So, now you need to decide. Do you close your eyes to what you've seen and go back to sleep? Or do you come with this psycho burnout and do the impossible against the unbelievable and keep the future at bay for another day? What's it going to be? In or out?Yeah? You dumb shit.>Thread Question:How do you pace a scenario so the horror sneaks up instead of exploding?>Unofficial Resources:https://delta-green.neocities.org
Some anon had asked me to upload all of Detwiller's art for Delta Green that is behind the Patreon/Ghost.io paywall. Here you go:>gofile.io/d/Ex0uo8
List of Shotgun Scenarios included in the upcoming book:MetamorphosisThe InevitableThe Man in BlackUnder New ManagementThe ButtonOperation MAGIC DRAGONThe Black BrandBaby On BoardWhereabouts UnknownHolding CellUnfriendlyOperation STOP REPODie NachtbrüderSecret ShopperLet's Learn AkloOperation ABSOLUTE RARITYPolygraphSaturnaliaApoptosisThe GrowthThe KompromatParting WordsCONTROLCOPYThe Secret of Indian HillStrange Songs at Cold Spring GlenThe Transformation of Henrietta Z.In Medias Res
thumbnail looks like a chubby snake woman flashing her tits
>>97481755>TQ:Terror explodes. Horror is the realization that what you were ignorant of and/or trying to stop is exactly as bad or worse than you ever thought and you are powerless in the face of it.Say you have a town where the rumor mill has started that there were flying saucers. Delta Green sends you in.The NPCs range from drone-enthusiasts with lighted aircraft, conspiracy theorists bringing up non-sequiturs, some guy making fake crop circles with a big plank and some rope for the tourism board, and new residents that corroborate that drone-man had an alibi when they saw the UFOs. A local expresses excitement over the new story, telling you about how this will displace the older town rumor that his neighboring home is haunted, based on a cold case about his next-door neighbor disappearing, some new-money guy. You look up the records and find that the land is under a trust, the same trust as the neighboring plot belonging to that man. In fact, a huge chunk of the town has the same ownership, no paper trail.You get a list of addresses and start asking, no one's heard of this. One family gets violent and you're forced to black-bag them. Background checks on them show that their names are fraudulent, missing persons ghosts ranging 10-50 years ago. Interrogation goes nowhere, but upon returning to town suddenly people want you gone. As you're calling base to say it's dangerously inconclusive and leave, they tell you that you can't; the captured family's biometrics aren't fully human.Eventually, you learn that most of the population is an enclave of a century's of missing people from across the northern hemisphere, including most of who you talked to. It's tough but you nab another fake-name local for examination: human+. You requisition ground-penetrating radar, finding a huge underground structure under the trust-land.
>>97482353Maybe I've spent too much time on /x/ but that isn't particularly horrifying.
>>97481755>TQI'm of the opinion that the horror in DG shouldn't come from the horrible thing the agents are chasing or trying to stop, but the horrible choice the characters should have to make in order to finish the mission. They should have to fuck over their friendlies, ruin innocent people's lives, ally themselves with reprehensible people, and commit atrocities in order to """"protect America."""""
>>97482393Yeah, fair. Once a person becomes desensitized to secret societies and cabals, it's hard to be shocked when a hidden group is able to orchestrate something massive under everyone's nose. Especially when Delta Green is literally roleplaying being part of a paranormal investigation unit doing exactly that.
>>97481755How should I handle a character using a Ruger 10/22(a .22lr rifle)? Should I give it the same damage as the light pistol, since the Agent Handbook lists .22lr as an example caliber or give it the medium pistol profile because of the better ballistics from it being a rifle? Should it have a lethality rating if it were to be converted to fire in full-auto?
>>97482623Reminds me of when our squad found a teen who had an inhuman babby getting ready to burst out of her. She was already as good as dead, but she was oblivious and just thought she was having her boyfriend's kid, so we had to figure out how to deal with the growing threat without being complete psychopaths about it.
>>97485470Light pistol damage, light rifle range (100m). I guess keep lethality at 10%? Flubbing a Lethality turns the percentile roll into added d10s (0 counts as 10, so RAW a 5% flub has a slightly higher chance of doing more damage than a 10% flub, which is weird).
>>97485521Convergence?
>>97489983Yeah, certainly sounds like it after reading the book description from a store page. I knew our handler was either using or heavily referencing an actual adventure for our current op.
Would old man henderson be like a fucking anti eldritch ace in the hole if he existed in DG?That old fuck scares everyone but he can sure as hell do what needs to be done
>>97481818NTA but thanks
>>97491325Old man Henderson is a stupid, fake, unfunny story.
Anyone use Delta Green for their own setting? I've been writing my own that Delta Green is perfect for, but am wondering if I am better off using Cthulhu Eternal or BRP instead.
>>97485470>>97485833ThisThis most survived GSWs known in history occurred when some crackhead made his neighbor was fucking his wife or something led his neighbor out the backdoor of his house during a dinner party in the middle of winter and dumped 27 rounds out of a 10/22 into the guy's back before leaving him in the snow in the backyard.
>>97491368He was a eldritch cover up?
Any good reading/watching material? The chances of me putting together a group for delta green is zero but I've always liked what I've heard about it.
>>97498548For official stuff? All the books are good ("Denied to the Enemy" being the weakest). The short story collections are geat. If you want lore, "Rules of Engagement" then "Through A Glass, Darkly" will give you the canon transition from the Conspiracy-era into the Program-era.For Unofficial stuff with Delta Green vibes, check out:>Radiant Dawn by Cory Goodfellow>Agents of Dreamland by Caitlín R. Kiernan>American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett>Fever House by Keith Rosson>14 / The Fold by Peter Clines>The Harrison Peel Files by David Conyers>The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross>Declare by Tim Powers>The Breach by Patrick LeeSome of those are the first parts of duologies/trilogies.
Running my first DG scenario this weekend. Last Things Last, of course.Any tips or advice on how to make it really hit?
>>97481882Is this going to have like art and shit?
I asked this in the horror thread but didn't get a real answer:I remember from the last DG thread someone said that the one recent oneshot where you're in Sov occupied Prague and have to stop a King in Yellow Play is a "standard KiY screnario"But what IS an example of the standard KiY scenario all the rest are based on?
>>97481882So which of those are actually new? Also releasing Die Nachtbruder AGAIN?
>>97501840You absolutely got a real answer, maybe you just don't know how to read?
>>97502308Not really.
>>97500812Add some simple puzzles (like having to look for green triangles) to the apartment so there's more interaction that finding clue A to go find clue B then running into monster at clue C.
>>97502793You don't really know how to read? Yes, I agree.
>>97482353Cool story.
>>97481755>PUBLISHED IN 2025 OR ABOUT TO SHIPFebruary 2025: God’s Light, paperback & PDFMarch 2025: Agent’s Handbook for VTTMarch 2025: Extremophilia for VTTApril 2025: God’s Hunt, hardback & PDFJuly 2025: International Digital Assets PackAugust 2025: God’s Teeth Audio Props from HPLHSSeptember 2025: New Handler’s Screen & pdfDecember 2025: The Star Chamber VTTJanuary 2026: Observer Effect VTTJanuary 2026: The New Age, paperback & PDFFebruary 2026: Artifact Zero, paperback & PDFFebruary 2026: PX Poker Night VTTMarch 2026: Owlshead Mountain, paperback & PDF>IN LAYOUT>The last stages before printing. Pretty firm dates but no promises. Never any promises.Holy War, paperback & PDF (ETA March 2026)Rejection (for The Labyrinth), paperback & PDF (ETA April 2026)Grace Under Pressure, paperback & PDF (ETA May 2026)Millennium, hardback & PDF (ETA June 2026)Incursions, hardback & PDF (ETA July 2026)>EDITING & ILLUSTRATION>Likely the first half of 2026 in PDF, second half of 2026 in print, but no promises. Never any promises.Operational History, Volume I, hardback & PDF (supposed to be 40K words, turned out 90K words at no extra cost to you, sorry)Shotgun Scenarios, hardback & PDFThe Whisper Labyrinth, hardback & PDF & ebookWolves (for The Labyrinth), paperback & PDF>ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT>We don’t bother giving ETA from here onward. We reserve the right to turn everything inside out and start from scratch.Agencies, hardback & PDFPISCES, hardback & PDFThose Who Come After, hardback & PDF; and its Evidence Kit, paperback & PDFMachinations, hardback & PDFFalling Towers, hardback & PDF3 untitled Labyrinth scenarios, paperback & PDF>IN THE QUEUE>We don’t bother giving ETAs here. We reserve the right to turn everything inside out and start from scratch.Deep State, hardback & PDFFinal Passages, hardback & PDF, and its Evidence Kit, paperback & PDFLegacies, hardback & PDFTranscendence, hardback & PDF
>>97505435Holy shit, it's depressing how much of this is remakes of previous content or things that still aren't fulfilled from the ten year old Kickstarter.Shane Ivey is apparently working on the Black Company rpg but Detwiler, Stokes, and Glancy are fucking full time employees, aren't they? What the fuck else are they working on? This lineup is fucking awful.
