Yes, I will get around to discussing the second Edge of the Empire game, The Edge of Despayre, but first, I'd like to tell a story about Megan. I never did learn her last name, and frankly, I'm sorry I didn't.
I don't know Megan's exact age, but I figure her to be in her teens. She came with her family for both days of the convention. She played in two of my games. Apparently, her only previous experience with RPGs was playing some iteration of Dungeons and Dragons. She signed up to play both the Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green games.
She came into the Saturday Afternoon game with a very D&D mindset. She's young, and hadn't played anything else. I explained that while there are some surface similarities between D&D and Call of Cthulhu (they both use dice, don't they?), that Call of Cthulhu is a horror game, with an emphasis on investigation, and that the likely endgame of it includes some probability of character madness and/or death.
She struggled for about half the session before she began to see the differences between the two games, and really began to understand the nuances of BRP. Unfortunately, I wound up running her through a Call of Cthulhu game (Danger Roadwork Ahead), which ended in a Total Party Kill.
I thought, great, here I am, undoubtedly the most horrible monster of a GM there's ever been. I'm witnessing this sweet young lady trying to break out of her D&D pupal stage, and I brutally murdered her character in the endgame. Not only will she never play Call of Cthulhu again, but she'll likely give up gaming, and take up knitting as a hobby or something equally dull AND IT WILL BE MY FAULT!
To my surprise, one hour and forty-five minutes later, she was back at the table to play Delta Green. Who would have expected it? By this time, she understood the system, understood the general feel of Call of Cthulhu, and really just turned loose and had fun. Fortunately, her character survived the second scenario, and the group had a good time.
What was genuinely fun was talking to her again on Sunday morning, as I was preparing to run the Better Angels game. She came up to me and said (and I can only paraphrase at this point) that yesterday was the most fun she'd ever had playing RPGs, and that she learned that she really enjoyed games with more of an investigative tone, where you were interviewing NPCs, searching for clues, etc., and wanted to know of some other games like it. I took the time to point out that while many Call of Cthulhu scenarios are like this, that there are other systems that are also built around it. I particularly highlighted the Gumshoe system as another alternative, but expressed that there were others if one took the time to look for it.
I hadn't killed her in her larval stage at other, and I'd converted somebody from d20 to BRP and others. It felt really good to know I'd helped her learn about another game, and that she really enjoyed it. It was the best compliment I've ever received as a GM. It gave me a real sense, however small, of accomplishment.
If I take nothing else away from MaricopaCon, I'll have this moment. Thanks, Megan.
Showing posts with label Call of Cthulhu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Call of Cthulhu. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Tales of MaricopaCon 2013 III: Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green: Lover in the Ice
I have a soft spot for Lover in the Ice. It began as an actual play recording on Role Playing Public Radio years ago, and was one of the first games run by Caleb Stokes. In its original incarnation, it was run as a Delta Green scenario.
Then Caleb did a Kickstarter entitled No Security for a bunch of systemless scenarios, including all of his previous Call of Cthulhu offerings. Lover in the Ice was a stretch goal scenario for backers of the project, which I jumped on. As rewritten for the Kickstarter, since Caleb had no rights to the Delta Green IP, it was rewritten with generic FEMA agents. Since I'm a Delta Green fan, for the purpose of the Con game, I effectively put the Delta Green serial numbers that Caleb had so diligently scrubbed off, back on the game, and ran it as a Delta Green game.
Getting the balance of the scenario right was something I struggled with. In the playtest, one character had access to an assault rifle (an oversight of mine, which was very quickly scrubbed off for purposes of the convention run through), which made the monsters easy marks.
For the convention run, I ran into two issues. First was time. While we got through the playtest in about 4-1/2 hours, for some reason the Convention game run took longer. I had to cut much of the endgame for the sake of time. If I were to run it again, I'd probably eliminate the Green Box generator (which, while fun, isn't really germane to the main plot line).
The other issue was game balance with the big bad of the scenario. While the monster is more than terrifying enough in Danger Roadwork Ahead (and it is the same creature), the facts are that Delta Green investigators are pretty much always better armed, and better prepared for the use of firearms than a generic Call of Cthulhu investigator.
If I were to run this game again, I'd either give the Amantes a few points of armor for damage reduction, or perhaps lower their vulnerability to bullets (I'm more inclined to do the former than the latter).
In the run through at MaricopaCon, all four Delta Green agents survived, while two of them were mad enough to likely be candidates for the trademark Delta Green 9mm retirement plan. Despite my personal beefs with the scenario as I statted it up, the party enjoyed themselves, and reaction was positive.
EDIT: I should say that for those of you who missed out on the Kickstarter, Lover in the Ice is available for $1.99 on RPG Now. Go buy it.
Then Caleb did a Kickstarter entitled No Security for a bunch of systemless scenarios, including all of his previous Call of Cthulhu offerings. Lover in the Ice was a stretch goal scenario for backers of the project, which I jumped on. As rewritten for the Kickstarter, since Caleb had no rights to the Delta Green IP, it was rewritten with generic FEMA agents. Since I'm a Delta Green fan, for the purpose of the Con game, I effectively put the Delta Green serial numbers that Caleb had so diligently scrubbed off, back on the game, and ran it as a Delta Green game.
Getting the balance of the scenario right was something I struggled with. In the playtest, one character had access to an assault rifle (an oversight of mine, which was very quickly scrubbed off for purposes of the convention run through), which made the monsters easy marks.
For the convention run, I ran into two issues. First was time. While we got through the playtest in about 4-1/2 hours, for some reason the Convention game run took longer. I had to cut much of the endgame for the sake of time. If I were to run it again, I'd probably eliminate the Green Box generator (which, while fun, isn't really germane to the main plot line).
The other issue was game balance with the big bad of the scenario. While the monster is more than terrifying enough in Danger Roadwork Ahead (and it is the same creature), the facts are that Delta Green investigators are pretty much always better armed, and better prepared for the use of firearms than a generic Call of Cthulhu investigator.
If I were to run this game again, I'd either give the Amantes a few points of armor for damage reduction, or perhaps lower their vulnerability to bullets (I'm more inclined to do the former than the latter).
In the run through at MaricopaCon, all four Delta Green agents survived, while two of them were mad enough to likely be candidates for the trademark Delta Green 9mm retirement plan. Despite my personal beefs with the scenario as I statted it up, the party enjoyed themselves, and reaction was positive.
EDIT: I should say that for those of you who missed out on the Kickstarter, Lover in the Ice is available for $1.99 on RPG Now. Go buy it.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Tales of MaricopaCon 2013 II: Call of Cthulhu-Danger Roadwork Ahead
I had four players for this one. Effectively drawn from the background material for the evening's game, it was also informed by two different games run by Caleb Stokes on RPPR's Actual Play feed, as well as one recorded for The Drunk and the Ugly. I basically reverse engineered it, and ran it as an afternoon prequel of sorts to the evening scenario for Saturday, Lover in the Ice.
The basic synopsis of the scenario is this: Counterculture author Ryan Whitehead and his college dropout, drug-addled friend (along with a translator/editor, and assorted other camp followers) travel to Brazil to investigate a traveling tent city following in the wake of the construction crew for the Trans-Amazonian Highway, discover a jungle parasite that reproduces in the most horrific way possible (turning their hosts temporarily into hormone-fueled horrors of sex and violence), and investigate what was going on, and then have to escape.
I ran this one as a playtest several weeks ago. In that playthrough, two of the group survived, the others not so much. One of the characters was infected. However, the run through of the game revealed several problems with my scenario as written, and I made significant revisions to the endgame for the con. These problems mostly revolved around a too quick reveal where the group stayed together.
Fortunately, this run of the scenario had none of those problems. The group split up, and the reveal was more or less simultaneous for all involved. One of the four player characters was infected by a seeder almost immediately, then spent the rest of her all too brief life trying desperately to hold herself together. She wound up getting cut down by gunfire from soldiers of the Brazilian Army.
At the end of the scenario, the players are presented with an Alamo style situation. The few surviving, non-infected civilians, the surviving soldiers who now occupy the camp, and the player characters are surrounded by enough of the young adult Amantes (the horror) that they are presented with a stark choice, stand and fight, or run away and try to get to safety. If they choose the latter course, they have several directions they can flee in (though only two hold any real hope of salvation). The three survivors chose to stand and fight.
Unfortunately, the stand and fight option is effectively a stand and fight and die option. In this way, I effectively narrated the ending, a TPK, as the group was simply overwhelmed by the numbers of the Amantes.
We had a couple of seasoned Call of Cthulhu veterans in the game, along with one player whose only previous exposure to RPGs was D&D. I'll talk more about her later. The game went well, and was a huge success.
The game basically concluded about 15 minutes early, so I timed it perfectly.
The basic synopsis of the scenario is this: Counterculture author Ryan Whitehead and his college dropout, drug-addled friend (along with a translator/editor, and assorted other camp followers) travel to Brazil to investigate a traveling tent city following in the wake of the construction crew for the Trans-Amazonian Highway, discover a jungle parasite that reproduces in the most horrific way possible (turning their hosts temporarily into hormone-fueled horrors of sex and violence), and investigate what was going on, and then have to escape.
I ran this one as a playtest several weeks ago. In that playthrough, two of the group survived, the others not so much. One of the characters was infected. However, the run through of the game revealed several problems with my scenario as written, and I made significant revisions to the endgame for the con. These problems mostly revolved around a too quick reveal where the group stayed together.
Fortunately, this run of the scenario had none of those problems. The group split up, and the reveal was more or less simultaneous for all involved. One of the four player characters was infected by a seeder almost immediately, then spent the rest of her all too brief life trying desperately to hold herself together. She wound up getting cut down by gunfire from soldiers of the Brazilian Army.
At the end of the scenario, the players are presented with an Alamo style situation. The few surviving, non-infected civilians, the surviving soldiers who now occupy the camp, and the player characters are surrounded by enough of the young adult Amantes (the horror) that they are presented with a stark choice, stand and fight, or run away and try to get to safety. If they choose the latter course, they have several directions they can flee in (though only two hold any real hope of salvation). The three survivors chose to stand and fight.
Unfortunately, the stand and fight option is effectively a stand and fight and die option. In this way, I effectively narrated the ending, a TPK, as the group was simply overwhelmed by the numbers of the Amantes.
We had a couple of seasoned Call of Cthulhu veterans in the game, along with one player whose only previous exposure to RPGs was D&D. I'll talk more about her later. The game went well, and was a huge success.
The game basically concluded about 15 minutes early, so I timed it perfectly.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Miscellanea
None of these comments really justify a post of their own, but they've been stacking up a bit, so here goes:
- I ran two games at last week's Free RPG Day. Eschewing the convention of actually running one of the scenarios given out, I instead ran two Delta Green Scenarios, the classic scenario Convergence, as well as The Last Equation. Both games went well.
- Work continues apace on The Idiot's Array. It's taking a bit longer than I expected, but I've finally got an outline, so it should speed up. I'll be posting a few builds once I have it written into coherent shape.
- I will finally be giving Danger Roadwork Ahead a playtest tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.
- I will be attending Imperial Outpost's Gamer Garage Sale on Saturday. Hopefully, I can find some goodies there as I did last time.
- Chaosium's Kickstarter for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition is in its final hours. The stretch goals have sweetened the pot considerably for backers, and if you were on the fence before, I recommend a second look.
- Finally, I'll have some spoiler-free information about The Edge of Despayre posted later today. It's based on the starter of a short campaign, that's on hiatus at the moment, I ran on New Year's Eve last year.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
MaricopaCon Game Preparation II: Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green - Lover in the Ice
Preparation for the second convention scenario, Delta Green - Lover in the Ice is complete.
Lover in the Ice, much like Danger Roadwork Ahead, began its life as an RPPR Actual Play. It was created to run originally as a Delta Green game by Caleb Stokes. He then turned around and offered it (with the Delta Green portion scrubbed off, due to licensing issues) systemless as part of the No Security Kickstarter.
In any case, I wouldn't consider running it in anything other than Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green, so I've converted it back to Delta Green. The antagonist is the same as in Danger Roadwork Ahead, so that was already complete. The remaining job is just to stat up the Player Characters, and the few NPCs specific to this scenario. That part is done.
We'll see how it runs in playtest.
Lover in the Ice, much like Danger Roadwork Ahead, began its life as an RPPR Actual Play. It was created to run originally as a Delta Green game by Caleb Stokes. He then turned around and offered it (with the Delta Green portion scrubbed off, due to licensing issues) systemless as part of the No Security Kickstarter.
In any case, I wouldn't consider running it in anything other than Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green, so I've converted it back to Delta Green. The antagonist is the same as in Danger Roadwork Ahead, so that was already complete. The remaining job is just to stat up the Player Characters, and the few NPCs specific to this scenario. That part is done.
We'll see how it runs in playtest.
Monday, June 10, 2013
MaricopaCon Game Preparation I: Danger Roadwork Ahead/Lover in Little Altamira.
Rest assured that this discussion will remain spoiler free for obvious reasons.
A little background is necessary. Danger Roadwork Ahead is not a pre-written scenario. It has however been run into actual play podcasts, however. First, it was a bonus Skype game for Kickstart backers of a certain level Caleb Stokes/Hebanon Games' excellent No Security package of systemless scenarios. It's background can be found in the GM information in Lover in the Ice, originally run by Caleb for RPPR's Actual Play podcast as a Delta Green game, but now written up as systemless. In addition, two recordings of the Actual Play. First, The Drunk and the Ugly recorded their Skype game. Also, RPPR recently released their playtest as an Actual Play.
Effectively, I'm doing a loose interpretation of the game based on the two Actual Plays, and the GM information and Lover in the Ice, which was a bonus scenario from No Security.
Danger Roadwork Ahead, as I will be running it will be run with Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition rules.
