Looking for some inspiration since I'm currently struggling to write up a decent scenario for my players

Looking for some inspiration since I'm currently struggling to write up a decent scenario for my players.

Any recommendations for books and films that give that tone of paranoia and the inability to trust anyone? Looking for thrillers, stuff related to the mundane portions of Delta Green about lying to everyone and trying not to get caught doing illegal or amoral deeds.

Thought it might be good to rewatch Three days of the Condor/read the original Six days of the Condor book

Also DG general?

Other urls found in this thread:

delta-green.com/games-and-fiction/
youtube.com/watch?v=NwlfTNNegd8
youtube.com/watch?v=3NjqogEWqTA
dailymotion.com/video/x24eyt5_utopia-s02e01-hdtv-x264-tla_shortfilms
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

bumping with pdf's

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Gravity's Rainbow

I checked out the wikipedia page and it looks really cool! Thanks!

There's books of DG stories, you know?
delta-green.com/games-and-fiction/

Also:
In Bruge
Reservoir Dogs
Ice Station Zebra

Yeah, I've been reading some of the short stories. I was just hoping for some stuff outside of that. I love In Bruges, and I've heard good things about the other two.

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Ronin was a problematic movie because it did just that: center on trust in the middle of a hailstorm of bullets.

I wouldn't recommend it as a movie although it does have masterful acting and direction, but the story is just too limited, too focused.

But this makes it perfect as a blueprint for DELTA GREEN. Substitute the robbery with a lab heist and replace greed with higher obligations e voila: it's about as DG as things can get.

That sounds like just the kind of thing I'm looking for. Inspo for making moral conflicts and getting my players divided.

On the lat thread an user recommended me "outpost" and i´ve enjoyed pretty much, mayber "monsters dark continnent" and "true detective"

true detective is good as fuck

The Conversation
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers
The Thing
The Parallax View
The Machinist

For the sake of keeping the thread alive, anybody have any interesting ideas for using Tcho-Tcho in the modern day? I love the little guys but my players are starting to catch on pretty quick any time they have to go to the jungle or a weird new Asian restaurant pops up in town.

Alot of anons made an idea of bees taking control of wiccans and using them for a sinister purpose

You have it backwards.

Wiccans grow mighty enough to summon Shub Niggurath and use her power to take all the bees and put them in people to control them.

Also:
youtube.com/watch?v=NwlfTNNegd8

I believe the narrator is down to his last bond...
youtube.com/watch?v=3NjqogEWqTA

Maybe they could be third generation migrants in the states who rediscover their roots? It could start innocently enough, but the exposure to the unnatural ends up affecting them and they go bananas (or maybe even just appear normal on the surface while doing stuff in secret)

Hillary Clinton speeches.
Donald Trump speeches.

Me too?

That's good. They'd probably have to be orphans in that case, I doubt they'd be able to live normally if they had contact with the older generations.

How about the original first generation migrants were orphaned after a DG operation in south-east Asia (that's where the tcho tcho are from, right? Correct me if I'm wrong) where a group was destroyed. Someone took pity on the kids and though they could try raise them like normal. Those kids grew up and had their own kids, and so on, and somewhere down the track the genetic memories were stirred again starting an American neo tcho tcho cult. I'm just riffing off the top of my head here haha

That's a great vector into DG lore.

Have you read the Tcho-tcho hypothesis on Fairfieldproject about how they become what they eat? I really like that.

The big issue with Tcho-tcho for me has always been distinguishing them from Ghouls. For all intents and purposes they could just be tribal forest Ghouls and still cover all the angles.

Yeah I was thinking pretty much the same thing. The adopted parent could even be an agent that was there during the raid that killed the real parents, the fact that he refused to kill the kids being the only thing keeping him from going over the edge all these years.

I thought the main difference was that Ghouls are actually capable of retaining some level of humanity as long as they're fed. Isn't there a DG agent that became a ghoul at some point and still manages to be a pretty reliable contact?

Tcho-Tcho are complete psychos that are really only able to blend in in America by posing as aloof foreigners. They regularly serve human meat to unwitting customers when they open restaurants.

