I am not a regular to Delta Green threads, but I got hooked on the idea in the last one. Haven't sen another thread since, and I wanted to talk about it, so here we are.
>>44146199
Try giving the OP a topic.
Generals are an echo chamber without content.
Why would you like to talk about it?
>>44146448
Well right now I'm just working to soak in as much as possible.
The big thing eluding me right now is why all these people are running around doing shit for the Great Old Ones in the first place. Unwitting pawns I can see, but there seem to be a fair number who know what's up and still go with it.
>>44146623
There is no 'what's up'. There is a thousand smoldering fires that might flare up at any moment, and you just hope to get there in time and find a way to stop it.
Just because someone is an unwitting pawn does not mean they are harmless. Most people are unwitting pawns. We are a society structured by a concealed power hierarchy where everyone lies to himself just enough to make it work another day.
No cultist ever has a handler's perspective on the Mythos. And neither should the players. Characters act out of personal motivation and self preservation. They might have caught a glimpse of something powerful. It may have broken them, haunted them, or even given them power. But it will not explain itself, or even consciously communicate.
The Mythos consists of countless concepts which each in itself is inexplicable and vastly powerful. DG structures a few of those into a canon, gives them its own spin, but doesn't exclude any others or claim its interpretation to be correct in any way. The unreliable narrator is a central trope. So the story usually lies in the explanation humans assume when they encounter Old stuff. It could turn them into a cannibal, a ritualistic murderer, or a power magnate. It could make them start a secret cult, or make a dark prophecy. But it will not be the thing they found making them do it. It will be their own mad concept of reality.
>>44146758
I think you misunderstood. I'm wondering, well, two things really.
1) Why do the Great Old Ones even give a shit about people
2) Why do people who know that the Great Old Ones are insane monsters that would obliterate us in a wink still aid them?
>>44146199
This game is a really shitty watered down call of cthulhu and doesn't deserve our attention.
>>44146900
1) They don't. They don't even know humans are here mostly.
2) People don't know that. You don't know that. This is a basic misunderstanding of what the Mythos is. You are taking the tools provided to help a GM come up with one story at a time and assume you can describe all the stories. But many are mutually exclusive.
All hail Sredni Vashtar.
>>44146933
>This game is a really shitty watered down call of cthulhu and doesn't deserve our attention.
You're talking about Hunter: The Vigil, I believe.
>>44146937
Well Hastur does seem to actively mess with people. The rest all have aspects and avatars that show up.
Clearly, I'm not that deep into the lore yet.
>>44146900
Pretty much >>44146937 is correct on both counts.
>1) Why do the Great Old Ones even give a shit about people
The Old Ones don't care about humans specifically, with maybe the exception of Nyarlathotep.
A lot of power brokering (of the "sacrifice me a virgin and I'll send a monster to eat your bullies" or "sell me your soul and I'll make you into a wizard" variety) also seems to happen through a lot of cutouts like the Lesser races and Servitors rather than from the Great Old Ones themselves, and these guys lower down on the totem pole are the ones that benefit from/like meddling with mortals.
>2) Why do people who know that the Great Old Ones are insane monsters that would obliterate us in a wink still aid them?
Maybe they don't know. All the old crazy hermit knows is that if he keeps writing his dreams in a book, he staves off death another day. The farmer who puts a sheep on the old standing stone just knows he's going to get a plentiful, if slightly odd-looking crop next season.
There might even be a set of folk who would consider unleashing the Great Old Ones to be a tool to leverage ransom the world with.
Or, you get the nihilists, who do know or don't care. Suicide cults are a thing. Revenge or some personal insult might make people think "I'd do anything to get back at them/get power/make the world my way [delete as appropriate]."
In the case of one DG game I ran, those who were benefiting the most didn't even ask for the powers given to them. The Mi-Go just wanted to fuck with them for science.
Anyone got pdfs? I'd like to give them a read before I start shelling out for out of print stuff
I missed /dgg/
>>44146900
The vast majority of great old ones don't care about humanity. Only the weakest and least of them (Bokrug, Glaaki, etc) interact with us on any meaningful level.
Cultists are a wide-ranging group. There's many reasons to join a cult.
Some worship lesser powers (like the aforementioned lesser great old ones, or powerful other races. Like the deep ones) for various powers.
Some believe their coming is inevitable, so they may as well summon them now and get it over with so they can die first.
Some are stupid enough to think they can gain clemency. Or favours.
Some are just scams by the high priests, to get power from their cultists, while worshipping something that doesn't notice them.
Some are even trying to keep them sealed. Those who sacrifice innocents to keep the seals strong.
Others do it because their family did it.
>>44147764
>>44149227
How does metaphysical power work here? If the GOO don't care, why does sacrificing a virgin even work? What do they do with a human soul once they get it? Do humans even have souls?
>>44150682
why?
So has the new Delta Green been released yet? The playtest is no longer up.
>>44150951
The beta rules are still out there to be had, I believe, but since the Kickstarter has funded then I suppose they're getting down to the nitty-gritty of actually making the product.
>>44150168
In Lovecraftian fiction, the lines between magic and "sufficiently advanced science" are blurred. Witches performing spells are actually just crudely carrying out hypergeometric processes to instill change in local physics, though a process they don't really understand beyond a surface level. This means that rituals often do have power, though not particularly efficient or well-directed power.
>do humans even have souls
They certainly have minds, which can be swapped by Yithians, and some sort of essence which can be reduced to a salt-like substance for later resurrection (see Curwen)
>>44150168
I think you are confusing religion with powerful ancient aliens. DG has no position on souls.
>>44150951
It's being made. The Beta should be up.
>>44147013
>All hair Sredni Vashtar
May her thoughts be red thoughts, may her teeth be white.
I'm more interested in seeing GUMSHOE rules for DG than anything setting-related. Is that terrible?
Also, The Program > The Group
>>44146199
So, to give the thread some more direction than "DG right guys" let's talk about how we can work DG into modern culture and politics. Obviously the big one is the War on Terror - Arc Dream ran a scenario at GenCon last year about ISIS, which was a prologue to another game; they also have Khali Ghati which involved fighting the Taliban.
But we've got other areas where DG might be involved, such as eco-terrorism and pollution; what about that fucked up plastic vortex in the Pacific? How do the Deep Ones get pissy about that?
What about updating previous DG threats to the modern day? Would the Karotechia shift targets from Jews to Muslims to get the most traction on their white supremacist ideology? Is there even a Karotechia left?
>>44151305
Mislead I would say. Terrible only if you force shoegum on other people. What you do in the privacy of your own children's bedroom is your own problem, as long as your parents are okay with it.
>>44151305
Honestly, I can't imagine it'll be anything more than Nights Black Agents mixed with Trail of Cthulhu, and I already have both those books, so yeah it'll just be the lore for me there.
>>44151326
The Karotechia is gone, dude. While we're at it, MJ-12 has been defunded and merged with DG, the Fate is crumbling without Alzis to lead it, and the Cult of Transcendence has splintered.