>>97500812Federal Agent Make Believe's "Some changes for Last Things Last" parts 1 and 2.I wouldn't add simple puzzles like "look for triangles", but maybe there could be a hidden stash of papers listing the records stored at the shack or something.That gives a reward to searching the apartment properly, but isn't going to truncate the scenario by allowing them to go home and call the job done.>>97505644I think the insistence on updating old shit is what causes the glacial pace.It doesn't really matter, the fan-made stuff is better anyway. Canon is a plague upon the pastime.There are only three-ish of them, and I don't really believe DeeDee or Glancy are nine to fiving it.Stokes has full Capitalism Derangement Syndrome though, pretty much all he talks about in the interviews I've heard is how much time he spends reading and writing for DG so he can pay rent.>Pic not particularly related.
>>97505644I actually prefer Conspiracy-era Delta Green way more than modern Program-era, so I'm looking forward to Millennium (Countdown), Incursions (90's scenarios), Machinations (Eyes Only), and Legacies (Targets of Opportunity).Dennis spends too much time doomscrolling on the internet than working it seems like, but apparently they hired a guy to keep them in check andon time with publications.
>>97505773>I wouldn't add simple puzzles like "look for triangles", but maybe there could be a hidden stash of papers listing the records stored at the shack or something.To elaborate, the idea for the puzzle is to have something blocking your path to the computer/safe that could contain compromising material, and having the key/password hidden in a spot marked by the some delta green motiff.Brute forcing takes longer and prompts an encounter or has an unrelated shady thing happen (random people here for a mundane reason show up on the other side of the street with a van)
>>97505787But all those books already exist, I'm pretty sure most of them are available for pod too.
>>97506550Right, but I like them as just straight up reading/visual material. The Conspiracy was a beautiful update to the og CoC Delta Green, and I'm excited for the other sourcebook updates.
does anyone have the core pdf for this? I was interested in running my first game but im a broke college student
>>97507110
>>97507236dogbless
Anyone recall an operation that takes place in the middle east, an interstellar object crashes, there is some type of white fungal growth that emits from the crash site and inside the craft there are corpses of satyrs and human skeletons like a fight broke out between the two? I'm wanting to run it when I was briefly looking over it and couldn't remember the name.
>>97508184Was it Dream After Dawn? It's the only one I see with a UFO in the Middle East.>https://dg-scenario-database.com
What's a *good* module I can run as a one shot, with the expectation that it can be finished in 2-3 hours.Already played LTL, and a bunch of random stuff like This is a Wendy's and that poison soup CoC adventure from nippon.CoC and Other systems are valid since there's no new general horror thread yet.
If anyone wants a little inspiration, there's a Canadian B-movie called The Objective with a very nice DG vibe.
>>97513240Try the Klickitat County Fire. I ran it months back for a group new to DG and they enjoyed it.
>>97505435Why is falling towers ahead of Deep State?
Anyone got stories with Delta Green?
>>97516870The Fate are at the core of it.
>>97518120oh yeah, forgot about it, nothing like Delta green like spending all the effort on a mythos gang that is way too powerful and nobody likes
>>97518176Not having read the book The Fate were in until recently, it's sort of crazy how much it clashes tonally with what they claim to be trying to do with the setting now. It's the fucking Mythos legion of Doom, it reads like something a high schooler keeper came up with (which, basically, it is.) He should be embarrassed by it.
Any shotgun scenarios from the contests that are actually worth running?
So I'm planning on running my first δGreen game but I feel like I'm running something that isn't exactly suited for the setting. Most of the campaign is focused around dealing with west coast cryptids like Bigfoot and other anomalous creatures. Should I look for another system?
>>97519075I've run "Under New Management" and enjoyed it. And Last Things Last was a shotgun scenario before it became the DG version of The Haunting.
>>97520828It's less about what they're investigating and more what tone you want to go for. In DG, combat is very punishing, and the assumption with the sanity and bond rules is that your players are going to be doing a bit of a work/life balance death spiral as they fuck up their home lives to keep their sanity. The system also kind of assumes that your characters are part of some sort of larger organization (specifically the item rules). If you aren't interested in that, the sanity spiral or the hyper lethal combat, baseline call of cthulhu/pull Cthulhu or some other game might be a better fit. A lot of people seem to think DG is an operating operators kind of game, but combat is *really* brutal and unforgiving.
>>97520884Considering shit like Wendigos I was expecting the combat to be fuck-around-and-find-out tier where, if they can avoid it, they'll be fine. I think I'm going to emphasize the idea of being out of their depth and on a shoestring budget. Maybe δGreen considers what they're doing low priority since Cthulhus and Grays are doing whatever wherever else. It's that or I make them not part of The Program because of the same reason.
>>97521361Honestly, it seems like most groups aren't heavily using metaplot shit and just uses "The Program" as a framing device, so I think you'd be fine.
>>97520828I think it would be fine, but if you want a system that is fundamentally the same but detached from the Delta green setting, maybe check out Cthulhu Eternal. It has different rulesets for different eras, and it's free.
>>97522225>>97521566Thanks for the advice. I'll let you know if I get the two additional players to stop being a Nogames.
>>97522784How many players do you have? Delta Green is definitely good for "buddy cop" games.
>>97518357>it reads like something a high schooler keeper came up withDeeDee cannot reconcile with the fact that his game has moved past his initial stunted conception of it.>>97519075We played one about a radio making people insomniacs that was bretty gud. It started with an ex-marine shooting himself in the head to put a radio in his brain.There was another good one that I can only remember the end of, about a Mi-go bioweapon turning people into moldy rage zombies with lobster claws we had to bughunt that was fun but I have no idea how you'd find that without knowing the spoiler.>>97521566Anyone that uses metaplot in their games, regardless of system or setting, should be beaten until they learn.If I can look up your NPCs in a printed book you should be locked in a septic tank until you produce three wholly original ideas.
>>97523930Lol, is there a game that is actually played as much as DG where the fan base has as contentious a relationship with the creators? I dislike Detwiler, I disagree with virtually every decision Shane Ivey has made as publisher, and I love Glancy, but the man needs someone with a whip to follow him around and make sure he finishes his projects.
>>97523955Dennis and Shane both just have the internet presence of an arrogant teenager on Reddit. They make great shit, but they are your quintessential, insufferable, "levitating over the rest of us" nerds.Tynes seems cool. Caleb LARPs as a Marxist and sucks at writing scenarios. And that Vince dude who is riding their coattails is also some holier-than-thou shitlord on the Discord. Real dad-cop energy to that guy.
>>97519075A cenar teto, the one that's like the usual* KIY screnario but you're Soviets in occupied prague was neat.*whatever that means
>>97525614Man, it's not even funny how blatantly he's using AI for just about all his art, but retarded redditors will go to bat for him even when you point out the obvious signs. Then again, it seems like Arc Dreams deliberately try to get their fans in parasocial relationships on reddit.Also don't ever get the Delta Green raid jacket, I got 2 (thanks to an order fuck-up the first time around) and the medium is almost the same size as the small, which I have no doubt that the other sizes are barely larger. Ridiculous for the prices they charge.
>>97532454I print professionally. You'd be better off asking a local print shop for a DTF print of it on your own windbreaker. It'd cost about as much as they're selling those Camel Cash Rewards quality jackets for.
