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1

RPGs / Re: Delta Green: Terra Obscura

« on: August 25, 2016, 08:34:46 PM »

Just put together a fine Opera i've decided is my opening scenario for my Campaign.

Opera 1: Alazia
n. The fear that you are no longer able to change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBoZzArmtNA

Home: The agents are dealing with how their lives have become static and they are unable to change course. You just got passed up for that promotion. You and your wife have failed, yet again to conceive. They can't give up drinking, or lose those few extra pounds. Their friend groups drift away, changed as they've moved onto bigger and better things. They are stuck in a proverbial rut, not knowing their life is about to change very dramatically.

That soon changes when this team, a mix of friendlies and veterans are assembled to investigate a ritual murder case.

The Hook: A party yacht is found adrift in the Massachusetts bay near Boston. No one is aboard, except for two bodies, killed ritualistically. Is this the work of a serial killer or is something far darker at work?

The investigation leads not only to the Poseidon Club, a cult of Dagon and Mother Hydra for the cities wealthy elite, but to a dark chapter in Delta Green's long forgotten past. The forgotten story of Raid on Innsmouth and it's long lost survivors.

Background: There are stories, but never confirmed of Innsmouth citizens escaping during the Raid. Of marines who would not shoot women and young children in the back as they fled. Records were shoddy in those first days.

Fast forward decades later to The Fraternal Order of Poseidon. A secret society of rich young men born and bred from Boston’s elite. They are known for their strange customs, social status and their notoriously hedonistic yacht and beach parties. But within it’s ranks are a secret cult of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra. They have have lost their connection the the Deep Ones, no longer able to change. But this has kept them secret, all the while their fortunes originating from the alien jewelry their ancestors once made and traded, have grown. They give tribute to the Old Ones, but for some, there is no devotion. For some this is merely a bunch of silly traditions. Not so for our killers

It's youth have grown weary. They are not content as their parents are to maintain the charade. Instead they seek to not only change themselves, but all the survivors. The murders are but one in a series of ritualistic killings that meant to summon forth Mother Hydra to call her children, and awaken those with the Blood. They will at last, Change and be changed forever.

The Case
The case grows from the initial sacrifice. Tracing the yacht to the owners leads them to their first suspects. The victims are “escorts”, prostitutes chosen because they thought no one would miss them. They aren’t the only ones who went missing this time. All of them, hired for the same John, rumored to be party to a secretive drug fueled party scene. Both trails lead to the Poseidon Club which on the outside seems just like any other shallow social club, an embodiment of privilege and misogyny.

It all comes to a head as the cultists leave again on a yacht into the middle of Boston Harbor to enact the final rites summon Mother Hydra whose siren call can awaken the blood within all her wayward children. They must sail into the harbor after in a daring and dangerous raid on the cult aboard the yacht. But they may not be ready for the Deep Ones waiting for them, beneath the waves.

2

RPGs / Delta Green: Terra Obscura

« on: August 22, 2016, 05:10:58 PM »

This is a post for a Delta Green game idea I'm developing. The premise is it would be a "monster of the week" style game, united only by the same group of agents, with maybe a subtle plot line running in the background.

Here's the pitch. Each scenario is inspired by one of the terms from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDetdM5XDZD1xrQHDPgEg5w

Thus far i have two stories.

Sonder: n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkoML0_FiV4

A high profile glamour cult similar to say the one started by a guy named Hubbard is secretly serving the whim of (enter mythos deity here) have figured out how to temporarily trigger psychic-telepathic powers in people in a very toxic and destructive way. They use it primarily as a recruitment tool. The idea of it is that it opens your third eye and you experience the vivid memories of others by simply touching or bumping into them. Mechanically it's an unnatural attack that causes sanity loss, BUT with the caveat that as you lose sanity, you gain bonds to people in the lives of those you bump into, and it reduces your bonds with the people in your life. This obviously makes conversion really easy, as they can wipe away the connections to your loved ones and replace them with a bond to the cult.

DG gets wind of this when after several kids newly inducted, murders his family for trying to take him away from the cult. While investigating I have the idea that an agent or agents will be urged to do one of the cult's wierd rituals similar to say e-reading. During this e-reading is when they use their mythos sorcery to activate this affect. While this is jarring, it's just as jarring as when they meet up with their DG buddies and suddenly find the effect still active and they experience one of their "Home" scenes and BOND to their family member. Ideally after all the madness I spread with this crazy effect, they decide to-hell with investigating and go into the compound to wipe the cult and destroy their dark tomes.

