LatwPIAT posted:

There’s a sidebar that suggests ICE is perfect for player characters because it’s a relatively unknown organization with broad powers of arrest.

Weird how that last thing made the first thing dated super fast, huh?

PurpleXVI posted:

After managing to give all the other agencies the slip and absconding with their newly secured artifacts, the party is arrested by EPA officials because one of them can summon Shantaks, which are considered an invasive species. The agents are forced to sit through 20 hours of courses on why invasive species are a problem for the continental united states and then sentenced to community service.

Turns out the EPA's perfectly well-informed about the mythos but doesn't care unless it affects their particular purview.

Midjack posted:

Skip it if it’s just describing bureaus and agencies. If there are some interesting things like jobs you wouldn’t expect to see in a mythos-busting organization (like Conspiracy X having the Bureau of Prisons as a player host org and making them not totally useless) then maybe a post or two to spotlight those but don’t do a Let’s Read of a fedgov power structure chart.

Elendil004 posted:

Don't skip the Complex. Well, don't skip the Coast Guard section at least

Night10194 posted:

They could also buy the brains! Plenty would sell. Many brains for powerful space lobsters.

Wapole Languray posted:

General Rules: Be good to each other

Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:

Man I know it's not what Delta Green as an agency necessarily "wants" but getting like a whole region's worth of ICE agents eaten in a botched raid on Deep Ones is probably doing more for the world than just cleaning up the Deep Ones in the first place. Or, why not both.

Pussy Cartel posted:

Delta Green: Agent's Handbook

Chapter Seven: Equipment & Vehicles

Delta Green handles gear acquisition by placing everything into expense categories rather than attaching numerical prices. They range from Incidental to Standard, Unusual, Major, and finally Extreme. The book gives a few lists of standard gear that Agents working for certain branches could reasonably be expected to have most of the time while on assignment, and also points out that certain other pieces of gear should be assumed based on the requirements of whatever operation they're on (at least, the official operation they're on.)

Gear acquisition itself is done in one of three ways: official requisition, spending the Agent's own money, or spending illicit cash. Official requisitions entail skill rolls based on the sort of gear being requisitioned and the agency being used, usually Bureaucracy or Military Science. The difficulty of the check in influenced by the expsense category of whatever's being requisitioned, and the time it takes for the requisition to be processed is influenced by both the expense category of the item and also the priority of the operation itself. Of course, there are also risks involved; the Agent could end up triggering an official review, which usually requires another skill roll to get through successfully, with failure meaning not only did the requisition fail, but the Agent also faces consequences that can range from a reprimand, all the way up to firing and prosecution. If one of the Agents involved is in a role that's responsible for supervision or budgets, they might be able to leverage their position for bonuses on these different rolls, and they could also call in favours or try to pull rank in order to classify the requisitions.

Paying for an item with ones own money is usually an option, but it of course hinges on the Agent having the necessary money. For Standard expenses this amounts to an Accounting roll with a bonus if the Agent is in what the Handler considers a wealthy occupation, with failure meaning the Agent still gets the item but at the cost of damaging one of their Bonds. More expensive purchases inflict more Bond damage and less avoidably, with Extreme purchases in particular eroding all of an Agent's Bonds. Of course, none of this happens if the Handler decides a given item or service simply isn't available on the market.

Illicit cash comes into play if an Agent has managed to embezzle funds from their agency, or siphoned off resources from previous operations, or simply managed to squeeze Delta Green itself for deniable cash or credit cards. The Handler decides how many Standard purchases worth of illicit cash the Agent has available, with more expensive items being worth multiple Standard purchases. Naturally, illicit cash can't be used to get access to any sort of official federal resources or services.

But there's always the black market! Criminology or Computer Science rolls can be used to tap into the black market when looking for things that wouldn't otherwise be legally available to private citizens. Fumbling one of these rolls means you get collared by law enforcement in the process. Even if you pass the check, you still have to make a Luck roll to see if the item's available at its usual price; otherwise, its expense category gets bumped up.

As for the items and services listed in this chapter, they cover basically everything, from melee weapons to small arms to heavy artillery and explosives, vehicles, electronics, survival gear, and expenses like plane and bus tickets, hotel rooms, public storage, hackers, and doctors.

Next: Federal Agencies and the Appendices

Ultiville posted:

There are probably significant combinations of US agencies and Mythos-creatures-as-portrayed-by-Lovecraft where you’d be justified in rooting for the Mythos.

LatwPIAT posted:

There’s a sidebar that suggests ICE is perfect for player characters because it’s a relatively unknown organization with broad powers of arrest.

Weird how that last thing made the first thing dated super fast, huh?