>>97525614>Real dad-cop energyUtterly, it is unbearable. Guy's no Tony Soprano, that's for sure. Unfortunately, he's got a better idea of how to run and play the game than about 85% of the vocal fanbase.>>97529344Are you the author?That phrasing has come up a lot in relation to that scenario. Which is pretty decent, to be fair, even if a lot of it is just well done "witness some weird scenes in a theater" repeatedly.
>>97539489No I'm the guy wondering what another guy in the last DG thread meant.Though really I just want to know what the "foundational" KIY scenarios are since you don't get most of the common elements from the original book.
I played Call of Cthulhu a bit with buddies. Would jumping into Impossible Landscapes be a bad idea? Should we do a session of "regular" Delta Green beforehand?
>>97541656Holy shit, did you just not like the answer you got, why do you still sound salty about it?Again, the current "foundational" King in Yellow scenario is Night Floors, and more broadly the stuff Tynes wrote in Countdown, if I remember correctly. It's "King in Yellow" as an aggressive destructive viral meme that erodes reality.
>>97542090Are you running or playing?
>>97542184I plan on running. I tend to run the RPGs that aren't D&D or Lancer in our group.
>>97542247I really don't think IL is a good introduction for either Handlers or players. Its an unconventional DG scenario, and is almost written to circumvent expectations from players who already know the setting and have played other scenarios.For a longer-style DG game (not technically a full on campaign), I always recommend starting with the (still) goat: Convergence.
>>97542183>Again, the current "foundational" King in Yellow scenario is Night FloorsWell that's wrong and Night Floors is bad, sorry.
>>97542272Impossible Landscapes is unironically the best scenario for a group of people new to DG because it can easily be ruined if the players act like they're actually meant to be hand picked to solve cthulhu related problems.Though the bigger issue is that the GM will have to do a lot of work to make it run properly* (it has a troll ending) but there's apparently an entire discord of people trying to make it work.*Many such cases in official DG modules!
>>97542301I agree, Night Floors is dogshit, Detwiler is a horrible scenario writer. That doesn't change the fact that the current standard KiY scenario is based around that, the John Tynes Countdown write up, and Impossible Landscapes. We can quibble about whether not thats a good or bad thing, but that's the shit most people are basing their conception of KiY/Hastur/Carcosa on.They sure as shit aren't going with the old "Hastur is the king in yellow and also a giant squid head on another planet and he is Cthulhu's brother and/or cousin."
>>97542247I wouldn't try to run a big campaign, if you're starting out just run a series of connected one shots with some home scenes in between. As the other anon said, part of IL is a subversion of the tropes of DG.Speaking personally, I think IL is massively overrated. Detwiler is the king of overwriting scenarios. Having read it, it didn't seem like it would be fun as a player or a handler to slog through it. That's my personal opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. For some reason the Carcosa shit really seems to resonate with people.
>>97542570I'm pretty sure the CoC line of KiY adventures predates night floors.hastur being le entropy man instead of a hooded tentacle man isn't as important as all the tropes that appear in KiY adventures.
>>97543534>No, trust me, the scenarios that I cannot name or describe are much more important and influential than the scenario that everyone knows about, that has a billion actual plays, and is the intro scenario to one of the two published campaigns for Delta Green.Really killer argument.
Can Delta Green work in a one shot?I want to give the system a shot and I have a regular spot running one shots that tend to fill out no matter what I run. But when I looked for shotgun adventures they didn't feel like they made the game look too different from CoC with FBI characters.If possible I'd rather run civilians, so I don't have to fill in players too much, which would make it even more CoC.
>>97545275More people use it for one shots, or barely connected series of one shots, than people use it for proper campaigns.And it *is* just CoC with FBI agents. It started as a call of cthulhu supplement. There's nothing stopping you from running a game of just civilians, either people running into mythos shit for the first time, or people who become involved in a DG investigation without their knowledge. Delta Green has a concept called "friendlies," which are people who aren't clued or are barely clued in who they utilize for their skills and shit.You could also run agents who are federal law enforcement of some stripe who either run into the mythos completely by accident, or who are being ran by a Delta Handler without their knowledge. You've got a lot of options in that regard. I'd say that part of the default assumption of most starter player characters is that they don't really know much if anything, so even if they are Delta Green agents, they'd still be in the dark about most things.
>>97545314Some mechanics are out of the picture in a one shot, character progression or long term effects. What should I focus on to make it seem interesting and special (and trick them into playing a campaign)? I'm comfortable improvising from a general idea, but I don't know what things I should hit to make the system feel cool otuside of that one shot in particular. Like having combat, spening a third or more with family drama, letting them run in circles for hours with an investigation. I read a handful of shotgun adventures and I couldn't decide on one besides the ones I personally though were cool.
>>97545503I don't even understand what you're asking? Run a one shot you think is cool, and you're going to enjoy running. You're going to run something you think is cool better, and it will make them enjoy it in turn.
>>97545503If I'm understanding the question right, it's the bonds system that sets it apart. You can't do long term mechanical effects in a oneshot but you can still try to emphasize the balancing act in the RP and hopefully get people intrigued about that aspect. One thing I like /have seen elsewhere is making people quickly describe what they're doing when they get the call to head out on an Op, like what kind of family obligation they have to skip out on or something else along those lines. Just set the framing device up.
>>97545503The system itself isn't that "cool". It's the lore and scenarios that make Delta Green.
>>97545275>>97545503It's really weird that you'd go>I want to run Delta Green, what should I focus on to make it seem cool?And yet at the same time think>I don't want them to be feddies or anything, just civilians.It's federal agents vs. Cthulhus. Thats what makes it cool.
>>97542247>>97542320If the group and GM are not experienced DG players, then IL is just "do some investigation, some surreal shit happens" rather than whatever genius genre inversion it is supposed to be.It's just stuff.Play a few unrelated scenarios sequentially, home scenes between, and if the group is still going after four or five cases bring back a threat from one of the earlier scenarios you played to create a sense of narrative arc.>>97542580I think IL is Detwiler's home game writeup in some idealised embellished form.Shit like the clown etc. feel liek something he'd feel smug and clever about, and not care whether any of it holds together, let a lone 'makes sense'.>>97545503I like to do a home scene beginning and end, and interludes in the middle of the session if there's time and an IRL pace lull.Long wait IC while a lead gets followed up? Go home to your wife and kids, have a nice time, explain why actually you do have to leave right this second even though you said you were taking Timmy to the soccer tournament tomorrow.Overnight at a motel before the raid on the compound? Your mother's nurse calls, she's lucid for the first time in weeks and asking after you.It doesn't need to be a full campaign to reinforce the "normal humans fighting abnormal threats" theme.
>>97547674>It's federal agents vs. Cthulhus. Thats what makes it cool.I know but it's not exactly FBI, there's a lot of explaining to do before the players know what their characters are.
>>97548093It is FBI. And you don't really need to explain anything to your players.You should actually read the Agent's Handbook before you try to play this game, it seems like you have some really weird ideas about it.
>>97548093I'm going to expand a little bit here because I don't want to be flippant. It's not like the player characters are coming into their Delta Green office and logging into the Delta Green special network. The entire point of Delta Green, even the "official" Program version, is that is an ad hoc org that exist within and in between the cracks in the national security complex. PCs can be agents from the FBI, CIA, NSA, The fucking Post Office, anything. They can also be in academia, or municipal law, or whatever. You literally don't need to explain anything about the "org" of Delta Green to your players beyond "you saw something weird in the course of your work, and now you've been selected for a 'training exercise' with some other departments."You're overthinking this. Seriously, read the book.
>>97548144>You should actually read the Agent's Handbook before you try to play this gameADHD young zoomer goes to tiktok, gets pumped with massive shot of contextless shorts, doesn't read books, and larps being a handler - AUTISM.Many such cases!
>>97548184I feel like there is a large population of people interested in the game because "it's like SCP," the same way there used to be a large population of people interested in the game because "It'd be perfect for X-COM."
>>97548091>If the group and GM are not experienced DG players, then IL is just "do some investigation, some surreal shit happens" rather than whatever genius genre inversion it is supposed to be.IL sucks as a genre inversion because all your problems are solved by unzipping the lasersight autoglock/deagle/shotgun or failing sanity.which isn't a big departure from standard DG where you just have the former."Just stuff" works better because novice players are more likely to create problems for themselves instead of throwing everything that's dyed yellow into a barrel fire.