My work, while it may seem simple, basically consisted of turning three slightly different narratives into one fairly cohesive structure. Accordingly, I took the time to write up the scenario as though it were meant for publication. While I tend to run games very loosely, with reference to few notes other than a bullet pointed outline and a fistful of NPCs, I find, for con games especially where I'm a little more nervous than usual, that the discipline of actually turning those bullet points into text gives me a comfortable background from which to run a game.
In this case, that file is 22 pages long. Um, yeah. I got carried away. Still, it's 100% ready to go. The game is best described as a survival horror scenario set in 1960's Brazil.
It's based around an actual historical fact, that being the never fully completed Trans-Amazonian Highway project. Effectively, the scenario gives a Call of Cthulhu answer to the question of why was it never finished? The players play a gonzo journalist and his strange retinue, his permanent student friend who knows where all the best drugs can be found, an interpreter, a soldier, a professor, and a representative of the Brazilian foreign office, who is determined to put a shiny happy face on a thuggish military regime.
I will be debuting it this Saturday in a playtest at Free RPG Day at Imperial Outpost games and will be running it again at MaricopaCon.
A little background is necessary. Danger Roadwork Ahead is not a pre-written scenario. It has however been run into actual play podcasts, however. First, it was a bonus Skype game for Kickstart backers of a certain level Caleb Stokes/Hebanon Games' excellent No Security package of systemless scenarios. It's background can be found in the GM information in Lover in the Ice, originally run by Caleb for RPPR's Actual Play podcast as a Delta Green game, but now written up as systemless. In addition, two recordings of the Actual Play. First, The Drunk and the Ugly recorded their Skype game. Also, RPPR recently released their playtest as an Actual Play.
Effectively, I'm doing a loose interpretation of the game based on the two Actual Plays, and the GM information and Lover in the Ice, which was a bonus scenario from No Security.
Danger Roadwork Ahead, as I will be running it will be run with Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition rules.
My work, while it may seem simple, basically consisted of turning three slightly different narratives into one fairly cohesive structure. Accordingly, I took the time to write up the scenario as though it were meant for publication. While I tend to run games very loosely, with reference to few notes other than a bullet pointed outline and a fistful of NPCs, I find, for con games especially where I'm a little more nervous than usual, that the discipline of actually turning those bullet points into text gives me a comfortable background from which to run a game.
In this case, that file is 22 pages long. Um, yeah. I got carried away. Still, it's 100% ready to go. The game is best described as a survival horror scenario set in 1960's Brazil.
It's based around an actual historical fact, that being the never fully completed Trans-Amazonian Highway project. Effectively, the scenario gives a Call of Cthulhu answer to the question of why was it never finished? The players play a gonzo journalist and his strange retinue, his permanent student friend who knows where all the best drugs can be found, an interpreter, a soldier, a professor, and a representative of the Brazilian foreign office, who is determined to put a shiny happy face on a thuggish military regime.
I will be debuting it this Saturday in a playtest at Free RPG Day at Imperial Outpost games and will be running it again at MaricopaCon.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Call of Cthulhu 7
The Kickstarter launched today. I'm in for the two books in hardcover.
Looks like it will reach it's funding goal no later than tomorrow at the pace its setting.
FWIW, if the changes I'm hearing about are true, this will represent the first serious revision of the rules since Fifth Edition, almost 20 years ago So far as I can tell, 6th Edition just took 5.6 and put it in a more indecipherable typeface.
Looks like it will reach it's funding goal no later than tomorrow at the pace its setting.
FWIW, if the changes I'm hearing about are true, this will represent the first serious revision of the rules since Fifth Edition, almost 20 years ago So far as I can tell, 6th Edition just took 5.6 and put it in a more indecipherable typeface.
Atomic Age Cthulhu: A Review
This takes me to the Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game (hereafter titled as Call of Cthulhu). Unfortunately, Call of Cthulhu is, by and large, stuck in the 1920's. This is, in my opinion, an unfortunate decision.
Yes, H P Lovecraft wrote the bulk of the novellas and short stories that would inspire the game in the 1920's and 1930's. But at the time Lovecraft wrote his stories, he was not writing historical fiction. Lovecraft's stories included the latest technologies available or conceived of at the time, such as submarines, airships, airplanes, automobiles, trains, etc. I think, if H P Lovecraft had lived long enough to see Call of Cthulhu come to fruition, he'd have been genuinely puzzled by Chaosium's being stuck in the 1920's.
I say this, because judging by the Kickstarter, Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition seems to be determined to be stuck in a historical timewarp that none of its players have ever lived in. Frankly, my players can't relate to it for the most part, which has led to their enjoyment of Delta Green and modern scenarios far more than the 1920s.
So when I heard that Chaosium was publishing support for the Cold War Era of the 1950's with Atomic Age Cthulhu, I was rather intrigued. Would it be a great book full of adventure hooks, source material, and maybe an adventure or two to give the keeper's some ideas of how this stuff might be worked into the game or was it going to be adventure heavy? Let's take a look and find out.
Atomic-Age Cthulhu: Mythos Horror in the 1950's.
Authors: Too many to list
Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
224 Pages, Perfectbound paperback
Retail: $31.95
General Layout and Design
The cover art is excellent, very evocative. It sold me on the book pretty quickly.
The interior layout for the book, is, how do I say it, primitive. It reminds me of RPG supplements done in the early 1980's (and not from the companies/games that survived into the 21st Century either). Very art light, and were those actually Dot-Matrix Printer Jaggies on some of the larger font sizes? Frankly, Chaosium should be a bit embarrassed at how far back they set the art of graphic design with this one.
Enough on the sizzle, let's look at the steak. After a short introduction, the book is straight on to the first adventure, which to me is another questionable decision, but the reason why will become obvious in a few moments.
This Village Was Made for Us
I'll try to keep these scenario chapters as spoiler-free as possible, and merely describe the setup where possible.
This Village Was Made For Us is a scenario that could be very easily converted to a Delta Green Cowboy Years game. Set in one of the small towns (Hanford, Washington) built up around a nuclear facility that grew out of the original Manhattan Project, it captures the feel of such a town excellently (I've spent some time in Los Alamos, New Mexico, another town that grew out of the Manhattan Project). A nuclear scientist commits suicide, and its up to the investigators to find out why. The group melds crazy cultists, the nuclear facility (still going strong at the time of the scenario), and the Mythos into a wonderful casserole of crazy. Of the scenarios as written, this to me is the most intriguing of the bunch, and that's high praise.
TV Casualties
Having hooked into one of the 1950's nightmare scenarios (Great Old Ones and Nuclear Weapons Facilities) with the last scenario, TV Casualties picks up on one of the very real nightmares that parents, teachers, educators (not to mention movie theater owners, and sporting event ticket sellers), etc. thought was a nightmare from the 1950's. This, of course, was television.
It's very easy, in this cynical, jaded, postmodern world to realize that there were actual living, breathing people who were convinced that television would be the downfall of humanity and America in particular. This scenario, of course, takes those worst fears, adds a dose of the Mythos, and says, relax, everything you feared about television, well, it's all true. The setup in this one is a small town that is seeing a sudden rash of violence. A decently written scenario, the biggest thing will be convincing investigators it's not the joke we in the 21st Century now know the evils of television to be.
The Return of Old Reliable
The 1950's saw the dawn of the Space Race. Missions to launch satellites (starting with Sputnik in 1957) and even animals into space happened with both the US and USSR, though sadly, the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, didn't take place until 1961.
Still, the space program as it existed in the 1950's is the subject of this scenario. The scenario mixes a test animal launched into outer space, and creatures from beyond time and space together and launch a plot that could easily destroy the world. Much like This Village Was Made For Us, this one could be easily converted to a Delta Green cowboy years game, or run as a straight up FBI investigation.
Forgotten Wars
The Korean War gets short-shrift in a lot of ways. So far as I know, this book may be the first published scenario I've ever seen for an RPG set in that conflict, and it's a gem. Forgotten Wars sets the players as the crew of an M4 Sherman Tank. Light on investigation, and heavy on combat and survival horror, it involves crazy cultists, a powerful Korean sorcerer using the Korean Conflict as an excuse for his plot to bring about the end of the world, and oh, yeah, there's a war going on that the crew is in the middle of. If you've ever wanted to see how a Sherman Tank would do up against a Great Old One, here's your chance.
High Octane
In the 1950's, two new social phenomena appeared. The rise of mass car culture, and similarly, the rise of the first motorcycle gangs. Oh yeah, and more than half of America thought Joseph Stalin or Nikita Khruschev was going to jump out of the broom closet and go Boo! Mix all of these elements together, add somebody getting a hold of the wrong sort of books, and you've got High Octane.
L A Diabolical
If The Call of Cthulhu (the story) and L A Confidential (the film) had kids, they would look a lot like L A Diabolical. The only question left is why did it take Chaosium 32 two years to do the chocolate in my peanut butter thing with film noir and Lovecraft. Oh well, at least we've finally got it.
Destroying Paradise, Hawai'ian Style
If L A Diabolical is a crazy mix of film noir and the Mythos, this one takes another 1950's staple, the teen-oriented surfing movie (in this case, a surfing movie being produced in pre-statehood Hawaii) puts it into the blender with the Mythos, and hits frappe. The results are about what you would expect.
1950's Sinister Seeds
A short 5 pages, this provides some adventure hooks for the time period. They're OK, not great, but OK.
1950's Sourcebook
And this is where the wheels come off the horsecart. First, when buying a book about Mythos Horror in the 1950's (it's in the title, Chaosium), it seems to me this chapter should be fairly meaty and deep. After all, the 1950's were 60 years ago at this point. A teenager growing up in the 1950's would be pushing 80, or over 80 by now. Instead, we get 25 pages, near the end of the book. The handout pages from the various scenarios at the back of book get almost as much space.
Now don't get me wrong, what's here is solid. The bulk of that 25 pages is writeups of various topics of interest during the period, the same sort of general cultural stuff one finds in the 1920's Investigator's Companion, or Cthulhu By Gaslight. Finally, the section ends with some new professions tailored more toward the era. What's disappointing is that this chapter could be so much more.
Missing (and seemingly strangely), first and foremost, are a firearms and equipment section. If I'm thinking of running a game in the 1950's, it might be nice to have a list of generally available firearms during the period. While there are some mixed in the scenarios, they are not exhaustive lists, and even for weapons that might carry over from the 1920's, prices would be nice. And a list of generally available equipment (with prices) would also seem like a necessity.
Finally, I'd have liked to have seen a few of the more iconic movie monsters get a treatment anywhere in this book. The 1950's were pretty much a Golden Age for B Grade Sci-Fi and Horror Films. Giant, irradiated ants, cockroaches, rats, and even terrible lizards off the coast of Japan would seem to be a must for the era.
Honestly, I'd have been happier seeing the size of the Sourcebook section doubled, even at the expense of cutting one or two of the scenarios.
So what's the bottom line? Here goes.
Pros:
Several of the scenarios appear to be first-rate, and they do cover a broad brush of Americana circa the mid-1950's. Though I haven't run any of them, there's a few I look forward to running when I get the opportunity.
Cons:
The Sourcebook section needs more meat. I can write scenarios. What I really need is the setting material to properly run games in the era. Sadly some of this was lacking in Atomic Age Cthulhu.
Finally, the ratings:
Style: 2 of 5
The 1980's called and said they want their dot-matrix printer desktop publishing tools back. Seriously, Chaosium ought to be embarrassed at the layout of this one. I expect this sort of stuff in a monograph. Not so much in an actual Chaosium imprint.
Substance: 3 of 5
Really, the scenarios here aren't the problem. They're easily a 4 out of 5, maybe even 5 out of 5. However the thin page count of the setting material, and all the things that could have been part of it but weren't are where the problem lies and its tough to overlook.
The Bottom Line:
If you like the 1950s, and are looking for some Call of Cthulhu scenarios set in the era (and don't mind lazy layout) this is the book for you.
If you are looking for games and information on how to create 1950's Call of Cthulhu scenarios (and frankly have no idea about the time period), this book alone isn't going to do it for you.
After the brilliant successes that were Cthulhu Invictus and the new Cthulhu By Gaslight, this book is a letdown. I know the bulk of their resources are devoted to Horror on the Orient Express and 7th Edition, but Chaosium really should have taken a closer look at this one before shoving it out the door. With a little more care, this could have been so much better.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
For Your Reading and Entertainment Pleasure.
Arc Dream Publishing has an excellent article on creating adventures for Better Angels. It seems to draw heavily on the same sort of ideas that I discovered running my first session of the game last Friday. It's well worth the read.
Coming this weekend:
An article on the preparation for the first game that is con-ready, Lover in Little Altamira, a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in 1960's Brazil.
A review of Atomic Age Cthulhu, Chaosium's 1950's Era Scenario Collection and sourcebook.
Coming this weekend:
An article on the preparation for the first game that is con-ready, Lover in Little Altamira, a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in 1960's Brazil.
A review of Atomic Age Cthulhu, Chaosium's 1950's Era Scenario Collection and sourcebook.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Delta Green: Countdown Review
In honor of Pagan Publishing & Arc Dream Publishing's decision to start making Pagan's wonderful back catalog available on PDF via RPG Now, starting with the releases of Delta Green and Delta Green: Countdown, I thought it was high time I give a review of Delta Green: Countdown.
For those of you looking for a review of Delta Green's main sourcebook, here's a link to my review.
Delta Green's first edition was released in 1996. A subsequent revision, that mainly added support for d20 Call of Cthulhu was released in 2006, and can still be found.
Delta Green: Countdown has something of a star-crossed history. While the Delta Green sourcebook was clearly mining from the same UFO conspiracy/paranoid about secret government conspiracy 1990's aesthetic as the TV series X-Files, and RPG settings like Conspiracy X, and TSR/WotC's Dark Matter setting (first released for Alternity, then revised for d20 Modern), Delta Green: Countdown (to be henceforward abbreviated only as Countdown in the review) was released in 1999, and was seeking to address two main issues: updating the setting for the turn of the millenium; and addressing the parochial nature of Delta Green by providing information about other national government efforts to fight the losing battle against the Great Old Ones.