Onism: n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people's passwords, each representing one more thing you'll never get to see before you die-and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.

I posted this idea and pooled some people for ideas on it on the facebook group, so some of you may remember this. A new drug has hit the streets in some city in the American Southwest. The investigation starts when two identical bodies have showed up. Essentially the drug Liao is being laced into drugs and is sending all the addicts of the region on magical time trips forward and backward in time. The long game of the drug-pin who is dealing the Liao is trying to get out of the life and liao is his ticket, to start a whole new life. He's just feeding as many people to the Hounds of Tindalos to cover his tracks, and so he can learn to control and master his travels. He's become very good at it, and rival cartels have come to call him El Muerto because they have killed him at least 2 times. The hounds are more of an obstacle to avoid. They will be stalking suspects and victims of the cartel, and those exposed to the time bending mythos. The bodies are also emitting x-rays. Which means they lit up like a christmas tree on the x-rays (san check). So those handling and examining the bodies now have residual radiation exposure that now attracts the Hounds to them as well. I enjoy the idea of the Hounds leaping from corner to corner of the hospital chasing someone down while an agent shoots it to little effect and makes several san checks. It's a setpiece i'm looking forward to.

At some point i hope to have the agents fall into a trap. He knows they're coming (cuz TIME TRAVEL yo) and lays a trap that totally gets them all to inhale or ingest liao and they all go on various terrifying, existentially disturbing trips forward and back in time. So many sanity rolls.
Tell me what you think folks.

I have a friend really into the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, and I think this may just convince him and some others to play some Delta Green one shots. I also don't think either of these make good starter games. I'm still trying to figure out that one.

In any event, is this a story theme worth exploring further? Is there one scenario you like more than the other? Feel free to look through the video links and see if you get any ideas for yourelf.

3

RPGs / Re: Redmarket. The ideas I get while listening to the actual plays.

« on: June 04, 2016, 10:54:05 AM »

Yes of course the obvious reason the game isn't full of betrayals is the Meta reason.  Don't mess up the playtest, don't screw over your friends fun.

But if we imagine it's a real world scenario.  I think you could trust everyone until the second to last or the last score.   By that time all the people should be desperate, mentally tired and have probably had to do some really horrible things to get to where you are now.  And you should realise that if you all survive the last big score then all of you get a little less money to live on in the recession then if fewer people survive.  Hell if only one survives you will be filthy rich.  And you don't have to worry about the rep, because you are getting out anyway.

The thing with Kowloon, the godly and the aberrant was different.  All he had to do was not do anything and then claim the money.  As I said, his friends would never have had to find out.  They would even have gotten paid.  That was just a true moral chose. One that I think Kowloon/Ross would probably have done differently if he could do it over again with a clear mind and no time pressure.  I think the rescue the people was a knee jerk reaction of Ross "the normal human" while I feel that Kowloon "the desperate survivor" would have taken the money.  Ross has said as much about Kowloon before.  "He just wants out as fast as possible".

Now I would love to hear Ross take on this.

@Gorkamokra

I disagree that their unity is not purely meta. The logic of betrayal and the big score all to yourself, logic isn't necessarily as pure as mathematics and a clear profit margin.

Economics take human nature and behavior into account. While the score would be divided by the Takers, and you get less money you don't necessarily get more out of it. There are too many abstracts you can't name a dollar value to when it comes to work. The emphasis is that even in an Apocalypse, civilization endures and it's worst and BEST qualities thrive. Self-reliance and self sufficiency is a lie. People NEED people.

If you take from your crew, you are literally a coworker stealing from the cash register. There are consequences. To your soul, to your life and to your career. The value of being trusted, of being fair, and not a murdering raider has an ephemeral value you can't equate with the cash value you'd be earning in return for betrayal or underhanded-ness.

Kowloon knows that Le Corbusier NEEDS Ivory Plains. They need communities to trade with. They need people. They need civilization to survive. Especially now that he knows the DHQS is trying to "cleanse" the enclaves to preserve their cover up AND take land back. His community his family is in danger. His neighbors and friends are in danger. Word gets out he led an aberrant to a community and stood by and watched as they were devoured, he would be blacklisted. And you can't pretend someone won't get away or won't find out. DHQS would know. They would blackmail him.