I'm really looking forward to having my player character semi-legally extradite some poor bastard with a hood over his head, maybe start an adventure in a black site.
>>44151326
Word of god implies Karotechia is headed for Dodoland, much like The Fate, MJ-12, and several others.
>>44151378
It does sound like they're going for a more international thing as compared to "classic" DG's very domestic focus, so I could see some Guantanamo shit going on. I do like the Program/Group split and the potential blue-on-blue thing, plus I was never into the whole Grey alien thing so getting rid of MJ12 is fine by me.
But then you run into the issue of, well, why isn't every coalition force incredibly fucked by contact with PISCES, right? I know they're doing a PISCES book which I'm hoping drastically un-fucks PISCES so that it's more of an ally organisation rather than straight up evil infestation of mind parasites, as well as bringing in DG equivalents in other non-US nations.
>>44150168
The GOO exist in more dimensions than anything else; just reaching out a limb occurs in more directions and ways than we know, can comprehend, or possibly even perceive. A GOO flexing a single muscle might produce an effect we see that seems like magic. A cultist might find a way to replicate that effect at the cost of something, since their body isn't meant to do that. Imagine somebody trying to imitate a pufferfish; if they manage to achieve it and turn themselves into a human-balloon their body will be completely wrecked.
Alternatively some magic is inconceivably advanced technology or techniques somebody found.
>>44148110
a) Die in a fire
b) The new books aren't made yet. The old ones have poor scans which can be found in many PDF threads.
c) The rules are free to download. Much of the fluff is on Fairfieldproject.
>>44151468
A Cell had an explicit "steer way fucking clear of the Brits" policy and GRU SV-8 had less than a dozen agents for decades (they're now firmly in Putin's pocket, so who knows).
>>44151326
...ISIS? I'm kind of curious. I can see those guys either stirring something up by accident while ruin-razing or just opportunistically using whatever they find, but they're hardly the occult conspiracy type I'd think.
>>44151617
They smash the wrong ancient relic and a god/demon called The Father of Knives butchers them. DG catches wind of it and has to insert into Syria to try and put the thing to sleep while not getting decapitated.
>>44151566
Not the worst pocket to be in. Putin is wholly self-interested but cautious, despite what the occasional calculated bravado might suggest. So his priorities would likely be sane enough - study, contain, maybe blackmail Americans a bit.
>>44151643
Ah, yeah. That's what I would expect.
>>44151617
There is so much more than Daesh. You have an entire region kicked for a better part of a Century. There's countless factions, splinter groups, and main power players. They all have their own crazy spin. And each could be as dark a conspiracy or as understandable a push back by victimized people as you like.
>>44151643
If I remember, Glancy describes the Father of Knives as an avatar of Nyarlathotep.
Though the thing is that I've found a book called Heirs to the Forgotten Kingdoms which is all about the weird small religions in the Middle East (Mandaeans, Yazidis etc) and my DG senses just went CULTS CULTS CULTS THIS SHIT IS WHERE YOUR NEXT CULT COMES FROM.
>>44151702
I just got done watching Monsters: Dark Continent and it was okay but it had this interesting thing where you're waging war on these overtly alien monsters but at the same time that shit has knock-on effects. Like, early on a herd of Monsters gets blown to fuck by drone strikes and then later the squad encounters a pissed-off farmer whose cattle were killed in the strike. It's kind of an interesting movie from a DG perspective, even if it's a little too overt and a bit eh overall. But it REALLY reminds me of Khali Ghati.
So what's your favorite source for DG agents that isn't the FBI, military, or CIA?
I really want to take a swing at some FEMA or CDC stuff. Containing alien plagues at any cost? Yes please.
>>44152331
National Endowment for the Arts.
Got to keep an eye on weird sculptures, paintings and shit like that.
I find it really easy to come up with DG plots inspired be full on tinfoil hattery. It can be tricky to fit it into the DG canon, but some things should contradict just to keep everything unreliable and I'm fine with that. Things like the Karotechia are excellent for this. Neuschwabenland, Inner Earth, Aldebarans, done! The rest is technical details and dramaturgy.
But when it comes to myths and news stories that are more in actual dispute, that one side tries to push into the corner of contrails and lizard people but others have some real detailed and pressing questions about, then it gets hard.
My threshold is really low here. I just want a few articles and pictures to fluff my scenario with, not to explain the secret history of the world. But it's really hard to keep it there. Tangents spring up and involve, ultimately, everyone.
How do you deal with these implications? Do you ignore them. Do you write it up to fog of war and move on? Do you go over the details again and again until everything fits? And what do you fit it to? There really isn't enough canon to provide a whole history, it's more like institutional memory.
I'm hoping for the time line to be published next year to provide a bit of a handle on this, both in explained details and described loyalties, as well as a tone and level of obscurity to handle such things with.
>>44152331
REALLY depends on the scenario. The beauty of FBI PCs is that the FBI is ubiquitous. Many other agencies have more limited jurisdiction and deniability.
As a player I would enjoy a nerd type with lots of spaghetti in his pockets who works for some NSA subcontractor and spies on people's digital profiles.
As a handler I'm thinking about jobs that make you work together via the web. I don't know, some FBI pedo honeypot, some IRS internet investigator, a DHS flunky looking for Jihad recruitment, and a bored police administrator?
>>44147757
Hastur is special in DG, the whole King in Yellow / Carcosa complex is approached in a way that Chambers and Lovecraft can be explained by it, but the real reasons lie beyond. It is at its root not a conscious entity but a natural force that develops its own dynamic. You could say it is an evolved information virus. And yes, there are avatars that appear regularly, but they are just effective conduits to thrive on and reinforce the entropy of humanity.
No, the only higher entity that would actually mess with humans is Nyarly. Everything else just oozes weird so when humans get a sniff they get high and write books in virgin blood that drive you mad and make you think eating babies will make you invisible to Azathoth. So tell your friends and make sure all your children are taught early on.
>>44152905
I really dislike the Hastur Mythos stuff they put in the DG section, it just feels too... whimsical. Like, it seems like they wanted to do the Dreamlands without actually HAVING the Dreamlands, so they just had it be Carcosa instead. It felt kind of Gaiman-esque, I suppose would be the way to describe it.
>>44150168
Mythos "magic" is sufficiently advanced science, which isn't understood properly by primitive beings like humans.
>>44152968
poc relotet
>>44152951
Gaimanesque is a good phrase. Not perfect, but good. And it's exactly why I like it. Also why no Dreamlands? I have had plenty of mission time on the other side. DG is a toolbox, not a monster manual.
>>44153030
>>44153030
I was just reading this like "this isn't horror - or at least it's not horrific - this is fantasy; this sounds like a nice place to visit" except for a very few moments of, like, the glimpses of something huge and whale-like in the fog-lake. Like, Hildred Castaigne is just flying around the place having a ball of a time and not having a care in the world. I guess it's because that section was less about HASTUR and more about the set-dressing to put Hastur IN, so it would naturally focus more on making an environment, so that might be why. But still, when I go Hastur I try to go hard in a different direction more towards definite horror.