By and large, it did a decent job of addressing the latter concern, and might have done well at addressing the former if it wasn't for a tiny, forgettable event that took place on September 11, 2001. Unlike what cynical politicians were spouting to get reelected in the early part of the last decade, for Delta Green, it's pretty certain that September 11 would have changed everything. And so, Pagan Publishing was faced with a book for the new millenium that didn't even really mirror the new millenium for more than about the first 9 months. Oops.
Still, Delta Green: Countdown did some good things, and frankly, though still rooted in the 1990's, has enough going for it to be worth picking up. Like the original Delta Green book, it was originally released in hardcover, with a subsequent rerelease in softcover. Unlike Delta Green, Countdown hasn't been updated much since 1999, and until earlier this week, was by far the hardest (and most expensive) Delta Green sourcebook to track down.
Nothing illustrates this point better than my own laying down $105 to pick up a copy of Countdown about 18 months ago off of Ebay, and feeling fortunate in doing so (I'd lost in bidding on an earlier copy that ran up to almost $150 about a month earlier.
Delta Green: Countdown
Copyright: 1999 Pagan Publishing
Page Count 426 (about 90 more pages than Delta Green)
Authors: Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, and John Tynes
This book is a monster. Even the paperback, in terms of sheer size, exceeds every other RPG in page count in my collection, with the exception of Pathfinder's core book. But what's inside? Why should I part with $40 or $50 to order a Print On Demand copy (or $20 for a PDF) from RPGNow?
Prologue (Of Sorts?)
Just as the main Delta Green book starts off with the last email transmission of Reginald Fairfield, head of Delta Green both in its last days as a legitimate government agency, and after as an illegal conspiracy, just moments before his heroic death at the hands of a Majestic 12 death squad, Countdown starts off with a small article in the form of something that might be printed in a London tabloid, before continuing with copies of pages of report of a joint operation between Delta Green and PISCES (Britain's legitimate equivalent to the still illegal Delta Green) that goes horribly wrong, ending in the killing of several FBI agents in front of the US Embassy in London by PISCES. It sets the grim tone for what is to follow appropriately, and is a brilliant lead in (after a brief introduction) to the first chapter, about PISCES.
Chapter I: PISCES
PISCES is a very different agency than Delta Green. Like Delta Green, PISCES got its start in the post-World War I expansion of UK intelligence services. While Delta Green origins were rooted in the 1928 raid on Innsmouth, PISCES grew out of its own encounters with Mythos entities around the same time. Unlike Delta Green, PISCES has not been disbanded, or forced to go underground. It is still a legitimate (albeit not well known) arm of the British intelligence apparatus.
But PISCES has problems of its own. It got a little too close to the creatures it was studying, particularly a new beast called the Shan, and ultimately, has been infiltrated, a fact that the broader British government is not aware of. The chapter describes the history of PISCES from its early successes to its present role as a Trojan Horse within the British government for certain Mythos entities that have literally taken control, in the fashion of parasites, to its all still too human appearing agents.
It's chilling, it feels real, like everything else about Delta Green there's enough detail and adventure hooks to run a lifetime of campaigns out of, and it would feel like a very different game than being agents of Delta Green.
It also would provide an excellent opportunity for a group of FBI agents liaising with the British government, and not knowing who they can trust.
Chapter II: GRU-SV8
It should come as no surprise that the second European nation to get the Delta Green treatment in Countdown is that of Russia. GRU-SV8, an arm of the GRU (the Red Army's intelligence organization) is that agency. It arose out of the Russian Civil War, grew during the Soviet Union, and like so many of the Russian government's organizations has declined since the USSR dissolved.
GRU-SV8, like PISCES is still a legitimate organization of the Russian government, but unlike PISCES, suffers from budget and manpower shortfalls.
It's a shorter chapter, but still does a good job of detailing the history of the organization, its current struggles, and ways it might be used in a Delta Green game, primarily as a possible ally to Delta Green.
Chapter III: The Skoptsi
Just as Delta Green gave the GM new organizations to menace Delta Green with (Majestic 12, The Karotechia, and FATE), the same goes for Countdown. The first of these, the Skoptsi, which originated as a cult of Shub Niggurath in the Caucasus Mountains (making that joint Delta Green & GRU-SVG mission) more plausible, they have since gone global, arriving in the US in the early 1920's, where the cult has infiltrated the US government, including most notably, the CIA.
While still rooted within the borders of the old Russian Empire, posing a foil to GRU-SV8 in particular. As usual, the chapter is well detailed, with plenty of hooks, and would be an interesting foil for Delta Green.
Chapter IV: The OUTLOOK Group
So what happens when a world leading biotech firm becomes a major supplier to Majestic 12 (and all the evil that entails?) and by extension its sponsors, the Mi-Go (in the guise of the Grays?). You get the OUTLOOK Group. The OUTLOOK Group becomes the Majestic 12 way to "better living through chemistry" creating new poisons, toxins, and other biological and chemical weapons. The organization tests its weapons on live human subjects, altering and ultimately killing them in horrific ways, all in providing Majestic 12's "wet works" squads with more effective, less detectable ways to kill.
It's a chilling organization that really feeds into the government paranoia angle of Delta Green as a setting, and provides the players with just one more reason to hate Majestic 12.
Chapter V: Phenomen-X
Take a little bit of E!, Inside Edition, the Weekly World News, Ghost Hunters, and of course, a liberal helping of Lovecraft, throw them in the blender, and what do you get? Phenomen-X.
Phenomen-X is a syndicated, weekly television show, that pursues all sorts of matters, including much of the same territory covered by Ghost Hunters (and with equal authenticity), but also covers government conspiracies, including problems that would normally attract Delta Green's intention. Their main role in such operations would be to get in the way of a Delta Green invetigation, and their main threat would be to expose the Delta Green conspiracy.
Ironically, Majestic 12 and Delta Green have a history of manipulating Phenomen-X, albeit with very different end goals in mind. For Majestic 12, they represent a way to hinder and possibly expose Delta Green operations. For Delta Green, stretched tight on resources, they often give Phenomen-X anonymous tips to check out an area Delta Green is considering investigating to see if it is indeed worthy of Delta Green's attention.
Chapter VI: Tiger Transit
So what happens when you take a Vietnam-era, covertly CIA-operated airline (like its real-life counterpart, Air America), replace the garden variety drug smuggler operators with cults based on the Great Old Ones, and make it fully owned and operated by the Tcho-Tcho? You get Tiger Transit, the official civilian airlines of horrors beyond time and space.
Very much the fodder of 1980's & 90's American films (and numerous conspiracy theories about the CIA), Tiger Transit has its fingers in organized crime, and everything else in the Mythos. One can imagine a million uses for Tiger Transit in a game, ranging as a red herring, or the vital cog in a worldwide conspiracy.
Chapter VII: The D Stacks
Buried deep in the stacks of the American Museum of Natural History, besides the plot of a couple of Ben Stiller movies, lies one of the largest collections of Mythos knowledge and artifacts outside of Miskatonic University (and probably more, since Miskatonic has been raided of many of its best treasures). This museum within a museum is operated by Dr. Jensen Wu, and is covertly known, by the few that know it exists at all, as the D Stacks. This chapter details the artifacts and knowledge within the D Stacks, and how it could be useful in a Delta Green game.
Chapter VIII: The Keepers of the Faith
From the 17th Century, when New York City was a simple Dutch trading post called New Amsterdam, to the present day, a cult of ghouls has existed in warrens deep beneath the streets of America's largest city, founded by a heretical religious order. Eschewing visibility in the name of safety, they occasionally surface to kill as well as rob graves. If you ever wanted a different take on ghouls in Call of Cthulhu, this is the chapter for you.
Chapter IX: The Hastur Mythos
If there's any single chapter that should convince you to buy a sourcebook, this chapter should convince you to buy Delta Green: Countdown. The King in Yellow, Carcosa, and Hastur all predate Lovecraft, but he liked them so much he incorporated into some of his stories. And then August Derlath, a contemporary of Lovecraft, took Lovecraft's (and Robert Chambers's) toys out to play with and broke some of them in his own stories.
In The Hastur Mythos, Dennis Detwiller does a superb job of turning the various stories of the Hastur Mythos, turns them into a more coherent whole (mostly by leaving some of the Derlath stuff in the historical dustbin), and makes it an ideal playground for both Delta Green, and I might add, regular Call of Cthulhu gaming. It's that good.
Appendices:
As with Delta Green, nearly half of Countdown is actually contained in Appendices. Therefore, it seems only reasonable to detail them.
Appendix A: Psychic Powers.
Yeah, Countdown goes there. Psionics, wrecker of many a D&D campaign dating back to when Forgotten Realms was a place where Ed Greenwood ran his own home game, finally enter Call of Cthulhu, sort of.
The author, John Crowe III, takes pains to point out that they fit most closely with the PISCES chapter earlier in the book, and should, for game balance reasons, be the province of NPCs. Still, there here, if you want them. And in my games, that's right where they'll stay. Psionics (psychic powers in Delta Green) seem incredibly out of place in a Call of Cthulhu game, and the thought of putting them in the hands of PCs seems a tad self-defeating. Still, as I said, there here if you want them, so enjoy watching the players turn your two session investigation game into a ten seconds worth of Precognition as you collapse in a quivering mass.
Appendix B: From the Files of Professor Emerson
A series of research reports written by a Professor Grant Emerson, these are intended to read like the end lab reports from a number of locations. Avoid reading these if you're a player, as they will wreck the secrets behind not only scenarios in Delta Green, but also Countdown. Still, they're well written, and could find their way into players hands in a long campaign, preferably only after the players have finished the appropriate scenario.
Appendix C: New Skills:
This brief chapter (one page) introduces three new skills to Call of Cthulhu, Signals, Survival, and Tradecraft.
Appendix D: Adventures
Here's the heart of the thing. Delta Green is first and foremost a setting for adventures (in fact, the first time the words Delta Green were used in print was in the form of the classic scenario Convergence). I'll attempt to keep these descriptions spoiler-free, but if you expect to play in any of these, may I suggest skipping down to Appendix E below. Countdown follows the Delta Green model of two adventures and a short campaign.
I. A Victim of the Art
The first adventure, I've not had a chance to run this, but it looks as good as anything that made its way into Delta Green. Delta Green is called into investigate a series of bizarre murders on Long Island. As the scenario describes it, the killer isn't human, but the perpetrator is.
II. Night Floors
Again set in New York, this scenario takes place in the floors of a high-rise apartment in Manhattan. This time, the scenario is tied around what appears to be a missing persons case with possible occult connections. Needless to say, Delta Green gets the call.
III. Dead Letter
This one looks like a pulpy one (though it can be just as dangerous as any Call of Cthulhu scenario). Start with aging Nazi Sorcerors in South America, mix in a lot of other bizarre players (including a radical environmentalist, and you have the makings of a great campaign.
Appendix E: International Federal Agencies
Effectively, this does for countries across the globe what Delta Green did for Federal Agencies in the United States. Need to pull an SAS commando into an investigation of Byakhee activity on the Isle of Man? Appendix E will let you do that. This makes for a terrific resource for both Delta Green, and indeed Modern Call of Cthulhu games outside of Delta Green.
Summary and Rating:
While some of the information is dated, the heart of this book is still a winner. Making the needed changes to update it to 2012 is not difficult, and some of the stuff here, like the Hastur Mythos chapter, is essentially timeless.
I can't recommend this one more strongly.
4.5 out of 5 stars, marked down only for it still being rooted in a pre-9/11 world.
For those of you looking for a review of Delta Green's main sourcebook, here's a link to my review.
Delta Green's first edition was released in 1996. A subsequent revision, that mainly added support for d20 Call of Cthulhu was released in 2006, and can still be found.
Delta Green: Countdown has something of a star-crossed history. While the Delta Green sourcebook was clearly mining from the same UFO conspiracy/paranoid about secret government conspiracy 1990's aesthetic as the TV series X-Files, and RPG settings like Conspiracy X, and TSR/WotC's Dark Matter setting (first released for Alternity, then revised for d20 Modern), Delta Green: Countdown (to be henceforward abbreviated only as Countdown in the review) was released in 1999, and was seeking to address two main issues: updating the setting for the turn of the millenium; and addressing the parochial nature of Delta Green by providing information about other national government efforts to fight the losing battle against the Great Old Ones.
By and large, it did a decent job of addressing the latter concern, and might have done well at addressing the former if it wasn't for a tiny, forgettable event that took place on September 11, 2001. Unlike what cynical politicians were spouting to get reelected in the early part of the last decade, for Delta Green, it's pretty certain that September 11 would have changed everything. And so, Pagan Publishing was faced with a book for the new millenium that didn't even really mirror the new millenium for more than about the first 9 months. Oops.
Still, Delta Green: Countdown did some good things, and frankly, though still rooted in the 1990's, has enough going for it to be worth picking up. Like the original Delta Green book, it was originally released in hardcover, with a subsequent rerelease in softcover. Unlike Delta Green, Countdown hasn't been updated much since 1999, and until earlier this week, was by far the hardest (and most expensive) Delta Green sourcebook to track down.
Nothing illustrates this point better than my own laying down $105 to pick up a copy of Countdown about 18 months ago off of Ebay, and feeling fortunate in doing so (I'd lost in bidding on an earlier copy that ran up to almost $150 about a month earlier.
Delta Green: Countdown
Copyright: 1999 Pagan Publishing
Page Count 426 (about 90 more pages than Delta Green)
Authors: Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, and John Tynes
This book is a monster. Even the paperback, in terms of sheer size, exceeds every other RPG in page count in my collection, with the exception of Pathfinder's core book. But what's inside? Why should I part with $40 or $50 to order a Print On Demand copy (or $20 for a PDF) from RPGNow?
Prologue (Of Sorts?)