>Gravity's Rainbow
>I checked out the wikipedia page and it looks really cool! Thanks!

lol

Shh!
Let him find out himself.

Not really "reading", but Delta Green has a twitter account that they post to occasionally. A lot of what they post are real news stories that sound like the intro to a new scenario. "River in Russia runs blood red for hours. Local nickle factory denies guilt" "The NSA's British base at the heart of U.S. targeted killing"

It's great for inspiring one shots.

A lot of those links come from people on the mailing list. There's usually even more stuff to be had there.

I've heard of the infamous mailing list. I need to join that.

It's pretty good. A gem that I don't think ever got shared on the DG social media pages was an article about the history of custom built tanks used by Mexican drug cartels. It adds a nice new threat to any particularly well funded cults you might throw against the players.

The only downside is that my formerly tidy inbox got filled with something around 400 unread emails when discussion heated up back when the Kickstarter was active.

True Detective is the ideal model for Delta Green

No, dude.

It hits a nice tone, but it does not translate into a game at all. There's too few characters, too large time spans, not enough clues, and no professional fall from grace. The flashbacks from an interview setup works, but it structures your whole game because the report is already written.

What translates really well is the characters themselves, their perspective, personal struggle, shady past, powerlessness, all that fits perfectly. But DG has another layer of conspiracy and being compromised morally in a professional context. DG agents have to murder innocents sometimes and TD in no way goes there. They have to navigate a network of cells and green boxes that is completely unknown to them but directs every one of their steps until it leaves them entirely on their own to solve the problem.

If you can track it down there's Rough Magick. It was a failed pilot for a British TV series which was as close to PISCES: The Show as we'll probably ever get.

>Also DG general?
Got my book a while back.
Browsed and read through it.
Goddamn it's grim. I didn't read more than a third of it before setting it aside. Haven't had an opportunity to play it yet, but if run the same way it reads, it seems like a bad time.

check out a few of the free premade scenarios.
I can tell you from experience that Music From a Darkened Room is amazing.

Bump

I've had a great time so far. You can't keep up the grim all the time so there are moments of levity, especially if you okay with your friends. It gets really tense and frantic at times though, and if the GM is good you get some situations where you find it hard to say if you made the right call.

Was honestly thinking of running it. Any advice from people who've done it before? Also I'm super confused as to why POWER is the defining stat for whether they get haunted. Shouldn't a higher mental fortitude mean they don't get as badly haunted or am I just over thinking?

POW is the CoC stat, sadly. They changed it a bit in 7 where Luck is now random and no longer POW. DG is its own thing, but the old DG was based on the old CoC. And there POW sets Magic, Sanity, and Luck. Everything else used to be EDU for skills.

It is grim, that's why you need contrast: to let the grim and the scary take effect. If you just bully the players through mind shattering shit it will be hollow and with little impact. You need to establish stakes and make them matter to the players. So play that heart warming family scene as a real tear jerker, not an empty trope. "Dad, do the ants I burn go to heaven? You're never home!" Make the players want that back for real. So later it matters when the child runs away raving mad just when it's time for a night at the opera...

And not just Bonds, same goes for the civilians, the location, the hopes and dreams of ordinary people.

You need contrast!

Do you think I could just ditch the POW dependent stuff and just go with what feels right for the mood as it changes? Start slow and ramp it up as it progresses?

Sanity is the main dial to make the players feel the pressure. It ties into character backgrounds and story arc. Health is more like "That was a mistake, you're dead." while sanity is a slow decay staved off by sacrificing everyone you love to the job.

So no, you can't ditch it, it's the key mechanic of the game. And pretty much of any decent horror game. You can base sanity on INT, but why? It works as is. POW is just important in a horror game.

>Isn't there a DG agent that became a ghoul at some point and still manages to be a pretty reliable contact?
I can't remember which book that was in but it was a great read. Pretty sure it's one of Greg Stolze's contributions.

