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I'm trying to make some scenarios set in every American state, starting with Connecticut.
- "Blind Eyes in the Dark"
>Glastonbury has been plagued by a series of mysterious pet disappearances. Some locals think that a nearly century-old legend, the Glawackus, is to blame.
- "The Children Still Cry"
>A search for a missing child in Newtown leads to a horrific discovery, connecting the disappearance to incidents across the entire state. An army of murderous monsters, the Melon Heads, is hiding in the forests of Connecticut.
I have some basic premises, but I'm having trouble fleshing them out. Should I read some books or watch some movies set in Connecticut for inspiration (The Other, Harvest Home, the Oxrun series, Floating Dragon, etc.)? Feel free to add any ideas.

>>93209434
Delawate
>The court of chancery is actually a great old one.

>>93209434
Maryland should be about the Goatman.

>>93209434
For Pennsylvania, you could do something with the Monongahela Monster, a supposed octopus-like creature in Monongahela. Or you could go with zombies. PA is the zombie capital of the world.

>Uh, anyone know a good Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green one shot I can run to sub for (my main group on days when the GM is missing)
>Tabula Rasa from Things We Leave Behind.

Unless I'm blind, that's not in Things We Leave Behind.nor can I find something like that when I google "tabular rasa call of cthulhu"

>>93210569
>>93210331
>>93209645
Sorry, I worded that wrong. I have enough monsters for now, but no real plot. I don’t know how to write a scenario.

>>93209434
I came up with a villain for another scenario.
>Niles Martin is a 13-year-old boy possessed by a demon named Scratch. Scratch, a direct subordinate to Satan himself, was accidentally summoned by the collective grief of the Martin family (father Holland, mother Lydia, daughter Amy, and son Niles) over the disappearance and presumed death of Niles' twin brother, Michael. Scratch, disguising itself as Michael, tricked Niles into letting it into his body. Scratch's true form vaguely resembles a mass of blood vessels and meat, dragging itself with twelve spindly arms; from the center of the mass erupts a giant serpent with Holland's severed face stitched to a fanged head with no other facial features (the stitches are actually small tendrils; within the mouth is a giant orange eye). The most powerful grief, and the secret to Scratch's summoning, is Holland's. Holland secretly murdered Michael after being unable to tolerate his increasingly horrific behavior any longer - Michael had a history of cruelty, starting with killing the family cat and ending with drowning his infant cousin.
The idea is that in addition to the folkloric/mythical monster, each state will have an original monster (Niles, in this case) and what I call an "Aggregate," a ghost made from the souls of some mass murder that happened in the state's past (probably something based on the Mystic Massacre for Connecticut). The campaign's storyline is based on the Aggregates awakening and forming a portal between the spirit world and the real world, allowing the other monsters to manifest.

>>93214498
Also, Niles/Scratch is based on various horror works set in Connecticut (Faith, Beetlejuice, and The Other), if it wasn't obvious.

Whoever mentioned “The Wide Carnivorous Sky” in a previous thread, thank you. I got it on audiobook and it’s been fucking fantastic. Especially great after the last modern horror author I audiobooked (Ronald Malfi), let me down.

>>93214498
*Michael's severed face

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>>93211173
>How to write a scenario
Oh, that's a great question, and something I wish got discussed more. I think different methods work for different people, and a lot comes down to what kind of Keeper you are. Some recommendations:
>Justin Alexander/"Three Clue Rule"
Series of blog posts about structuring mystery scenarios. Pretty well-known at this point, but with good reason.
>Sandy Peterson "How to write a horror scenario"
Seminar (on YouTube). By the Creator of CoC, and a very different approach to design, focused more on the inspiration and creativity angle.
>Mothership "Wardens Operations Manual"
Slanted towards sci-fi but very good as a resource. Proposes the 5-act TOMBS structure, and has much good practical advice and ideas.
>Cthulhu Dark "Dark Depths"
See attached. Similar 5-layer structure, nice prompts to fill in with your own ideas. If I had 30 minutes to prep a game, I'd probably use this.

>>93215366
Thanks, I'll take a look at them

>>93209434
I feel as though The Sopranos would be a pretty good blueprint for a cult in Jersey

Trying to find a scenario, maybe two, not sure. Don't know the system either, it's either Delta Green (doubtful because I had mixed it up with Where Rust and Moth Consume), Unknown Armies, or related to Esoterrorists.

