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How Disgusting posted:We can always do a goon game in discord or roll20 if there's enough interest. I'm down to run this if no one else want's to. Have grabbed it already and holy poo poo that's a lot of PDF.
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Jul 3, 2018 09:30
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Spiteski posted:I'm down to run this if no one else want's to. Have grabbed it already and holy poo poo that's a lot of PDF. I would play in a heartbeat if the time worked for me, though I have already read a bunch of the new york chapter.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:06
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Second episode of the Green Box Podcast is live. In it we discuss some common mistakes in scenario design, and talk about non Delta Green media that inspires us and how to adapt media to Delta Green.
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Jul 3, 2018 16:21
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Owlbear Camus posted:I have that book. It's... eh. If you want D20 statblocks for shoggoths and stuff, it'll do. Yeah, I'm sure that the Pathfinder book is prettier. The mechanics are probably better adapted to PFRPG as well. I know that some of my fondness for the book is nostalgia, but it had a nice breakdown of different decades in the 20th Century and weird events that could be spun out into campaigns. I also recall the "how to run the game" section being very useful for a 15 year old me. However, it's not like either of those things (timeline and GMing advice) are too hard to come by nowadays. The new DG books (in the Bundle of Holding for the next 8 hours or so) have both in abundance for a reasonable price tag. https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DeltaGreen2 The first campaign I tried to run was d20 Call of Cthulhu set in Vietnam, so I'm still delightedly going through Fall of Delta Green. Has anyone run the intro adventure? I really enjoyed reading through it. The Free RPG Day one seems pretty good as well but is a little similar in premise to a DG playtest I ran, so I'm not likely to use that in the near future.
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Jul 3, 2018 18:40
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I would play in a heartbeat if the time worked for me, though I have already read a bunch of the new york chapter. That's fine. If you can manage not to spoil the game with what you know, I have no qualms about people with pre-knowledge. What time suits you? I'm pretty much a bum at the moment (student yay)
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Jul 3, 2018 23:02
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Elendil004 posted:Second episode of the Green Box Podcast is live. In it we discuss some common mistakes in scenario design, and talk about non Delta Green media that inspires us and how to adapt media to Delta Green. This was really loving good and interesting, thank you.
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Jul 4, 2018 01:29
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Down With People posted:This was really loving good and interesting, thank you. Thanks!
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Jul 4, 2018 02:45
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I have what I think is a cool basis for a scenario rattling around in my brain meats, and hearing that ‘cast pushed me to type it out into the world (sorry if it's a little stream of consciousness) and try and get some help getting it a little more fully formed. What the Agents know/are briefed on/can find out easily: A week ago, Jeff Neely, age 11, went missing in Badgerwood, Wisconsin. Situated on the edge of a 220,000 acre state forest, disappearances are not uncommon. Local legends spin supernatural tales of creatures that sulk in the forest. Many say that a bright shooting star was the harbinger of strangeness for the town. The Badgerwood Spaceman, a gaunt creature in a silver space suit with sagging, tumor-riddled flesh was a local legend in the 80’s that morphed into the Badgerwood Ghoul in the 90’s, a similar creature dressed in the local garb of carhardt, denim and henley. The creature is blamed for attacks on sportsmen and loggers, theft of equipment, strangely killed and crudely field-dressed deer, and other strangeness. For a long time this was just amusing local color, but when the Agents are shown video sent from a terrified young Jeff to his parents, it is clear there’s something to the legends. What’s actually going on: The secret launch of the Nablyudatel space platform in 1981 was an intelligence coup for the USSR. The two cosmonauts responsible for inserting up the state-of-the-art surveillance suite were set to end their 3 month mission and land as heroes of the Soviet Union (even if they obviously wouldn’t have a parade in their honor). Unfortunately for them just a few days after entering orbit, the re-entry vehicle that served as airlock sustained a loss of pressure. As Cosmonaut Bykov Vasilievich entered the REV to check the damage, he saw the cause, the high velocity impact of a small silver-colored metal sphere that had pierced the hull but stopped in the cramped REV crew compartment. Puzzled, he picked it up and brought it into the main compartment. After a few moments of puzzled examination and relaying their finding down to an equally baffled mission control, the sphere opened, and something crawled out… and into Col. Valisievich. In a strange fury he attacked his fellow crewman and in the struggle the