So did the greenbox go with the server?
>>97549520The trove? Works for me.
>>97549540Oh damn, thanks for telling me. Turns out the domain is blocked by my gubbmint, got it handled via vpn.
>>97481755Got a copy of the New Age, how would one go about contributing to the Green Box here ?
>>97553367Upload it to GoFile, and I will add it to the trove
>>97553367I found a version from my usual sources and added it to the Green Box, but feel welcome to gofile it anyways
>>97542184writing a one-shot set in Suez in the 50s, heavily inspired by Declare. Fighting the SDECE over a basalt pillar in the desert with a Polyp inside
>>97481755>TQPacing horror is pretty easy if you stick to the basics : the 5 senses and the expectation/delivery contrastJust deliver info about the smell, sound, visions, feeling of the scene, and make your player expect something and then break itHere's a computer. it smells like rotten meat. it's warm to the touch and really quiet. when you turn it on, it works fine, there is a password you dont have..Wwhen you unplugit, it bleed. Upon analiqsys the blood is yours, and when you try to explain the computer stuff, no one perceived it like you do. And you start noticing a few cuts on your arm and neck, slowly healing. What's behind he password ?You build and build and build and the horror beyong the screen is already thereWhen you crakc the password, you wake up in a torture chamber, hooked to a real computer feeding on you blood to copy your dna into...something...and you start again, build up, 5 senses, etc...
Added "New Age", "Artifact Zero", and "Owlshead Mountain" to The Green Box
How do people feel about "Music From A Darkened Room"? Personally I really like it, even if I don't like the small amount of things that are basically just "use this to almost guarantee a player death".
>>97564762More Detwiler "you have to do this hyper specific series of things in order to be able to accomplish anything," alongside his classic "be in a place and a weird thing happens." The concept has potential, but the execution is dog shit.
>>97564791Fair enough, I actually went back through and reread it, and man, I forgot how much I actually changed to work better and I was largely just remembering that. Yeah, the furniture plot stuff is just, why? What fucking group was Detwiller testing this on that was like "Oh let's go look for all the very specific furniture that used to be here nearly a century ago or some shit"? Great stuff in it like the scene that can happen under the house, but so much "interact with this and die or don't interact and die anyways".
Just to add on, it's funny how much of a fan of Delta Green 2e before I restarted the general months back, and then got to talk to people who were actually critical of the game and not gargling Arc Dreams balls and covering for their shitty decisions. That along with getting to run a prolonged campaign for the game just killed my interest in it, having to fix stupid plots as well as do a bunch of work for even minor things that they just delegate to DMs instead of at least laying out anything concrete (like actual rules for playing Program vs playing Outlaws).
>>97564865yeah DG is one of those things where the vibes of the idea can be so strong you end up kind of uncritically accepting how slapdash a lot of it is.
>>97564916You'd think they'd have an official ruling for moving and attacking by this point.(I let gun users Fight Back by shooting you if they do that)
>>97564865The new Delta Green is awesome system-wise, but the 90's Conspiracy-era is just objectively better and more interesting. Better lore, better antagonists, better scenarios. I'm glad they're rereleasing all of it modernized.
>>97566954Eh, I think that the modern Era has all the building blocks to be something really great, but they just haven't done anything with it. I dislike... Hell, dislike is even too strong a word, it isn't bad, I just think the conspiracy era is too black and white, too pulp, and the conspiracy is a little too purely white hat for me to love it completely. The setup they have for conflict between the funded and competent but completely compromised Program and the Pure of intention but broke and broken Cowboys is really cool, but they've done nothing with it. The idea of Mythos proliferation after the end of the DG/mj12 cold-then-briefly-hot war mirroring weapons proliferation at the end of the Cold war is really cool and.... they've done nothing with it. The Lloigor vs. Great Race conflict at least sounds interesting on paper and could be an interesting way to utilize two creatures that don't really get used that much, but I don't think they've touched on it outside of a single section in the handlers guide. I also think it's really fucking annoying that the two campaigns they've put out are both weird meta commentaries on Delta Green and the nature of free will, and both them are framing devices meant for the handler to span the gap between the nineties and modern day with a bunch of scenario of the week play. Where is a campaign that is actually about taking down a single mythos conspiracy? Shouldn't that be the *first* fucking campaign book you put out?
>>97563041Did anyone read those and are they any good?
>>97567546I mean, they've been around for like 20 years. These are just updates for the new system.
>>97567071its strange that they haven't touched what are supposed to be the main selling points of the new delta green erathey should have done the lliogor vs Great Race conflict, put Deep State on the back burner, and put so much effort into campaigns that can't connect to the wider story
>>97570418Nah we clearly need more shit about how awesome the Fate are.
>>97568630WellAre they good?
>>97571702Yes.
>>97570418>>97571680*Not put Deep State on the back burnerFalling towers is only interesting for the post 9/11 new york stuff, but that alongside the ghouls will definitely be shafted in favor of yet again more Fate content
>>97573644What Fate stuff? There hasn't been Fate material since theCoC era Eyes Only.
>>97573742A big part of falling towers is supposed to be about the current form of the Fate, or at least what happened to them post 9/11 and after the events of Through a Glass Darkly.It's a waste of word count to spend any fucking time on them, they are far and away the worst thing about og Delta Green.
>>97573872Isn't the cliff notes that the Fate is a nightclub based cult/criminal organization, with tiers of sorcerers under the rule of an avatar of Nyarlathotep?
So it crossed my mind recently that Cthulhu has been meme'd so much in pop culture that I think some of the "scary" aspects of him are undermined. Like, he's just become a big kaiju in the popular consciousness. It's kind of a shame because his name is part of CoC's title for example but he seems to be more or less a generic doomsday monster. Like I can think of a few popular scenarios involving other Elder Gods or generic spooky creatures, but the big green boy himself seems to be kind of generic, like I've heard of Keeper-run scenarios where he's the big bad of the campaign, but it doesn't seem like there's all that much notable about him or anything that'll leave a lasting impact on players.So I guess my question is: how do you make Cthulhu interesting/scary?I've got a few ideas. First one is to emphasize his sheer danger. The eponymous "Call" of Cthulhu. How that'd translate to a Delta Green game beyond agents responding to outbreaks of violence would be maybe bizarre behavior in animals. Ant death spirals followed by bird death spirals then even human ones. Kindergarten students making bizarre art and playing stranger games. Religious authorities making public proclamations that "The End is Near" and people should prepare to die. Stories of whole communities in the Middle East becoming ascetics and making fervent prayers.Otherwise, my second idea is to focus more on his psychic powers. Try to gaslight and confuse the players. The closer they get to Cthulhu the more it seems like looking at the Elephant's Foot in Chernobyl. Headaches, people getting sudden mutations (teeth in their brain?). They'll suffer from lost time and have friends and family play back recordings of them screaming at them over the phone, they'll get this impression people are stalking them, just a whole bunch of stuff fucking with their heads.Anyone know any good Cthulhu-centric scenarios?
>>97574319My take would be this : there's is this gigantic corpse surfacing in the pacific, and slowly drfting. Really slowly like 1 mile/day maybe. Big as a small island but it's definitely the bloated and seemingly dead corpse of some creature, part octopus, part uhman, scaly...So of course states and scientist want to research, explore, analyze but the closer you get to it, the madder you get. The maddening is artistic, creative, not so violent but destructive of everything around you. Alienating. And it's slowly getting closer to California, the sea itself seems to protect it, mutated fish and birds circling around it as it goes on, steady, stinky...Can you explore it ? What will you find ?And what happens when it reach the coast and get up
>>97574175The cliff's notes don't really do justice to how stupid they are. They're basically an all powerful Legion of Doom of super special mythos villains led by a cringe as fuck possible avatar of Nyarlathotep. The whole thing reads like a highschool keepers idea of a really cool badass enemy faction, but it's just dumb and lame.
>>97574319The monster aspect of Cthulhu has always been the least frightening aspect, the whole "giant secret occult conspiracy that has been around since the dawn of man and can send minions to kill you," is a lot more interesting.The problem with Cthulhu is that there is only one story you can really tell. "Cthulhu is gonna wake up, and we gotta stop him from waking up." It just isn't too terribly interesting. But you can do a lot with Cthulhu cults.