In one of them, there's a gremlin monster that stitches people together in a grotesque hivemind. The ropes only appear when they gather together. At critical mass, the group comes together and the goblin stitches himself into the mix as its literal head. There's also a storyline about condos being haunted and Mr. Teeth the horrifying "policeman" who goes around munching on people. He's cool.

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Tips on running A Time to Harvest? Just picked it up on sale from my FLGS.

I ran mothership for two friends. It went well except for the one player totally taking over the session like he always does. The system seems very fun to run, but sadly I think I won't have anyone to run it with. Current looking into the solo method that is floating around.

>>93209434
For New Mexico, you must include some fuckery going on in Los Alamos. Maybe some scientists are working with mi-go or trying to summon Azathoth.

>>93216708
Yes, yes! I found the scenario in Fear Itself 2e!
"Remember, children, if you’re lost and you don’t know what to do, ask a policeman for help."

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Finished “Who Goes There” last night.
>What works?
The paranoia and how quickly trust breaks down.
>What's cool about it?
How original the monster is (even if some parts of it are confusing) and the set up of an Antarctic research base.
>Why is it so effective?
The story genuinely keeps you on edge of who could be replaced. Several seemingly trustworthy characters turn out to be duplicates.
>What is the best part of it in your opinion?
The build up to the blood test. The first few tests are human, so it’s a while before they even know it works.
>Thoughts on the characters?
Actually a weak point. There are too many and most aren’t very distinct. Campbell also can’t keep his boner for MacReady down.
>Is the villain effective?
Yes and no. What it can do is effective. But many of the disguised things act contrary to their own interest and give up rather easily.
>If you had to pick a moment that really scared you, which would it be?
The revelation that all but one of the animals at the base had already been replaced.
>Is there anything you feel could have been expanded upon?
More about the base before everything goes down would have been effective, as well as the existing relationships between the characters. Also, the Thing rarely fights back all that much, unlike the film.
>What would you change?
More false accusations, and more arguments between the crew. They’re too good at catching Things.
>Would you use it as inspiration for a game?
For sure. I’m thinking of doing a CoC game on a Lighthouse island, and something like this with a Shoggoth Lord could be fun.
The John Carpenter film is better by a lot.

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>>93209195
Anyone had much success cultivating a proper horror atmosphere with player(s) who always want to joke around and act like goofballs?

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Made a DG scenario for a classic wendigo hunt
> guntuber hears a howl and the program take down the video and send the agents in to investigate
> guntuber gets a few friends (all of whom are NOT ready for this fight) together to hunt the monster
> should 3 people become wendigos the 4 of them will start a ritual to summon Itha-Shua
The balance is to try and either prevent the hunt and somehow kill the creature. So they can use the bozos as backup, come up with some bogus to arrest the lot and go it solo, or with enough research and study get enough of a target package to call in a Rhino Team

>>93227973
Really nice premise otherwise, bro, but I's ditch the Rhino Team angle. Not just for the adventure but as an entire concept. Rhino Team is cringe and detrimental to the setting IMO. Good job on the plot though.

>>93227670
Horror comes in many forms,if the monsters don’t scare em have them in stressful situations (cops are interested in their shenanigans, there’s little time before the ritual takes place) and if you can’t play on their play on their pride. The horror of losing is palpable.

>>93227670
I liked the advice players don't want to be scared, then want to releplay someone being scared.
If you mean in general
>Background music
>Descriptions with temperature, smell or feeling
>Use vague phrasing until you need to clarify (It *looks* like Howard. It *seems* safe")

>>93227973
>>93227993
Wtf is a rhino team?

>>93228046
Basically DG’s version of a death squad. Heavily armed, trained, and organized they are just slightly more prepared to deal with the things that DG deals with. Like the strike on the demonte clan in New Orleans would have been carried out by Rhino Teams. But idk why the other anon doesn’t like em

>>93228046
They're action movie Stallone Schwarzenegger sociopath supersoldiers that are so elite and heavily armed and armored they can face elder things with sheer MANLINESS. I mean, that would be cool if you're going for a certain atmosphere but it's jarring for anything that isn't a parody. Trying to play Silence of the Lambs then the Expendables barge in and trivialize any horror. Except for the horror from the aftermath of their badass military shit. Yes that was part of the original pitch.
>>93228076
I just feel they hijack the tone of any Mythos story. Delta Green does allow for a bigger chance at fighting back than most Cthulhu games, but it's easy to go overboard.