craft de-orbited, causing a brief shooting star to be seen in the night sky. Miraculously the REV chute deployed and arrested the fall enough for the craft to land in the deep woods of northern Wisconsin. The thing inside Col. Vasilievich (A Traveler, first seen in the OG DG scenario Puppet Shows and Shadow Player) has been living there since. It has suffered the Traveler equivalent of a traumatic brain injury and is constantly foggy and confused by what for it is a non-lethal (for Travelers, anyway...) but debilitating steady dose of radiation from the cracked radioisotope heater unit in the space capsule that’s become its grisly home, decorated with bones of the humans and animals it’s killed and eaten. Over the years as it’s transferred itself into new hosts as it used the previous well beyond it’s capacity to withstand the radiation and malnutrition of its strange life. In its diminished state, this Traveler exists merely to exist, cunning enough to avoid armed parties and prey on only the most defenseless humans and animals that cross its path. Complicating things, GRU-8 has learned of this old black-book space project and through research has worked out the crash-landing area. Hoping that the final transmission of the crew was the promise of strange alien technology for whomever is bold enough to seize it, they’ve also dispatched a clandestine team masquerading as US federal agents to Badgerwood. The Agents will have to figure out how to deal with a violent creature puppeteering a young boy, ruthless Russian agents who want whatever tech they can recover from the Traveler, and potentially a radioactive space-pod nest. Problems/clues I need to work out. How do I put the Agents on the path to find the kid and the capsule? How does a violently de-orbited but intact Soviet space capsule remain undiscovered (but still reasonably locatable by Agents) for 35+ years in a forest frequented by sportsmen, loggers, hikers, etc? How does GRU-8 find out and take an interest after all of these years? Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Jul 4, 2018 |
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Jul 4, 2018 15:29
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If you're on discord, pop into the r/nightattheopera one we have a whole scenario development channel for just this kind of thing. That said, I like it. For your questions: You don't always need a good reason to put the agents on the path, a simple "Jeff Neely disappeared, our sources intercepted this video, it's on our radar go check it out" is usually enough. Ditto for GRU (as an added bonus, either GRU has a mole in the Program and got tipped that way, or vice versa) (as an added, ADDED bonus, include the GRU mole in the party if you have a player who can play secret objectives well) What I like about the young boy is that if the Traveler was just a random hiker agents would generally have no problem blasting and moving on, but give them the idea that the child can be saved for some added inter-party-tension. If you're running this as part of a larger campaign you can seed the crash location or the mole angle into another mission, too. I don't remember if I said it in this episode or another, but if you write it down, you'll want to explain it to your players. So, for "how does a spacecraft remain undetected" don't write it down, don't figure it out yourself. This will have two likely outcomes, 1) no player cares enough to delve deep, so it would have gone un-found anyways, or 2) a player comes up with a plausible, cool explanation on their own as to why, and you roll with it, and they feel smart. Elendil004 fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jul 4, 2018 |
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Jul 4, 2018 19:38
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Elendil004 posted:I don't remember if I said it in this episode or another, but if you write it down, you'll want to explain it to your players. So, for "how does a spacecraft remain undetected" don't write it down, don't figure it out yourself. This will have two likely outcomes, 1) no player cares enough to delve deep, so it would have gone un-found anyways, or 2) a player comes up with a plausible, cool explanation on their own as to why, and you roll with it, and they feel smart. When I was listening to this part in the cast I thought back to a scenario my friend was running. He had made one red herring NPC so compellingly weird that we just all fixated on him like a dog with a bone, to the point where he tacked a whole Hastur cultist angle on to him (when we broke into his house after a night of fruitless surveilance knowing something had to be up) in spite of the main thrust of that Op being the Fungi. Dude was amazing at riffing and making it seem like prepared material. I remember this New England Ghoul Cult type scenario he ran that felt like he had read a published scenario cover to cover. Later, I found his session notes. Three bullet point sentences, no more than ten words each. I wish I had his skill to spin yarns on the fly. Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jul 4, 2018 |
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Jul 4, 2018 19:58
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Hi Cthulu thread! I recently got into RPGs and ran my first CoC 7e game last week - it was a blast and my players loved it. We played The Haunting (the campaign in the quick start guide) and it was awesome. Any recommendations for official scenarios/one-shots that would be good for a group of Cthulu (and RP in general) newbies? Maybe something with a bit more combat?