Just as the main Delta Green book starts off with the last email transmission of Reginald Fairfield, head of Delta Green both in its last days as a legitimate government agency, and after as an illegal conspiracy, just moments before his heroic death at the hands of a Majestic 12 death squad, Countdown starts off with a small article in the form of something that might be printed in a London tabloid, before continuing with copies of pages of report of a joint operation between Delta Green and PISCES (Britain's legitimate equivalent to the still illegal Delta Green) that goes horribly wrong, ending in the killing of several FBI agents in front of the US Embassy in London by PISCES. It sets the grim tone for what is to follow appropriately, and is a brilliant lead in (after a brief introduction) to the first chapter, about PISCES.
Chapter I: PISCES
PISCES is a very different agency than Delta Green. Like Delta Green, PISCES got its start in the post-World War I expansion of UK intelligence services. While Delta Green origins were rooted in the 1928 raid on Innsmouth, PISCES grew out of its own encounters with Mythos entities around the same time. Unlike Delta Green, PISCES has not been disbanded, or forced to go underground. It is still a legitimate (albeit not well known) arm of the British intelligence apparatus.
But PISCES has problems of its own. It got a little too close to the creatures it was studying, particularly a new beast called the Shan, and ultimately, has been infiltrated, a fact that the broader British government is not aware of. The chapter describes the history of PISCES from its early successes to its present role as a Trojan Horse within the British government for certain Mythos entities that have literally taken control, in the fashion of parasites, to its all still too human appearing agents.
It's chilling, it feels real, like everything else about Delta Green there's enough detail and adventure hooks to run a lifetime of campaigns out of, and it would feel like a very different game than being agents of Delta Green.
It also would provide an excellent opportunity for a group of FBI agents liaising with the British government, and not knowing who they can trust.
Chapter II: GRU-SV8
It should come as no surprise that the second European nation to get the Delta Green treatment in Countdown is that of Russia. GRU-SV8, an arm of the GRU (the Red Army's intelligence organization) is that agency. It arose out of the Russian Civil War, grew during the Soviet Union, and like so many of the Russian government's organizations has declined since the USSR dissolved.
GRU-SV8, like PISCES is still a legitimate organization of the Russian government, but unlike PISCES, suffers from budget and manpower shortfalls.
It's a shorter chapter, but still does a good job of detailing the history of the organization, its current struggles, and ways it might be used in a Delta Green game, primarily as a possible ally to Delta Green.
Chapter III: The Skoptsi
Just as Delta Green gave the GM new organizations to menace Delta Green with (Majestic 12, The Karotechia, and FATE), the same goes for Countdown. The first of these, the Skoptsi, which originated as a cult of Shub Niggurath in the Caucasus Mountains (making that joint Delta Green & GRU-SVG mission) more plausible, they have since gone global, arriving in the US in the early 1920's, where the cult has infiltrated the US government, including most notably, the CIA.
While still rooted within the borders of the old Russian Empire, posing a foil to GRU-SV8 in particular. As usual, the chapter is well detailed, with plenty of hooks, and would be an interesting foil for Delta Green.
Chapter IV: The OUTLOOK Group
So what happens when a world leading biotech firm becomes a major supplier to Majestic 12 (and all the evil that entails?) and by extension its sponsors, the Mi-Go (in the guise of the Grays?). You get the OUTLOOK Group. The OUTLOOK Group becomes the Majestic 12 way to "better living through chemistry" creating new poisons, toxins, and other biological and chemical weapons. The organization tests its weapons on live human subjects, altering and ultimately killing them in horrific ways, all in providing Majestic 12's "wet works" squads with more effective, less detectable ways to kill.
It's a chilling organization that really feeds into the government paranoia angle of Delta Green as a setting, and provides the players with just one more reason to hate Majestic 12.
Chapter V: Phenomen-X
Take a little bit of E!, Inside Edition, the Weekly World News, Ghost Hunters, and of course, a liberal helping of Lovecraft, throw them in the blender, and what do you get? Phenomen-X.
Phenomen-X is a syndicated, weekly television show, that pursues all sorts of matters, including much of the same territory covered by Ghost Hunters (and with equal authenticity), but also covers government conspiracies, including problems that would normally attract Delta Green's intention. Their main role in such operations would be to get in the way of a Delta Green invetigation, and their main threat would be to expose the Delta Green conspiracy.
Ironically, Majestic 12 and Delta Green have a history of manipulating Phenomen-X, albeit with very different end goals in mind. For Majestic 12, they represent a way to hinder and possibly expose Delta Green operations. For Delta Green, stretched tight on resources, they often give Phenomen-X anonymous tips to check out an area Delta Green is considering investigating to see if it is indeed worthy of Delta Green's attention.
Chapter VI: Tiger Transit
So what happens when you take a Vietnam-era, covertly CIA-operated airline (like its real-life counterpart, Air America), replace the garden variety drug smuggler operators with cults based on the Great Old Ones, and make it fully owned and operated by the Tcho-Tcho? You get Tiger Transit, the official civilian airlines of horrors beyond time and space.
Very much the fodder of 1980's & 90's American films (and numerous conspiracy theories about the CIA), Tiger Transit has its fingers in organized crime, and everything else in the Mythos. One can imagine a million uses for Tiger Transit in a game, ranging as a red herring, or the vital cog in a worldwide conspiracy.
Chapter VII: The D Stacks
Buried deep in the stacks of the American Museum of Natural History, besides the plot of a couple of Ben Stiller movies, lies one of the largest collections of Mythos knowledge and artifacts outside of Miskatonic University (and probably more, since Miskatonic has been raided of many of its best treasures). This museum within a museum is operated by Dr. Jensen Wu, and is covertly known, by the few that know it exists at all, as the D Stacks. This chapter details the artifacts and knowledge within the D Stacks, and how it could be useful in a Delta Green game.
Chapter VIII: The Keepers of the Faith
From the 17th Century, when New York City was a simple Dutch trading post called New Amsterdam, to the present day, a cult of ghouls has existed in warrens deep beneath the streets of America's largest city, founded by a heretical religious order. Eschewing visibility in the name of safety, they occasionally surface to kill as well as rob graves. If you ever wanted a different take on ghouls in Call of Cthulhu, this is the chapter for you.
Chapter IX: The Hastur Mythos
If there's any single chapter that should convince you to buy a sourcebook, this chapter should convince you to buy Delta Green: Countdown. The King in Yellow, Carcosa, and Hastur all predate Lovecraft, but he liked them so much he incorporated into some of his stories. And then August Derlath, a contemporary of Lovecraft, took Lovecraft's (and Robert Chambers's) toys out to play with and broke some of them in his own stories.
In The Hastur Mythos, Dennis Detwiller does a superb job of turning the various stories of the Hastur Mythos, turns them into a more coherent whole (mostly by leaving some of the Derlath stuff in the historical dustbin), and makes it an ideal playground for both Delta Green, and I might add, regular Call of Cthulhu gaming. It's that good.
Appendices:
As with Delta Green, nearly half of Countdown is actually contained in Appendices. Therefore, it seems only reasonable to detail them.
Appendix A: Psychic Powers.
Yeah, Countdown goes there. Psionics, wrecker of many a D&D campaign dating back to when Forgotten Realms was a place where Ed Greenwood ran his own home game, finally enter Call of Cthulhu, sort of.
The author, John Crowe III, takes pains to point out that they fit most closely with the PISCES chapter earlier in the book, and should, for game balance reasons, be the province of NPCs. Still, there here, if you want them. And in my games, that's right where they'll stay. Psionics (psychic powers in Delta Green) seem incredibly out of place in a Call of Cthulhu game, and the thought of putting them in the hands of PCs seems a tad self-defeating. Still, as I said, there here if you want them, so enjoy watching the players turn your two session investigation game into a ten seconds worth of Precognition as you collapse in a quivering mass.
Appendix B: From the Files of Professor Emerson
A series of research reports written by a Professor Grant Emerson, these are intended to read like the end lab reports from a number of locations. Avoid reading these if you're a player, as they will wreck the secrets behind not only scenarios in Delta Green, but also Countdown. Still, they're well written, and could find their way into players hands in a long campaign, preferably only after the players have finished the appropriate scenario.
Appendix C: New Skills:
This brief chapter (one page) introduces three new skills to Call of Cthulhu, Signals, Survival, and Tradecraft.
Appendix D: Adventures
Here's the heart of the thing. Delta Green is first and foremost a setting for adventures (in fact, the first time the words Delta Green were used in print was in the form of the classic scenario Convergence). I'll attempt to keep these descriptions spoiler-free, but if you expect to play in any of these, may I suggest skipping down to Appendix E below. Countdown follows the Delta Green model of two adventures and a short campaign.
I. A Victim of the Art
The first adventure, I've not had a chance to run this, but it looks as good as anything that made its way into Delta Green. Delta Green is called into investigate a series of bizarre murders on Long Island. As the scenario describes it, the killer isn't human, but the perpetrator is.
II. Night Floors
Again set in New York, this scenario takes place in the floors of a high-rise apartment in Manhattan. This time, the scenario is tied around what appears to be a missing persons case with possible occult connections. Needless to say, Delta Green gets the call.
III. Dead Letter
This one looks like a pulpy one (though it can be just as dangerous as any Call of Cthulhu scenario). Start with aging Nazi Sorcerors in South America, mix in a lot of other bizarre players (including a radical environmentalist, and you have the makings of a great campaign.
Appendix E: International Federal Agencies
Effectively, this does for countries across the globe what Delta Green did for Federal Agencies in the United States. Need to pull an SAS commando into an investigation of Byakhee activity on the Isle of Man? Appendix E will let you do that. This makes for a terrific resource for both Delta Green, and indeed Modern Call of Cthulhu games outside of Delta Green.
Summary and Rating:
While some of the information is dated, the heart of this book is still a winner. Making the needed changes to update it to 2012 is not difficult, and some of the stuff here, like the Hastur Mythos chapter, is essentially timeless.
I can't recommend this one more strongly.
4.5 out of 5 stars, marked down only for it still being rooted in a pre-9/11 world.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
What Have You Been Doing Lately?
Last Non-RPG Book Read...
The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry
As I've said before, I've been on a Steve Berry kick recently, as I've been slowly picking the books up on Kindle for the iPad. Templar Legacy is the first of a series of novels featuring Cotton Malone. Berry's first three novels and latest novel all had different protagonists, but the middle seven contained Cotton Malone.
The Templar Legacy scratches a couple of itches. First, I'm a big fan of political conspiracies, and oddly, religious conspiracies, and the Templars and other odd medieval knightly orders have been fodder for some of my games for years. As a novel, it came out a few years ago at the height of the Dan Brown craze, although Berry is a better writer than Brown. It's a good read, if not quite as gripping as some of Berry's later stuff, and a good introduction to the Malone character.
Last Music Listened To...
Bedsitter Images-Al Stewart. Some old Al Stewart, oddly enough, way back in his electric folk period from the late 1960s, well before anybody in America had even heard of him.
Last Move Watched...
I got nothing. Haven't watched a lot of movies recently, which leads to...
Last TV Watched...
I've been studiously avoiding the Olympics, for the most part. We did the Buffy Season 5, Fringe Season 1, Heroes Season 2, Supernatural Season 5 cycle last Sunday night after the Star Wars game, so I'm going to go with that.
Last RPG Books Purchased/Read...
I recently purchased Cthulhu by Gaslight (3rd Edition), Cthulhu Dark Ages, and Chronicles of Future Earth.
Cthulhu by Gaslight: This is the new version, which came out earlier this year. I'd acquired the previous, 1988 Second Edition from Chaosium about a year ago in PDF, much to my regret, and so I was curious to see what the new edition would be like. I have to say, after an initial skim that I'm very impressed with it. They've tweaked character generation in a couple of good ways that may make it into all of my Call of Cthulhu games from now on, the book is written with a lot more in the way of adventure hooks, and it's a much more beautiful book than the old edition. As soon as I get done reading it, I'll post a review.
Cthulhu Dark Ages: This one came out a few years ago and was Chaosium's first official setting for Call of Cthulhu in the pre-gunpowder era. I haven't really gone through it yet, but it seems rather impressive upon first glance. I love the concept of blending Cthulhu into a much grimmer time, when the separation of Church and State was what happened when the Pope excommunicated Kings and Queens, and feudalism was the political order of the day and could see some interesting blending of the Mythos with the dogma of Medieval era Roman Catholicm and Eastern Orthodoxy. I can also see it being a useful item for running straight-up Medieval settings with BRP.
Chronicles of Future Earth: This one is for Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying. It's first official setting published after the release of 2008's Basic Roleplaying 4th Edition Core Rulebook, it describes itself as "Science-Fantasy Roleplaying in Earth's Far Future". It looks like an odd mix of a post-apocalyptic setting (set thousands of years after the event occurred), and contains a liberal mix of fantasy elements. I'm not sure I'd ever run it as a setting whole cloth (I rarely run published settings as is these days), but I can definitely see some elements, particularly things like spells, magic items, weird tech, character ideas, etc. that I might steal for other BRP games. Since these are precisely the things I think BRP's core rulebook could have used more of, I consider it a worthy purchase.
Setting Stuff I'm Currently Working On...
Most of my prep time in the last two weeks has gone to work on the two games I'm running for the family, Star Wars Saga Edition: Anakin Takes a Bullet and BRP: Emberverse.
I'm also working on a Call of Cthulhu one shot. Without giving away too many details, here's a snapshot:
The End: With the upcoming end of the Mayan Calendar coming upon us, I felt a horror game would be in order, and what better way to end the world than to hand it over as a plaything to the Elder Gods.
Loosely based on an old Actual Play recording from Role Playing Public Radio entitled "Is It The End Of The World As We Know It?", I'll be setting it in Phoenix, December 2012, and adding a few fictionalized versions of controversial local politicians into the mix. The players will be playing characters like the Mayor, Governor, Chief of Police, Commander of the Arizona National Guard, Maricopa County Sheriff, etc. trying to maintain control in a metropolitan area gone mad and stave off the end of the world. They'll be dealing with riots, rebellions, breakdowns of city services, crazy cultists, and most dangerous of all, half-insane teams of normal Call of Cthulhu investigators firmly convinced that only they can save the city, etc.