What he did was TRULY logical. Not mathematically or profit driven logic, but emotionally logical.

4

RPGs / Re: Watcha gonna do? Delta Green: Agent's Handbook is coming for you!

« on: June 04, 2016, 09:55:23 AM »

Idea for a scenario unapologetically ripping off The Teeth of God.

Thieves of Many Waters

The town of Olney, Oregon, is like many coastal towns in the Pacific Northwest - small, sleepy, past its prime, population barely peeking over 2,000. It was once a local centre for logging and fishery (for those brave enough to head out into the Graveyard of the Pacific) but now most jobs in the town come either from the local Big Box store, a smattering of a tourist industry or the bottling plant overlooking the ocean. The few kids that grow up in Olney rarely stay.

Some of Delta Green's files are integrated back into "legitimate" databases in the early 2000's and the conspiracy adapts to the new realities of computational policework at the speed of government. When a data management program is finally implemented in the early 2010's, it spits out an interesting factoid: a disproportionate numbers of violent crimes "of Programmatic interest" have been committed by people originating from Olney, including no fewer than five serial killers documented between the years of 1944 and 2012.

When local drug-dealer, Ethan Jacobs, is reported murdered in his Olney home, the case is immediately flagged as federal under the War on Drugs and the pretence of mapping out an Oregon drug-trafficking route through. Of course, the "joint agency task force" is actually Delta Green investigating why so many people from Olney wind up violent criminals and committing Mythos-related crimes. Jacobs was impaled with a pitchfork in his abdomen by a home intruder, who then carried on the assault by picking up some kind of folk art in Jacobs' possession and smashing it, using a shard to continue carrying out the brutal assault. Piecing together the "folk art" reveals it appears to be something Jacobs made himself - a monstrous thing that appears to be a mish-mash of sea creatures...

The source of the Mythos violence in Olney comes from a temple deep in the local cave system. The interior contains ancient cave art depicting men with spears wading out to sea in "whale-hunting" scenes and the floor is littered with interesting, sharp rocks. When kids get bored and need somewhere to get drunk, or where the occasional tourist passes through Olney to admire the nature, they almost invariably gravitate to the cave and pick up a "cool rock". The cave is, of course, a temple to Nodens. Those who spend a great amount of time in the cave, or who pick up one of the arrow/spear heads that line the cave floor like sand, receive Nodens' "blessing" and his mission. In this interpretation of Nodens, he is a "native" god to this world, as opposed to the many powers of the Mythos of extraterrestrial origin - and Nodens wants the aliens off his damn lawn. Piecing together the mythology of the cave stories will reveal many "thieves" being put to death by a giant chieftain and his spear-wielding tribe.

Those blessed by Nodens are compelled to hunt - anything extraterrestrial is their favoured prey, but the impulse is simply to hunt. The "serial killers" from Olney have been targeting, say, Cthulhu cults - Ethan Jacobs was a Cthulhu cultist, for example - or people who have been mind-altered by a Yithian, or possessed by a Shan. In ancient times, the natives of the region waged bloody war with the Deep Ones. But many of them are simply driven to madness by the newfound voice in their head filling them with the primal urge to stalk and kill prey. Ethan was murdered by the middle-aged waitress of the local diner, Meredith Shaw, who bought A Drugs from Ethan and used it in the cave to keep it secret from her husband. When she received Nodens' blessing, she sees Ethan as a monster and flees, later returning with the pitchfork to kill him. The final conflict involves her wading out into the Pacific to do battle with a Deep One that Ethan was communing with, who of course will kill her (and will attack the agents on seeing them).

Ideally, of course, at least one player gets Blessed. Mechanically, Nodens' blessing works as a "trade SAN for clues" mechanic - Nodens wants you to hunt and investigators are just a type of hunter, so investigators touched by his trident will receive clues that help them track their quarry or tell them how to kill it, or see who is being influenced by extraterrestrials, but are also bloody, horrific and unnatural visions that don't feel good inside your head.

Thoughts?

I think that is a solid scenario. I like the interpretation of Nodens.  I like how it makes the favorable light Nodens often appears in is changed into more of a fascistic or hyperpatriarch who claims ownership  of everything, and only really cares about the rest of the mythos because they are on his lawn. Makes him much more jealous and monstrous.