>>93228015
Thanks. They do want to "win" when we're playing more standard fantasy or sci-fi games. I'll try to target that need to keep them invested.
>>93228025
I appreciate it. They are good at getting into character, just that they usually play comedic characters. I'll try to frame it for them as playing a character who can be scared. I'll try to figure out a sound setup and a playlist too if I can.

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How do you balance your players? Not in terms of “not be strong” but more “not be stupid”? Obviously there are high stress moments where things are up in the air but firing shots in public or at least in noticeable places, revealing too much info during RP or just generally being bad at investigating? Should they really face the consequences for these things all the time?

>>93228864
Speaking from CoC, I like to use Idea rolls as preventative measures against potentially really stupid decisions.

>>93227973
>>93228142
Rhino teams seem like another one of those "I have no control over my setting" things.
Either there's roughly a single opera a year, and each cell/group gets activated maybe twice a decade, and the masquerade is maintainable,
or
there are enough werewolf slaughters and Innsmouths and shit that it is worth keeping a blooded in kitted out kill squad hot to trot at all times.

I feel like the move to the Program kind of begs the question "why wouldn't a Rhino Team exist" from too many players and writers, and that's a bad thing.

>>93228864
I run a lot of open games that attract people who are new to DG and skew younger. These players often don’t understand how the legal system works regarding what a law enforcement officer can or can’t do, or what kind of things will get them arrested. They don’t understand opsec and can easily dead end on an investigation despite multiple obvious leads.
The best thing imo is to hit them with the immediate consequences of their actions. They need to learn how to play DG by experiencing it. Maybe they get arrested by local PD but immediately released and their non DG boss chews them out and they know they’re facing internal investigation when it’s all over (so as to not immediately remove the Agent from play)
If players dead end I have the case officer call in for a status report and they can list what they’ve found, and the case officer can suggest further action on any of the leads. The INT roll method is silly because it risks failure on a dice roll and if successful you’re breaking frame by inserting knowledge into the player/agent’s mind that could have been delivered externally without hijacking a PC.
Using these harsh methods I have trained a number of bumbling new players into competent investigators, and they keep coming back for more so they must enjoy the abuse.
I really dislike soft or fantastical DG play.

>>93228142
>>93229964
I feel like there’s a happy medium that can be met. Obviously when you’re dealing with what delta green has to fight pistols and Colombo investigators only get you so far, and soon enough you’ll need a strike team. But even getting 6 guys in tier one gear won’t stop the entity that’s bulletproof, and operation obsidian was a good example of high level violence against the mythos that was equivalent of a infected bandaid on a severed limb. If you need a rhino team then you’re up shit’s creek, and if that team fails then you are fucked unless you find the hypergeometry solution (which from reading the scenarios is quite frequent). Having a competent fighting force doesn’t seem like a major issue, but having solve almost every problem does

>>93229964
Maybe I missed it in my readings of the original DG books and the current edition source books but I don’t recall ever seeing anything about a “Rhino Team”.


In one of the old scenarios in “Eyes Only” there is a “black flag” option that’s the A-Cell contingency plan for the operation. Ironically even if you do call them in they get wiped out.

Beyond that you’ve got Coral Nomad in the program era but they’re actual USAF personnel and not fully read in on DG. They’re really not supposed to be used as XCOM types, but unfortunately they get interpreted as such.

Majestic had BLUE FLY which actually was the closest thing to XCOM tactical units in the DG official lore, but they mostly integrated with the program and maybe higher levels of Coral Nomad and by the 2020s none of the original door kickers would still be doing field work.

But yeah generally speaking the idea that the program has a company of tactical squads ready to deploy cheapens the entire setting. The Agents themselves ARE the specialists. If they need grunts and an APC they should have the skills and connections to get local SWAT deployed, with all the complications that will entail - that’s part of the hard choices players should face in Delta Green games.