It should be a lot of fun.
The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry
As I've said before, I've been on a Steve Berry kick recently, as I've been slowly picking the books up on Kindle for the iPad. Templar Legacy is the first of a series of novels featuring Cotton Malone. Berry's first three novels and latest novel all had different protagonists, but the middle seven contained Cotton Malone.
The Templar Legacy scratches a couple of itches. First, I'm a big fan of political conspiracies, and oddly, religious conspiracies, and the Templars and other odd medieval knightly orders have been fodder for some of my games for years. As a novel, it came out a few years ago at the height of the Dan Brown craze, although Berry is a better writer than Brown. It's a good read, if not quite as gripping as some of Berry's later stuff, and a good introduction to the Malone character.
Last Music Listened To...
Bedsitter Images-Al Stewart. Some old Al Stewart, oddly enough, way back in his electric folk period from the late 1960s, well before anybody in America had even heard of him.
Last Move Watched...
I got nothing. Haven't watched a lot of movies recently, which leads to...
Last TV Watched...
I've been studiously avoiding the Olympics, for the most part. We did the Buffy Season 5, Fringe Season 1, Heroes Season 2, Supernatural Season 5 cycle last Sunday night after the Star Wars game, so I'm going to go with that.
Last RPG Books Purchased/Read...
I recently purchased Cthulhu by Gaslight (3rd Edition), Cthulhu Dark Ages, and Chronicles of Future Earth.
Cthulhu by Gaslight: This is the new version, which came out earlier this year. I'd acquired the previous, 1988 Second Edition from Chaosium about a year ago in PDF, much to my regret, and so I was curious to see what the new edition would be like. I have to say, after an initial skim that I'm very impressed with it. They've tweaked character generation in a couple of good ways that may make it into all of my Call of Cthulhu games from now on, the book is written with a lot more in the way of adventure hooks, and it's a much more beautiful book than the old edition. As soon as I get done reading it, I'll post a review.
Cthulhu Dark Ages: This one came out a few years ago and was Chaosium's first official setting for Call of Cthulhu in the pre-gunpowder era. I haven't really gone through it yet, but it seems rather impressive upon first glance. I love the concept of blending Cthulhu into a much grimmer time, when the separation of Church and State was what happened when the Pope excommunicated Kings and Queens, and feudalism was the political order of the day and could see some interesting blending of the Mythos with the dogma of Medieval era Roman Catholicm and Eastern Orthodoxy. I can also see it being a useful item for running straight-up Medieval settings with BRP.
Chronicles of Future Earth: This one is for Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying. It's first official setting published after the release of 2008's Basic Roleplaying 4th Edition Core Rulebook, it describes itself as "Science-Fantasy Roleplaying in Earth's Far Future". It looks like an odd mix of a post-apocalyptic setting (set thousands of years after the event occurred), and contains a liberal mix of fantasy elements. I'm not sure I'd ever run it as a setting whole cloth (I rarely run published settings as is these days), but I can definitely see some elements, particularly things like spells, magic items, weird tech, character ideas, etc. that I might steal for other BRP games. Since these are precisely the things I think BRP's core rulebook could have used more of, I consider it a worthy purchase.
Setting Stuff I'm Currently Working On...
Most of my prep time in the last two weeks has gone to work on the two games I'm running for the family, Star Wars Saga Edition: Anakin Takes a Bullet and BRP: Emberverse.
I'm also working on a Call of Cthulhu one shot. Without giving away too many details, here's a snapshot:
The End: With the upcoming end of the Mayan Calendar coming upon us, I felt a horror game would be in order, and what better way to end the world than to hand it over as a plaything to the Elder Gods.
Loosely based on an old Actual Play recording from Role Playing Public Radio entitled "Is It The End Of The World As We Know It?", I'll be setting it in Phoenix, December 2012, and adding a few fictionalized versions of controversial local politicians into the mix. The players will be playing characters like the Mayor, Governor, Chief of Police, Commander of the Arizona National Guard, Maricopa County Sheriff, etc. trying to maintain control in a metropolitan area gone mad and stave off the end of the world. They'll be dealing with riots, rebellions, breakdowns of city services, crazy cultists, and most dangerous of all, half-insane teams of normal Call of Cthulhu investigators firmly convinced that only they can save the city, etc.
It should be a lot of fun.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Delta Green "Legal" PDFs on sale at RPG Now
Getting a hold of Delta Green books has been something of an ordeal in recent years. Copies of the main Delta Green book, and Eyes Only can be found off of Arkham Bazaar (with rather egregious shipping). If one looked hard enough, and was unscrupulous enough to swipe books off of P2P, one could find a perfect copy of Targets of Opportunity, the latest sourcebook, and truly awful scans of the main Delta Green sourcebook and Delta Green: Countdown. But finding legal, reasonably priced hard or softcover of some of these books, particularly Countdown, has been well nigh impossible.
To put this in perspective, copies of the Hardcover 2007 (revised with d20 Stats for the ill-fated d20 Call of Cthulhu) version of Delta Green can be found new for $40 off of Arkham Bazaar. However, Delta Green: Countdown, first published in 1999, has been a lot harder to find in recent years...so much so that I paid $105 last year off of Ebay for a mint condition softcover.
As a member of the Delta Green mailing list, I was very excited to get home today and learn that the much promised deal by Pagan Publishing and Arc Dream Publishing to get the existing print only Delta Green books into PDF format is live.
You can now pick up the first two Delta Green sourcebooks (Delta Green, and Delta Green: Countdown) off of RPG Now. They're apparently available in both PDF and Print On Demand.
Apparently work is afoot to get the rest of Pagan's back catalog, including the other two Delta Green Sourcebooks, Eyes Only and Targets of Opportunity, as well as some of their non-Delta Green Mythos offerings in the coming months available via PDF & POD shortly as well. Having never picked up Targets of Opportunity, I look forward to picking up a copy when it comes out.
It's also worth noting that the various novels and short fiction collections set in the Delta Green setting can also be found via PDF off of RPGNow as well.
If you're into Call of Cthulhu, and are at all intrigued by the Delta Green setting (which I did a review of earlier this month), check it out. You won't find a better deal, believe me.
To put this in perspective, copies of the Hardcover 2007 (revised with d20 Stats for the ill-fated d20 Call of Cthulhu) version of Delta Green can be found new for $40 off of Arkham Bazaar. However, Delta Green: Countdown, first published in 1999, has been a lot harder to find in recent years...so much so that I paid $105 last year off of Ebay for a mint condition softcover.
As a member of the Delta Green mailing list, I was very excited to get home today and learn that the much promised deal by Pagan Publishing and Arc Dream Publishing to get the existing print only Delta Green books into PDF format is live.
You can now pick up the first two Delta Green sourcebooks (Delta Green, and Delta Green: Countdown) off of RPG Now. They're apparently available in both PDF and Print On Demand.
Apparently work is afoot to get the rest of Pagan's back catalog, including the other two Delta Green Sourcebooks, Eyes Only and Targets of Opportunity, as well as some of their non-Delta Green Mythos offerings in the coming months available via PDF & POD shortly as well. Having never picked up Targets of Opportunity, I look forward to picking up a copy when it comes out.
It's also worth noting that the various novels and short fiction collections set in the Delta Green setting can also be found via PDF off of RPGNow as well.
If you're into Call of Cthulhu, and are at all intrigued by the Delta Green setting (which I did a review of earlier this month), check it out. You won't find a better deal, believe me.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition: My Thoughts.
The Unspeakable Oath has a post up about the upcoming Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition. It looks like, unlike 6th Edition, which basically took 5th Edition and relaid it out in a nearly unreadable font, that this will be a major rewrite.
I like a few of the proposed changes. Removing Fast-Talk and adding Charm and Intimidate seems like a good idea. CofC has cried out for the need for an Intimidate skill for a while.
I'm lukewarm on the characteristic changes, though I think the old Characteristic x Multiplier was hardly a difficult thing to get used to.
I really, really don't like the changes to Luck. I personally loathe excess resource management in games. Too wargamey for me most times. If I want players to spend points out of a pool, I might as well go pick up Trail of Cthulhu. This change is a tough sell, and likely would be the first thing I house ruled out.
The changes to the Idea roll sounds like a great idea.
Frankly, there's not enough information about Sanity for me to talk about, but I do like the sound of constantly tagging back to the same indefinite insanity you developed earlier.
Anyway, I'll probably pick up 7th Ed when it comes out...how much I run it depends on what it looks like when Chaosium gets done with it.
I like a few of the proposed changes. Removing Fast-Talk and adding Charm and Intimidate seems like a good idea. CofC has cried out for the need for an Intimidate skill for a while.
I'm lukewarm on the characteristic changes, though I think the old Characteristic x Multiplier was hardly a difficult thing to get used to.
I really, really don't like the changes to Luck. I personally loathe excess resource management in games. Too wargamey for me most times. If I want players to spend points out of a pool, I might as well go pick up Trail of Cthulhu. This change is a tough sell, and likely would be the first thing I house ruled out.
The changes to the Idea roll sounds like a great idea.
Frankly, there's not enough information about Sanity for me to talk about, but I do like the sound of constantly tagging back to the same indefinite insanity you developed earlier.
Anyway, I'll probably pick up 7th Ed when it comes out...how much I run it depends on what it looks like when Chaosium gets done with it.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Delta Green: A Review
One of the conceits of a lot of fiction, whether it be movies, television, novels, or even roleplaying games is that the reasons a character is risking life or limb is answered only sketchily, or not at all. Why is the hero, now up to his neck in dinosaur riding Nazis, on the deck of a spaceship in a decaying orbit above an inhospitalble planet in deep space, or fighting a dragon that just roasted his best friend into ash, still fighting when most of us, when confronted with such danger to life and limb, would more likely stay indoors, order Chinese takeout, and maybe have a glass of wine and watch that episode of Law and Order they missed last night?
This conceit is most keenly felt with horror. Horror takes this leap of logic to absurd heights, and there is no worse offender than Call of Cthulhu, though other horror games are undoubtedly just as bad about it. There's no doubt, from Lovecraft's fiction, and from a meatgrinder like Masks of Nyarlathotep, the quintessential Chaosium 1920's CofC campaign, that players who confront the various baddies from the Cthulhu Mythos are pretty much doomed to either go irretrievably mad, or be devoured by some horror from beyond time and space (or likely, some entertaining combination of the two). In fact, probably the best thing that could happen to your typical Call of Cthulhu character is being stabbed to death by cultists. Graveyards are filled with the bodies of characters who have died solving Masks of Nyarlathotep. Whole forests from London to Constantinople and back have been stripped of every last tree to build coffins for the characters who have died in "Horror on the Orient Express." Never mind that two dozen characters have been killed in a trail of bodies from New York to Kenya, that kindly old history professor you met in Kenya is just eager as punch to have his head cut off in a ritualistic murder in Shanghai.
Almost invariably, investigators in Call of Cthulhu wind up investigating a location, or a strange happening in a sleepy (usually New England) town. Why are they doing this? Usually, it boils down to one of the following:
1. Because one of the investigators inherited the house/mansion/old hotel/office building. This is quite literally the hook for the classic Call of Cthulhu adventure "The Haunting" which has been published in one form or another in every edition of the core rulebook since 1981. Never mind that the house is old enough and dilapidated enough that it should have been condemned back during the McKinley Administration, but damn it, Aunt Emily bequeathed it to us, and we're going to stay here overnight, even if that horror from beyond time and space in the attic menaces us with an axe.
2. Because a family member suffered a (usually violent and bizarre) crime in the location, and damn it, even if the case has completely baffled the police, the sheriff, Scotland Yard, the FBI, (insert law enforcement organization name here), somehow, I, a rank amateur who learned everything I know about crimefighting from reading Murder in the Rue Morgue, am going to do them all one better.
3. A member of the group found this weird old book, or artifact, examined it, and even though it gave the owner nightmares for a week when he read it, and cultists keep trying to kill them to take it from them, the group is bound and determined that they're going to investigate it further, even though it will likely kill them (and usually does).
Delta Green solves this dilemma by giving a reason and a rationale for why a character might actually confront horrors from beyond time and space (because it's his/her job), and a framework for replacing characters who are devoured, killed, or given the proverbial 9mm retirement plan.
The origin story behind Delta Green is it was born out of the Navy/Marine raid on Innsmouth very sparsely described at the end of Lovecraft's short story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." In the wake of the raid, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) was left with various artifacts, a number of captured and killed Deep One/human hybrids, and a mountain of data to sort through. The working group assigned to sort through all this data (and indeed conduct a few operations against the Mythos in the pre-WW2 era) became known as P Division.
This was more or less the status quo until shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In February 1942, P Division's commanding officer in a meeting with the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) Director William Donovan, provides information from P Division's researches, particularly emphasizing a division of Himmler's SS, the Karotechia, that is interested in harnessing the Mythos for the war effort. As a result of the meeting, P Division is transferred to the OSS, given a special security clearance "Delta Green" which eventually became the name of the agency. Delta Green successfully fights the Mythos and the Karotechia throughout the rest of the war, and continues as an agency until the OSS is disbanded, at which time Delta Green is also disbanded in 1945.
This might have been the end of the story if it wasn't for a certain crash in Roswell, NM in 1947. As a result of the Roswell investigation, two organizations are created, both out of men who formerly served in Delta Green. Delta Green itself was reinstated. And the slightly more infamous Majestic 12 was launched as well. Both organizations fought turf wars, with Delta Green coming to realize more and more that while aliens were real, the UFO conspiracy wasn't what MJ-12 thought it was. Throughout the 1950's and 1960's, both organizations warred for Federal dollars, for recognition, and sometimes for turf. This continued until finally, in 1969, Delta Green had a leader go rogue, get a lot of men killed in Vietnam, and the resulting closed-door Congressional investigation led to the end of Delta Green as a legitimate agency.