Like, a scenario I'm writing for the shotgun scenario contest is a Hastur scenario that heavily revolves around the idea of Hastur being this inescapable, insidious corruption;The main "monster" of the scenario is actually fleeing from Hastur, an exile from a place consumed by Carcosa, only to find Hastur waiting for it. There is no escape from Hastur.
>>44150951
The beta version of the rules has been out for quite a while, but here it is since a few people are saying they've taken it down since the Kickstarter ended. As far as I know they're working on the new books now and they're expecting to start releasing them around March 2016 I think.
>>44151383
>Dodoland
>The Fate
Nah man. They've got a whole new campaign book in the works dealing with what has been going on with The Fate since Alzis decided to pack his shit and leave thanks to KS funding. If anything there's probably a huge power vacuum that'll turn New York into Unknown Armies.
>>44151643
I actually like this a lot more than "ISIS are secretly Azathoth worshippers" or something like that.
>>44153588
We'll probably have the UA 3e Kickstarter on us before The Fate campaign book is out. Fingers crossed for crossover.
>>44153588
I fully agree.
And yet, it's no longer The Fate. It's a bunch of powerful mystical backstabbers, backstabbing each other hard.
You can still play with it. There's a whole 90s setting in the book.
>>44151549
http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/39123618/#39135454
>>44152331
I've always wanted to run a campaign about a group of Park Rangers on Shub Niggurath containment duty.
>>44153484
The beta has been closed now.
The dropbox link is down.
But does the internet ever forget?
>>44153731
>>44153688
Yeah, I definitely prefer the idea that ISIS are just assholes stomping around rather than having it ALL BE A RUSE or whatever.
Because they're stomping around in the roots of like twelve religions and mythologies right now and smashing iconographies and all that - "if it's not Islamic it gets a sledgehammer" - and that actually provides us with some great plot hooks in DG. Namely 1) they smash something they shouldnt have and release/piss off Big Monster or 2) get in there and recover the shit BEFORE they smash it and piss off the Big Monster.
>>44154025
>if it's not Islamic
Naw, man.
They smash muslims and their stuff and relics more than anything. Wahhabism is David Koresh level crazy.
There is now a lively trade with artifacts along the Turkey routes. That should be a nice network to reconstruct while not looking Murrican in Northern Syria and Iraq.
>>44153377
I disagree. The DG take on Carcosa has always been about a more surreal horror than what is usually presented in Mythos games but I wouldn't really call it "fantasy". The whole thing with Carcosa is that the people that wind up there, after traveling through the Whisper Labyrinth and the dead city, make their way to the palace and find what is basically Nero playing his lyre while Rome burns. It's the kind of madness that gets it's hooks in you and makes you like it. There's even a bit in one of the books that says a good way to deal with the end of a Carcosa campaign is to have any survivors catch occasional glimpses of things, reminders of their time with the King in Yellow, but present them in a way that isn't horrifying or dreadful but comforting. That kind of thing is way scarier to me than seeing a big whale shape in the fog-lake.
That said, your shotgun scenario sounds cool, I hope it places.
>>44153705
>Fingers crossed for crossover.
I always did that with DG and UA anyway but now that Stolze is involved with DG too I wouldn't be surprised if there winds up being some sort of off hand reference or something connecting the two universes in one of the books.
>>44154843
The fluff of UA has always been Tynes' baby.
Roleplaying games have always interested me but I've never played one, love reading these threads though. Delta Green also has interested me, because I greatly enjoy the Cthulhu and I use to work in the intelligence community. I don't have much to add in regards to the game, but can answer questions about how the intelligence community works(within reason) as well as military units that do intel work.
>>44154204
But they're also stamping on Bablyonian, Assyrian, Akkadian, Manichaen, Mandaean, Yazidi and Copt shit. To say nothing of ancient Jewish and Christian. Somewhere in there is bound to be some shit that they shouldn't stir.
>>44159718
>I use to work in the intelligence community.
You'd probably get the hang of it better than most people. The writers seem to be pretty big on authenticity when it comes to the intelligence/military bits. Knowing just what your character's affiliated agency is capable of is one of the biggest hurdles for new DG players I've noticed.
How would you recommend explaining some of the more intricate aspects of the intelligence community in layman's terms so players that aren't familiar with that sort of thing aren't overwhelmed by all the technical talk?
>>44160205
>How would you recommend explaining some of the more intricate aspects of the intelligence community in layman's terms so players that aren't familiar with that sort of thing aren't overwhelmed by all the technical talk?
Can you give me an example. The military and government overall is a big fan acronyms and a good rule of thumb for civilians is to not use them, when possible.
>>44160285
What does an FBI field agent have to call in to get a wire tap, an APB, or a tac team?
>>44151137
>hypergeometric processes
What
>>44151150
Azathoth seems to be more than just a big bad alien
>>44151473
Ok, the pufferfish thing I kiiinda get
>>44160352
A wiretap usually requires a court order, APB's are usually handled at the local level, and a tac team would also likely involve the courts being that you'd likely be serving an arrest and/or search warrant.
Now, in regards to wiretaps, depending on the media you're going after and who the target is(more important), you don't need a warrant. I.E. non-U.S. persons not in the country, don't need a warrant.
>>44149300
Excuse my newfag, but what is a night at the opera?
>>44160352
Also, what kind of tac team? Is it a fed team or is it a state or local team working with sais federal agent?
>>44160392
>Azathoth seems to be more than just a big bad alien
Well yeah, Azathoth is literally the universe.
>>44160441
Delta Green slang for an operation.
What are some good books out of the Delta Green fluff series that I should pick up? I had a PDF that had scenarios for a Native American tribe who were actually Deep One hybrids and parasitic worms that was pretty good but I forgot the name.
>>44160352
Also, from what I gather, DG is about occasionally appropriating government resources. As long as you have the hardware and know-how, it's ridiculously easy to get into cell and WiFi.
>>44160470
Where did the slang come from?
>>44152331
Something to do with AMTRAK or the FTA/FRA would be pretty fun.
Or inflitrating the Library of Congress to steal a book before it is sold to a shadowy shadowy agency.
Or raiding several USGS offices to expunge data about a secret site they discovered that morning.
This kinda feels like Utopia + Lovecraft. I love it.
>>44160640
>Where did the slang come from?
I think it's just a code phrase. Most of the emails from A-Cell have "You are invited to a night at the opera" in the subject line. It's been a thing since the first book if I remember right.
>>44160821
Nice. So like Hotline Miami-style messages?
>>44160640
>infiltrating the Library of Congress
Say hi toAlphonsewhile you're there.
>>44160844
Not really hotline miami style messages.
A "night at the opera" is a well established code phrase for "This is conspiracy business, drop everything and I hope your affairs are in order".
The orders/briefing actually given to the agents are much more straighforward and in ordinary language... unless there's a reason to avoid speaking plainly about the subject.