I've had an idea for a Nodens cult somewhat similar. I wanted it to tie into more fascistic tendencies. Still has that hunting notion, and hunting the mythos, the cults of Nyarlathotep in particular, which he perceives as primitives, animals for him to hang on his walls as trophies. But his cults soon gravitate towards seeing EVERYTHING not like themselves as animals. He's the ultimate form of Racism and Tribalism. They attack that which is Other to them. This is why I make a lot of Nodens cults white supremacists. He attracts that kind of cultist and ultimately re-enforces their world view. Over time though his cults tear each other apart as they come to only view the self to be truly human and any slight human difference cause for murdering and skinning any abhorrent Other. In the end they are alone, paranoid, and cruel. More animal and monstrous than the Other they hunted. these truest of his devotees are carried of by nightgaunts when they are killed, like valkeries come to take them to valhalla, but they are taken to nodens lands and hunted by him and his dogs for sport.

5

RPGs / Re: Redmarket. The ideas I get while listening to the actual plays.

« on: June 02, 2016, 10:27:56 PM »

Also Wilzuma is spot on about murder hobo ism.

oh the murder hobos. I have played with so many... pretending to be maniacal geniuses... but ultimately... it's just how harder they can hobo.

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RPGs / Re: Redmarket. The ideas I get while listening to the actual plays.

« on: June 02, 2016, 08:00:22 PM »

This discussion is very fascinating. It could very well be used as a standard example of "murder hobos" and player logic. You guys are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT RIGHT! They should double cross eachother to get their bounty, but they don't. That seems... counter intuitive but it feels more real. People tend to be collectivist. They want the guy they are in the foxhole with to be not just a comrade, but someone they can trust. And they have to put that trust out there too, and show they can be trusted as well. This is how they are heroic.

I think the RPPR guys play it that way on purpose. Killing anyone innocent or not, bares repurcussions and responsibilities. They also are playing characters who want to still look themselves in the mirror each day. I think it's interesting, especially when you consider mauve's philosophy that we are already dead. Why didn't he just take the DHQS deal? or at least try to. He has respect for his comrades, but i like to think that he's a bit of a hypocrite. He proclaims we're all dead, but his reactions sometimes betray this notion. They feel more real to me. I don't think real people would try to double cross their crew most of the time.

Just my thoughts.

Also, I think it's interesting how Mauve and Kowloon, probably the most broken human beings in the group both commit acts of heroism, putting themselves in harms way ahead of someone else. Especially Mauve. Mauve did not have to be the one to lure the aberrant to the trap. That logically should have been Malleus. But he did it. He made a value judgement that he thought Malleus would die, so he took the heat for him. This is why i want to play this game. Sadly i'll probably be the one running it!

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RPGs / Re: Watcha gonna do? Delta Green: Agent's Handbook is coming for you!

« on: June 02, 2016, 07:46:17 PM »

It's a good set up/intro to DG but I think it's too complex to be a single session. PCs have to unravel the murders of both cultists and dead DG agents, figure out what the cultists are up to and try to stop them. I think it could be 1 session if you reduced it to state or local investigator PCs called in on a loud noise complaint or feds investigating something unrelated to the cult and then have to pick sides during the inevitable DG team ambush of said cultists. If you don't mind multiple sessions, then it's fine as it is. You might read Cold Dead Hand from TUO for more ideas on Itahqua cult nastiness.

I think i'm okay with it being more than one session. I try to plan out games as set-pieces, and try to make it one set-piece per session. The first set piece is obviously the crime scene and an action scene with one or two survivors of K-Cell. By the the end of the first session K-Cell will be all dead, and there will only be more questions. After that they have to try to put the clues together, before the Sorcerer and the Consort slip away in the night. The next set piece, or next session is a direct conflict with the cult's survivors, and a test of their resolve. They get away and come back in a later story, or the cult (at least this faction) are wiped out. The first session is the Question. The second session is The answer as it were.

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RPGs / Re: Watcha gonna do? Delta Green: Agent's Handbook is coming for you!

« on: June 02, 2016, 05:57:19 PM »

No Norwegians.