>>93230136
>Having a competent fighting force doesn’t seem like a major issue, but having solve almost every problem does
That I can agree with, I think that's a problem of the original framing of the Rhino Teams. That they do solve the problem if they are called in, with the only cost being how loud it will have to be when their threshold is met. It reads more like a hype piece than a matter of fact detailing of their use and capabilities, to the idea's detriment.

>>93230254
Hell, rhino teams can even be good hooks for scenarios
Imagine a team was sent to strike a target and the only evidence left was their combat boots filled with ash, and that’s because the nth dimensional beings saw guns and understood that they meant harm in general and just vaporized them, so the agents have to deal with an entity that brute force is only met with eradication. I like they’re existence but their effectiveness is just slightly better than a regular assortment of agents for their very specific field of “kill everything there if it can be killed”

>>93230339
Plausible but I can imagine that confusing a lot of players. There's a sense of awe assigned to military operators usually, speaking as an American at least. Those Tier 1 best of the best of the best, sir! guys losing would call for IRL sanity rolls. "But they're like a team full of John Wicks! That doesn't make sense!" And all that. The baggage has already been brought.

To echo other poster, what supplement had these Rhino teams ya'll are going on about?

I will explain why the concept of Rhino Teams are goofy and break frame for Delta Green, which is why I can't find any mention of them in any published source because someone obviously thought similar.

First, you're pulling these guys from the 1% of human capital that can thrive in Tier I environments and who, for most if not all of their adult life, are told the rules don't really apply to them. Fort Bragg is likely home to a fucking drug trafficking organization run out one of the ODAs and the response has been nil despite the evidence and the bodies stacking up.

Two, you're going to have to give these guys access to hypergeometry because there will be threats only that can solve. And if you're willing to see your "break glass in case of emergency team" chewed up because of some moral line, why even have a team? If this is your last option before nuking from orbit, you'd better be going to go all the way. So they're going to need hypergeometry.

Except the Program isn't the only or even the best source. So now we come to issue three. You've told the guys who believe (with some justice) the rules don't really apply to them, and you've given them the power to break the rules for other people. And you expect they're going to listen and not do shit like use Ageless Feast to stay young and strong? Or Healing Salve to cure that back injury that won't go away?

No, you cannot expect that, because they will do it and congrats, you've got a bigger fucking insider threat that you could ever imagine. Your big scary stick that MIGHT have kept them in line was Lepus, but he fucked off to Valhalla or whatever with Alphonse.

So yeah, the idea of a bunch of roided up warrior mages with guns sounds cool until you think about from the perspective of an SES or GS15 or 0-7 who's been approached with this idea and think it through.

And if your argument is "Uh they're the Good Guys, they wouldn't do that", you're not playing DG, you're playing MCU vs. Cthulu

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>>93209195

>>93231338
>which is why I can't find any mention of them in any published source because someone obviously thought similar.

Wait, so it isn't actually in the book? Where are Rhino Teams from then?

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>>93231432

>>93231432
I believe the idea came from the old DG Mailing List

>>93231432
I crtl-F searched through DG original sourcebook, Countdown, eyes only, Agents handbook and handlers guide and the only hit for Rhino is the stats for the animal in the back of the HG.


The only thing that even comes close in the source books is the Black Flag team from Owlshead and they’re a bunch of Vietnam vets and a South African big game hunter, and they’re scripted to get absolutely destroyed.

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>>93231338
>>93231432
>>93231666
>Rhino Teams were never real and are actually a meme virus implant by the cult of Hastur
Welp, I have my next adventure planned.

In addition, Rhino teams lack the tragedy/pathos of a Forrest James or Donald Poe. Both men have done terrible things and know they've done terrible things, but simply accept it for the greater good. But they still have moral lines they won't cross.

A Tier 1 operator would be justifying to himself that hey, it's just a cultist and damn it if this isn't a good thing as he tucks into his Ageless Feast.

It's why the idea of removing a Christian God does indeed remove some of the terror from things. "Ahhhh no your bio-spiritual energy dissipates into free floating WP" versus doing things that, overall we're for the benefit of humanity and suffering for it.

Or, even worst, encountering a God who says "I look upon ye works and they are good. You will walk with the Lord for all your days in My Heaven."