Sorry, I don't think I made myself clear. In the scenario you get different kind of haunting depending on your POW stat. I'm not taking away POW and SAN and all that. I just meant that basing the intensity of the unnatural moments on a PC's POW stat doesn't make sense to me. Just was wondering whether I could just play that stuff by ear and instead choose the intensity of the haunting based on the mood around the table, etc

Not a book or film but Pathologic is one of the only games where NPCs can outright lie and deceive you in a somewhat non linear sense

I'm so excited for the remake.

Of course. Always!

See if the designer of the scenario had some specific intention. If that doesn't fit, change it.

Jean Qualls is her name.

What was wrong with the first make?

Nothing. It's 90s all the way, in game and in context. The story doesn't work after 9/11. Reality got too crazy for DG.

They also did some nice stuff with the rules, but that's the least of it.

Definitely looking forward to the case officers handbook (hopefully next year, or late this year). The original book had so much history and background and I can't wait to see what they've done with it in the meantime.

three big things

First: From the start you need to decide how mean you are going to be. It should be scary as fuck but
if they don't have access to an Elder Sign spell the only way to 'succeed' is to murder someone. Decide if you want that to be a thing. Also, the clues to finding out about that success are little too vague imho, so drop hints with 'luck' or 'idea' rolls, it's not an 'easy' ending even if they get it.

2) Play to peoples misconceptions about how haunted houses work.
Trying to contact or placated the spirits will get you nothing. This isn't not really a haunted house, it's a temple to the Dark Man, that eats souls.

3) Despite this, finding out the history of the house is half the adventure, and the only way to deal with it. So you need to set out lines leading them to finding out more about the house, each of which is a chance to tell a mini horror story. Do this.

4) Play the house mean, and sneaky. Just using a POW roll to possess someone and have them kill themselves is boring.
Use illusions, have them get calls from their leads that are fake. The House fucking lies to them, and as the GM this means you need to lie to your players.
While playing the house, follow John Wick advice. (don't forget point 1 though, and don't forget why John Wick gives that advice, you're players should want to be pulled into the drama and horror you are creating).

So a bit more on the subject of lies.

So most of the times these lies will be the House doing something. It's an NPC lying, not you. Don't make that too clear at first but if they do as stuff like "did my phone really ring" etc, have them find out evidence that yes it did. Or if it's an illusion in the house, after you fool them (or almost do) let them stumble onto the fact their being lied to within the Story, so they can start being on the look out for it. You'll need this later.

But don't spoil all the houses powers too quick, pulling of the phone calls only later is good. Because you've provided an example that there can be illusions, lies within the narrative, after this play the lies totally straight. This is what they see, this is the voice calling them. They might start thinking it's a lie, but that's on them. Paranoia baby. But always after the fact they can possibly find the truth, so the lie is still within the narrative, not from you.

Now that you've established that there's lies within the narrative, you can lie with the game.

So there are quite a few points in the game where you can just flat kill a character quick. If it's a oneshot, just run with those, but if you want a campaign, take a bit more care.
Have one of those things fail. Give them a 'close call'. Roll some dice then lie to them. Because you're willing to kill them, but they need to know that you're willing to kill them before you start doing it.

Now there are some points where they might do something stupid, and the adventure says to kill them. If they did something stupid, kill them.

Also, shift where they find information from where is says in the adventure if it fits your story better. Saying "you find nothing" is fucking boring, say "you don't find what you are looking for, but" and dropping information keeps the story going forward.

Of course that's the nice thing to do, If you want to be mean about it go "You don't find what you are looking for, AND FURTHERMORE" and drop more trouble in their lap.
The answer they need is somewhere in that trouble.

I'd only narrate something wrong if the player failed a san check recently. That should be everyone.

Thank you for all this excellent advice! I will definitely take all of it into consideration, and probably use most of it.

It's been renamed to Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game or something similar.

The B.P.R.D. comic book series is probably pretty good for Delta Green inspiration. It's at a way different power level and tone, but it has strong elements of ~relatively~ normal people struggling against unimaginable forces in battles that don't favour their side.

It definitely gets the bleak aspect, but everyone knows about the monsters. It would make a good End Times type setting, but I guess you could take bits and pieces for a game.