So I think I may have finally worked out how to begin my No Norwegians game. Minnesota is known for its lakes and so this story largely features a lake in it's dark foreboding landscapes, a symbol as it were for the darkness that lies just below the surface.

It begins on a cold and stormy night in Minnesota. Late May. But the night is unseasonably cold. Frost and freezing rain, even snow is reported in parts of the Twin Cities. But it's the winds that stand out. Those howling, destructive winds toppling trees and power lines knocking out half the Metro power grid.

A phone rings, an agent picks it up. it's his old partner from the Bureau. Naveed Olsen, assigned to the FBI anti terror task force tracking Al Shabob recruitment in the cities. At least he was until he was put on administrative leave for misuse of agency funds. His words are full of madness and regret, but they hint at something more… something the agent will soon come to learn. They hang up. There is a silence.

Another phone call. All hands on deck.

The PC’s are called to a very bloody and bizarre murder scene on a Hidden Beach on Twin Lake (a real place). The carnage includes the naked / stripped all sporting bullet wounds, a scorched body with its feet chopped off. There are some odd things that stand out, including a left boot that doesn’t fit any of the bodies. The other scene is the getaway van. The interior was lit up in flames, from the body burned after the vehicle lost control and crashed. The suspects fled from the scene back into the park where they could disappear.

The pc’s either join the manhunt or the investigation. Investigation ID’s the bodies as Norwegian nationals and their US counterparts staying at the nearby Regency Minneapolis. There are few from the trip that are alive, at the hotel and claim ignorance of the whole affair. Testimony has it that they went out to the lake for late night skinny dipping.

Those on the manhunt are searching through the park and nearby areas, a golf course and neighborhoods looking for signs and sightings of the suspects. These agents will stumble upon one of the attackers, as well as the sole survivor. A woman who doesn’t seem bothered by the strange coldsnap...

What’s going on? The victims are all Ithaqua cultists who gathered on this particular lake, when the stars were right to summon an avatar of Ithaqua to impregnate a woman with his spawn. The agents of Cell-K (our doomed DG cell) have been working on this case for a while. And rather than stop the ritual before it started decided to use it as a way to draw out its members, its figurehead the Occult Sorcerer Sten Fritjolf. The game was set.

During the ritual a storm of Icy Rain pours down, and howling winds hit the Twin Cities. They are about to move in then realize, that Fritjolf is not among them. K-Cell hesitates, one man goes back to check out the nearby hotel the targets were staying at. The rest move in. But hesitation was lethal. As they blow away cultists the avatar forms out of the air. The first agent who faces it down panics and fires at it. It simply picks him up on a gust of wind and pulls him into the sky. Only one shoe is left behind. The agents retreat as a huge murder of crows swarms them. They drag another fallen comrade through the park trails to their car. Unfortunately as they take off a swarm of ravens pelts their windows, they crash and their buddy in the back bites it. So they do what anyone else would do. Light him on fire. Then flee the scene.

The agents arrive at this aftermath. One or two agents still at large, though they don't know that. They still need to end Fritjolf before he leaves the country. As these are his coworkers and country men the pc's have to interview him. I'll let on that there is something off about him. That's the main thing, is there will be small inexplicable things that are totally off about survivors.  K-Cell's priority though at the end is finding the woman the mother of the wendigo before she is whisked away forever.

There could be a violent scene at the hotel as they try to take out Fritjolf. K-cell may also attempt to go after the “Consort” and Fritjolf at the airport as they attempt to depart the country.

During one of these moments is when I plan to reveal Olsen’s involvement to one of the players. I’m not sure which way will be more disturbing, having them fight him or discover he’s one of the dead bodies. There is also the man with the missing shoe. I can imagine a very Fargo-esque moment where as PC’s are shocked as suddenly a body falls from the sky and lands on the trunk their car. This would involve a SAN check because A. That is f’ed up, B. where did it come from? As soon as they get a look they realize the body is missing a shoe. This guy was at their scene. Roll SAN again. This would also be a pretty quiet, strange moment to introduce this. They would want to know what happened to this guy. Especially our PC who got the call from him.

That’s what I got so far. Let me know what you guys think. I want this to be a single session type scenario. I don’t want things obvious at all, but i want to try to keep it not too convoluted. Essentially this was a DG mission in the vein of burn after reading. And they have to piece it together before DG higher ups arrive to “take over the investigation.”