The fact that James and Poe were rewarded for the acts they're responsible for would likely mind break a significant population as it's more inscrutable and unsettling than the horrible cosmic unknowable horror from dead aeons who's desires are unknowable. It's why a benevolent Elder God saying "Yeah you murdered babies for carrying Deep One taint, yeah you ordered a carpet bombing of a town in the Middle East because it might have had exposure to an Old One taint, and I'm cool with that" makes things even more fucked.

>>93233416
>It's why the idea of removing a Christian God does indeed remove some of the terror from things. "Ahhhh no your bio-spiritual energy dissipates into free floating WP" versus doing things that, overall we're for the benefit of humanity and suffering for it.
What

>>93231666
I assume The Program does has some form of strike teams. MJ12 had the NRO Delta, which I believe wasn't entirely wiped out in Glass Darkly. it's kind of a leap to assume that they are some sort of Hypergeometry fuel John Wick Wizards though

>>93231432
well, according to the fairfield project, they were created by David Wienecke, who was active in delta green mailing list.

>>93231338
>>93233416

You are right in that both the program/former MAJESTIC guys who've just been given access to a far more accurate understanding of what they are dealing with than before wouldn't gradually abuse that power more whilst a third of the outlaw's leadership are a bunch of wizards. Honestly, RAW DG is far too optimistic about how the supposedly heroic organisations they depict would act. There would be a lot more corruption because at the end of the day, there is a self-righteousness that motivates their every real move. Combined with the powers they dabble in that is extremely dangerous. Especially when a lot of these problems are brute facts which don't care for the immorality of the situation.

>>93221122
Looks fun.

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After all this talk of why rhino teams wouldn’t work, I’ve thought it would probably make a nifty scenario
> 2012, “the surge” in Afghanistan
> a black ops team has gone MIA, and SOCOM is very on edge
> locals however had some reports however of seeing the team dragging fighting age males never to be seen again, peaking DG to this op
> agents are sent in to figure out what’s going on
>the rhino team has both taken to the ageless feast ritual and acts as the first to stumble on “the father of war”
> having completely fallen to the mythos, they attack terrorists and American troops alike, all to sustain themselves and continue their rampage in their dark gods name
This can serve as a prologue to the iconoclast campaign, as well as why teams SHOULD NOT have hypergeometry from a logistical standpoint

>>93238589
> to stumble on “the father of war”
It was sitting under Rassam's pool
Did you actually read Iconoclasts?

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How do you do a DG cult? There’s tons of documentaries of real cults, but when the metaphysics are on their side what difference does it make. The labyrinth has some interesting organizations but of a group of 20 cultists can hide pretty well until the moment to strike as long as they aren’t too obvious

>No one brought up the real reason why Rhino Teams are bad is because the players are delegating their responsibilities onto NPCs and devolving everything into a bug hunt

The party in my CoC game have spent most of the campaign being pursued by a particularly dedicated detective who's convinced that the best way to stop the ongoing horrors is to kill the players.
It's gotten to the point where she's closing in and a confrontation ending in bloodshed seems inevitable within the next couple sessions.

The trouble is that feels like it'll end pretty quickly with four hardened unstable investigators vs one rogue cop. I'd like the conflict with what is nominally the campaign's central antagonist to be more engaging.
Any ideas for ways to make the confrontation and ensuing fight more dynamic or exciting?

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>>93238834
Cops back the blue, it’s not far fetched that your rogue cop convinced a few officers to help take down the investigators while also being none the wiser of what’s really going on. Makes a good scene too as the party can try to convince the obvious cops to turn or deal with the repercussions of killing people who just did their job as far as they knew

>>93238834
Need more details on the detective's motivations/reasoning.

If you just want a more balanced fight, maybe she enlists some help. Could be fellow cops, an angry mob, attack dogs... Or maybe she's prepared some kind of trap for them.
Stuff any rational human being would do to put the odds in their favour, knowing they're outnumbered.

Maybe can she turn players against each other -- offer them some kind of deal? Even just as a bluff to throw them off guard.
Is she aware/involved with mythos stuff?

>>93238962
Pretty heavily involved but intentionally not aware. She's been fighting a one-woman war against the Mythos for decades in secret and has survived as long as she has by single-mindedly refusing to understand any of it.
She shoots first and doesn't ask questions ever. She knows that knowing is what drives you insane.