Yeah, it's certainly not a secret war anymore haha

Been looking for some untraditional imagery to work into my campaigns, I'll post what I've got.

Wyntus and friends, if you're reading this, stop here.

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My next chapter takes place during the disestablishment of Delta Green and PISCES and a few other higher-echelon groups, after the party has fled to Europe. I've done away with the alien angle for PISCES, the collapse rather being just shitty practice and out-of-control ambition. Looking for inspo for that particular brand of high aristocrat horror, I'll post what I've got.

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World War Cthulhu might have useful materials. Cthulhu Britannica is pretty detailed.

I haven't read much yet, but Dracula Dossier looks phenomenal.

Stross' Jennifer Morgue has a nice perspective on European services in the opening and Fuller Memorandum does dark history right.

Utopia 2x01 might be worth a viewing. but it will spoil series 1 entirely.

So is this set just after the fuck up in south east asia leading to going underground? Or is this set in more recent times? Interested to hear what caused it!

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Set in 1966/7. Player actions have accelerated events a bit, and added more things to the mixture. On top of that, the players were pretty familiar with the mythos so I went and built a whole other cosmology from the ground-up, with some influence from older authors and other enlightenment-era occultism (Chambers, Machen), as well as some lesser-known Lovecraft, to really unbalance them. It's been great so far.

Can't find Cthulhu Britannica anywhere! I'll keep looking.

I've never actually cracked Laundry or Utopia but it might come in handy at some point. Thanks for the rec. If Utopia is as good as I hear, spoiling it won't ruin much of the goodness.

Oh shit, that sounds awesome! If you can spare the time I'd love to know more about it

Lord Dunsany and The Willows were also big ones, what with their big and mysterious Gods and questionable malice, intent only really horrible if you dwell on it. There's plenty of real horror in the aftermaths, though.

I've never actually fully articulated the whole thing, fearing it might put forward things which are deeply alien as rather concrete, but some bullet points are:
- The Gods are mostly extraplanar, dipping into the real world, of conscious beings, to get certain things done they can't get done other places. This includes seeding symbolic lands, imparting, giving birth, meeting other gods with certainty, cultivating acolytes (nearly all of which aren't human, but other godspawn, unsuccessful or half-breed semi-bipeds), and hosting psychic festivals. 1968 is a special year.
- Pan/Baphomet/Banebdjedet is real, and lived in Scotland, but is now roaming free after the players razed his goat island. He is very old and knows what's happening.
- Yaldabaoth/Saklas is in the process of being called to our space because Armageddon used to mean revelation and most of the gods and their creatures want to be there to see it, so they're slithering out of every shape and sign and symbol they can before the Age of Aquarius dawns on all of us at the same time.
- Depending on what happens, Yaldabaoth might yawn and wake up the gloomy pantheon which up to this point has ignored it and its various planar offspring and adjacents, sending the players and much of earth to a dreamland made of tree meat and other god dreams

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>haha
This is the sort of person we're sharing a website with these days.

My advice? Listen to Art Bell's shit. His radio show was so long running that dealt with really obscure conspiracy theory shit. Build on that.

Sorry, I'll make sure to write "kek"next time

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>spoiling it won't ruin much of the goodness
It wouldn't impede the remarkable cinematography and editing. But it will take away those pressing question of why and how. And when it's not the audience catching up, but just the characters, then they seem less relatable.

2x01 is an artsy recap of what happened before. It's stunning TV. But if you intend to watch it all, watch it in order.

dailymotion.com/video/x24eyt5_utopia-s02e01-hdtv-x264-tla_shortfilms

Why not just end your sentence with a period?

Try "The Objective", "Enemy" and "Siccario"

Interesting but I feel like I'm supposed to have background knowledge.

I've been working out this idea for a DG/possible CoC tie in scenario about Carcosa breaking out on a movie set.

Basically the writer/director somehow got his hands on a few excerpts of the King in Yellow play and was inspired to make a Victorian period piece based on what he read. Naturally over the course of the shoot he begins to lose it and the set starts merging with Carcosa eventually leading to the death/disappearance of the entire cast and crew.