(Such as not being in a private briefing room, or the target of the wetwork job you're being sent on hears all conversations that reference him directly.)
>tfw you're hype as fuck for Fall of Delta Green but /tg/ goes full retard whenever GUMSHOE comes up
I just wanna burn Vietnam to the ground and get up to some shady MKULTRA shit, man.
>>44165199
We all do.
/tg/ just hates it when someone takes special care to mention shoegum.
Never seen or heard of DG before. What would a guy read to get an idea of the universe/system in action?
Sorry if it's already been mentioned in thread
>>44165857
It's a black ops government agency vs. the Cthulhu Mythos.
>>44165857
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/wiki/index.php/Delta_Green
>>44166580
Wait there are are actual novels? Hot damn
>>44160392
Hypergeometry is geometry in more than three dimensions. Hypergeometric processes would be useful for, say, an einstein-rosen bridge (or gate spell).
You're right that Azathoth isn't a big bad alien.
He's more like the Aristotelian concept of the Unmoved Mover, but utterly monstrous. No perfect beautiful intellect here. He is the Nuclear Chaos and Daemon Sultan. Also mindless and utterly senseless.
>>44160392
>hypergeometric processes
>wat
Like he said, "sufficiently advanced science".
Magic is just a method of delivering instructions to a system capable of processing information to carry out set functions, same as computing. Except the system capable of processing information is space-time. (Or Yog-Sothoth, depending on your interpretation)
Does the new stuff look good?
>>44169956
So far the crunch and a few podcasts is all we have.
The new crunch is great. Still BRP at heart, but with lots of details improved. Sanity, Kill Damage, Bonds, ... it's really fucking good!
The new fluff sounds wonderful. The 90s stand and will only get some details added like a 90s section in the New York City / The Fate book. The present is dominated by the War on Terror, blaming 9/11 on the failure of MJ-12 to avert the tragedy which marginalizes the organization and brings DG back into the fold. Other major players are also gone. What will remain and grow is Carcosa/Hastur and PISCES/Shan.
Another time line will revolve around the Cold War at home and the Vietnam Conflict abroad in the 60s. The end of that setting will be the Fall of Delta Green where the organization was forced into illegitimacy.
There will also be a history of the conspiracy from WW2 into the present. So opportunity to play different eras with canon context will be made available.
This is the envisioned release schedule
Agent's Handbook (Mar 2016)
Handler's Screen with Quickstart Kit (Apr 2016)
Case Officer's Handbook (Jun 2016)
Control Group (Aug 2016)
Impossible Landscapes (Oct 2016)
Deep State (Nov 2016)
PISCES (Dec 2016)
Falling Towers (Jan 2017)
The Fall of Delta Green (late 2016)
>>44151326
>So, to give the thread some more direction than "DG right guys" let's talk about how we can work DG into modern culture and politics.
Basically, this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Dugin
tl;dr, he's an occultist traditionalist magical post-Nazi who is one of Putin's closest advisors and aims to bring about the end of the world. Just look at his photos or read anything by him, he's a perfect DG character.
>>44171028
Here's an article about him that spins him into a villain:
http://crookedtimber.org/2015/03/10/who-is-aleksandr-dugin/
Although you might just as well make him into a good guy if you put accents differently.
>>44167668
How did you get out of the tesseract dungeon, cultist?
>>44165199
It's being released for both gumshoe and the new DG rules though.
>>44165857
>http://fairfieldproject.wikidot.com
One stop shop for DG fluff and scenarios.
Beta rules are >>44153484
>>44165857
RPPR have quite a few Delta Green scenarios you can hear played; in fact some of their scenarios have been published by Arc Dream. Lover in the Ice is really good; God's Teeth (their current mini-campaign is also preeeettty good)
>>44153484
Pretty sure these aren't the complete rules, just the basics. Can't upload files pdfs from my phone sadly but I got a link here:
https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1417/23/1417230492354.pdf
>>44173283
Hey, I'm no cultist, I've just got a high mythos score.
>>44175543
That was the most recent copy of the rules that they put out before the KS ended.
>>44176240
Those are kind of the same thing.
>>44152366
Dude...that shit would be terrifying in brand new ways.
>>44179188
>ARTCOPS
>Keeping your sanity safe from the wrong kind of "outsider" art
Though I suppose up to a certain point you might come across as playing Team Bookburning.
>>44179300
Who else keeps all those grimoires out of sight?
>>44179387
So, Fahrenheit 451 wasn't a warning, but a call to action?
>>44179188
>>44179300
>>44179387
>>44179417
I could see it being the Program's way to monitor things like ghouls (ala Pickman's Model), Hastur (because obviously) and Cthulhu activity (because of how his nightmares influence artistic minds). Even the Dreamlands, riffing on ideas taken from Dreamhounds of Paris. Like, it's more of an early warning system than an active "go in and fight the monster" cell.
I'm reminded on Rough Magick, that TV pilot / short film britbong thing that makes reference to keeping track of art because dreamers (minds influenced by Cthulhu) produce uniformly strange art after/during committing horrific crimes - the film features a dreamer mother introducing her children to an altar she made of "the deep sea man" before killing them both. So potentially monitoring artistic movements could actually be justified using that logic as a kind of forecaster for cultic events, serial crimes etc.
It's damn good to see another one of these threads up, I'd missed them for the past month or so.
Started a group in that time though, they just finished their first 'mission' this past week after three sessions. It was more or less a hivemind slug thing that fed off of dopamine and the like in the host's brain and would potentially turn them into living eggsacs back in it's little cave under a sex shop which was the front it's two primary meat sacs owned.
The twist was that it though human's lived as a hivemind as well because it was able to glean some information from every victims mind and it kept finding these various memories of people praying to, talking to, and 'listening' to god. So it thought god was this hive king thing and started to go after atheists in an attempt to not draw the attention of the 'hive king.' At least one of my players had a legitimate moral dilemma about killing this thing because, while it was doing horrible things, it was a sapient being able to communicate and was just trying to survive and coexist as best as it could without causing too much trouble. In the end, the other two were much less conflicted about it and he didn't have any good ideas other than 'explosives and fire' so they ended up blowing it to shit and lighting it on fire a couple times while it went from angry to pleading in it's final moments before they lit the diesel they had poured on it.
Now I got them going after a few disappearances down in southern Louisiana where the sheriff is blackmailing some neo nazis into kidnapping women so he can sell them in a slave market where they are being bought by a cult to Nyarlathotep that's hoping to pull a Dunwich Horror sort of thing. Last session ended with two of the guys getting in a bar fight with a couple of skinheads and the tech guy getting a 'date' with the journalist that's been covering the disappearances. Next session should be pretty fucking good./blogpost
>>44180246
I think that's interesting, the way the hive mind creature assumes that all other creatures would be hive-minds - though I would have thought that perhaps using modern telecommunications as the vector for the "false hive mind" would have made a lot more sense because people are intercommunicating with that a hell of a lot more than they pray.
>>44180246
>Ender's Game: Delta Green Edition
I like it.
