Thread #97481755
File: ARTHUR-HUNT-1.png (5 MB)
5 MB PNG
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
169 RepliesView Thread
>>
File: RETRIBUTION.png (4.1 MB)
4.1 MB PNG
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
>>
File: Book-Mock-Up-Shotgun-Current-View-2_large_large.png (166.9 KB)
166.9 KB PNG
List of Shotgun Scenarios included in the upcoming book:
Metamorphosis
The Inevitable
The Man in Black
Under New Management
The Button
Operation MAGIC DRAGON
The Black Brand
Baby On Board
Whereabouts Unknown
Holding Cell
Unfriendly
Operation STOP REPO
Die Nachtbrüder
Secret Shopper
Let's Learn Aklo
Operation ABSOLUTE RARITY
Polygraph
Saturnalia
Apoptosis
The Growth
The Kompromat
Parting Words
CONTROLCOPY
The Secret of Indian Hill
Strange Songs at Cold Spring Glen
The Transformation of Henrietta Z.
In Medias Res
>>
>>
>>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.
>>
>>
>>97481755
>TQ
I'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."""""
>>
>>97482393
Yeah, 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.
>>
>>97481755
How 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?
>>
>>97482623
Reminds 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.
>>
>>97485470
Light 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).
>>
File: hqdefault.jpg (11.3 KB)
11.3 KB JPG
>>97485521
Convergence?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>97485470
>>97485833
This
This 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.
>>
>>
>>
File: 31189177.jpg (183.4 KB)
183.4 KB JPG
>>97498548
For 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 Lee
Some of those are the first parts of duologies/trilogies.
>>
>>
>>
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?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>97481755
>PUBLISHED IN 2025 OR ABOUT TO SHIP
February 2025: God’s Light, paperback & PDF
March 2025: Agent’s Handbook for VTT
March 2025: Extremophilia for VTT
April 2025: God’s Hunt, hardback & PDF
July 2025: International Digital Assets Pack
August 2025: God’s Teeth Audio Props from HPLHS
September 2025: New Handler’s Screen & pdf
December 2025: The Star Chamber VTT
January 2026: Observer Effect VTT
January 2026: The New Age, paperback & PDF
February 2026: Artifact Zero, paperback & PDF
February 2026: PX Poker Night VTT
March 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 & PDF
The Whisper Labyrinth, hardback & PDF & ebook
Wolves (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 & PDF
PISCES, hardback & PDF
Those Who Come After, hardback & PDF; and its Evidence Kit, paperback & PDF
Machinations, hardback & PDF
Falling Towers, hardback & PDF
3 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 & PDF
Final Passages, hardback & PDF, and its Evidence Kit, paperback & PDF
Legacies, hardback & PDF
Transcendence, hardback & PDF
>>
>>97505435
Holy 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.
>>
File: Misty metal bridge.jpg (81 KB)
81 KB JPG
>>97500812
Federal 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.
>>97505644
I 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.
>>
File: IMG_1656-1.jpg (124.5 KB)
124.5 KB JPG
>>97505644
I 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)
>>
>>
>>
>>
File: TheGreenBox.jpg (518.4 KB)
518.4 KB JPG
>>97507110
>>
>>
File: Wetwork.png (706.3 KB)
706.3 KB PNG
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.
>>
>>97508184
Was 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.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>97518176
Not 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.
>>
>>
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?
>>
>>
>>97520828
It'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.
>>
>>97520884
Considering 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.
>>
>>
File: ba2e716c-9d91-4035-bffa-520825828ad8_1171x1629.jpg (416.2 KB)
416.2 KB JPG
>>97520828
I 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
>>97521566
Thanks for the advice. I'll let you know if I get the two additional players to stop being a Nogames.
>>
>>
>>97518357
>it reads like something a high schooler keeper came up with
DeeDee cannot reconcile with the fact that his game has moved past his initial stunted conception of it.
>>97519075
We 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, abouta Mi-go bioweapon turning people into moldy rage zombies with lobster claws we had to bughuntthat was fun but I have no idea how you'd find that without knowing the spoiler.
>>97521566
Anyone 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.
>>
>>97523930
Lol, 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.
>>
File: 1756613296606654.png (277.4 KB)
277.4 KB PNG
>>97523955
Dennis 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.
>>
>>
>>97525614
Man, 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.
>>
File: DG_logo.png (492.1 KB)
492.1 KB PNG
>>97532454
I 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 energy
Utterly, 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.
>>97529344
Are 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.
>>
File: G6Iv_p6WsAAsccU.jpg (85.8 KB)
85.8 KB JPG
>>97539489
No 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.