>>97574754I heard what I'm pretty sure was just fan content for Dark Ages Cthulhu where some Papal Inquisitors remarked that the curious thing about the Cthulhu cult is that while Satanists think they'll be rewarded or elevated or empowered by worshipping the Devil, Cthulhu worshippers basically know that their god doesn't care about them and expect to get squished like a bug for their trouble. I think that's something that could make for an interesting aspect of dealing with Cthulhu: Pure Cosmic Nihilism.Like in the story you've got this line:>The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.Honestly that could simultaneously fit Delta Green's themes of "Nihilistic Horror". Cthulhu himself is untouchable and mostly unseen, but his cult? It indulges in nihilistic violence and encourages it. It's trying to make the world more like *it* and it seems like we're awfully close to that. Why does some guy walk into an elementary school and livestream a mass shooting? Why does some NEET in Japan murder their parents then go back to playing World of Warcraft? They're not shouting "Cthulhu F'thagn!" while they do it, they don't know the words, but in the darkest recesses of their mind: Cthulhu is there. He's there, dead and dreaming, and twisting humanity towards the end times.
>>97574930This sounds like a pretty good line of questioning to go down if somebody wants to solve the question of how to make pizzagate-epstien-clinton-bohemiangrove stuff actually interesting in DG
>>97519075I quite liked Saturnalia (had to tweak it a little bit). Jessica’s Bodies was one of the funnest sessions I’ve run, great investigation scenario.
>>97574742I fucking hate this bit from Puppet Shows where it all but says Alzis is the "true likeness/form" of Nyarl.
>>97574967I had an idea for a Delta Green campaign that would be centered around tech bro shitheads, the in would have been a low level guy in the cult being a game dev who is putting Cthulhu cult iconography in his latest game. I feel like a lot of those dude could be out and out Cthulhu cultists and then wouldn't seem that much different.
>>97575079it's the old classic 'backstory/scene the players have no possible way of figuring out' maneuver, too
>>97575079Alzis should be nothing more than one of nyarl's many many avatars, albeit a rogue one if you want to make him stand out.
>>97574319>Like, he's just become a big kaiju in the popular consciousness.yeah
>>97519075Could try the Moss covered arrowhead ones
Had an idea for running Convergence that might be on the border of being stupid, funny, and cool. Don't want it to be a TPK (wanna have at least some characters carry on to other oneshots) so I'm thinking if the players fuck up royally they'll be captured by MJ-12 later and interrogated. To set the stage I was thinking of starting the scenario with this character I'll just call "The Prisoner" who's black bagged and interrogated, he'll be in the limited control of the players (figure they could roll to determine his responses) and then after some brutal interrogation and drugging, he's brought in to be debriefed, and describe the stuff that went down in Groversfield.And I was thinking of making the person interrogating him Dick Cheney.By '96 (thinking of setting the campaign a few years earlier) he'd already served as the Secretary of Defense and was Chairman of The Board for Halliburton, and to be frank he just kind of "fits" the vibe of amoral and ambitious espionage scheming. I think it'd give players a sense of grounding and Deep State intrigue, and to be frank I could see Cheney being plenty interested in something like Majestic-12.Am I flying too close to the sun here? 'Cause my goal is to give players an "oh shit" kind of moment. We all grew up during the Bush years, so Cheney as some evil mastermind isn't an unfamiliar trope to us.
>>97581196it seems like the kind of thing that could easily backfire, but you know your group. he does fit, and it would be in character, but imo there's sort of a dissonance and potential unintentional comedy to having a real life person suddenly appear.also, isn't getting captured by MJ12 kind of a wipe anyway? not a lot of places a character can go from there realistically right
>>97582188this>>97581196also Cheney is super high level so this would work better near the end of a campaign
I am going to play Delta Green in war-time germany (1945, few weeks before fall of Berlin).Agents are going to secure Werwolf's (nazi saboteurs) hideout in located in small manor in the middle of woods. They will discover terrible ritual there and meet with unnatural there for the first time.What would you include in my scenario to make it more delta green-ishany general tips for new handler?
>>97582188>>97584466I was thinking the Prisoner Interrogation would be a narrative framing and also a failsafe in the event of the Agents stumbling at the end (from what I understand the Mi Go can be pretty deadly). After the interrogation I imagine the orders are to erase the surviving Agent's memories and possibly turn them into a sleeper Agent without them even realizing. Should the players succeed or die in such a way that it'd be stretching the realm of disbelief, I was thinking the "Prisoner" in question would be revealed to be their Handler who was captured at a later point. As for why I chose Cheney, I remember getting a kick out of Dark Corners of The Earth having you meet a young J Edgar Hoover and figured this would be a similar vibe.
>>97585840>I remember getting a kick out of Dark Corners of The Earth having you meet a young J Edgar Hooverdamn now that you mention it i remember liking that too, maybe it would work
>>97585145Maybe some kind of moral dilemma aspect, like potentially extracting one of the guys responsible for some atrocities (or maybe just probably responsible but the players can't exactly prove it) because he's willing to cooperate & hand over his findings in exchange for immunity, or something along those lines.
>>97587952I'll be writing out something more detailed for it before the session starts but what I'm thinking is:>Game starts with the narrative "Eye of God" on a prisoner>Orange jumpsuit, black bag over his head>Stench of human excrement fills the air, rain batters against their bare feet.>A few others in cells are coughing, some groaning in pain>Rusty gate squeaks open, boots stomping across mud, dogs growling>Prisoner is thrown into the back of some vehicle and escorted into a detention center>Hear dogs growling, people crying, the hiss of a firehose, rubber hoses smacking flesh>Forced into a seating position when the bag is finally taken off their head>They're handcuffed to a table in some interrogation room, alone for a few minutes, when suddenly there's talking beyond the reinforced door>In walks a man in his early fifties, balding, big framed glasses, a half-subdued smirk as he looks down at the prisoner>Takes a moment to discuss the facilities, talks about how handy it is having a place like this not technically on American soil>Says it can be a "framework for future endeavors">Says point blank the prisoner has no rights, only privileges which he can ultimately revoke at any time>Explains that if the prisoner explains everything and proves himself useful, then he has a chance at freedom>"Now, tell me about the incident in Groversfield..."Don't think we'll finish it all in one session so I plan for a big "wham" to be cutting back to the prisoner before we end the first session with some random guard saying something like>"Secretary Cheney, the President is on the phone."
>>97592586Remember that if it's going to be a cutscene, you can do this as an intro text given before the game.
>>97482353This sounds like a certain episode of Monk (a really good episode, actually)
>>97529344Its a standard KIY scenario in that it literally takes place in a theater where the play is being shown, and the gameplay consists of "try not to get sucked into carcossa while avoiding SAN loss from seeing surreal set pieces". Not bad for a KIY shotgun, but its all very standard.>>97525614Vince really is a 20 year retired federal agent, and he's good at gatekeeping the fundamental aspect of the setting: you play people working for the government.You may think thats obvious, or not important, but over the last few years (probably due to the popularity of IL/KiY) the scene is flooded with theater kids who want to be a freelance pizza delivery bitcoiner journalist artist basketweaver and think that cops are icky, popping up asking how to play or run Delta Green. Someone needs to tell them theyre doing it wrong, and thats Vince.
>>97597312Why the fuck would you play DG and not want to be a spook? I'm as Socialist as it comes but its not like True Detective would be better (or even good) if Rust was just some nihilistic streamer.
>>97597782Glowie-chic has become passé. Nobody expects the Pro Granny Hunter or the #1 Sunday SwitchFlipper to save you from Cthulhu.Run current year games with Cowboys and make sure to nerf seduction (gay) by making it a separate skill since that one guy proved it's super effective.
>>97597782You also have the slasher-movie-esque joy of seeing your awful player characters get fed into the cosmic wood chipper. But, still, some people can't get over it.I can't run it for my group because they don't even understand television police procedural shit, so all the interesting stuff goes right out the window.
>>97597782people like the vibes but not the substance of them, so they try to twist it to fit instead of just playing coc. many similar cases in all hobbies.