Naturally investigators are antithetical to everything she's trying to do. The party are trying to rescue a friend from Eihort's labyrinth. The detective tried to get them to stop but her refusal to explain anything (because she doesn't know anything) and her adamance that they give up on their friend turned the party against her.

The last time they met she tried to bomb a mall with the party inside but they found and defused the explosives in time.
Getting other cops involved could work but her general methods of operation is to limit the possibility for other people to learn about the occult as much as possible. Traps could be interesting. I hadn't thought about that.

>>93239076
>she tried to bomb a mall
... What the fuck.

Was the mall a mythos threat, or is off the deep end trying to get the PCs?

Either way, do >>93238894.
"These guys are organised crime, I can't pin down evidence but they are bad, and you boys know I'M good."

For added points, find some way that the PCs have to successfully frame HER after they survive the cop ambush, otherwise those cops simply step into the persistent nemesis role.

>>93238722
If they can devolve their responsibilities before reaching a satisfying climax, you have not successfully run a horror scenario.

If the way to finally solve an outbreak is to send in the Rhino Team, then while the PCs confirm that it needs Rhino resolution, they get trapped/chased and must escape in order to call in the big boys.

The PCs responsibility is not to do the bug hunt, it is to do the spooky investigating bit.

>>93239449
>The PCs responsibility is not to do the bug hunt, it is to do the spooky investigating bit.
Have you not played Delta Green before? Literally every published scenario makes it clear that the players have destroy what ever unnatural anomaly their faced with. At most maybe they get some larger authoritative body to do some of the leg work.

>Half of the thread is just arguing about a obscure fan-made article

>>93239517
>published scenario
Miss me with that shit, fuck off.

>>93239645
>>93239517
>>93239449
Sorry, I was in the middle fo something, now I can type without this cock in my mouth, I want to make it clear that I was talking about scenarios that are 'scripted' to end with some big dumb shoot-out.
I only used the term bug hunt because the post I replied to did, I didn't really mean to say "PCs should never bug hunt" in a literal sense.
The sort of scenario where you would sent in a Rhino Team to 'solve' it, the scenario should be about getting to the point that the Rhino Team gets called in, not about rolling weapon checks until everyone gets tired and calls it a day.

>>93239645
Fan made scenarios are mediocre and just ripoff better works

>>93230339
>Rhino Teams are cool because you can Worf them
No.
Do that with regular SWAT or something, or even just the standard issue patrol cop that freaks and pulls his service weapon on a terror from another star.

>>93233416
>It's why the idea of removing a Christian God does indeed remove some of the terror from things.
To reiterate what the other guy said:
What

>>93238709
>How do you do a DG cult?
You have a group of people with a shared motivation and a creepy bond to each other and/or their leader, and a strange objective.
If you mean "how do scenario", the strange objective is causing them to do weird but non-apocalyptic things out in the real world, in preparation for the big gig.

>>93239778
Most of the published ones are over-long messes that are thematically inconsistent and narratively unsatisfying anyway.
You play the game on the table with your players, not in the book.

>>93239833
I’m fucking glad someone said it
I made a simple scenario that practically hands the clues on a silver plater and the players are still having a hard time. I then read music from a darkened room that had clues in furniture, different clues the house gives, and a bunch of conditions that if not managed just fuck over the players. They’d have a mental snap IRL if they dealt with the published scenarios due to the convoluted nature of the scenarios

>>93239921
Ex Oblivione is the classic "oh, you turned up and engaged with the game? You will die now, no escape." Scenarios written from notes of a single playtest back before woke leftist snowflakes ruined gaming forever by suggesting that playing should be in some way enjoyable.

>>93236381
I mean, its been awhile since I read the book, but aside from Joe Camp, pretty much everyone ends up corrupt in one way or another. The cowboys are so singular in their goal of "burn it all down" that they never actually learn anything or move forward, and the current head of the problem is so obsessed with Deep Ones that the ex-mj12 are doing all kinds of shady shit with March. I always got that the overriding point of the setting was that, given a long enough timeline, you are probably going to be the target of a night at the opera.

>>93239921
I really dislike a lot of Detwiler's and Ivy's scenario writing because I feel like so much of it is given over to this "here's the really interesting cool thing that is *actually* going on, that your players maybe have a 1 percent chance of ever figuring out." It just reads as really masturbatory to me.

