Delta Green suffers from the "If everyone dies in a single hit no one cares about what happens" style of gameplay, and is generally kind of hard to run if you go by the modules.
My suggestion: Read the modules for ideas and completely ignore their suggestions for instakills. It's not fun, your players won't learn (they'll just whine) and you will get sick of dealing with the problems.
That, or just use the really easy fix of "Willpower points can be used for rerolls" which is so fricking obvious I can't believe I had to homebrew it.
I also forgot to mention: Don't try to explain the Agency. Don't introduce the leaders, don't explain the structure, don't do anything to clarify. Nothing you will add will be better than the vague idea of a supernatural defense force, never add anyone above their handler, merely imply it.
Also you can get a lot of good mileage for sessions from simply doing "Pick a place, what's a cool story from there, make it real, add a twist, done"
And lastly, most of the modules basically expect at least one PC to die for no real reason, sure it's realistic, but it isn't fun. Injury is way more traumatic and more interesting, do that instead.
SCP is basically an entire wiki of Delta Green stories, items and opponents.
Otherwise really work the characters and roleplay aspect not the mechanical ones. A major part of the handler is balancing the tap of information dripping correctly as Aaot of Delta green is a constantly shuffling place to place experience doing mundane things. Without the right level of information the game feels empty and pointless, too much then the game feels railroady.
Strike the right balance though it's a quality session
we were, none of us had the initiative for investigation that the DM wanted and we were so used to playing as medieval shit peasants being FBI agents with access to resources was totally alien to us
Basically OP you've got to ignore all the reddit shit about strippers and pimps being "DG" becaude they saw something spoopy and now theyre DG. Stick to the fact that DG is a government conspiracy.
Your players shouldn't be fighting shoggoths and hounds and deep ones like they're dragons, orcs, and sahaugin. You should build them into the conspiracy, not just use the Handler's Guide as an abbreviated Monstrous Manual. MOST of the conflict should be human versus human. Human stupidity, human greed, human pride is the driver for a lot of DG ops. Not so much "OK you guys gotta go kill the shoggoth in Everyville, USA."
Occasionally let the players cut loose and call in an artillery strike or let an Apache dump hellfire missiles into a Dark Young of the Woods.
DG can be hazardous, but a lot of the deaths could be mitigated by the PCs not acting like a moron and running from the horrible unspeakable horror versus thinking their Glock 19 is going to stop something from beyond the stars. See my before about occasionally letting the players rip loose with an airstrike.
Another thing with DG is making sure that the players have consequences for their actions, both good and bad. Agents going around flashing their badges and to get access followed by an explosion at the warehouse they badged their way into is going to result in questions they may not have the answers to.
Magic/Hypergeometry. I see a lot of Handlers think that agents should have access to rituals on day 1. These people are homosexuals and likely communists. Magic in DG always takes more than it gives, and even the "good" spells (Elder Sign, Voorish Sign, Banishing Spells etc) should have the temptation for the agent to think he has this hypergeometry under control and hey, what's the worst that happens if you start ripping loose with Withering or create a few zombies? It's all for the greater good, right?
Anyway tldr: DG is a blast you've just gotta be on top of it.
Use Alphonse's Axioms for Agents as a guide on how to build challenges and encounters for players. Special attention to 16, 17, 22, 23, 30, 32, and 41. If your agents ever face the manifested unnatural with only their sidearms, they have already made several mistakes. Every npc is a valid target for elimination and should be considered either as a vector for incursions or an operational liability. Knowledge is death.
while performing autoerotic asphyxiation
fpbp
But seriously, OP, what kind of answers were you looking for?
Addendum: the Laundry Files RPG, based on the fiction series of the same name, is in some ways a lighter-hearted version of DG. Give them a look.
Any answer really. I just needed some insight into this game. I read through the materials and it's marvelous.
What insight, you brain dead frick?