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Jul 20, 2018 14:43
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Thom and the Heads posted:Hi Cthulu thread! Doors to Darkness is Chaosium's newbie scenario collection. I have only run the second adventure, Genius Loci, but it was a good time. If your group is into more combat, the Pulp Cthulhu supplement might be worth a look. It has optional rules to make the investigators a little more resilient and capable in a fight.
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Jul 20, 2018 15:18
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thefakenews posted:Doors to Darkness is Chaosium's newbie scenario collection. I have only run the second adventure, Genius Loci, but it was a good time. hey thanks! none more black it is!
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Jul 21, 2018 14:34
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New episode of The Green Box for your enjoyment. https://soundcloud.com/nightattheopera/episode-03-oddly-specific-denials
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Jul 23, 2018 15:50
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Any of you nerds gonna be at GenCon? also ToU 25 is out (I'm in it)
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Jul 31, 2018 02:34
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That DG Kickstarter started to sell me one hardcover and ended up selling me four, so I guess it was pretty good! I’m really looking forward to the God’s Teeth book, those podcasts were dope.
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Aug 1, 2018 04:13
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It's probably a good thing my student loan doesn't arrive until next month because I may have burned half of it on the Director award.
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Aug 1, 2018 04:17
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So the thread consensus is that Delta Green is Good™ right? I've the opportunity to buy the two-book slipcase for a reasonable price, but not sure how it lines up against just using CoC7e
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Aug 1, 2018 22:40
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Spiteski posted:So the thread consensus is that Delta Green is Good™ right? I've the opportunity to buy the two-book slipcase for a reasonable price, but not sure how it lines up against just using CoC7e If you're not terribly interested in Delta Green as a setting, it doesn't really change much over the default CoC formula. Some things are probably overall improvements, like the pseudo-Unknown Armies-style separation of Violence and Helplessness as sources of SAN-loss you can become immune to, and the lethality system, but for a lot of purposes you'll hardly notice the difference. My advice? Get Delta Green, pillage it for the rules you like and use them with CoC 7e. Or maybe use the rules you like from CoC with Delta Green, it's not like anyone would be able to tell the difference.
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Aug 2, 2018 05:35
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Spiteski posted:So the thread consensus is that Delta Green is Good™ right? I've the opportunity to buy the two-book slipcase for a reasonable price, but not sure how it lines up against just using CoC7e The system is a big improvement over vanilla CoC. The skill and stat list have been pared of a lot of cruft and the game system is simpler and works a lot better. I've even been running 1920s games with DG and it's worked great. I know a guy who did an entire Beyond the Mountains of Madness campaign converted to Delta Green.
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Aug 4, 2018 03:27
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Yeah, of the two I'd pick up Delta Green first. I find that it's pretty clean and mean compared to base CoC. Most of the rules have been streamlined - little stuff like using matched numbers for criticals instead of dividing for impales makes it just a little faster at the table. Likewise the lethality rules for letting lots of things die at once. The bonds rules are probably the most complex thing they have added, but they provide that great True Detective destruction of your life. And they can be left out if you prefer. I haven't played CoC7 and some of the rules like pushing rolls seem quite fun. But for my money, Delta Green does the purist cosmic horror more quickly and cleanly, while CoC7 is more pulpy out of the book.
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Aug 4, 2018 11:13
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Delta Green picked up six Ennie awards.
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Aug 5, 2018 02:46
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Sionak posted:Yeah, of the two I'd pick up Delta Green first. I find that it's pretty clean and mean compared to base CoC. i haven't played either, just listened to loads of AP. The pushed roll and spending luck points seems to keep call of cthulhu running smoother, but the bonds and sanity system of delta green seem really good. Am I right in thinking both systems start to suck when the Keeper starts calling for die rolls for every simple task? Even the bigger podcasts that run both seem to do this.