It's also funny because I've heard them talk about their version of like "good old days" games that they used to play together in the early days of pagan publishing, and they sound fucking awful to me, to different strokes for different folks, I guess. I think John Wick sounds like an awful fucking gm too but he apparently always had a full table back in the day, so what do I know.

>>93240057
>The cowboys are so singular in their goal of "burn it all down" that they never actually learn anything
The famously united front presented by agglomerations of paranoid nutjobs in anonymised cell structures known as The Cowboys?

>>93240057
I think a lot of that mentality came from the fact that was about all they could do - "denied to the enemy" and all. They didn't have enough power to be anything but a spoiler.

James and Poe and the rest of the crew on either side of the Program/Outlaw split aren't really corrupt as we think of it. They've probably been in the position to see first hand people getting burned by hypergeometry, so it's not a suspension of disbelief to believe that they limit themselves. Yes, they know some spells but nothing outright what we'd call evil - though at best some of the spells are agnostic. Elder Sign is probably the best example of this (one weird trick! Old Ones HATE HIM!) but there's the (purposefully) unanswered question about why it works like it does and who exactly you're calling upon, since the Elder Gods (with the exception of Nodens) haven't been featured in DG.

>>93240695
I feel like every other antagonist is a mask for the crawling chaos, so the gods come around a bit

>>93239821
>Rhino Team losing to ancient cosmic horrors is considered "Worfing"
Man. This is exactly why they're a problem in the first place. The writer opened up a can of worms.

>>93240706
I know some people rip off their shirts and lose their minds at the idea of the Elder Gods, mainly because they're taken as the Goodie Good Guys.

They fail to realize that the Elder Gods aren't that. They just hate the Old Ones more and see humanity as foolish apes at worst, as useful tools at best. Probably with a little of the Mi-go sense of "how tf do they do that?!".

>>93240959
It’s kind of a toss up because (as far as I know) the best way to not be utterly destroyed is to not draw any attention. So even using the elder sign is bad in the long run as you metaphysically scream into the universe repping colors you don’t even understand
If an elder god does come around and you used their sign they’re going to take that as you being their servant and thus forking over your being to them.

>>93241160
Yeah, exactly. I had a coplayer (aptly, to me) describe throwing around the Elder Sign willy nilly as the metaphysical equivalent of turning your house in the suburbs into Fort Knox: it draws a lot of attention from everyone.

I mean in the face of being torn apart by a Dark Young it's probably a better option, even if some giant pillar of flame shows up demanding obedience and servitude because you drew a blue star in the air. Always a good option to have if your players are getting too comfortable with hypergeometry.

>>93239076
Interesting.
>limit the possibility for other people to learn about the occult as much as possible
In that case, the dogs idea might make sense. Maybe some combination of dogs and traps? Kind of makes me think of The Most Dangerous Game.
In my experience, players don't tend to run (even when they probably should), they'd rather fight. So an actual "hunt" or "pursuit" may not go well. Instead, I would have her somehow lure the players directly into the trap(s) and/or ambush. (Perhaps your players are different though.)

Anyway, just spitballing.

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I'm so tired of trying to get anything running locally as it's all DND 5e.
I e never GMed but would a couple people like to play Momento Mori?

>>93239076
Assuming the detective knows they are out to get her too, then setting up a trap house should be believable enough.
And she'd have learned plenty of methhead trap constructions in her career.

>>93240909
If the only out-of-universe reason you are deploying Rhino Team is to demonstratively vapourise them with a bad guy, is not it Worfing?
If there was an organic reason for them to be there, sure, but the only reason in the scenario described was as set yp to the story.

is there a delta green or call of Cthulhu game set in a circus or theme park? I eat that shit up for breakfast and I need it

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>>93243544
Ask and ye shall receive

>>93243544
The DG fan zine “Whispers of the dead” has a pretty complex scenario set in “totally not Disney land” that involves “totally not undead hypergeometric Walt Disney”
It’s pretty impressive but a little too esoteric for my tastes.

>>93209195
Department of Truth had a pretty neat take on MiB/greys. The way that alien abductions have replaced angelic sightings irl is worth picking up on, as much as anything else the aspect of the human psyche they reflect is interesting.