Wapole Languray posted:

Nessus posted:

The one with the mi-go: The mi-go are also probably breaking immigration laws and may be engaging in wildcat mining. However, everything they do with regards to the brain-jarring - and you know, did Lovecraft actually originate this whole brain in a jar business? - appears to be entirely consensual and done with the full knowledge of the subject.

Battle Mad Ronin posted:

Re: Quest I'm really enjoying your breakdown of the rules, Wapole. Going through the book from start to finish fits the format because the order in which things are presented feels like something the writers put considerable thought into. It's a great guide for both players and Guide to get into the intended thought proces behind play before the rules are even mentioned.
Which is also why some of the odd presentation choices really stick out to me. The ranges being given as part of character creaation rather than as part of the combat or general rules later felt out of place to me. Perhaps it's intended as a concrete example of an abstract concept concceptualized as part of the game rules?

SkyeAuroline posted:

For all 3 people eagerly awaiting Red Markets writeups: I know I was just on hold for a move, but I'm going to be delayed again. Ongoing RSI has rapidly worsened (probably thanks to the move & having to do a lot of lifting) and I'm having a hard time with extended typing the past couple days. There's one big chunk left before I can do smaller parts for mechanics, but it's going to be bad for my nerves to try and bang out the entire section in one go like I've been doing so far. I'm not abandoning ship and the radio silence is hopefully short term. Thanks for the patience.

Libertad! posted:

To use another RPG's analogy it'd be like a player in a Deadlands game wanting to play a heroic Confederate soldier. The entire organization is so soaking in racist bile that having them as a non-villainous playable option would rub a lot of players the wrong way.

quote:

Race and Gender in the New South

Except for isolated examples such as
the Knights of the Golden Circle, racism
is becoming a thing of the past in
America. In Deadlands, the Confederacy
resembles the United States during
World War II: some progress has been
made towards equality, and more will
come after peace returns and people
resume their normal lives.
Further integration of Confederate
society has yet to become a concern,
but when it does, blacks and whites will
approach it with a greater sense of
community and shared values than in
actual history.

Women have begun breaking out of
the Southern Belle mold. Necessity
made it socially acceptable for
unmarried women to pursue most
vocations, so long as they fulfill their
class’ other expectations. Only women
who openly defy their husbands and
fathers, fail to provide for their children
or otherwise lack virtue are ostracized.
A few women have grown unconcerned
with such stigma in any event.

The bottom line is: if you’re
portraying all (or even most)
Southerners as racist, sexist rednecks, or
as minstrel show cast-offs, you’re
robbing your posse of the enjoyment of
interacting with truly well-rounded
characters. If you save the truly bigoted
characterizations for abominations and
Fearmongers, your posse will derive
more enjoyment from defeating them.

LatwPIAT posted:

The only claim that Akelely was going to submit to brain-jarring consensually comes from what is heavily implied to not be Akeley, but a lifelike animatronic lookalike puppeted by a Mi-Go after they kidnapped Akeley and forced him into a brain jar to cover up their illegal mining.

Mors Rattus posted:

Defending Deadlands by pointing out it’s full of Confederate apologia is not the win you think it is.

quote:

One, two, three rednecks on a ladder
Hangin' up a rebel flag, it don't matter
How many of ya, because we don't love ya
Stick you in the dirt, tombstone above ya
There's juggalos all over the south that don't wave it
Proud of where they're from but that flag, they hate it
Cause they understand it's a symbol of slavery
One flag reps us all, it means bravery

Nessus posted:

I think if you're going to set a campaign in an alternate-universe "Southern United States" nation, you need to remember the words of the American poet laureate:

By popular demand posted:

gently caress it, you want a pro southern values campaign? Go for a massive southern socialist upheaval that abolishes slavery but scares the rich north into an actual war of northern aggression.
Remind everyone that most progressive abolitionists were still very much in favour of exploitative capitalism.

Everyone posted:

Except that in Deadlands racists were also seen as vile assholes on both sides. I remember that when some version of a not-KKK was presented, one of the sidebars clarified that the South of the game at this point was no longer the South of American history. Basically the nature of the war had managed to push both sides in a far more racially progressive direction than in our own time. In short, the not-KKK folks were villains and being a racist bigot would not win you many non-villainous friends in the Confederacy.

From the Classic Deadlands book Back East: The South


While some of that probably doesn't go as far as it should, one thing to bear in mind is that this book was published in 1999.

Mors Rattus posted:

Deadlands is pretty fuckin' bad about Confederate apologia and required a little metaplot event to declare they were finally killing the Confederacy.

Oh, and also the Union equivalent group to the Texas Rangers as a heroic group you can be part of?

Yeah it's the Pinkertons.

Mors Rattus posted:

Yeah it's the Pinkertons.