But the Mythos is still there, and someone still needed to fight it. Enter the Delta Green Conspiracy. At first, a loose organization of former members of Delta Green from its days as a legitimate Federal Agency, a Majestic 12 Wetworks squad put an end to that in 1994 when they killed Delta Green's legendary leader, Reginald Fairfield. Delta Green, whose membership had dwindled in the intervening 25 years due to deaths and retirements, was reinvented as a tightly controlled conspiracy within Federal law enforcement, organized using a cellular structure more reminiscent of a terrorist organization, to fight the battles humanity is already destined to lose. That, in essence, is Delta Green.
Now that you know what Delta Green is about, here's a synopsis of the contents:
Delta Green is a 336 page volume. Initially published in 1993, it was updated with d20 stat conversions after Wizards of the Coast's brief publication of d20 Call of Cthulhu in 2001 at the height of the d20 craze. The latter edition can still be found for sale for the reasonable price of $39.95+shipping at Arkham Bazaar which is where I picked it up a year or two ago. Three other sourcebooks (as well as three smaller chapter books) have been published for Delta Green since that time as supplements for the main book. Finding two of those three books will cost you a fairly pretty penny.
Chapter 1: The Big Picture
If no other piece of Delta Green had been published in any form other than this chapter, it would have been a remarkable work. Effectively, this chapter takes Lovecraft's fiction, much of the better Cthulhu Mythos fiction written by people other than Lovecraft, turns them into a cohesive whole, and frankly does a whole lot better job than Chaosium's Cthulhu Now of making modern Call of Cthulhu gaming a reality. It outlines the main villains (the Mi-Go, in this case), the never-ending turf war with Majestic 12, the Federal alphabet soup concept that is the heart of the rationale for Delta Green (Big Brother Then and Now).
Chapter 2: Delta Green
This chapter basically outlines Delta Green. What it's about, how it was formed, its history, important individuals in the organization, and a Timeline of events.
Chapter 3: Majestic 12
This chapter outlines Delta Green's nemesis among government conspiracies in Washington Majestic 12, outlining Majestic 12's history, its leadership, and most importantly, where UFO mythology fits into the picture. Let's just say, it's not pretty.
Chapter 4: Karotechia
Just like there are probably still nonagenarian Nazis living in South America, Delta Green's old World War II nemesis still exists, albeit as a gray shadow of its former self. The Karotechia would be almost laughable, if its connections to certain Elder Gods weren't real enough.
Chapter 5: SaucerWatch
Every UFO Conspiracy story needs a bunch of kooks getting in the way, asking dopey questions, getting into things over their head, and basically being an annoyance to real investigators doing the real work of learning the unknowable. SaucerWatch fits that bill just fine. This chapter details them.
Chapter 6: The FATE
Just like Prohibition, flapper girls, and Tommy Guns, gone are the days of crazy cultists wielding primitive weapons, and blending in with urban life about as well as cactii on a glacier. Now the cultists are smart, suave, sophisticated, every bit as insane, and several orders of magnitude more dangerous. The FATE is one such group, lovingly detailed.
Those 6 chapters, ironically, are less than half the page count of the book. Afterward comes the world's longest appendix, or should I say, appendices, since there are no fewer than 10 of them.
Appendix A is a great bibliography
Appendix B gives a glossary of terminology, effectively the lingo of Delta Green.
Appendix C gives a list of Security Classifications.
Appendix D gives a list of Delta Green related Mythos and non-Mythos tomes with very real looking copies of documents.
Appendix E contains two adventures and a short campaign.
The first of two adventures, Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays, is an introductory adventure that would be a great starting point for a Delta Green campaign. A group of Delta Green friendlies (not full agents, friendlies are possibly aware of the Mythos, and certainly unaware of the nature of Delta Green) chase a string of bizarre killings across the Desert Southwest. Each killing is perpretated by a different person, but the MO is the same in each case. It's a good 1-2 session adventure that's wonderful for getting players nice and confident of their chances of battling the Mythos, a notion the next adventure, Convergence, will quickly disabuse them of.
Convergence, is an update of the original Unspeakable Oath #7 adventure that Delta Green sprung from. A group of Delta Green agents is investigating a horrific killing by a teenager endowed with inhuman strength in a sleepy town in Tennessee that has suffered a rash of UFO sightings. It's a deadly adventure, with lots of ways for characters (and NPCs) to die, and endings that range from horrific to merely awful. It's also a great con game that I recently ran at Conflagration.
The short campaign is The New Age, a great campaign that takes a strange New Age religious organization with a bit more going on behind the scenes than even most of its membership understands.
Appendix F gives Occupations and information on Creating Delta Green investigators for both BRP and d20 Call of Cthulhu.
Appendix G gives a pre-9/11 list of alphabet soup Federal Agencies that your Delta Green agent might be drawn from, with occupations, typical agents, and a brief description of the agency and typical roles in the agency that might become agents. This list is really the heart of character generation, occupying almost 20% of the book by itself.
Appendix H gives new skills for both BRP and d20 Call of Cthulhu.
Appendix I is a list of new spells for both BRP/d20 Call of Cthulhu.
Appendix J is a fairly exhaustive list of firearms, both of US and foreign manufacture, with relevant stats for both d20 and BRP.
Finally the book is rounded out with an extensive index, something that's always a plus.
Pros:
* This is really the best, most logical, and cohesive way to play modern Call of Cthulhu. Chapter 1 of the book alone should be required reading for any new Keeper thinking of running a modern Call of Cthulhu game.
* Each chapter is well-written, with numerous adventure hooks, and the character generation information is topnotch. The adventures themselves do a great job of providing numerous examples of what a Delta Green game should be like.
* For the amount of material, the $39.95 sticker price looks very reasonable.
Cons:
* One big one in particular. Copyright 1997. Delta Green is a product of the 1990s, and a Keeper had best understand it hasn't really been updated since. Even the 2001 reprint to add d20 stats didn't change much, and the fact that a lot of law enforcement agencies have been consolidated under the aegis of the Department of Homeland Security (insert eyeroll here) leads one to question the veracity of some of the data in this day and age.
In a country, where in the last decade, we have literally thrown away trillions of dollars on national security, only to learn that we're not that much safer (and certainly have a whole lot less privacy). Where we've funded Federal, state, and local law enforcement to the point that rural sheriff's departments are now requisitioning armored cars at the same time their school districts are laying teachers off by the score, its hard to believe that Delta Green is still an underfunded, illegal government conspiracy having to barely scrape by.
Fortunately, Arc Dream Publishing and Pagan Publishing are working on the Delta Green RPG, which should solve this, but until then, you'll have to tweak a few assumptions of running a post-9/11 game where such things are needed.
Content: 4 out of 5 (I marked this one down mostly due to the pre-9/11 setting material. What's here is nothing short of top notch.
Art & Layout: 5 of 5. Though black and white, Delta Green is a gorgeous book, nicely laid out, with an exhaustive Table of Contents, Bibliography and Index. A lot of more modern game books would do well to emulate Delta Green for its ease in terms of finding what you need quickly as a GM.
Overall Value: 5 of 5. Delta Green, like its later expanding sourcebooks, Countdown, Eyes Only, and Targets of Opportunity, (more on those in future reviews) all have one thing in common. Exquisitely written material, tons of adventure hooks, some really well-written adventures, and tons of stuff you can use in your games. If you play or run Call of Cthulhu, and haven't picked this one up yet, you're really missing out.
This conceit is most keenly felt with horror. Horror takes this leap of logic to absurd heights, and there is no worse offender than Call of Cthulhu, though other horror games are undoubtedly just as bad about it. There's no doubt, from Lovecraft's fiction, and from a meatgrinder like Masks of Nyarlathotep, the quintessential Chaosium 1920's CofC campaign, that players who confront the various baddies from the Cthulhu Mythos are pretty much doomed to either go irretrievably mad, or be devoured by some horror from beyond time and space (or likely, some entertaining combination of the two). In fact, probably the best thing that could happen to your typical Call of Cthulhu character is being stabbed to death by cultists. Graveyards are filled with the bodies of characters who have died solving Masks of Nyarlathotep. Whole forests from London to Constantinople and back have been stripped of every last tree to build coffins for the characters who have died in "Horror on the Orient Express." Never mind that two dozen characters have been killed in a trail of bodies from New York to Kenya, that kindly old history professor you met in Kenya is just eager as punch to have his head cut off in a ritualistic murder in Shanghai.
Almost invariably, investigators in Call of Cthulhu wind up investigating a location, or a strange happening in a sleepy (usually New England) town. Why are they doing this? Usually, it boils down to one of the following:
1. Because one of the investigators inherited the house/mansion/old hotel/office building. This is quite literally the hook for the classic Call of Cthulhu adventure "The Haunting" which has been published in one form or another in every edition of the core rulebook since 1981. Never mind that the house is old enough and dilapidated enough that it should have been condemned back during the McKinley Administration, but damn it, Aunt Emily bequeathed it to us, and we're going to stay here overnight, even if that horror from beyond time and space in the attic menaces us with an axe.
2. Because a family member suffered a (usually violent and bizarre) crime in the location, and damn it, even if the case has completely baffled the police, the sheriff, Scotland Yard, the FBI, (insert law enforcement organization name here), somehow, I, a rank amateur who learned everything I know about crimefighting from reading Murder in the Rue Morgue, am going to do them all one better.
3. A member of the group found this weird old book, or artifact, examined it, and even though it gave the owner nightmares for a week when he read it, and cultists keep trying to kill them to take it from them, the group is bound and determined that they're going to investigate it further, even though it will likely kill them (and usually does).
Delta Green solves this dilemma by giving a reason and a rationale for why a character might actually confront horrors from beyond time and space (because it's his/her job), and a framework for replacing characters who are devoured, killed, or given the proverbial 9mm retirement plan.
The origin story behind Delta Green is it was born out of the Navy/Marine raid on Innsmouth very sparsely described at the end of Lovecraft's short story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." In the wake of the raid, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) was left with various artifacts, a number of captured and killed Deep One/human hybrids, and a mountain of data to sort through. The working group assigned to sort through all this data (and indeed conduct a few operations against the Mythos in the pre-WW2 era) became known as P Division.
This was more or less the status quo until shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In February 1942, P Division's commanding officer in a meeting with the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) Director William Donovan, provides information from P Division's researches, particularly emphasizing a division of Himmler's SS, the Karotechia, that is interested in harnessing the Mythos for the war effort. As a result of the meeting, P Division is transferred to the OSS, given a special security clearance "Delta Green" which eventually became the name of the agency. Delta Green successfully fights the Mythos and the Karotechia throughout the rest of the war, and continues as an agency until the OSS is disbanded, at which time Delta Green is also disbanded in 1945.
This might have been the end of the story if it wasn't for a certain crash in Roswell, NM in 1947. As a result of the Roswell investigation, two organizations are created, both out of men who formerly served in Delta Green. Delta Green itself was reinstated. And the slightly more infamous Majestic 12 was launched as well. Both organizations fought turf wars, with Delta Green coming to realize more and more that while aliens were real, the UFO conspiracy wasn't what MJ-12 thought it was. Throughout the 1950's and 1960's, both organizations warred for Federal dollars, for recognition, and sometimes for turf. This continued until finally, in 1969, Delta Green had a leader go rogue, get a lot of men killed in Vietnam, and the resulting closed-door Congressional investigation led to the end of Delta Green as a legitimate agency.
But the Mythos is still there, and someone still needed to fight it. Enter the Delta Green Conspiracy. At first, a loose organization of former members of Delta Green from its days as a legitimate Federal Agency, a Majestic 12 Wetworks squad put an end to that in 1994 when they killed Delta Green's legendary leader, Reginald Fairfield. Delta Green, whose membership had dwindled in the intervening 25 years due to deaths and retirements, was reinvented as a tightly controlled conspiracy within Federal law enforcement, organized using a cellular structure more reminiscent of a terrorist organization, to fight the battles humanity is already destined to lose. That, in essence, is Delta Green.
Now that you know what Delta Green is about, here's a synopsis of the contents:
Delta Green is a 336 page volume. Initially published in 1993, it was updated with d20 stat conversions after Wizards of the Coast's brief publication of d20 Call of Cthulhu in 2001 at the height of the d20 craze. The latter edition can still be found for sale for the reasonable price of $39.95+shipping at Arkham Bazaar which is where I picked it up a year or two ago. Three other sourcebooks (as well as three smaller chapter books) have been published for Delta Green since that time as supplements for the main book. Finding two of those three books will cost you a fairly pretty penny.
Chapter 1: The Big Picture
If no other piece of Delta Green had been published in any form other than this chapter, it would have been a remarkable work. Effectively, this chapter takes Lovecraft's fiction, much of the better Cthulhu Mythos fiction written by people other than Lovecraft, turns them into a cohesive whole, and frankly does a whole lot better job than Chaosium's Cthulhu Now of making modern Call of Cthulhu gaming a reality. It outlines the main villains (the Mi-Go, in this case), the never-ending turf war with Majestic 12, the Federal alphabet soup concept that is the heart of the rationale for Delta Green (Big Brother Then and Now).
Chapter 2: Delta Green
This chapter basically outlines Delta Green. What it's about, how it was formed, its history, important individuals in the organization, and a Timeline of events.
Chapter 3: Majestic 12
This chapter outlines Delta Green's nemesis among government conspiracies in Washington Majestic 12, outlining Majestic 12's history, its leadership, and most importantly, where UFO mythology fits into the picture. Let's just say, it's not pretty.
Chapter 4: Karotechia
Just like there are probably still nonagenarian Nazis living in South America, Delta Green's old World War II nemesis still exists, albeit as a gray shadow of its former self. The Karotechia would be almost laughable, if its connections to certain Elder Gods weren't real enough.