>>44180786
That would've been a batter take on it, I agree, and I hadn't thought of taking it that way.
Though it was kind of interesting because the player who had a moral dilemma about it had a turning point where he, OOC, said that he was deciding to kill it because it was like psuedo comparing itself to god and (I'm not sure if this was OOC or IC logic) that was along the lines false idols of some shit, I don't remember exactly. But there was a couple somewhat joking comments made between a couple of them about it killing atheists as goodwhich was super awkward cause I'm an atheist but it's just never come up.
In other words, had I done it as assuming that telecommunications was the hivemind they might have spared it's life and taken it to an SCP equivalent facility.
>>44180851
I'd be a liar if I said that that book didn't influence me in some way about it.
>>44180246
Sounds like fun.
Two things could become tricky.
One is religion. This should be fine as it is low key and over with. But in general I prefer to limit any religious undertones to the phenomenology and never touch the beliefs themselves. You can have crazy cults without issue. But as soon as you postulate things about all people who pray or some such, it becomes a slippery slope. Honestly, Christianity is just another power cult - but this one is so big IRL that messing with it in the game will take many players out of the game and put them in a defensive state of mind.
Nyarly is a dark trickster. The Dunwich Horror is about 'sons' of Yog Sothoth who are pretty inept. I don't see the overlap. Nyarly works really well for blatant cults worshiping a sometimes missing but always charming leader who thrives on the adoration and obedience. It's a very direct appearance of an entity that actively seeks involvement with man. Yoggy is more a concept of spacetime, an uncaring and silent force that some may glimpse but none may ever appease or interact with meaningfully.
>>44181017
I can see that being super-awkward yeah - you know what they say about religion and politics at the dinner, uh, gaming table - so maybe taking it in the telecomm direction in some hypothetical situation where you run the scenario again might be less controversial. It would have made the situation a little more morally grey, though if you think the creature was a little too sympathetic then maybe you could play up the symptoms it inflicts upon the targets? I'm reminded of the Shan and how they basically don't puppet-master you so much as mentally torture you into following their commands.
That said, I imagine from a player perspective that the victimology of humanists/atheists etc is interesting and could provide a number of possible avenues. And in the modern day and age, non-believers are way more common than people who don't have any form of telecommunications, so from that perspective the telecomm angle in weaker. On the other hand, no-telecom victims would be harder to notice they've gone missing (since they probably "live off the grid") so it could be plausible for the creature to have a high bodycount and have operated for quite a while - though how would it identify targets?
What are some tips you guys got for a first time DG handler? Gonna start with a simple spec ops mission gone supernatural scenario in Vietnam.
>>44181682
That's a good premise, makes me think of the Cambodia op that got so fucked up they shuttered DG in the 70's.
As for first time handlers, I would say don't be afraid to provide some direction and just start in medias res. Like instead of having recruitments or whatever, just go "you work for X, your mission is Y, you arrive at Place with Orders, go". A lot of this depends on how good your players are with investigations, which require a lot more critical and lateral thought than "go place kill monster" style games, so if you've got a group used to Pathfinder they might feel a little out of water if you just give them a murder to solve using their own damn brains. So maybe give them the murder to solve, but also a playbook of orders or objectives that give them a little more direction - like "secure this location, determine status of this person; in the event the person is dead, destroy all evidence of the supernatural in the local area" or something, you know?
>>44181682
Have a look at Down in the Delta and Charlie Don't Surf.
The setting is far from simple. You'll not only have to convey the Mythos content and the whole secret conspiracy thing, but also the situation on the ground in all its political and cultural complexity. The Fall could really help with that, but it'll be another year or more.
Read the original book carefully. Everything you need for the setting is in there. Be aware that during the Vietnam Conflict DG is still an official clandestine agency of the elected US government.
Honestly, I'd start smaller. It's easier to start off a new system in the most simple form, and only develop your own exotic scenarios when you feel secure handling the canon as well as the mechanics. That said, Vietnam kind of offers itself for a DG context. Try to keep the scale small and the scope local. That way canon shouldn't ever become an issue and can be explained away if it does.
>>44181898
>Down in the Delta and Charlie Don't Surf
http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/2014/01/ancient-horrors-emerge-down-in-the-delta/
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/thing:86925
>>44181898
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InRDF_0lfHk
>>44181170
The overlap was going to be something along the lines of the cult getting a hold of women in the hopes that Nyarly either impregnates or does something to them to make a sort of progeny. Nyarly is already the 'son' of Azathoth so I thought maybe the cult trying to add a family member wouldn't be too far out.
So, really, the only overlap is humans trying to impregnate other humans with outer beings to bring about stuff like Wilbur Whately.
As for the religion, I don't know how often I'll dive into it but I wanted to try and make this first mission really strike some chords and be memorable, maybe send them home thinking about stuff. Hopefully I succeeded, but they all seem to be enjoying themselves. All in all, I highly doubt I'll bring in anymore religion except in passing or maybe I'll do something like 'churchgoers in town X are going missing!' but that's probably it.
>>44181307
Ya, that's something that I've kinda found hard to rationalize. Just how can you have average everyday people disappearing without word getting out much? In my first mission I went with ineptitude of cops not connecting the dots properly and now I'm going with the sheriff is covering it up himself. But, eventually, things are going to get to a point where I'm left figuring that out.
And, actually, I wanted them to have the option of getting out without a fight. I definitely didn't pull any punches describing stuff. Half dozen husks of bodies on the wall that have been turned into eggsacs with larvae crawling out of eve sockets. A room filled with a couple dozen still kind of alive people that have turned into a trypophobic nightmare locked eternally in a (pretty much literal) pain orgy. When they got a good glimpse of them they saw that their skin was a pinkish color, ala the goo around big mamma brain slug, and that some of the bodies had started to merge together (they only saw that after going with the burn it route).
But, the slug wasn't hostile, friendly even.
Can Carcosa merge into the internet? Can our global IT infrastructure become a mere window into the place of timeless surreal abandon where warmth itself bleeds into cold nothing?
I mean the metaphor fits, but does the reality of it?
I know they have a reader on that subject planned. But I don't have the luxury of time. That baby will drop some time next year and by then the Shotgun contest will be well concluded.
>>44182778
Maybe remove everything Mythos another step or ten from what humans can deal with. Nothing but a servitor race would procreate with man. Something like Yoggy or Shubby, Ithaqua, and definitely Nyarly will use human procreation and create things that seen from man's perspective may appear like divine progeny. But these are lower creatures, mere automatons, surely far removed from mankind, but merely mixed with a drop of saliva of some greater entity to become a remote controlled ant, never a high priest, messiah, or deity.
Mythos gods don't get worshiped. And the definition of deity is a human one. Any human ritual in their name is but a misunderstood basic function of their reality. And Nyarlathotep is the only one that would perceive it at all. It's like calling an automated company hotline and imagining having a face to face with the board.
