigns
The Universe of Warhammer 40K is very rich in Lore, and Dark Heresy has a very detailed Point-Buy system with expansions such as Ascension in order to allow characters to level-up past the concepts of the base game, into things like Sisters of Battle, Vindicare Assassins, or even Inquisitors themselves.
Cons
Con Difficult for beginners
Character Creation can be very difficult for someone who is not used to RPGs, especially Percentile-based RPGs, to understand, and the setting as a whole tends to lend to unforgiving interpretations of the rules, which can be frustrating for some players.
Con d100 task resolution
Percentile dice are the most frustrating task resolution mechanic out there. Most systems that use them, and DH is no exception, give you incredibly low odds to succeed at basic tasks with a newly create character. The thing your character is supposedly good at will probably only have a 40-45% chance of succeeding, with AT MOST +20% for a very easy task. You can just not bother rolling for the things you're not so good at.
Con Fantasy not science fiction
Con Sub-faction Specific: Designed for Inquisitors
The FFRPGs are known for being subfaction specific, which is both good and bad. Sadly, FFRPG never really put out a series which allows players to do Xenos/nonhumans really well.