9

RPGs / Re: Red Markets Inspiration

« on: May 19, 2016, 06:20:23 PM »

Caleb reviewed the Rover in this episode http://slangdesign.com/rppr/2014/07/podcast-episode/rppr-episode-102-rules-fetish/

I later saw it. It is quite Red Markets.

And I probably have listened to that episode and forgot.  I grabbed it on a whim at a local video rental place, along with Extinction starring Jeffrey Donovan & Matthew Fox, wondering if they were going to suck.  Turns out half my fears came true.

Is anyone else somehow horrified that there is still a "local  video rental place." I thought they went extinct at this point. Not one left in the Twin Cities Metro. Are you sure taht wasn't an abandoned building you went into and came out with dvd's? Are you sure that the video store isn't Carcosa Video?

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RPGs / Re: Watcha gonna do? Delta Green: Agent's Handbook is coming for you!

« on: May 18, 2016, 07:19:06 PM »

I've actually worked up a campaign frame that resembled this format: new agents brought into the conspiracy by looking into the aftermath of a botched DG op. If I may offer some of my views:

(1) I would keep at least one of the burned DG agents alive. They will be useful for providing clues that will lead your Player-Agents to the Delta Green conspiracy. They are useful GM mouthpieces for dispensing clues. Even if the burned agent is on the run (presumably a suspect in the terrorist incident now), it will give the players something to chase that will lead them to your plot. Even if the players don't pick up on your other clues, there is at least a manhunt that will keep them on track.

(2) What aspect of the mythos is really a question you are in the best position to answer. What aspect of the mythos do you want your players to tackle? If the tone is humorous, then I think the oldest joke in Cthulhu RPG is the amount of excessive force players use to stop summoning rituals. It could be a summoning ritual for mythos entity of your choice, which the burned agents dealt with by using overwhelming firepower, thereby causing a lot of collateral damage.

For example, the cultists were summoning Ithaqua on the top of a Minneapolis skyscraper, and your burned agents decided the answer was to collapse the building using explosives. Now you have the terrorist incident to trigger your campaign. But who do the security cameras show as placing the explosives? Who flashed their badges to scope out the building a week prior?

(3) I would also find some other way to bring PC's into the conspiracy. Most RPG players I know are not motivated by death threats. In fact, it's usually motivation for them to go in the opposite direction. Within conventions of the genre, a death threat is like a challenge a villain throws down.

Besides, if your player-character are true-blue, hard-core law enforcement agents, I don't think they would let themselves be cowed by death threats from mysterious voices on the other end of the phone call, either.

How important is this motivation? Presumably your players know they are there to play a Delta Green campaign and are therefore on board with working for Delta Green. Do the death threats play some kind of role in your campaign beyond motivating the players?

This! All of This! Thanks, this was VERY helpful. I love the idea of DG agents bringing heavy machine guns and explosives to a summoning circle. I can lay out an elaborate and absurd crime scene a la No country for old men (And then Woah Differences!).

I plan on ONE agent from team FUBAR is on the run. The other motivation I have is I am going to Bond one of the players to the family of one of the agents who did get killed in this madness.

This was helpful. I'm removing the threat of death. You're right. It's a bad motivator. I think that someone might say to them, "listen, if you know more than you should now, and you aren't dead, then you work for the Program now." Something like that.

11

RPGs / Re: Watcha gonna do? Delta Green: Agent's Handbook is coming for you!

« on: May 18, 2016, 09:00:11 AM »

I need the RPPR PC-Hivemind or in this case GM Braintrust to help out with a campaign idea I have for Delta Green. I've been tinkering with the idea of a Minnesota based DG cell to make a game that's Fargo meets Delta Green. Highlighting the dark humor, strangeness and absolute clusterfuck pitched violent conflicts become. I have been trying to decide how to start it out with the first session.

The name of the game is going to be called No Norwegians. A joke on how there's lots of Norwegian ancestry in Minnesota and the term is used on the wiki: "as an adjective, anything too public for its own good." So here's the idea i have so far for the start. The games begins with Federal investigators called in to deal with a highly public crime or incident that has been declared terrorism. What they don't know is that this was a DG op gone horribly wrong. Innocent people are killed, civil rights are violated and they follow the clues to perpetrators. Men and women within their own government. As they close in they find clues to the mythos and must deal with the active agents who have basically been fed to the lions at this point. DG A-Cell however makes contact and makes them on offer they can't refuse. "You're in our program now because you know too much. If you try to expose us we'll kill you. No Norwegians."