>>44179506
>Rough Magick
That entire portion of the episode with the former soldier reliving what he experienced in the Falklands was straight out of Delta Green. I swear whoever was in charge of that show would have owed Detwiller and company some money if it had gotten picked up.
>>44182828
>Can Carcosa merge into the internet?
From what they've mentioned about the Carcosa updates on podcasts and such, yes. We're probably gonna have to wait until the new books come out for a more expansive answer.
>>44183057
I hadn't decided on what I want the progeny to be like, partly because I'm expecting that the players will be able to stop it before then and because if they don't I got a bit of time before it becomes a problem.
I'd planned to have the failed procreations/morphs/meldings/whatever around in a toddlers room. They would all be these misshapen 'bodies' making up various segments of the room. the carpet would be a this non-newtonian fluid that still moaned in pain, the walls would be masses of bone, hair, and muscle sinew that still reacted to touch and other stimuli; it's various eyes looking at you in a sad and pleading manner. The only normal thing in the room would be a store bought crib sitting in the middle of it all. The 'child' would be raised in this room, walking on pitiful humans and unconsciously being taught that we are beneath it.
Or something.
About horrific descriptions, I don't believe you have to be especially crude to evoke that atmosphere.
Try being descriptive instead. "Zoom in" when the creepy stuff happens. The smallest and most mundane things can creep players out if you describe them right.
Focus on senses in your narration. Don't give them the tactical rundown and then sprinkle in some creepy details, make the details the story through which the rest is revealed.
Not
>It's a room, about 5m by 8m with 3 windows to the street on the long side. In it are two beds, a damaged dresser, a closet, a table and two chairs. On one of the beds there's a corpse. It is horrible because the body is mutilated badly.
But
>A soft, sweetly rotten odor lingers in the hall. As you open the door it becomes more biting and sour.
>The sliver of yellowish light from the hall fixture falling through the now open door illuminates a stark parallelogram on the floor, a puddle of reddish brown ooze marks the corner of the light.
>The dusty bulb suspended from the cable under the ceiling reveals the eclectic mix of functional furniture. A table with patterned vinyl veneer peeling off around the corners, its round steel legs reaching down into the blood. A dresser with opened bills piled on one side, now sticky with grey lumps. The sturdy doors of the massive closet have been pushed in and cracked by some overwhelming force. One of the beds is empty, just a naked mattress and a dirty poly fiber blanket, disheveled but clean.
>On the other bed a mass of organs appears to have exploded, hundreds of brown rivulets of blood have dried around the mass, like stamens reaching out and down from a giant red orchid flower. Only closer inspection reveals the rough shape of the person lying torn inside out on the sticky mattress, bifurcated head lolling off the bottom corner towards the door, congealing blood sometimes still dripping into the puddle below with an almost innocent soft sound that breaks the hushed silence.
>>44183471
"Engage the senses."
>>44183471
The problem I have with that sort of stuff is I can write something like what you just did just fine, but if I try to say something like that out loud it won't come out so elegant.
So, without just reading what I wrote word for word I can't get that same sort of grace flowing.Also, one of my players is an impatient fuck
That said, I would like to add to what you said. I like to detail things out when appropriate. Sometimes the detail is what sells it, but sometimes it's the lack of detail that makes it terrifying. A person's mind will likely conjure up more terrifying things than you can describe because their mind will play off of their own fears when materializing the image. This is, however, a thin line to walk because knowing when which is appropriate can be difficult.
>>44183595
>Hall
sweetly rotten odor lingers
>Door
sliver of yellowish light from the hall fixture
puddle of reddish brown ooze
>Furniture
dusty bulb
patterned vinyl veneer peeling off around corners, round steel legs
dresser with open bills sticky with grey lumps
massive closet, pushed in and cracked by overwhelming force
empty bed, naked matterss and dirty poly fiber blanket, disheveled, no blood
>Victim
exploded mass of organs
hundreds of brown rivulets of dry blood, stamens reaching down from giant red orchid
closer inspection reveals shape human, torn inside out on sticky mattress
bifurcated head lolling off bottom corner towards door
congealing blood dripping with almost innocent soft sound
>>44183701
Point taken, maybe I'll write down some highlights of the next scene I got like that and give it a test run.
>>44183595
>one of my players is an impatient fuck
Good. You can use that to build tension.
In general you should always take your time. Nothing spoils atmosphere like a hasty presentation. Slow the fuck down. Leave pauses. Look around the table, think one second, then continue. Trust me.
And especially when a player is impatient, that's where you get him. Give him high pace, fast answers (NOT hasty ones!), and something to do at all times. Then raise the tension and suddenly things you let slide before suddenly count per round, like getting somewhere, finding something, or performing actions. Now also give him special attention. Whenever you answer him, wait a beat first. Like every sentence. If he asks you something specific that isn't immediately needed, say you want to consider it. It will wind him up no end.
Then of course you have to use that tension for your story. Make it resemble something in the plot. Use it to foreshadow a showdown or a revelation. Always provide relief after the tension breaks. you need contrast.
>>44183738
Another thing you can do is for each NPC and location you attach a short list of sensory impressions for each sense. Just
>visual
>auditory
>olfactory+taste
>texture+touch
and just put one thing under each. Then when you narrate you can weave it in when the opportunity arises, or not.
>>44181812
>>44181898
I haven't had the chance to read the actual original book, but I do own Targets of Opportunity and have spent countless hours combing through the fairfieldproject wiki and any sourcebooks I could get my hands on. How plausible does the following scenario sound to you?
>Set it up as a generic military campaign, with no paranormal elements, just a generic 1969 Vietnam setup to get familiar with the DG system, tell them to calculate their SAN 'just for fun ;)'
>Small infiltration team from the Green Berets or MACVSOG assigned to find imprisoned US servicemen behind enemy lines, fucking up supply lines and bases along the way
>The operation is actually a front for an operation to liberate a captured DG agent investigating potentially occult artifacts at a nearby NVA research institute
>Either none of the players are aware of DG and Occult involvement, or one of the players is briefed separately and assigned as a RTO so he can secretly radio mission updates to DG
>Mission starts off normally, team runs around blowing up supply depots, and wiping out filthy commies
>Occasionally come across prisoners, both South Vietnamese and US. Will either be crazy, mumbling something about 'monsters', or will mention how a large group of them were constantly being taken from the smaller camps and moved to some other place
>As the mission progresses, weirder stuff begins to happen
>players might find strange tomes in some of the installations
>NVA staff gets much jumpier and spooked, sometimes can be overheard talking about strange phenomena at the institute
>some installations appear abandoned, and closer inspection will reveal all the staff inside were killed under strange circumstances
>Eventually players will reach the institute/lab proper and will reveal that Oh Crumbs! the crazy scientists have been using prisoners and NVA soldiers as sacrifices to summon *insert monster here* and they've been running around causing havoc
That's the basic gist anyway
>>44184032
>but I do own Targets of Opportunity
Like an actual physical book? You lucky son of a bitch, that's the only one I don't have and I haven't been able to find a copy of it for under $150.