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Aug 5, 2018 09:29
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Proud Rat Mom posted:Am I right in thinking both systems start to suck when the Keeper starts calling for die rolls for every simple task? Even the bigger podcasts that run both seem to do this. Yep, which is why like every piece of GM advice tells you not to do this. Some people just get caught up in the moment, I think.
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Aug 5, 2018 16:24
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The thing with the pushed rolls is that it makes the player stop and ask, "can I afford to fail this roll?" and consider where they are in the story and how many resources (points to spend) they have left. This decision can be a lot of fun and I really like it in Eclipse Phase and Red Markets, with their meta-points to flip certain rolls. But considering the costs of failing each roll can definitely take more time. Choosing to push the right rolls can definitely keep the plot moving, though, and I think that's more what you meant. I think saving time and accepting events is why Delta Green has no way to flip or affect die results. What happened, happened. The only exception is using bonds to manage sanity loss, but that also carries risk. You're also right about calling for too many rolls. Almost everyone (myself included) does it sometimes. Both systems work better with fewer, more meaningful skill checks. Dennis Detwiller (one of the DG authors) does it well on his 4 part "And the darkness spoke.." which is on YouTube and linked on the DG site. The short version is that yes, with at least a 40 in a skill and not under pressure, investigators should get some information, with more context the higher the skill is. It's the Gumshoe system idea, but I've found that players love to reach for the dice even when they don't have to. Sionak fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Aug 5, 2018 |
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Aug 5, 2018 16:40
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Proud Rat Mom posted:Am I right in thinking both systems start to suck when the Keeper starts calling for die rolls for every simple task? Even the bigger podcasts that run both seem to do this. Plus if you have to roll for everything, the players notice and respond by putting all their points in a few skills they expect to need. This leads to very min/maxed characters in a system which is supposed to be about real people. And when the players can't pump their chance of success, they default to avoiding anything they aren't experts in. "I ask him who owns the house" "Ok. Roll Persuade" "Nevermind, I leave"
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Aug 6, 2018 07:19
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Perhaps now is the time to bring up Trail of Cthulhu/The Fall of Delta Green? The idea of "The players ALWAYS get the clues needed to advance the central plot, no matter their skills" is pretty good to take into any roleplaying game system
Kavak fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Aug 6, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 07:23
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Y'all seem to be playing a different version of Delta Green than I did, the one I was in for a session was mostly about an inventory list and rolling "Tradecraft" to operate tactically at all times. When did that come out?
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Aug 6, 2018 07:34
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Kavak posted:Perhaps now is the time to bring up Trail of Cthulhu/The Fall of Delta Green? The idea of "The players ALWAYS get the clues needed to advance the central plot, no matter their skills" is pretty good to take into any roleplaying game system As mentioned above, a version of this rule exists in Delta Green. Essentially, so long as you have a relevant skill at like 40%, you get the clue without rolling. I think there's a little more nuance than that, but I can't recall the exact rule. I run all Cthulhu games that way. Success on such rolls just get you additional info.
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Aug 6, 2018 07:45
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thefakenews posted:As mentioned above, a version of this rule exists in Delta Green. Essentially, so long as you have a relevant skill at like 40%, you get the clue without rolling. I thought Sionak meant that Detwiller suggested that in a podcast?
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Aug 6, 2018 07:49
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Kavak posted:I thought Sionak meant that Detwiller suggested that in a podcast? I may have invented it being in to book. But I've not listened to the podcast referred to, so it would be weird if I managed to just make that up.
