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RPGs / Re: Watcha gonna do? Delta Green: Agent's Handbook is coming for you!
« on: May 18, 2016, 06:11:47 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?
(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?