Ideally this would be a two part scenario where the players are cast and crew members on the set and later the DG agents sent in to figure out what happened but I don't want to give myself too much work right out of the gate.

Anybody have any ideas on how I could flesh this out a little more?

Just evoke that feeling in your players and you're done.

I feel like I've read into a scenario like that some time ago. 1920s Hollywood, King in Yellow, yadda yadda yadda. It left a good impression. But not a detailed one. And it was probably for CoC.

Shit really? You remember the name of it? Last thing I want to do is finish writing this thing and find out there's an identical scenario out there.

Different user but I know that there was a book released for Trail(I think?) about horrors in Filmland. Might find some ideas there

Every character in Evangelion is at some point sabotaging himself and/or their coworkers.
At one point it's also got several concurrent conspiracies, which all fall apart due to the selfishness, instability and general incompetence of the people involved.

DG Senior High
Cell 21
>Bonds are sexual interests

Bump

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That's a neat idea. Did you end up finding the similar scenario?

I did some very light digging and didn't come up with anything. Worst case scenario I'll just end up writing the DG side of the investigation in which case does anyone know anything about how a shady Hollywood producer might go about covering up a film that turned into a complete disaster?

Alternatively I'm thinking of maybe making the producer go full scumbag and try to make some money off of the disaster however he can, spinning a "cursed crew" narrative to hype it up while trying to get a movie cut together from whatever existing footage there is, inadvertently spreading the KiY infection to editing houses and crews he hired to do reshoots.

Or even worse, once the first movie crew disappears, the producer goes full cultist and spreads it on purpose.

I was thinking it might actually be more interesting, or less predictable, if he was doing it solely out of greed but it would make sense that he would eventually be overcome by the play's influence.

Definitely less predictable, but the longer he avoids Carcosa, the more likely he'll go mad, in my opinion.

So the problem with Tcho-Tcho in the modern day is that it's kind of hard to get away with the "evil ethnic group" aspect without coming across, well, racist. That said, Delta Green is ALL ABOUT addressing contemporary issues through the lens of the Cthulhu Mythos so having to deal with the highly-charged political atmosphere around racial minorities could make a fantastic conflict and tension.

Let's say you've got a "Little Cambodia" neighbourhood in the town that the Tcho-Tcho are operating out of; coming down on that place with a SWAT team and rooting out everyone with a certain tribal identity is something the Program simply CANNOT get away with any more. You could do it in the 20's with the Innsmouth raid, but not any more; it gets way easier for that to look like the government is waging war on immigrants when everyone has a smartphone. That means if the players want to dismantle the cult operating under the Cambodian restaurant, they HAVE to do it dirty, illegitimate and nasty.

While I'm thinking about it, the mission could have a time limit where the agents have to prevent the first audience screening. By that point the producer would have lost all his marbles and the movie would be strong enough to take anyone who viewed it to Carcosa by the time the credits roll.

Here's how I would do it: blur the lines between fiction and reality.

Spend a GOOD CHUNK of pre-Weirdness time setting up what normal life is like for the characters. Let them have some scenes with their Bonds. Use these scenes to seed certain objects, phrases, imagery or other ideas that connect the player to their home life (granddad's silver clock, the smell of thyme on your wife's hands when she comes in from the herb garden). As the Weird increases, bring those elements into it; you smell thyme on skeletal hands, hear the sound of silver ticking. Then have some more Bond scenes that have been contaminated by the Weird and so on.

That definitely seems like the best way to handle KiY stuff, not just in this scenario, but in new DG in general.

This is a good point I hadn't really considered, and one that could make any culturally savvy Tcho-Tcho cult in the West very dangerous.

Imagine if the Tcho-Tcho came to the attention of Black Lives Matter or some allegorical civil rights group. That's your interference for this scenario, a bunch of noisy activists drawing waaay too much media attention to the investigation

These are both really great ideas and I'm totally going to steal them off you. How much do you think the agents could get away with? Especially considering how we've had officers shoot African American men and women and get a slap on the wrist like suspension with pay.

Worst case scenario the agents go full black op and pose as right wing militants.