HITTING THE FEEL OF DELTA GREEN (Patreon)

I get asked about this a lot. It’s hard to deny people are drawn to the particular air of despair we hit in Delta Green (I mean, it is mentioned) however, I often get asked: just what makes such despair feel right? What makes a Delta Green game work?

The answer is a bit complicated. For me and for the other guys in the Delta Green writing group, it’s pretty ingrained. We just hit that note and it works, and we’ve done it forever and since the beginning, so it’s not really a matter of practice or even thought. More like instinct. It just is. I know, not much help. So I’ll describe what I think it’s composed of, this...feeling, and I’ll also go into what it looks like when people get it wrong.

Disclaimer: Please note, it is your game, and if you’re having fun, you’re doing it right. This article is by no means a manifesto to ruin your fun, so if anything here rankles, please know that’s on you... I’m totally fine with people playing the game in any way they want. However, I still get relentlessly asked the above question. This is my answer to what I believe makes Delta Green work. It doesn’t have to be the same as what you think makes Delta Green work.

Here we go...

Delta Green is about dissolution and lack of control.

This right here is a very tough one for new players to get. It’s not necessarily about slaying some monsters, collecting some loot, and watching your character advance mechanically as in the standard RPG paradigm; in fact, in many ways, it’s the opposite.

In Delta Green, you are often slain by the monsters, if you collect some loot, it’s likely life threatening, and your Agent falls apart mechanically over time.

This is a huge hurdle for anyone coming into the game to overcome, but it’s what makes the moments of victory (as narrow and rare as they are), sing. Without the danger, death, and dissolution, you don’t get the joy at the table that comes from an exceptionally lucky outcome — the Agent that manages (just) to send the howling thing back to the void. This bleakness is what makes the amazing feelings that rise out of Delta Green games happen.

When I see this go wrong, it’s pretty bog-standard. The Agents are Rambo and Titus Crow and Ash from Evil Dead rolled into one. The Handler steers dice rolls to favor the players because they are fearful that if they let the dice call the outcomes, the players will lose interest and feel cheated. The ironic part here is this point of view is completely inverted. Endlessly overcoming threats with no lasting damage makes those victories feel cheap and flimsy eventually. Always getting the outcome you want makes the game feel boring. There’s no reason to feel fear if you know your Agent will always come out on the other side. Trust me.

Delta Green is about humanity.

The things from beyond exist, yes, but they’ve been trying to come through for millennia...eons, and have failed again and again. It is humanity that is the real threat. Humans fumble at the locks of the things from beyond, they struggle to release them, to harness them, to exploit them. As such, the main enemy faced in Delta Green games are people. People with motivations that are easily understood, since we are such a simple species. Power, lust, greed, hate. Simple.

When this goes wrong, again, it’s pretty easy to predict. Every threat, shadow, and lead moves the Agents into a confrontation with inhuman creatures. There’s a monster behind every corner, and two waiting for you in your car. This is kind of like making a great pizza, and then dumping 2.5 metric tons of chili flakes on it. Confrontations with the true unnatural should be few and far between. It needs to be spaced out so that Agents do not feel overwhelmed, bored with yet another monster, or lost. Less, as they say, is indeed more... at least when it comes to the unnatural.

Delta Green is about the unknowable.

Another concept some people find difficult that is actually blindingly simple. Humanity can never comprehend the unnatural. Full stop. Any that believe they have are either insane (and have become part of the unnatural) or are completely wrong (and pay for it with their lives). Now, I almost always get ’but what if they could?’ as a response. If they could, it would not be a horror game, but a science fiction game. Delta Green is about fear (see below). If you want to explore humanity understanding the unnatural, that’s fine, it’s your game, but it’s not why we wrote Delta Green — not really. (Not that Delta Green can’t be a science fiction game, mind you...)

When this goes wrong, it’s simple to see. Agents are loaded to bear with Lightning Guns, back-up copies of the Necronomicon and consult with Mi-Go for tactics on a monthly basis. They call in strike teams through hyperdimensional gates, and research their enemies in the Library of the Great Race to kill them while they're still kids. (And during all of this, most likely, the players are bored out of their skulls.)

Delta Green is about fear.

Not only are Agents part of a conspiracy within the Federal government (which even when “official” must break laws on a daily basis), their bonds know nothing of their sacrifices, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they are facing forces beyond human understanding. All of this means even the best Agent doesn’t know what horrors might arise next.

Every person an Agent faces can be a betrayer, a murderer, a threat, a conduit to the unnatural. There’s no way to know. And as the Agent continues forward into the dark, more questions come up, and less gets answered, and these secrets — filled with fear — begin to eat the Agent alive. This fear is a character in the game. Sometimes it acts like paranoia. Sometimes like anger. Other times like curiosity. But at its core is this: the fear of the Agent being lost forever to insanity or death.

When this goes wrong it’s simple to see. Agents that are immune to the dice, or Agents that get an answer for every question put to the table both fall in the fail category. No Agent knows what’s really going on. No Agent knows all the secrets. No Agent knows the truth. If they did, there would be no real reason to feel fear, after all.

These concepts are at the core of everything we create for Delta Green, and have been since the first Delta Green concept was put to publication in 1992. If you've found yourself avoiding them, I invite you to give your players the benefit of the doubt and try them, you might be surprised.