>>
File: The Trench.jpg (164 KB)
164 KB JPG
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?
>>
>>97541656
Holy 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.
>>
>>
File: Horrid_Archon.jpg (293.6 KB)
293.6 KB JPG
>>97542184
I plan on running. I tend to run the RPGs that aren't D&D or Lancer in our group.
>>
File: the-bucket.png (1.1 MB)
1.1 MB PNG
>>97542247
I 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.
>>
>>
>>97542272
Impossible 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!
>>
>>97542301
I 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."
>>
>>97542247
I 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.
>>
>>
>>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.
>>
>>97545275
More 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.
>>
>>97545314
Some 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.
>>
>>97545503
I 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.
>>
>>97545503
If 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.
>>
>>
>>97545275
>>97545503
It'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
>>97542320
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.
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.
>>97542580
I 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'.
>>97545503
I 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.
>>
>>
>>97548093
It 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.
>>
>>97548093
I'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 game
ADHD 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!
>>
>>97548184
I 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.
>>
File: 222240.png (333.7 KB)
333.7 KB PNG
So did the greenbox go with the server?
>>
File: Ultra-Q-Balloonga.jpg (274.1 KB)
274.1 KB JPG
>>97549520
The trove? Works for me.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>97481755
>TQ
Pacing horror is pretty easy if you stick to the basics : the 5 senses and the expectation/delivery contrast
Just deliver info about the smell, sound, visions, feeling of the scene, and make your player expect something and then break it
Here'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 there
When 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...
>>
>>
>>
>>97564762
More 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.
>>
>>97564791
Fair 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).
>>
>>
>>
File: stalenhag-gameboy.jpg (31.5 KB)
31.5 KB JPG
>>97564865
The 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.
>>
>>97566954
Eh, 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?
>>
>>
>>
>>97567071
its strange that they haven't touched what are supposed to be the main selling points of the new delta green era
they 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>97570418
>>97571680
*Not put Deep State on the back burner
Falling 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
>>
>>
>>97573742
A 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.
>>
File: Alzis-Smiles-1.jpg (60.4 KB)
60.4 KB JPG
>>97573872
Isn'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?
>>
File: Cthulhu.jpg (109.1 KB)
109.1 KB JPG
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?
>>
>>97574319
My 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
>>
>>97574175
The 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.
>>
>>97574319
The 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.
>>
File: Eldritch Angel.jpg (223.4 KB)
223.4 KB JPG
>>97574754
I 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.
>>
>>
>>
File: Screenshot 2026-02-17 184342.png (1004.6 KB)
1004.6 KB PNG
>>97574742
I fucking hate this bit from Puppet Shows where it all but says Alzis is the "true likeness/form" of Nyarl.
>>
>>97574967
I 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.
>>
>>
>>
File: [Erai-raws] Necronomico no Cosmic Horror Show - 12 [1080p CR WEB-DL AVC AAC][MultiSub][EF0A21E6].mkv_snapshot_08.25.907.jpg (521.9 KB)
521.9 KB JPG
>>97574319
>Like, he's just become a big kaiju in the popular consciousness.
yeah
>>
>>
File: Dick Cheney.jpg (21.8 KB)
21.8 KB JPG
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.
>>
>>97581196
it 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
>>
>>97582188
this
>>97581196
also Cheney is super high level so this would work better near the end of a campaign
>>
File: jpg.jpg (65.8 KB)
65.8 KB JPG
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-ish
any general tips for new handler?
>>
File: Cheney-Dick.jpg (43.3 KB)
43.3 KB JPG
>>97582188
>>97584466
I 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.
>>
>>
>>97585145
Maybe 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.
>>
File: Guantanamo.jpg (942.7 KB)
942.7 KB JPG
>>97587952
I'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."
>>
>>
>>
>>97529344
Its 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.
>>97525614
Vince 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.
>>
>>
>>97597782
Glowie-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.
>>
>>97597782
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.
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.
>>
>>
>>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 >>97598971
They 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-wise
That'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.
>>
>>
File: h7312vlw4bo41.jpg (55.8 KB)
55.8 KB JPG
>>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
>>
>>
>>97597312
>>97599282
I'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.
>>
>>
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.
>>
>>
>>97597782
Jesse 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
>>
>>97632587
The 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.
>>
>>97614140
Yes, but
Playing 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.)
>>
>>97633943
That'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."
>>
>>97634040
No, 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.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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?"
>>
>>97637062
On 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
>>
>>97637062
Monolithic 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.
>>97637727
By 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?
>>
>>97638974
Considering my campaign is a setting-conversion into/mlp/-relevancywhen 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?