Thus is born Working Group N.

I'm just trying to figure out what the details of this operation gone horribly wrong could be. Should the burned out DG agents be alive? What aspect of the mythos should they be dealing with. I know i want to have been a very illegal raid, but i have writer's block coming up with it. It's a complex sounding opening, but I think it can be executed simply. I just need help with ideas. Any advice would be appreciated.

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RPGs / Re: Watcha gonna do? Delta Green: Agent's Handbook is coming for you!

« on: May 06, 2016, 08:03:00 PM »

I'm thinking I may actually run one of my Civil War Cthulhu scenarios using an adaptation of the Delta Green system. It'll be about a group of agents commissioned by President Lincoln to investigate strange problems with the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

I am finally getting around to General Order 11! Haven't finished, but oh man! The history mixed with Horror, slow burning subtle tension is Glancy-Worthy man. Glancy. Worthy.
Great Job.

Also, this is an awesome setting idea. Reminds me of the Amazing Screw On Head, only not silly. I think from listening Trail would Work pretty well for that scenario as well.

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RPGs / Re: Watcha gonna do? Delta Green: Agent's Handbook is coming for you!

« on: May 06, 2016, 07:55:27 PM »

Thanks guys for the kind words. Would you be interested in reading about more Ideas as they come?

Yes!

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RPGs / Re: Battle Century G: Blood Red Moon, a mech rpg actual play.

« on: May 05, 2016, 02:00:45 PM »

Honestly, the reason I use youtube is because I refuse to actually spend any money on doing this.

As for the portability thing, I do understand where you're coming from...but I had kind of assumed people know how to download youtube videos as mp3s? Would it make things better for the audience if I had a mediafire folder of the audio recordings or something?

You'd be surprised how many people A) don't know how to do that, and B) don't understand how to even how to navigate a basic podcast app. Our producer has gotten complaints from listeners that they are "confused" by the story when we switch between which game we play each week. Granted this is all people who have NEVER listened to a podcast in their life until now. It's so profoundly weird.

So... If you goal is to reach an audience, you need to make it available for podcatching software and actually put some money into it. If you are doing it for fun, I'd just go with what you're doing now.

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RPGs / Re: Watcha gonna do? Delta Green: Agent's Handbook is coming for you!

« on: May 05, 2016, 08:52:32 AM »

I am probably going to start of with a scenario I am calling Hard Crypto.

It will start with the discovery of the disappearance of the entire core research team of a tech start up mostly taking its  funding from Darpa.

It is basically a Boston Dynamics style company, but working on quantum computing and quantum cryptography.

The whole core research team have disappeared over a weekend, and the labs are in a state. Reams and reams of writing on the walls, signs of violence, but no bodies.

DG get involved when the FBI investigators who are the first set of investigators, start to have panic attacks, and witness hauntings.

As DG investigate, they start to discover that the mathematician and computer scientists had become increasingly obsessed with privacy in their private lives and compartmentalization in their work. They find evidence that one of the team, Bret Witham, had quite the group a week before the disappearance. Through leg work, they find him living rough, obsessively shunning human company, having gone to great lengths to destroy his own documentation. He has cut of his own finger prints and facially scared himself.

With information from Witham's personal notes, they discover that the group was using material from a grimoire and that the researchers have sequestered themselves in perfectly isolated little pocket dimensions, away from observation, free from predestination.
 

Sort of the DG version of Solid Geometry.

That is an awesome scenario. I love that the team is missing because of their own willful paranoid need to keep corporate secrets safe. I am wondering is it a vague paranoia or is someone actually trying to steal their research through either conventional or supernatural means.

I also like how it leaves the possibility that the researchers are just... going through the motions. this insane bit of hypergeometry and occult magic they pulled off and has them working tirelessly in a pocket dimension isn't... evil. it's just the extreme solution to a corporate problem these engineers implemented. It would be interesting if what they are working on is completely normal. Not tainted by the mythos. They have every intention of returning once their work is done, but as every DG agent knows, you don't just... come back from this. It could leave them with a very very hard choice.

Keep up the good work. You should post how the game turns out.