/tg/ doesn't play anything other than with the organ
By tracking down a copy of the CoC 6th splatbooks.
/tg only consumes Warhammer 40k and Dungeons and Dragons.
Delta Green suffers from the "If everyone dies in a single hit no one cares about what happens" style of gameplay, and is generally kind of hard to run if you go by the modules.
My suggestion: Read the modules for ideas and completely ignore their suggestions for instakills. It's not fun, your players won't learn (they'll just whine) and you will get sick of dealing with the problems.
That, or just use the really easy fix of "Willpower points can be used for rerolls" which is so fricking obvious I can't believe I had to homebrew it.
I also forgot to mention: Don't try to explain the Agency. Don't introduce the leaders, don't explain the structure, don't do anything to clarify. Nothing you will add will be better than the vague idea of a supernatural defense force, never add anyone above their handler, merely imply it.
Also you can get a lot of good mileage for sessions from simply doing "Pick a place, what's a cool story from there, make it real, add a twist, done"
And lastly, most of the modules basically expect at least one PC to die for no real reason, sure it's realistic, but it isn't fun. Injury is way more traumatic and more interesting, do that instead.
SCP is basically an entire wiki of Delta Green stories, items and opponents.
Otherwise really work the characters and roleplay aspect not the mechanical ones. A major part of the handler is balancing the tap of information dripping correctly as Aaot of Delta green is a constantly shuffling place to place experience doing mundane things. Without the right level of information the game feels empty and pointless, too much then the game feels railroady.
Strike the right balance though it's a quality session
my only friend who would run it thinks our group is too stupid to play it
maybe they are
we were, none of us had the initiative for investigation that the DM wanted and we were so used to playing as medieval shit peasants being FBI agents with access to resources was totally alien to us
By cutting out the middleman and just going straight to beating your wife.
how much are the original DG books going for these days?
You can buy them off of DriveThruRPG in print for the usual sticker price.
Guess no one plays
I play.
Basically OP you've got to ignore all the reddit shit about strippers and pimps being "DG" becaude they saw something spoopy and now theyre DG. Stick to the fact that DG is a government conspiracy.
Your players shouldn't be fighting shoggoths and hounds and deep ones like they're dragons, orcs, and sahaugin. You should build them into the conspiracy, not just use the Handler's Guide as an abbreviated Monstrous Manual. MOST of the conflict should be human versus human. Human stupidity, human greed, human pride is the driver for a lot of DG ops. Not so much "OK you guys gotta go kill the shoggoth in Everyville, USA."
Occasionally let the players cut loose and call in an artillery strike or let an Apache dump hellfire missiles into a Dark Young of the Woods.
Cont
DG can be hazardous, but a lot of the deaths could be mitigated by the PCs not acting like a moron and running from the horrible unspeakable horror versus thinking their Glock 19 is going to stop something from beyond the stars. See my before about occasionally letting the players rip loose with an airstrike.
Another thing with DG is making sure that the players have consequences for their actions, both good and bad. Agents going around flashing their badges and to get access followed by an explosion at the warehouse they badged their way into is going to result in questions they may not have the answers to.
Magic/Hypergeometry. I see a lot of Handlers think that agents should have access to rituals on day 1. These people are homosexuals and likely communists. Magic in DG always takes more than it gives, and even the "good" spells (Elder Sign, Voorish Sign, Banishing Spells etc) should have the temptation for the agent to think he has this hypergeometry under control and hey, what's the worst that happens if you start ripping loose with Withering or create a few zombies? It's all for the greater good, right?
Anyway tldr: DG is a blast you've just gotta be on top of it.
Use Alphonse's Axioms for Agents as a guide on how to build challenges and encounters for players. Special attention to 16, 17, 22, 23, 30, 32, and 41. If your agents ever face the manifested unnatural with only their sidearms, they have already made several mistakes. Every npc is a valid target for elimination and should be considered either as a vector for incursions or an operational liability. Knowledge is death.