Any "standard beats" to writing horror adventures btw? I have an esoteric sf one coming up in a few days. A few interface and memory screws in there for good measure, aside from Gradient Descent are there other modules worth drawing inspiration from?

>>93240051
I think it's fun for a one off, it seems like a really cool scenario to play out. Like the RE4 village siege.

>>93239921
I did not have this issue playing Music from a Darkened Room and none of my players did either. I just made sure that there were clues in every part of the house and they seemed to have a great time.

>>93238709
I'm not sure what you're asking, there's lots of examples of it. If you're saying why don't they activate with full on eldritch horror, just think about how hard it is to handle WMDs safely and use thay as a rule of thumb of why it hasn't happened yet.

>>93227670
Yes, I had an issue where one player played Gilderoy Lockhart but I was still able to scare the shit out of them.

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>>93209195
What’s a good way of handling eldritch horrors and knowledge besides people immediately going insane seeing it? I always felt that that was over the top.

>>93248236
quiet bumpnigger

>>93211169
Pls respond or suggest other short CoC (or adjacent) adventures I could finish in a 3~ hour session when the usual GM is away.

>>93248236
Some people just don't remember it after the fact or only remember blacking out even if they were completely awake and coherent at the time because it was just that traumatic

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>>93248236
Remember, it's usually not seeing the creatures that drives you insane in original Lovecraft stories. It's understanding what they mean.
Take Azathoth for example. Most powerful thing in all of the universe, but it's asleep and just mumbles madly. No one knows what happens if it wakes up, but most think it's something REALLY bad, to the point even the other Outer Gods play music to keep it asleep.
Imagine having that hanging over your head. That at any moment, something you have no power to influence in a place so far away you can't truly comprehend it, could wake up and end everything you know. That's what drives people insane.
The "see something and go insane" thing is really only a single instance in Lovecraft's original works. It's understanding that makes you crazy, though you're only crazy in that you actually understand the universe and cannot go back to your old life anymore.

>>93243544
Y'know, I had resolved myself that if I ran a game featuring a Circus in a WoD or CofD or CoC game that I would play it straight just to hammer home the idea that the weird is weird and just being a carny doesn't qualify.

Then I went to the circus again for the first time in a long time and it was just, like, no, this darkened space in which the real becomes unreal and the spectre of death and danger is deliberately toyed with under the guise of illusion and family tradition... no if the supernatural and weird could be anywhere it could be here and it would be so hard to notice.

>>93249326
>It's understanding that makes you crazy
But can stupid/ignorant people fail to go crazy? Like, it just don't fit into mind of a standard-ass machinery operator from a wooden furniture factory, so he just shrugs and go away perfectly fine.

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>>93209195

What stories have the sort of Silent Hill type of vibe to them?

>>93248236
Frank Belnap Long wrote plenty of dreck, but his second-best story, "The Space-Eaters," might be a good point of reference for this. There's some interesting ideas there about how the mind translates what it doesn't understand into things it does.

>>93250901
Yes. That’s a mechanic in CoC in fact. When you take enough Sanity damage to induce insanity, you can roll intelligence and, if you fail, you suppress/don’t fully understand what happened and don’t lose sanity or go crazy.
In Lovecraft’s original The Call of Cthulhu, Cthulhu’s psychic messages only took hold on artists and academics (and that latter group less so), while common folk suffered no ill effect.
In other words, you need a level of intelligence and abstract thinking to go crazy.

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Everything Memento Mori
gofile (DOT) io/d/NFlWLY

It's really depressing I'll never get to run or play this as everyone is so busy with 5E. It's easily the best TTRPG to come out in years.
I'm going to buy the print versions when they are released but they will probably just forever be stored on the shelf.

>>93252343
Don’t let your dreams go, anon. I broke my group out of the DnD trench years ago and still regularly do so with new players.
You can do it.

>>93252343
I know your pain, anon. I've been suffering a drought of nogames myself, and my shelf is full of the dusty copies of books I bought but will never get a chance to touch like Vaesen.
Such is life
Atleast you can always appreciate the art

>>93244586
wasn't that a dreamlands walt, dead but dreaming? with real and dreamlands versions of the park intertwining and people getting abducted and losing their minds?

>>93251260
The road names are a clue.