>>44184102
Heh, nope. Just the PDF off DrivethruRPG. Pretty much all the original Delta Green books are collector's items now, right?
>>44184032
>tell them to calculate their SAN 'just for fun ;)
This is tricky. Players tend to embrace the genre more when they know what it is at chargen. Also they will be men with hammers, every problem will look like a nail. Something like the morally plagued innocent kid or the political student drafted under protest an against the military intervention will be less likely. And they give good horror!
>assigned to find imprisoned US servicemen behind enemy lines
Make it more already happening. A pilot has gone down, go and get him! Like now. Run to the helicopter!
>The operation is actually a front
How? Are they just grunts and the officer is DG? Orders updated by radio?
>NVA research institute
Occult reasearcher gone rogue and funded by the VC? An institute sounds a bit too first world.
>one of the players is briefed separately
VERY complicated to pull off. And not every party goes along. I only try things like this in scenarios that revolve around betrayal, and all get to play.
>prisoners, both South Vietnamese and US. Will either be crazy, mumbling something about 'monsters'
This is the most important part. Consider how to get this right. This is the actual investigation now, and it needs to make sense and be compelling.
>weirder stuff
This is the main tension, give it more thought.
>NVA staff gets much jumpier
I don't know if the players will look closely enough to assess mental states. I think this would only work if they spy on an NVA camp, and the NVA move their camps and have caves, the trope is that they disappear into the jungle every time.
>reveal
Yeah, okay. It works. It doesn't blow me away, but that's fine.
I would weave in more Nam tropes. like POW camps in the North, VC tunnels, the jungle is alive, do evil for good, fluid front lines, body count, air mobile infantry, madness lies up the Mekong, etc.
>>44183244
Which podcast mentions Carcosa?
>>44184290
>Make it more already happening. A pilot has gone down, go and get him! Like now. Run to the helicopter!
Perhaps the captured DG guy could be a VIP and the team is ordered to return him as soon as possible?
>Are they just grunts and the officer is DG? Orders updated by radio?
Precisely, hence the inclusion of a Radio Communications Officer
>Occult reasearcher gone rogue and funded by the VC? An institute sounds a bit too first world.
This would be an NVA op, not VC. While North Vietnam was significantly poorer than the US, I would assume they still have access to scientific facilities of some kind.
>I think this would only work if they spy on an NVA camp, and the NVA move their camps and have caves, the trope is that they disappear into the jungle every time.
NVA was the conventional army of North Vietnam. I think you're thinking of the Vietcong. Players probably wouldn't analyze mental states too much but I might include it if they wanted to scout the camp perimeter or something like that.
Again, this is my first time, so all your help is appreciated greatly.
>>44184502
>I would assume they still have access to scientific facilities of some kind.
The problem is the US only officially ever did air operations over the North. And even if I can see some black OPs thing happening, it will be hairy. The North is well defended, and hundreds of miles from any US position.
Any facility would have to be Southern Vietnamese and in territory that has fallen to the NVA on their push South at the end of the whole intervention in the mid-70s.
And I really like the angle, making the South the original bad guys, and the US complicit. It would solve a few issues:
No DG operative is lost, DG simply knows that the facility was used by the South for bad stuff, and now the NVA is using it as a detention center. That can't end well.
Also you don't need any evil scientists working in a war zone for inexplicable reasons. The scientists are long gone. What remains is their dangerous experiments which they couldn't burminate because the NVA was coming more quickly than anticipated. Now that stuff is in the basement of the detention complex, free to infest any POWs, guards, political officers, and sewer rats. If you need more give DG an intelligence report that strange stuff has started happening.
As for the traitor... US units had Southern liaison units. They spoke the language and were being trained to take over once the last US units have gone. A native guide and translator could definitely be explained. But what if he's secretly one of the scientists/cultists, trying to recover one last thing from his former lab. DG might even have sent him, or he managed to weasel in under their radar. That way you can make him all nice and reliable, then make him betray the unit when they're in deep. It wouldn't be a player, and he would know more than the party, being local, like from the town where his lab was.
>>44184502
The NVA was just as elusive as the VC. The distinction is mostly academic anyway. Until the 70s when the NVA came pushing South in force and brought heavy equipment they would be indistinguishable for US forces. And yes, the NVA used tunnel complexes as well. They never marched as a regular army until the end. It was all asynchronous warfare. The best they could manage was some med artillery moved into South territory for a few dozen miles through arduous jungle trails.
>>44184693
This sounds pretty good actually. But I didn't intend the secretive DG operative as a traitor, but rather a cool little surprise for my players who are new to DG/Cthulhu. I might just do without a 'traitor' entirely if I choose this scenario.
One thing I'm kind of confused about is the briefings and how detailed they are. DG would still be a government agency at this point so would they have units assigned to them or would they just pull guys out of different branches (eg. Green Berets)? And how in depth are their briefings at this point? Would they specifically mention the Occult, or would they try to keep it vague?
>>44184761
My mistake, guess that's what I get for assuming.
>>44185077
>confused about the briefings
Well in the 90s it's pretty much a message that tells you to go somewhere and deal with what you find, on your own, without making the news. Any more intel is bonus clues.
But in the 60s and 70s I can see it being quite different. Make something up. Be aware that you are close to a phenomenally bungled operation in Laos that will be The Fall of DG.
>>44185077
A shifty Vietnamese national at the gate to the home base who offers great prices for certain 'souvenirs' brought back from operations in his home town?
>>44185077
>a cool little surprise for my players
Embrace the DG spirit, man. Get with the program. EVERYONE is dirty.
Does someone have a rundown of available drone technology.
I mean not just military, I mean what can you get right now by mailorder?
What's the battery life? What's the controller range? How sophisticated can the instructions for autonomous models be? What about those goggles? What are the price ranges? How easily do they break? How large is a pack containing everything you need, and how concealable is it?
I know soldiers in the field may have access to a Switchblade or similar models. And there are a bunch of recon RC vehicles. But what else there? And how simply can something like that be rigged in a pinch with access to the time honored armory of Walmart?
What about the capabilities of the big guys? Agents might call in UAV missions with military or NSA gear. Predators and Reapers routinely carry an IMSI catcher devices to track cell signals for target acquisition and surely surveillance. It's basically a big fat phone tap on all the phones in the area. Plus, you know, Hellfires.
Then there's the whole balloons thing, they're everywhere now. Their cameras provide a continuous high res feed of entire cities, so agents could go back for as long as the gorgon was running to follow a criminal from a crime that happened yesterday, see him change cars and drive with tradecraft, then duck into his safe house and get pizza delivered the next day.
I'm not saying this is now the arsenal for every mission. I'm just wondering what would be possible in an extreme situation with extraordinary resources.
>>44187255
>gorgon
oh fuck me reminded me of that one Laundry story
sorry I don't know shit about the rest of your post anon
>>44181017
I would have let it live. If atheists don't have a god to protect them from a brain eating monster, not my problem.
>>44187255
That's literally the premise for a session of RPPR's Delta Green AP mini campaign, God's Teeth.