>>97597782>Why the fuck would you play DG and not want to be a spook?There was an influx of zoomers that unironically can't get over ACAB to the point they can't even into >>97598971They want to play an idealised-self-insert chaotic neutral tiefling rogue librarian. (Barely an exaggeration of a recent attempt.)>>97599054 is right, they should be playing CoC modern.The funny thing is, DG and CoC modern can be perfectly interchangeable system-wise, really, it's just the DG brand has the grimdark pop cool cache currently.
>>97599282>The funny thing is, DG and CoC modern can be perfectly interchangeable system-wiseThat's arguable. I think that there are a lot of ways that DG is a much better system, but it's entire item economy is tied into being able to beg, borrow and steal from your employer agency, which means you'd entirely have to handwaved that stuff in a non-government agents campaign.
>>97525614I accidentally chased him off of the IL Discord by telling him he was being an asshole
>>97598971>You also have the slasher-movie-esque joy of seeing your awful player characters get fed into the cosmic wood chipper. But, still, some people can't get over it.See to me I see the DG agents as less ostensibly awful people and more folks put into impossible, stressful situations day in and day out with the only hope being that they're doing something good, they're holding the line a little bit longer.It's like people are so afraid of making the "wrong" choice that they'd just rather make no choice at all. "Well I don't want to be a federal agent!" Well nut up, Cthulhu is waking up, the feds are about the closest thing to a slim chance we'll have. You're not fighting something that "cares" about humanity in any meaningful sense, the ones that do "care" inasmuch as they find us fun to fuck with. You can agonize over the morals of it later, but if we don't kill every goddamn Deep One in Innsmouth there are a lot of innocent people that are going to be hurt.
>>97599282>There was an influx of zoomers that unironically can't get over ACAB to the point they can't even into>They want to play an idealised-self-insert chaotic neutral tiefling rogue librarian. (Barely an exaggeration of a recent attempt.)IMO DG is best played with the mindset of a Neocon/Neolib for the program, and a schizo conspiracy maga/libertarian one for the outlaws
>>97481818Oh wow nice. Cheers m8!Btw what is the pic related from? is it an actual module or just cool looking art?
>>97597312>>97599282I'm going to argue the opposite. Setting aside just using the system to run your games rather than the setting and metaplot, the Outlaws being increasingly willing to utilize civilians in Operas beyond the standard Friendly capacity make a certain degree of sense considering their diminished capacity.
>>97505435so what's gonna be in agencies?
So I'll be running Convergence on Saturday, I'm trying to do a little DM sheet writing up how I'll describe things and what I'll have characters say, but I'm kind of worried that I'm taking too much away from improvising? I've done improv before and it's worked pretty well, but I really just want to get the "vibe" down correctly, I want to get into gory detail about what horrors people see, or add some pathos to the characters... I'm also worried I wont finish in time.Any advice? What are some absolute MUSTS I should have done immediately before running Convergence? I've already read through the scenario twice.
>>97505787I wonder how Machinations will go considering that it is full of scenarios they will likely remove.
>>97597782Jesse Plemons in Bugonia isn't a nihilistic streamer, but he's a crazy person with a shitty job who kidnaps a CEO because he's convinced she's an evil alien. Imo a really solid example of a non-spook Rust-type character.I'm not saying you should take the feds out of the game about being a fed, just that this is a workable archetype outside a law enforcement context
>>97632587The main problem is that the entirety of the gear mechanics are meant to function under the assumption that at least one of your characters has some sort of government access that they can use/misuse clandestinely. If I recall correctly there is also a way to burn bonds to get shit? Might be wrong about that though, and while that sounds thematic, it seems like it would be pretty bad to have to rely on that as a plan a.
>>97614140Yes, butPlaying non-actual-Delta Green using the DG system is not 'playing Delta Green', it is using DG to play modern horror with a SAN system. That's fine, knock yourself out, but it isn't DG.Yes, The Outlaws would use a wider range of people than The Program would, out of necessity, but they aren't keeping binders full of GameStop clerks or giving the librarian from your high school the keys to the armoury unsupervised because that is fundamentally wasteful of their extremely limited resources.It doesn't make internal logical sense to claim you are 'playing Delta Green' without having someone involved somewhat-directly attached to one of the Conspiracies.Stuff like Burner I will allow in while looking funny at it, because it is just barely attached to DG-canon.(Honestly what the fuck is this new arrows captcha even about? I feel like I'm brute forcing it.)
>>97633943That's valid but at the same time you have the same issue playing within the rules. Logically most of the people in the federal government would be completely worthless for DG - even within law enforcement agencies and divisions. It might as well just be "choose your preferred low empathy doorkicker background."
>>97634040No, that's just incorrect.FBI agents are selected for education and aptitude in investigation, then trained to minimum standards of competence in a bunch of relevant skills from shooting and driving to operating bureaucracy, and additionally have implied legal clout (even without a legal warrant) to compel people to cooperate with them.The various specialists within the gubmint have various specialisms that can be relevant, be they forensic accountants or environmental microbiologists. They are also somewhat pre-vetted by virtue of having been accepted for employment by the federal government - even if that means little in reality, to most people/organisations it implies levels of competence and trustworthiness that will help in interactions.What would make someone not completely worthless to DG, in your opinion?If you are playing games that reduce to low empathy doorkicking, we're not playing the same game.
>>97481882How is Jessica’s Bodies not included in this shit?
>>97635296The list reads pretty weird for me, and i guess it is down to Stokes' preferences.Jessica's Bodies is good, old(ish), straightforward to modernise, and most importantly has an incel as the bad guy.
>>97481882So what is a TLDR of each scenario?
How the fuck do Bast and Azatoth work in the setting anymore? GT implies that the universe is Bast's self-sustaining creation through the CERN line of questioning, but Observer Effect already canonized the dream-theory?Is it all just "we don't get it" or "however the Handler feels that day?"
>>97637062On the topic of God's Teeth, do you think they might do a rewrite of it now that all the Epstein shit has come out? There's a lot of "Wayfair isn't actually trafficking kids to Jeffrey Epstein, but if there WAS a pedo deepstate conspiracy, Trump would be getting in the way of it by missing the forest for the trees" written into the fluff of it that looks pretty bad in retrospect even if you weren't onboard with all the /pol/schizo pizzagate happenings
>>97637062Monolithic fixed canon is a cancer that should be purged from the RPG scene.It works how you want it to work for your table/scenario/campaign.>>97637727By the time they get a book out we'll be living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, new-hire project manager or not, so I wouldn't worry what Arc Dream are going to do about it - what are you going to write about it?
>>97638974Considering my campaign is a setting-conversion into /mlp/-relevancy when I run it I won't need to worry as much about the weird hateboner Stokes has for Stephen Miller and all the weird and unrealistic connections he keeps trying to make between Miller and Christian-nationalism/wignat shit (genuinely confused why the fluff-footnotes say a practicing Jew would be psyched about a guy who named himself after the progenitor of one of Judea's enemies over some "biblical connection") or all the other lefty/pol/-blueanon schizo shit, but I'll need to do a bunch of rewrites for it anyways."The Bast network and the Epstein network are both real and subsidiaries of a larger pedophile-super-rape-pagan-demon-worship-network that encompasses pretty much all government-parasitizing networks" might be a good start for a larger-scale/more retrospectively solvent rewrite's thesis. Maybe tying in the Cult of Transcendence ("They were actually still around all along and ended up changing their goals to TOUCHING KIDS to drain their WP to take over the world! They're like if Enolsis was run by FRAZZLEDRIP BOHEMIAN GROVE PEDOPHILES!") and doing something like "Bast was using Conradin to try and consume Nyarly's network of ultra-rapist cannibals as her penultimate plan to eat the world" as flavor text would be good enough for a proper rewrite.
My character orchestrated his first "an hero" moment, last session. Guy who knew way too much, couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut, and had brought all the incriminating evidence to a secluded meeting in a field. There wasn't going to be a better opportunity to secure the information and stage the scene than this.Felt pretty bad to win his trust, get hold of his weapon, then pull the old "who's that over there?" trick so he didn't notice my agent bringing the gun up under his chin. The shooter was already adapted to violence (though he isn't comfortable with it), but his partner had a breakdown after.Any memorable solutions your agents have found for tying off loose ends and plugging leaks?