Chapter 5: SaucerWatch
Every UFO Conspiracy story needs a bunch of kooks getting in the way, asking dopey questions, getting into things over their head, and basically being an annoyance to real investigators doing the real work of learning the unknowable. SaucerWatch fits that bill just fine. This chapter details them.
Chapter 6: The FATE
Just like Prohibition, flapper girls, and Tommy Guns, gone are the days of crazy cultists wielding primitive weapons, and blending in with urban life about as well as cactii on a glacier. Now the cultists are smart, suave, sophisticated, every bit as insane, and several orders of magnitude more dangerous. The FATE is one such group, lovingly detailed.
Those 6 chapters, ironically, are less than half the page count of the book. Afterward comes the world's longest appendix, or should I say, appendices, since there are no fewer than 10 of them.
Appendix A is a great bibliography
Appendix B gives a glossary of terminology, effectively the lingo of Delta Green.
Appendix C gives a list of Security Classifications.
Appendix D gives a list of Delta Green related Mythos and non-Mythos tomes with very real looking copies of documents.
Appendix E contains two adventures and a short campaign.
The first of two adventures, Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays, is an introductory adventure that would be a great starting point for a Delta Green campaign. A group of Delta Green friendlies (not full agents, friendlies are possibly aware of the Mythos, and certainly unaware of the nature of Delta Green) chase a string of bizarre killings across the Desert Southwest. Each killing is perpretated by a different person, but the MO is the same in each case. It's a good 1-2 session adventure that's wonderful for getting players nice and confident of their chances of battling the Mythos, a notion the next adventure, Convergence, will quickly disabuse them of.
Convergence, is an update of the original Unspeakable Oath #7 adventure that Delta Green sprung from. A group of Delta Green agents is investigating a horrific killing by a teenager endowed with inhuman strength in a sleepy town in Tennessee that has suffered a rash of UFO sightings. It's a deadly adventure, with lots of ways for characters (and NPCs) to die, and endings that range from horrific to merely awful. It's also a great con game that I recently ran at Conflagration.
The short campaign is The New Age, a great campaign that takes a strange New Age religious organization with a bit more going on behind the scenes than even most of its membership understands.
Appendix F gives Occupations and information on Creating Delta Green investigators for both BRP and d20 Call of Cthulhu.
Appendix G gives a pre-9/11 list of alphabet soup Federal Agencies that your Delta Green agent might be drawn from, with occupations, typical agents, and a brief description of the agency and typical roles in the agency that might become agents. This list is really the heart of character generation, occupying almost 20% of the book by itself.
Appendix H gives new skills for both BRP and d20 Call of Cthulhu.
Appendix I is a list of new spells for both BRP/d20 Call of Cthulhu.
Appendix J is a fairly exhaustive list of firearms, both of US and foreign manufacture, with relevant stats for both d20 and BRP.
Finally the book is rounded out with an extensive index, something that's always a plus.
Pros:
* This is really the best, most logical, and cohesive way to play modern Call of Cthulhu. Chapter 1 of the book alone should be required reading for any new Keeper thinking of running a modern Call of Cthulhu game.
* Each chapter is well-written, with numerous adventure hooks, and the character generation information is topnotch. The adventures themselves do a great job of providing numerous examples of what a Delta Green game should be like.
* For the amount of material, the $39.95 sticker price looks very reasonable.
Cons:
* One big one in particular. Copyright 1997. Delta Green is a product of the 1990s, and a Keeper had best understand it hasn't really been updated since. Even the 2001 reprint to add d20 stats didn't change much, and the fact that a lot of law enforcement agencies have been consolidated under the aegis of the Department of Homeland Security (insert eyeroll here) leads one to question the veracity of some of the data in this day and age.
In a country, where in the last decade, we have literally thrown away trillions of dollars on national security, only to learn that we're not that much safer (and certainly have a whole lot less privacy). Where we've funded Federal, state, and local law enforcement to the point that rural sheriff's departments are now requisitioning armored cars at the same time their school districts are laying teachers off by the score, its hard to believe that Delta Green is still an underfunded, illegal government conspiracy having to barely scrape by.
Fortunately, Arc Dream Publishing and Pagan Publishing are working on the Delta Green RPG, which should solve this, but until then, you'll have to tweak a few assumptions of running a post-9/11 game where such things are needed.
Content: 4 out of 5 (I marked this one down mostly due to the pre-9/11 setting material. What's here is nothing short of top notch.
Art & Layout: 5 of 5. Though black and white, Delta Green is a gorgeous book, nicely laid out, with an exhaustive Table of Contents, Bibliography and Index. A lot of more modern game books would do well to emulate Delta Green for its ease in terms of finding what you need quickly as a GM.
Overall Value: 5 of 5. Delta Green, like its later expanding sourcebooks, Countdown, Eyes Only, and Targets of Opportunity, (more on those in future reviews) all have one thing in common. Exquisitely written material, tons of adventure hooks, some really well-written adventures, and tons of stuff you can use in your games. If you play or run Call of Cthulhu, and haven't picked this one up yet, you're really missing out.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Cthulhu Invictus: A Review
OK. I'll admit it. I've gone in the past few years from a guy who'd never run a horror game in his life to somebody who counts Call of Cthulhu (and particularly its third-party setting, Delta Green) amongst his favorite systems.
One of the things I like about Call of Cthulhu is the ease with which it can be modified to play cosmic horror in a variety of historical eras. The core rulebook itself provides support for games set in the Victorian era, the 1920s, and current day. A few years ago, Cthulhu Dark Ages took the tentacled beasties back to the 10th Century. Cthulhu Invictus, Chaosium's latest for the game line, takes Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth, the Deep Ones, a whole bunch of new Lovecraftian horrors from ancient mythology and Cthulhu himself all the way back to the First Century AD, during the Julio-Claudian dynasty, when the Roman Empire was at its absolute zenith.
Cover and layout:
Cthulhu Invictus is a gorgeous work. The front cover is haunting, the interior illustrations (mostly charcoal and or pencil drawings) evocative of the setting, and the rest of the layout economic and best of all, uncluttered.
4 out of 5.
Content:
The challenge of gaming in a historical period can be daunting for a gamer unfamiliar with the period, and requires different thinking than a modern day or more recent setting period might. Wisely, Cthulhu Invictus acknowledges this.
Chapter 1 begins with a good section on Rome the city, as well as Roman culture, followed by a timeline of historical events leading up to 80 CE (the setting pretty much wraps up around this time, during the reign of Titus, who was the son of Vespasian, who was the last man standing during the Roman Civil War of 69 CE, known as the "Year of the Four Emperors." This is then followed with a very thorough survey of the myriad of regions of the Roman Empire, along with barbarian territories on its border. This section takes up a good third of the book, meaning that Chaosium did its job.
Chapter 2: Character Creation takes a look at some of the differences between a 20th Century and 1st Century game, with a suggestion on character names, new occupations, aging, money, etc. Besides the obvious differences in occupations, it's worth noting that aging is tweaked substantively to reflect the shorter lifespans of the day.
Chapter 3: Skills modifies the skill list, adding a lot of the same skills that are found in Cthulhu Dark Ages, a host of new weapons skills, and obviously deleting the historical anachronisms from the regular Call of Cthulhu game. Credit Rating is effectively replaced by Status, Natural History is replaced by Natural World, and a few other skills are added.
Chapter 4: Equipment and Supplies adds Roman era equipment.
Chapter 5: Recovering Sanity (a single page) outlines the difficulties in recovering sanity in a day when Sigmund Freud wouldn't exist for another 1800 years.
Chapter 6: Combat, adds some important changes to combat to add more options to melee combat, as well as adding a variety of new melee and ranged weapons, armor, herbs, and poisons.
Chapter 7: Siege Weapons briefly outlines the larger siege weapons of the period, as well as Greek Fire (which is something of an anachronism for a game set in the First Century, as Greek Fire really wasn't developed until well after the demise of the Western Roman Empire, and well into the Byzantine period (which is the reason it's called Greek Fire, not Roman Fire). My guess is that the various Siege weapon skills in Cthulhu Invictus will be about as useless as the Operate Heavy Machinery skill in the base game.
Chapter 8: The Grimoire, speaks about Roman religion, provides a host of new spells, new tomes, and melds right into Chapter 9: Bestiary, with a variety of new creatures, as well as hints for how to work existing Mythos creatures from the corebook into the setting. Rejoice, oh, Dark Young fans...you can be devoured by them in Rome as well as Arkham.
Chapter 10: Cults and Secret Societies takes a look at the more esoteric religions, cults (both mythos-related and more benign) evolving in the Roman world at the time. While Christians may object to the description of their own religion at the time, considering its small following some 250 years before the rise of Constantine, cult is probably an apt description.
Finally, the book wraps up with a section on the legions, a short scenario, and a bibliography/selected reading list.
The section is thorough, and gives a good amount of information for running a Roman era game. I don't think it could be better without becoming a history tome.
5 of 5
Overall Value:
For the most part, Chaosium seems to be content to live off of past glories. The company does a lot more republishing of its classic titles (and slight revisions to its rulebook) these days than publishing new titles. Cthulhu Dark Ages was an exception to that a few years ago. Still outside of the Monograph program (where Chaosium sticks a front cover on what is otherwise an author written, edited, and laid out creation), whose work can only be regarded as of uneven quality (Cthulhu Invictus itself saw an earlier life as a Monograph, this new version is a much improved revision), a lot more third-party stuff from publishers (Pagan Publishing/Arc Dream, Miskatonic River Press, SuperGenius Games, Goodman Games, etc.), as well as third-party licensed games (Pelgrane's Trail of Cthulhu, Realms of Cthulhu etc.) than actually gets put out by Chaosium.
Still Cthulhu Invictus shows that Chaosium can still support its game. A book of scenarios is published for it (Cthulhu Invictus Companion), and Miskatonic River Press has published a campaign for it. Hopefully this won't be the last we see of the game.
At a cover price of $25, if you like Call of Cthulhu, have an interest in the Roman era, and like the idea of throwing the two together in a blender and hitting frappe, you could certainly find worse places to spend $25 than Cthulhu Invictus.
5 of 5.
One of the things I like about Call of Cthulhu is the ease with which it can be modified to play cosmic horror in a variety of historical eras. The core rulebook itself provides support for games set in the Victorian era, the 1920s, and current day. A few years ago, Cthulhu Dark Ages took the tentacled beasties back to the 10th Century. Cthulhu Invictus, Chaosium's latest for the game line, takes Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth, the Deep Ones, a whole bunch of new Lovecraftian horrors from ancient mythology and Cthulhu himself all the way back to the First Century AD, during the Julio-Claudian dynasty, when the Roman Empire was at its absolute zenith.
Cover and layout:
Cthulhu Invictus is a gorgeous work. The front cover is haunting, the interior illustrations (mostly charcoal and or pencil drawings) evocative of the setting, and the rest of the layout economic and best of all, uncluttered.
4 out of 5.
Content:
The challenge of gaming in a historical period can be daunting for a gamer unfamiliar with the period, and requires different thinking than a modern day or more recent setting period might. Wisely, Cthulhu Invictus acknowledges this.
Chapter 1 begins with a good section on Rome the city, as well as Roman culture, followed by a timeline of historical events leading up to 80 CE (the setting pretty much wraps up around this time, during the reign of Titus, who was the son of Vespasian, who was the last man standing during the Roman Civil War of 69 CE, known as the "Year of the Four Emperors." This is then followed with a very thorough survey of the myriad of regions of the Roman Empire, along with barbarian territories on its border. This section takes up a good third of the book, meaning that Chaosium did its job.
Chapter 2: Character Creation takes a look at some of the differences between a 20th Century and 1st Century game, with a suggestion on character names, new occupations, aging, money, etc. Besides the obvious differences in occupations, it's worth noting that aging is tweaked substantively to reflect the shorter lifespans of the day.
Chapter 3: Skills modifies the skill list, adding a lot of the same skills that are found in Cthulhu Dark Ages, a host of new weapons skills, and obviously deleting the historical anachronisms from the regular Call of Cthulhu game. Credit Rating is effectively replaced by Status, Natural History is replaced by Natural World, and a few other skills are added.
Chapter 4: Equipment and Supplies adds Roman era equipment.
Chapter 5: Recovering Sanity (a single page) outlines the difficulties in recovering sanity in a day when Sigmund Freud wouldn't exist for another 1800 years.
Chapter 6: Combat, adds some important changes to combat to add more options to melee combat, as well as adding a variety of new melee and ranged weapons, armor, herbs, and poisons.
Chapter 7: Siege Weapons briefly outlines the larger siege weapons of the period, as well as Greek Fire (which is something of an anachronism for a game set in the First Century, as Greek Fire really wasn't developed until well after the demise of the Western Roman Empire, and well into the Byzantine period (which is the reason it's called Greek Fire, not Roman Fire). My guess is that the various Siege weapon skills in Cthulhu Invictus will be about as useless as the Operate Heavy Machinery skill in the base game.
Chapter 8: The Grimoire, speaks about Roman religion, provides a host of new spells, new tomes, and melds right into Chapter 9: Bestiary, with a variety of new creatures, as well as hints for how to work existing Mythos creatures from the corebook into the setting. Rejoice, oh, Dark Young fans...you can be devoured by them in Rome as well as Arkham.
Chapter 10: Cults and Secret Societies takes a look at the more esoteric religions, cults (both mythos-related and more benign) evolving in the Roman world at the time. While Christians may object to the description of their own religion at the time, considering its small following some 250 years before the rise of Constantine, cult is probably an apt description.
Finally, the book wraps up with a section on the legions, a short scenario, and a bibliography/selected reading list.
The section is thorough, and gives a good amount of information for running a Roman era game. I don't think it could be better without becoming a history tome.