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Aug 6, 2018 08:13
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thefakenews posted:I may have invented it being in to book. But I've not listened to the podcast referred to, so it would be weird if I managed to just make that up. It's in the book. Page 44 of the Agent's Handbook, "Resolving skills without dice." The podcast has some good examples of it in practice. In general, not getting the clues in an investigation doesn't make for a fun game at all, which is why Robin Laws designed the Gumshoe system that Fall of Delta Green uses. I think there's a temptation to many GMs to make finding the clues difficult (with lots of skill rolls) instead of making interpreting the clues to solve the mystery difficult. The latter is how Gumshoe does it. In terms of finding clues, in Gumshoe if you have the right ability you'll find the clues without a roll at all. Sionak fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Aug 6, 2018 |
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Aug 6, 2018 08:59
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Kavak posted:Perhaps now is the time to bring up Trail of Cthulhu/The Fall of Delta Green? The idea of "The players ALWAYS get the clues needed to advance the central plot, no matter their skills" is pretty good to take into any roleplaying game system GURPS: Mysteries has a pretty extended treatment of exactly this. The author, Lisa J. Steele, suggests a slightly different approach where the players can initially fail to detect or follow up on a clue, but after three tries they'll always get it. The example is searching a murder victim's car: 1) There's petrol receipts in the victim's belongings, 2) A little later, a colleague will mention the car being in the impound lot if the players want to have a look around, 3) If they still haven't searched the car eventually a colleague working the same case will find the clue and tell the players what it is.
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Aug 6, 2018 09:13
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I ran Sandy Peterson's "The Derelict" last night for my IRL crew as a one-shot with the pre-gens. It went really well. Basically got the ending from The Thing, so everything worked as intended. I added a surviving crew-member infested with sciapod eggs for an extra dose of Aliens and body horror. One of my players was playing the former cop/lawyer as Denzel Washington as directed by Antoine Fuqua, and it was fun as hell.
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Aug 6, 2018 16:30
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Got to run Mohole last night from Peterson's Abominations. Ended in a literal nuclear meltdown as the nuclear scientist sacrificed himself to blow the place up. Meanwhile some of the group escaped in life boats, which sounds good because I have no idea how meltdowns work. 
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Aug 6, 2018 19:36
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call for rolls when there is time pressure, use skill %'s when the agents have time.
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Aug 6, 2018 21:37
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Can anyone who has experience running delta green help me? I’m trying to rap my head around plausible starts for scenarios and how a group of agents would fit in. It says a plausible cover operation could be made with a criminology roll, but would that person have to be like a case/operation manager to do so? Also the differences between the program and outlaws. Should it be run that the program gives out the cover op, and the agents be part of a joint task force if they are from separate institutions? and failing that they would provide cover identity if the op needs to remain secret Would the outlaws and their cell like nature leave more of the details to the agents? So the players themselves would either have to pull strings, or failing that take time away from their work, make a false cover investigation and hope their involvement in a situation isn’t looked into too much by local authorities?
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Aug 7, 2018 12:06
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Proud Rat Mom posted:Can anyone who has experience running delta green help me? I’m trying to rap my head around plausible starts for scenarios and how a group of agents would fit in. Most operations usually begin with the handler bringing them in, telling them the situation, and telling them to take care of it with usually little to no help. Usually the case manager/handler will give the team a cover in a program or outlaw operation. Outlaws tend to run things more clandestine and do things more like a TV mystery solving team or character who is doing things without any authority behind them, think Kolchak or Supernatural. You probably want to run things more seriously but the players shouldn't need to do rolls to come up with they're X from agency X, here to investigate recent happening. Backing that up in bad situations is when they roll. I think it's mostly up to the players and their ability to avoid making mistakes and revealing too much. If they're under the cover of federal agents for instance, local law enforcement has no jurisdiction over them so they can just tell the authorities to screw off. They just need to make sure the points of contact the local authorities call are in the conspiracy and/or people running interference for the investigation.
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Aug 7, 2018 14:41
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With the program you can go as hard as you want with covers. You can legitimize their operation with a joint federal task force and give them some power behind their badges. Or, which I prefer, you can tell them the cover ID's on the badges you just gave them won't pass a simple google search so be loving careful out there. Cowboys can be nearly the same thing but are generally more 'out in the cold'. I find the game suffers when you let players lean too much on help from the program though. A Program asset that can call in CORAL NOMAD at a whim isn't that fun to play. If you're running a starter game where players aren't in the program/cowboys yet then it's a little harder, but if the players are already agents then just drop them in media res: "You're led into a bland, windowless TSA conference room at Cityname Airport and introduced to your Case Officer, Agent Smith."
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Aug 8, 2018 00:26
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:That DG Kickstarter started to sell me one hardcover and ended up selling me four, so I guess it was pretty good! Is there really a gods teeth book coming? First I've heard of it, but that would be awesome
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Aug 8, 2018 01:07
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