>>97637062I like the idea that every god every god/faction is in an all out conflict for dominancy including the King in Yellow despite him being an entirely different genre
>>97649006Kinda sounds like that implies azatoth is aware but desu I guess that does line up with "we fundamentally can't understand the real intelligences and mechanics behind the cosmos" thing that's the whole purpose of coc/dg
>>97658053Azathoth doesn't have to be aware to have influence
>>97597782The furthest I ever went away from government agent was letting a players agent be an archaeologist for the Bureau of Land Management and even that was a hard time to wrangle, I struggle to imagine what I would be able to do with an agent who's just some asshole off the street.
>>97659774It is fine to have some of the cell be non-Fed, but there's so much access that a Fed grants simply by appearing to be the appropriate person to nose around.I think you really need at least one Fed.It might even be a fun chill RP scenario to play as a non-Fed cell trying to keep a lid on your designated Fed DMPC, who is just so damn close to cracking and going full Mulder in front of the county coroner if he sees one more weird corpse...
>>97640190Iran arc?
>>97542090Yes. Impossible Landscapes does a lot of things intended to "break the mold" of how a regular Delta Green operation should play out, which is mostly lost on players that are brand new to the game. It works best with players that have had some experience and now the beat, so you can throw them off it. I'd recommend running the other two scenarios from "Delta Green: Countdown", A Victim of the Art and maybe Dead Letter. Or any other new scenarios, just to let them get a hang of the system before you throw IL at them.
>>97481755>TQ:I'll answer this with an anecdote as I think that'll be better than just talking about it. The best example of a scenario that I can think of where the horror was creeping up on the players in the way i think you're describing is from my home game. I run a 90s game and my players did a series of scenarios where one of their cells investigated, fought, and took down The Skoptsi. I cribbed some things from God's Teeth, but it wasn't really God's Teeth, it was its own thing. The first scenario of the campaign, the agents arrested "Vasili Karpov" aka Fedor Berezhkov after they found him at a deal with some cronies of The Fate, the fixer for the Skoptsi. He was "let off" on his charges through CIA pressure (somtehing they had to look into). A-Cell wanted to know what the CIA's interest in Karpov was, where he went after getting off, who he'd be talking to. The scenario was ultimately then tailing Karpov from New Yorkto Moscow on the Chesapeake, and from there investigating the community and finding out more about the cult. I felt there was a real sense of mounting unease and horror as they found out more and more about the cult. The Russian connections, the ritual castration, the adoption agency recruitment centre, everything. I had the scenario pop off at the end. The Skoptsi found out they were being spied on by people they didn't think were FBI, so they sent from goons out to try to kidnap the agents. It turned into a very exciting car chase and gun fight for my players.
>>97664531>Impossible Landscapes does a lot of things intended to "break the mold" of how a regular Delta Green operation should playStill kills me that IL was the breakout product for the line.Why did it catch fire the way it did?Because it is a big art filled book like wanky KS D&D books, but of a better writing/idea quality?
>>97665087It's because it's was the only actual campaign book released for the fucking game. People want campaigns, if only to see what a campaign in the game is supposed to look like, and these idiots released one that is specifically not that.
>>97664599This sounds a lot more interesting than either IL or GT. Way to go, anon.
>>97665120I suppose.I wonder if DG would've blown up years earlier if they'd released Control Group as an explicit onboarding sequence of operas, and marketed it as a campaign.Instead of four Episode 1s.With something actually good instead of Hideo Kojima presents BLACKSAT, a cut-scene experience floating simulator.
>>97665139Yeah, I agree. Control Group is a good idea, but it's fucking awful in execution.It just blows my mind that they still haven't released a campaign that is exactly what you described: an investigation into a single mythos organization. They've *kind of* done that with the Borealis Connection for Fall, but all we get for the mainline game is scenario collections.It seems like a massive bit of ludonarrative dissonance to me: we're told over and over that most DG agents only end up working on one or two ops, but the default mode of the game is essentially monster of the week until the wheels fall off.
>>97665151>we're told over and over that most DG agents only end up working on one or two opsIs that true?I don't read the official canon very closely because most of it is kind of dumb and internally incoherent.If each agent is only doing a couple of ops, teh conspiracy must either be blooding in and soft-retiring dozens of agents per year, which doesn't feel very 'secret conspiracy', or one thing happens every couple of years, which doesn't match the urgent tone and barely feels worth maintaining a whole sprawling conspiracy set up to deal with.>>97643694I've run a handful of scenarios that explicitly end with a post-credits fallout>so you identified at least several dozen other civilians infected with [ticking mythos timebomb], what do?and every single time I get"go home to my wife and drink a whole bottle of scotch.">what about the aforementioned ongoing threat clean-up?"Oh. I tell Delta Green and then go home.">they ask for your recommendation as the boots on the ground."They have other experts, right? I continue to side-step my responsibilities to greater humanity: wife, scotch."
>>97513712>Try the Klickitat County Fire. I ran it months back for a group new to DG and they enjoyed it.What was the scenario progression like? Trying to figure out if there's anything I'm missing in regards to getting the party to meat the DG agent and then getting them somewhere as/when the monster attacks.
>>97665087>>97665120thisbut also imo because it hit the market right as The Backrooms and fuckass book by Mark Danielewski "House of Leaves" was getting popular again.
>>97665126Thank you anon, i've taken a lot of pride in my game. I've managed to keep my players attention for about three years, so i must be doing something right. We're winding up for a Karotechia scenario in Chile. They're go and bust up a Karotechia research program to contact the Deep Ones again with the help of some rich Cthulhu cultists and some resurrect DINA agents. Fun fun fun.
>>97481755>>97664599I'm looping back because I think I got lost in my own story and forgot to actually answer the thread question. The way I pace my scenarios is that there's very often very little mythos until the end. I actually tend to run Delta Green more like a hard boiled detective thriller or a spy thriller than a horror game. Just every so often they find a letter or a photo or conduct an interview that has some creepy implications towards the unnatural. I talked about the Skoptsi earlier. That first Skoptsi scenario involved no mythos at all. There were some handouts that pointed to things like that the cult was using magic to brainwash Maryland CPS workers into forgetting the horrific abuse that was going on at their "adoption agency" and some stuff about the aforementioned ritual castration. But I kept it lowkey until much later when they teed off against one of the Skoptsi's sorcerers when they raided the aforementioned adoption agency. That isn't to say you shouldn't have *any* mythos to speak of at the beginning. I mean, Delta Green had to have SOMETHING to pique their interest. But once the ball gets rolling, let the reveals but piecemeal and tiny until its time for things to snowball to the climax. To give an example by way of official scenario: Dead Letter. Famously opens with severed dog's head in box still alive. From thereon, there's not a lot of mythos stuff until the climax when Galt comes to bomb the chemical plant in Montana. You're piecing together little bits and pieces about ABC and the dog's head and the botched burglary, so on and so forth.I'm talking in circles but my point here is drip-feed your players new information as time goes along rather than big reveals and you should be good.
>>97669279
>>97481755Agents have been ordered to (Seedy) Milwaukee, WI to falsify a Target: the gospel of witches. The only way they can get to the Target is to visit the first location: a famous crack house, where their first clue - maps and sketches - points toward a second location - a nostalgia-inducing dentist or yoga center - and the activities of the Antagonist - Qu-Tugkwa - and its Minons - half-man/half-animal.At the second location they find their second clue - an illegal laboratory - (and potentially face off against, be waylaid by or otherwise evade a nuisance: being seduced), which leads them to a third location: an out-of-the-way university/research laboratory. Here the Minions set up a trap: a summoned Monster. By sheer luck or pluck, the Agents deal with the trap and thereupon find their third clue - a strange dreams.This clue leads to the Target, which either directly or indirectly explains the the Antagonist's and Minions' machinations: become something unnatural for further unspecified, otherworldly aims, which requires an artifact. By leveraging their assets or using previous clues, Agents can now find their way to the a forgotten green box, where they can defeat the Antagonist once and for all.