5 of 5
Overall Value:
For the most part, Chaosium seems to be content to live off of past glories. The company does a lot more republishing of its classic titles (and slight revisions to its rulebook) these days than publishing new titles. Cthulhu Dark Ages was an exception to that a few years ago. Still outside of the Monograph program (where Chaosium sticks a front cover on what is otherwise an author written, edited, and laid out creation), whose work can only be regarded as of uneven quality (Cthulhu Invictus itself saw an earlier life as a Monograph, this new version is a much improved revision), a lot more third-party stuff from publishers (Pagan Publishing/Arc Dream, Miskatonic River Press, SuperGenius Games, Goodman Games, etc.), as well as third-party licensed games (Pelgrane's Trail of Cthulhu, Realms of Cthulhu etc.) than actually gets put out by Chaosium.
Still Cthulhu Invictus shows that Chaosium can still support its game. A book of scenarios is published for it (Cthulhu Invictus Companion), and Miskatonic River Press has published a campaign for it. Hopefully this won't be the last we see of the game.
At a cover price of $25, if you like Call of Cthulhu, have an interest in the Roman era, and like the idea of throwing the two together in a blender and hitting frappe, you could certainly find worse places to spend $25 than Cthulhu Invictus.
5 of 5.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Con Game Preparation II: Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green - The Last Equation
I actually started writing a one-shot for this one...and will finish it one day, but I decided instead to run the excellent short adventure for Delta Green, The Last Equation.
For those unfamiliar with Delta Green, it was a setting originally published about a year prior to the start of the X-Files. It basically takes UFO and Paranormal mythology in a different direction than X-Files, adds a revamped and updated for the present look at the Cthulhu Mythos, throws it in the blender with contemporary UFO and Paranormal mythologies, and hits frappe.
There are several elements that make a good Call of Cthulhu game. First, the menace needs to be one that can't easily be comprehended by the players. Second, it needs to have an ancient, murky origin. Third, there has to be a real, palpable sense that players can die from this threat, even if they do everything perfectly. The Last Equation fits these molds perfectly and like most great horror tales, the monster isn't half as dangerous to the characters as the characters themselves are.
My work on the game consisted mostly in generating pregenerated characters. I'm using the excellent HeroLab (with the Call of Cthulhu data files suitably modified for Delta Green), and generated 10 characters...out of those, the players will choose six. Due to a precondition of the game, there's a very likely chance some of these character may or may not be played based on the game instructions. Depending on the characters the players select, this could be a very different game.
For those unfamiliar with Delta Green, it was a setting originally published about a year prior to the start of the X-Files. It basically takes UFO and Paranormal mythology in a different direction than X-Files, adds a revamped and updated for the present look at the Cthulhu Mythos, throws it in the blender with contemporary UFO and Paranormal mythologies, and hits frappe.
There are several elements that make a good Call of Cthulhu game. First, the menace needs to be one that can't easily be comprehended by the players. Second, it needs to have an ancient, murky origin. Third, there has to be a real, palpable sense that players can die from this threat, even if they do everything perfectly. The Last Equation fits these molds perfectly and like most great horror tales, the monster isn't half as dangerous to the characters as the characters themselves are.
My work on the game consisted mostly in generating pregenerated characters. I'm using the excellent HeroLab (with the Call of Cthulhu data files suitably modified for Delta Green), and generated 10 characters...out of those, the players will choose six. Due to a precondition of the game, there's a very likely chance some of these character may or may not be played based on the game instructions. Depending on the characters the players select, this could be a very different game.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Con Game Preparation
After watching one of my long-running campaigns come to a screeching halt a couple of weeks ago, I've devoted the last two weekends to preparation of four one-shot adventures for the upcoming 2012 Phoenix Vul-Con.
Although I've certainly done it numerous times over the years, preparing for convention games is a unique experience. When I run games for my regular gaming groups, I've got a reasonable idea of what may fire up my players (though this can vary at times), and if nothing else, I can always ask.
Obviously, there is no feedback loop in time to do any good with a player group at a session. You can playtest it with your regular group (unless some of those folks want to play it at the con, but that's about it) for length, but even that is a different experience than it will be for first-time players who don't know you as a GM, in most cases won't know the game system, and likely don't even know each other.
So what does a conscientious GM do? In my case, I've created (or chosen, in the case of the couple of pre-made adventures I'm running) games that I think I can run successfully, and would enjoy playing in as a player.
In the coming days, I'll discuss the four adventures I'm running, and comments on each of them (spoiler free, of course), on why I chose them, and the things I think they bring to a con game.
Although I've certainly done it numerous times over the years, preparing for convention games is a unique experience. When I run games for my regular gaming groups, I've got a reasonable idea of what may fire up my players (though this can vary at times), and if nothing else, I can always ask.
Obviously, there is no feedback loop in time to do any good with a player group at a session. You can playtest it with your regular group (unless some of those folks want to play it at the con, but that's about it) for length, but even that is a different experience than it will be for first-time players who don't know you as a GM, in most cases won't know the game system, and likely don't even know each other.
So what does a conscientious GM do? In my case, I've created (or chosen, in the case of the couple of pre-made adventures I'm running) games that I think I can run successfully, and would enjoy playing in as a player.
In the coming days, I'll discuss the four adventures I'm running, and comments on each of them (spoiler free, of course), on why I chose them, and the things I think they bring to a con game.
Monday, January 30, 2012
For Those Going to Vul-Con
Consider this another preview of coming distractions.
I wasn't liking the way the pulp game was looking, so I pulled it. Still, there's plenty of amusement to be had by all. Here's a thumbnail sketch of each of them.
Call of Cthulhu-Delta Green: The Last Equation.
For those unfamiliar with Delta Green, it basically takes H P Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, late 20th Century UFO and Government Conspiracy theories that were such fodder for the X-Files (though Delta Green predates the X-Files), puts them all into a blender and hits frappe.
The Last Equation is a Dennis Detwiller creation I figured was about the right length for a late night Saturday night convention slot. It's a great game with strong Mythos undertones and should play well.
Star Wars Saga Edition - The Betrayal of Darth Revan: Set in the same era as the two Knights of the Old Republic video games (and roughly 300 years before the recently released MMO), this is a former GenCon WotC game I've not had the chance to run before, and am looking forward to. It's something of a prequel to the first video game, Knights of the Old Republic, and looks very good.
Darwin's World - The High Road to Hell: Based on d20 Modern's rule system (still available online as the Modern System Reference Document, or MSRD), Darwin's World is a grimmer, grittier take on Post-Apocalyptic role-playing than Gamma World, or some other takes on the genre. The designers were very definitely thinking of the first two Fallout games when they designed this one, though it's enough different from Fallout to not really be compared to it. This is a low-level (5th Level) adventure that is a former GenCon scenario for the game).
A Dirty World - Bucknell 13, Delaware 7: Based on Greg Stolze's one-roll engine (the same dice mechanic behind Wild Talents, and its various brother superhero games, as well as Reign (sword and board fantasy), and Nemesis (horror), this is a film noir game. For Senator Benjamin Bucknell, the day began by watching his alma mater win a football game, and ended with his being shot. What happens after is up to the players.
I wasn't liking the way the pulp game was looking, so I pulled it. Still, there's plenty of amusement to be had by all. Here's a thumbnail sketch of each of them.
Call of Cthulhu-Delta Green: The Last Equation.
For those unfamiliar with Delta Green, it basically takes H P Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, late 20th Century UFO and Government Conspiracy theories that were such fodder for the X-Files (though Delta Green predates the X-Files), puts them all into a blender and hits frappe.
The Last Equation is a Dennis Detwiller creation I figured was about the right length for a late night Saturday night convention slot. It's a great game with strong Mythos undertones and should play well.
Star Wars Saga Edition - The Betrayal of Darth Revan: Set in the same era as the two Knights of the Old Republic video games (and roughly 300 years before the recently released MMO), this is a former GenCon WotC game I've not had the chance to run before, and am looking forward to. It's something of a prequel to the first video game, Knights of the Old Republic, and looks very good.
Darwin's World - The High Road to Hell: Based on d20 Modern's rule system (still available online as the Modern System Reference Document, or MSRD), Darwin's World is a grimmer, grittier take on Post-Apocalyptic role-playing than Gamma World, or some other takes on the genre. The designers were very definitely thinking of the first two Fallout games when they designed this one, though it's enough different from Fallout to not really be compared to it. This is a low-level (5th Level) adventure that is a former GenCon scenario for the game).
A Dirty World - Bucknell 13, Delaware 7: Based on Greg Stolze's one-roll engine (the same dice mechanic behind Wild Talents, and its various brother superhero games, as well as Reign (sword and board fantasy), and Nemesis (horror), this is a film noir game. For Senator Benjamin Bucknell, the day began by watching his alma mater win a football game, and ended with his being shot. What happens after is up to the players.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
How Are You? What the hell happened, man...
Since my last post, the flat panel display on my notebook died (since replaced). I also got sick. And I'm still fighting a very balky router, whose replacement is now on order. Posting anything of length was out of the question, and still is of a sort, which is why the historical gaming series was put on hold.
Still, here's what I've been doing lately, since I've been incommunicado for a few weeks.
What I've been reading:
After finishing A Dance With Dragons (Book Five, of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin), I've been reading the three books of S M Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy. The gist of it is that Nantucket Island, circa 1998, finds itself transported (along with the immediately surrounding waters), dropped back to the Bronze Age. It's an interesting example of what happens when you drop a very small slice of a modern society back into a different epoch, and leads to some very interesting and believable results. Worth the read.
What I've been watching:
Picked up a couple of movies on Blu Ray: The Magnificent Seven, The Adjustment Bureau (a great adaptation of yet another short story by Hollywood's go-to guy for near-future science fiction, Philip K Dick), and I'm ocntinuing to work my way slowly, with the family, through several seasons of Supernatural, Buffy, and X-Files with the family).
What I've been gaming:
Not much with the computer down.
Now that it's back up, I'm working on some more ship designs/conversions for the oft-delayed New Jedi Order Sourcebook for SWSE. I've finished the Shieldship, the Jade Sabre (Mara Jade Skywalker's ship), and the Ralroost (Bothan Assault Cruiser, pretty much saw every battle of the Yuuzhan Vong War).
I'm making preparations (read as reading the 200+ pages of the book) to run the classic campaign for Call of Cthulhu, Masks of Nyarlathotep via Skype once the new router gets up and running.
I'm also continuing to run the Alternate Timeline Star Wars "Anakin Takes a Bullet" campaign (which I promise to post about in length at a later date).
I've also been fiddling around with the Dresden Files RPG, but I'm not ready to run it yet. I scooped up a bunch of Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas Settings for 3.5 and have been reading through them. One of these days I'll get Eternal Rome on the table.
Finally, I'm getting ready to run Arc Dream Publishing's One Roll Engine film noir game, A Dirty World. It has a fascinating game mechanic and I'm rapidly becoming fond of the simplicity of running and teaching the One Roll Engine. Picked it up on RPG Now for $10 a couple of months ago, and can't wait to give it a whirl.
Still, here's what I've been doing lately, since I've been incommunicado for a few weeks.
What I've been reading:
After finishing A Dance With Dragons (Book Five, of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin), I've been reading the three books of S M Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy. The gist of it is that Nantucket Island, circa 1998, finds itself transported (along with the immediately surrounding waters), dropped back to the Bronze Age. It's an interesting example of what happens when you drop a very small slice of a modern society back into a different epoch, and leads to some very interesting and believable results. Worth the read.
What I've been watching:
Picked up a couple of movies on Blu Ray: The Magnificent Seven, The Adjustment Bureau (a great adaptation of yet another short story by Hollywood's go-to guy for near-future science fiction, Philip K Dick), and I'm ocntinuing to work my way slowly, with the family, through several seasons of Supernatural, Buffy, and X-Files with the family).
What I've been gaming:
Not much with the computer down.
Now that it's back up, I'm working on some more ship designs/conversions for the oft-delayed New Jedi Order Sourcebook for SWSE. I've finished the Shieldship, the Jade Sabre (Mara Jade Skywalker's ship), and the Ralroost (Bothan Assault Cruiser, pretty much saw every battle of the Yuuzhan Vong War).
I'm making preparations (read as reading the 200+ pages of the book) to run the classic campaign for Call of Cthulhu, Masks of Nyarlathotep via Skype once the new router gets up and running.
I'm also continuing to run the Alternate Timeline Star Wars "Anakin Takes a Bullet" campaign (which I promise to post about in length at a later date).
I've also been fiddling around with the Dresden Files RPG, but I'm not ready to run it yet. I scooped up a bunch of Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas Settings for 3.5 and have been reading through them. One of these days I'll get Eternal Rome on the table.
Finally, I'm getting ready to run Arc Dream Publishing's One Roll Engine film noir game, A Dirty World. It has a fascinating game mechanic and I'm rapidly becoming fond of the simplicity of running and teaching the One Roll Engine. Picked it up on RPG Now for $10 a couple of months ago, and can't wait to give it a whirl.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
What I've Been Doing, Week of June 15, 2011 Edition
What I've Been Playing:
None on the RPG front, though I'm beginning plans to run a Skype Call of Cthulhu game...probably Delta Green, but that's to be determined.
Prepping:
Working to revive a long-dormant Skull & Bones game that started as a one-shot, but will probably become a campaign. Also prepping another Star Wars adventure and possibly a Call of Cthulhu one-shot for the two week vacation coming up.
Reading:
Still working on A Feast of Crows. I've been doing so much game prep that it's been put on the back burner, though I am about a third of the way through it.
Watching:
Finished up True Blood, Season 3.
Currently watching Season 2 of Supernatural.
None on the RPG front, though I'm beginning plans to run a Skype Call of Cthulhu game...probably Delta Green, but that's to be determined.
Prepping:
Working to revive a long-dormant Skull & Bones game that started as a one-shot, but will probably become a campaign. Also prepping another Star Wars adventure and possibly a Call of Cthulhu one-shot for the two week vacation coming up.
Reading:
Still working on A Feast of Crows. I've been doing so much game prep that it's been put on the back burner, though I am about a third of the way through it.
Watching:
Finished up True Blood, Season 3.
Currently watching Season 2 of Supernatural.
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