In session 3, "God's Eye", a DoD-supported private start-up uses drones to surveil Reno with satellite-quality camera to identify and track criminal activity. One of the math techs involved in coding software to track criminals independently (instead of doing the zoom-and-enhance thing on every possible grid over and over) disappears into thin air, captured by her dash cam. DG is aware of the venture due to how closely monitored it is by the NSA for security reasons and they get called in,
An operation proposal
A professor has been borrowed and you haven't heard back from him in a while. On the same campus, one group of students is planning to bomb a govt building out of some form of protest, and another is on the verge of summoning abominations.
Is that Opera-suitable?
>>44187255
>What about the capabilities of the big guys?
There are entire military units dedicated to SIGINT on air platforms and that includes drones. They generally have similar capabilities as the ground in that regard.
>>44187796
Go on
I'm new to DG, thanks to these threads, and I'm hype as hell.
However, while I have a working layman's knowledge of various investigative techniques, my prospective players are likely to be relatively cluesless.
Is there any material out there that I can run them through to take them from Joe Rookie to the A League (or at least the C League?)
>>44189147
The books go into tradecraft and how to deal with it.
>>44189147
I would just give them advice as it comes up, or give them a rundown of what you know before the game.
>>44191422
>>44191425
Ideally I could run them through some sort of adventure path that would feed it to them naturally instead of going "Here, read pages 200-397 and remember it all in game"
>>44191776
Not DnD.
>>44191823
wut
>>44191845
I think he's referring to the fact that Adventure Path was an attempt for Paizo to have a trademarkable term compared to Campaign, the generic term used by everyone.
They failed anyway, since it's too generic, but I don't think you'll ever find them being called Adventure Paths outside of D&D publications.
Regarding what characters/player knowledge, this can typically be handled in a couple of ways.
If it's something the character should automatically know but the player doesn't, then the character knows it, and you can explain what the protocol is when it comes up (usually by them asking)
If it's something the character might know, but the player doesn't, use an applicable skill roll, or the idea%/know% stats (if using a system using them)
Of course, in any situation, it's unfair to penalise players for not explicitly mentioning to do something that their characters should do automatically. Putting on gloves to examine evidence should not require a cop to roll or for a player to say it, any more than they need to say they plan on breathing.
>>44192133
"adventure path" to me is something short, prepackaged, and intended for newer players so they can learn the ropes. Sorry for any confusion.
>>44192228
I haven't heard that term used outside of Pathfinder, but it's not a bad fit really.
Typically I'd just here published, pre-written, or packaged adventure. And if it was longer, either add something like multi-part, or extended, to that term, or substitute 'campaign' for adventure.
Outside of it's association with Pathfinder, there isn't anything wrong with 'adventure path' as a shorthand for those other phrases.
>>44192133
>Putting on gloves to examine evidence should not require a cop to roll or for a player to say it, any more than they need to say they plan on breathing.
I'm going to modify this somewhat, in that if the character would have time to think clearly this is the case.
If the situation is one where they are rushed, panicked, or would otherwise make mistakes, I will sometimes have what the player forgot be something the character forgot. Because the situation is such where it would make sense for the character to not do something that would be automatic in a routine situation.
>>44193086
Good point. Under normal circumstances, it's easy to do many things. Open a door, drive a car, etc.
It's under stress that things become difficult.
>>44195636
My Laundry guys did their first heist entirely without gloves and remembered as they were sneaking out. I didn't use it against them, but lulz were had.
But now th joke has been used and even if they don't mention it, their characters would never do that particular stupid thing again.
>>44184154
I was able to find physical copies of everything except ToO for around $40-$50 at one point or another over the past year or so. I think most of them are POD now. Hopefully ToO will be coming soon.
Being a completionist who likes niche games and prefers dead tree books over digital ones is suffering. Don't even get me started on Unknown Armies.
>>44184384
In a lot of the more recent episodes of Unspeakable one of the guys usually mentions it in passing. Like I said, there aren't much more details other than "Carcosa on the web=possible".
>>44189147
>However, while I have a working layman's knowledge of various investigative techniques, my prospective players are likely to be relatively cluesless.
I was in pretty much the same boat. Usually when a player asks what their options are or is stumbling through an investigation because they don't know about something their character would know how to do i.e. "Can we listen in on this guy without him knowing somehow?" I'll tell them straight up what kind of covert shit they would be able to do, the kind of gear they would need and a rough amount of time it would take to do it and let them figure out the specifics like actually getting their hands on the gear and making/executing the plan. After a few sessions of this they've started getting the hang of what their characters are capable of and can come up with stuff on their own.
A few sessions devoted to roleplayed training sessions would be cool but there's no shame in simply explaining tradecraft and other things that most people wouldn't know a whole lot about without researching it when the issue arises.
>>44197445
Something technical is easily diverted to the internet. Find me the product you want, or a mention of something like it, and I tell you how to get it. Works great for guns, combat vehicles, spy gear, narcotics, ... Use Street View if you have to.
How do you guys let your players pick weapons? Are they just assigned to them by default? Do you have a list to let them select from?
>>44201898
That's their problem.
Many have a sidearm that comes with their job.
There /are/ a few green boxes with heavy gear, but you'd basically have to know about it from an earlier mission.
But hey, hit a gun show. Too expensive? Well what did you do with that crate of cocaine the cultists were stockpiling last week?
>>44202046
What if they're special forces or GI?
>>44202089
They'd certainly have access.
Will somebody notice if they take an arsenal over the weekend?
Will any bullets turn up and go to a forensic ballistics database?
Will the operation take place in view of the public?
>>44202147
It would be Vietnam, 1969 so Delta Green is still a governmental agency. They're special forces assigned to raid Occult related NVA sites.
>>44202923
M-16s, 1911s, an M60 and a thumper. Special forces could have the now common M-16 carbine.
>>44202147
>>44202089
GI not so much. With the Army, at least, you aren't touching a weapon until someone has checked your forms an signed the weapon out.
>there's only an exception in the military.
Unless you're deployed,training, or a filthy MP narc you won't have a government weapon. Again, refer to above. However, private sales are very easy if you don't dress and act like a gangbanger. Most people will ask to see your concealed carry license and Drivers. Even at gunshots people do this. If playing realistic, expect to get shitty deals. For some reason people act like using a gun adds character to it and makes it more interesting when they don't clean it. They then use buzzwords to act like it's worth more than it is MSRP.
>>44202970
Vietnam was a popular testing ground for a lot of new weapons. 9mm made a big impact and so did compact SMGs.
>>44188304
What does that mean?
Which capabilities specifically do they have?
Sure, irl this stuff is secret. But a little trickles out and people see it used, a couple of years later it's pretty much common knowledge among specialists. And that is all we need to flavor the game.
>>44205083
For legal reasons, I'm not allowed to go into specific detail, but if there is a device that sends communication signals via anywhere on the radio frequency spectrum, both ground and air platforms have the capability to locate, hear, decrypt and jam it.