>>97672967Briefing: Rumours on the grapevine suggest a buyer has tracked down old wytchfynder tome, detailing a really-working ritual to purge a soul of malefic influences.The local antiques fence has been kidnapped for blackmail and extortion because of debts to a loan shark drug dealer.Crackhead wall scrawls direct to the dental surgery that sells under-counter drugs - a white-coated man sedates sneople using a big syringe.After politely declining a (crackwhore? Unnaturally appealing receptionist?) they find the back room is being used to cook supacrack using stock chemicals only the Susan G Komen-funded nearby State U research lab has a license to buy.In the lab, the sneople have used their Weird Science to grow their own Mongo Snerson who tries to poison the Agents.After killing the big snake and doing cover up stuff, the team will eventually dead-end their loose ends and retire to the motel to sleep. Weird dreams show a Man In Black with a distinctive scar heisting the tome from a snerson-witch cult decades ago. Searching Delta Green's patchy records and calling retired agents will reveal that that was Agent Drill, and D-Cell's Green Box is in the basement of the Town Hall - but when they go there, it is revealed that the dream was a snerson memory, sent by sneople, so they could follow the agents to the Green Box and steal back the tome.Shoot your way out, or surrender a fake tome, or die.
>>97673046... And I guess the sneople want the tome to try and purge either their brood of some sort of power limitation. Once cured they can snerson-magic greenhouse the planet back to the Paleozoic or something,The shotgun generator is pretty good, but it really does give you some difficult points to join together.
>>97672967Oh, and who tf is Qu-Tugkwa?
>>97673046>After killing the big snake and doing cover up stuff, the team will eventually dead-end their loose ends and retire to the motel to sleep. Weird dreams show a Man In Black with a distinctive scar heisting the tome from a snerson-witch cult decades ago.This dog-shit scenario design, don't do this.And the entire thing is a little too "go here, to learn you need to go here, to learn you need to go here, to learn you need to go here." I'd have your initiatial encounter have clues for each of the other sites, with clues at each of those sites pointing to others. If you're going to go more linear for some reason, I'd cut some of the sites, because it will get obvious the more you do. Also, cut the built in dead end, holy shit, that's fucking awful.
>>97665173To be fair, side-stepping your responsibilities to greater humanity is a proven method of not losing all your SAN.
>>97673098Copyright free version of Cthuga used by Delta Green. Ithaqua and Atlach-Nacha also had their names changed like this in the new material.
>>97673474>This dog-shit scenario design, don't do this.Yep, but that's what the generator directed as the form of that clue - 'a strange dreams'.I was hoping we could workshop it a bit in exactly this fashion, to improve around the constraints of the generator.Perhaps the illegal university lab was originally using Gospel of Witches as a source for some sort of psychiatric or sleep treatment, and there are patient treatment records that discuss the coming of a terrible person (describing Agent Drill) and then a closure order or declaration of federal investigation in the name of (AKA Agent Drill).The generator doesn't really do node-based scenario design, it is set up for linear, but it wouldn't be too hard to back-fill some branching clues, and even easier to foreshadow a bit - like have the crackmens wall scrawl call the !dentist "Mr Drills", or one of the older dealers talk about sneople and drug trials amidst the other jabber.
>>97673474Out of interest, is it the dead end or the dream clue that troubles you?Investigative total dead ends are pretty normal in IRL investigations, as are the temporary kind where you've chased all the leads available to you right now, and need to let records requests percolate through state/fed bureaucracy.Or you just run out of daylight and energy and need to rest.I don't think the latter two kinds are a problem, particularly if you speedrun through any tying up of non-productive loose ends.Having the adversary send the dream to let them follow you to the Green Box feels like a good explanation for why they arrive at the site too, rather than already being there (why didn't they break in before?) or coincidentally arriving at the same time (contrivance without cause).>>97674565Gotcha.
>>97674935>Out of interest, is it the dead end or the dream clue that troubles you?>Investigative total dead ends are pretty normal in IRL investigations, as are the temporary kind where you've chased all the leads available to you right now, and need to let records requests percolate through state/fed bureaucracy.Just because something is realistic, doesn't mean that it is good scenario design. I think building in a dead end as described is bad because ultimately the players and lady luck are going to provide their own dead ends; players are going to miss something, or misunderstand something, or go wildly off in the wrong direction all on their own. Building it in just adds an extra layer of frustration, and it a scenario bottleneck, which I just don't like. On top of that, I think "you get a mysterious dream that tells you want to do!" is pretty hack. I think if you're going to use dreams like that, they should be used to foreshadow or give vague hints. "GO HERE NOW," is just kind of dull.If I'd been playing, and we seemingly reached a dead end, my first through wouldn't be "oh, we need to go to sleep," it would be to go back over everything we know, maybe revisit somewhere or something. I'd feel kind of cheated if instead, the solution to the dead end was to essentially trigger a cutscene that told us what to do next, that had nothing to do with our investigation up until now.
>>97674903I guess this highlights the inability of a generator to handle investigative scenarios. Worthwhile to to generate the spine of an investigation, but I'd go back and add that shit to make it more open ended
>>97676184>>97676176>If I'd been playing, and we seemingly reached a dead end[...] I'd feel kind of cheated[...] a cutscene that told us what to do nextAll reasonable points.Any ideas for using>find their third clue - a strange dreamsotherwise?Or to make it nodal rather than linear?
>>97676288So, you've got three locations, a crack house, a dentists office, and a research lab. You've also got the concepts of dreams as a clue, and a green box you want to include.So, for my inciting incident I'd do something like this: a grisly crime scene with unnatural overtones has gotten Delta Greens attention. The victim is a college student, unknowingly killed by her involvement a designer drug. The crime scene and the victim have clues that point to the crack house (where she was scoring drugs), the dentist office (where she was working) and the lab at school (she was working for a teacher their for credit). I'd also throw in a scene at her dorm room, where they can find her journal, a document that gets progressively more unhinged as the dreams the drug are giving her being to take over her life. Some of the nonsense dream journaling would make more sense as the scenario progresses. I'd also probably tie this murder to an older Delta green case, which is where I would hide the info about the green box.Then it's just a matter of seeding clues to each of the other two nodes at the three second order nodes (an odd amount of people going to the dentist office from the crack house, evidence of chemicals going from the lab to the dentists office, etc.) and all of your second tier nodes also have a clue leading to your final confrontation.This is a very, *very* broad overview, but that's how I would morph it into something more open ended. I still don't love it, because I think that all good Delta Green scenarios should involve some kind of Horrible Choice that the players have to make and I don't have time right now to figure out what they would be, but I think that structure is a little better than the "and, then, and then" that the generator provided.
>>97672967>>97676500Interesting approach to the restructure.I focused on the given objective, rather than the scenes.In an attempt to avoid "a weird murder" or "a Friendly gone missing" or "visit this Green Box", I went with>find and take the TOME soon to be purchased in Townville.Known Antiques Dealer is missing - antiques and pawn shop locked up as normal, inside shows a struggle.Police = "KAD reported Crackmen harrassment". > crackhouseOffice = recent inbox notes about customer seeking TOME. Answerphone message from customer (Yoga Babe) at Gym's number > gymShop = chimp-like handprints in strange places (top of bookshelves etc.), chimp hair fibres. > labCrackhouse - Pusher pawned bling, KAD legally sold it on, beef. Pusher hasn't seen Yoga Babe gf in weeks.Visiting any local crackhouse shows consistent graffiti of scar-man firehose-ing flaming apes. Search finds several map scraps to reach Gym.Quizzing crackheads = scar-man is from a shared dream, Pusher's girlfriend works at Gym and Lab, someone broke into lab for drugs but never came back.
>>97672967>>97677795Gym - Yoga Babe receptionist is 'innocent' damsel in distress seeking WitPro and constant company, and is a recent Cthuga cult convert. CCTV shows late-night visitors leaving with duffel bags. Locker search finds kit to cut Crack, including chemicals and instruments from Lab.
>>97677795>>97677803Lab - remote Biological Resources Unit of state university, animal house with chimps playing with matches in cages. Anonymous (Yoga handwriting) research notes include dreams about debating scarred Mr Drill, re: "flame of knowledge," "living within flames" etc. as well as strange distillation recipes for drug trials. After Agents enter, self-immolating chimps attack.Recognising Yoga Babe's handwriting and confronting leads to showdown with flaming Gymbros (feel the burn) and chimps.Contacting DG about Drill and scars reveals Agent Drill fought a Cthuga cult and Green Boxed their HQ in the 70s. GB address is nearby, tailed and attacked. TOME in Green Box holds ritual to not be burned by fire.
>>97677808Fringe was cool
