How to Delta Green

Hey guys, let's try something new today. I'm going to down into the weeds of my process for just a little bit. Have you ever wondered where my Delta Green  ideas came from? How I smash them into shape? Or how I run them at the table? Well then, this article is for you. 

IDEAS

Where do the ideas that underly a good Delta Green operation come from? Well, in no particular order, usually:

• Daydreaming.
• Some oddity in a book or on the web.
• Some combination of all of the above.

Let's consider one example: The Sentinels of Twilight (available to Patrons here).  This operation concerns an odd, spooky race of near-human entities with total control of their molecular structure, hunting and kidnapping people in Yosemite National Park. I was daydreaming about creepy effects I could give to a creature. One, I thought, might be the ability to lock eyes with a target and to them you disappear completely. You could act and move and kill and do whatever, but to that affected target, you would have effectively vanished. 

I thought this might be neat for a Serpent Man or something, and then I read an article The Secret Vanishings in America's National Parks .  After several more afternoons of digging around and taking notes, I went back and read H.P. Lovecraft and Zelia Bishop's The Mound. I had about 1,000 words worth of notes, some very strong key points, and all I needed to make a creepy experience. 

At that point, it was all there:

• The source of the threat (the K'n-yani people from The Mound).
• Their odd power (the ability to change shape and size, as well as the ability to cause targets to "not see them").
• The disappearances in National Parks (from the web article).  

So, my process might be listed as such:

• Cruise inspiring material until something catches my eye.
• Store that data for later consideration.
• Correlate contents. 

All my Delta Green operations have been born from this process. Artifact Zero  came from a picture of an archaeologist digging up a human skeleton in deep strata, and I thought, "what if he was digging up himself?" Night Floors  from being lost in a National Guard Armory in Hempstead New York when I was 13, and I went room to room to room without finding an exit or seeing the sky for what seemed like WAY too long. Looking around, reading, paying attention to your weird thoughts and most importantly—writing them down is key.

EXECUTION

How do you center a Delta Green operation in the world? How do you make certain you have your bases covered, but it remains flexible enough to handle creative players? How do you make certain your players have a chance, but don't find the operation too easy?

The first part of this, centering Delta Green in the real world is vital, and it is the most overlooked in our Agents and Handlers. Shane's wonderful Bonds system forces the Agents to consider their lives mechanically, but I've always forced the players in my Delta Green games to give appropriate consideration to the reality of their situation. 

I've had Agents whose wife became suspicious and sent a private investigator to track them, thinking they were having an affair. I've had Agents accidentally post their geographical location using social media while contacting a loved-one—broadcasting their REAL location when they were supposed to be hundreds of miles away. I've had Agents fail to keep up on their bills and have their car impounded, or their phone cut off. 

This is extremely easy for any Handler to accomplish. Think of all the real hassles in your life and apply them, liberally, on the Agents. Remember when your car threw a rod? Your water heater burst and the water froze in the garage? Or your son broke his arm in the middle of an average school day, and you had to drive down? Yeah, well, Agents are people too, no matter what they hope to stop, their lives go on (for the most part). Don't forget the reality. It makes the bizarre work so much better.

The second part is creating an operation that has its bases covered. The first and most important rule here is: no plan survives first contact with the enemy. So, be flexible. Be ready to expand or shrink or alter the threat on the fly. Sometimes I have a few jump-scares (it was just the neighbors' cat) or inconveniences (the state police step in) worked out ahead of time. But most of the time, I just wing it. This is akin to dancing, in that it is very hard to teach, and requires you to...just do it until you can. Most people can develop the knack. 

You will never cover all the angles, though, if you're clever, you might cover all the basic directions the Agents might travel. When I design an operation, I start with the inciting event. What draws Delta Green to the operation? From there, I consider how the unnatural might spread from that inciting event. For example, a body is locate phased into the matter of a wall. What might happen here? The coroner calls an old physicist friend at the university to show him, etc... Think of the unnatural as a poison that seeps from mind to mind forever outward. (Does the physicist achieve a breakthrough due to the data he gathers there, right before he commits suicide? Does he attempt to sell something gleaned from the crime scene to someone in the department of defense?) It's easy to play these out in your mind and write about the consequences of this spread. I often use a flow chart with arrows pointing outward from the inciting event. 

MOOD

How do you keep the mood at the table? I run a tight Delta Green game (you can hear a bunch of examples from the ongoing actual play of the upcoming Delta Green Campaign: Impossible Landscapes here).  I don't do well with too many jokes, and I put up with zero in the way of jokes IN THE GAME WORLD. Above all Delta Green is a serious game, set in a world just like our own (albeit one haunted by secrets). Players should be expected to come to the table with that in mind. If you have to correct someone, do it immediately, and try to be clear—the core of this game is about fear, not humor. Now, this doesn't mean there can't be laughter and humor at the table; there is always tons at my table. But the game world the Agents inhabit is deadly serious, always. If a player can't fall in line with that and can't come to some agreement on it, it's best to let them go, as their jokes might ruin the experience for all the other players. 

One thing I see in Handlers that could use some help is establishing and maintaining control. Often, and in many other games (where it is often very fitting) the game is an organic process where the game master and players share authority over the narrative. Fledgling Handlers might bring this sensibility to Delta Green, but Delta Green is not that sort of game. The Handler is the absolute authority. All decisions they make are final decisions. The Agents are fragile creatures trying to keep from going mad, losing their relationships, or dying. Control comes from confidence. As Handler, it is your job to know what you're talking about, and, if that fails, to at least appear to know what you're talking about. Faking it until you hit upon a fact you can state without any fear is a good way to cover such glitches (and they always occur). How do I control a narrative? It's pretty easy. Here are my tools:

• I write things down. Names, dates, places. I keep a running list of NPCs, the doctor the agents spoke to in Boise or the color of the car in the desert.
• I read up on those notes before the next session, so those concepts are fresh in my mind.
• I use a computer calendar to track dates and times and occurrences. 
• When a dispute in memory or concept comes up, I acknowledge the conflict and then define what it is right then and there (this goes on the list).

All in all, these three things add up to make my Delta Green Operations a success. Taken individually, none of them is enough to make the game something special. Combined, and they work in concert to put Agents in the right frame of mind. 

If you enjoyed this article and would like to see more like it, please take a moment and post some comments, questions or ideas on what other things you'd like to see addressed.