Against Surprise?

I've been thinking about surprise attacks in RPGs. Rather than making up caricatures and laundering my opinions through imaginary critics, I'll go straight to listing some games and how they handle the subject.

mellonbread reviews Shotguns vs Cthulhu

Shotguns Vs Cthulhu is a 2012 short story collection by Pelgrane Press, full of pulp action stories where humans fight supernatural forces. I won't be providing full plot summaries because I believe reviews like this are only fun for people who have already read the story.

King in Yellow Tarot - A Second Reading

 

After some discussion with a friend I decided to do another KiY tarot reading. In my first reading I just used the Wikipedia interpretations of the cards, which it seems are strongly biased toward the symbolism used in the Rider Waite set. While Kurt Komoda based the color scheme and linework on the Rider Waite set, the dev team packed the designs with their own symbolism.

This time, I'll try to interpret what's actually on the cards and how it relates to their assigned role in the story, rather than using someone else's opinion of someone else's deck.

King in Yellow Tarot - A Reading

 

My King in Yellow stuff from the Delta Green Conspiracy Kickstarter arrived today. 

 

I've been looking forward to the tarot cards since the earliest previews dropped around seven years ago. The cards come with a little booklet that explains the lore and mythos behind the KiY Tarot, which is familiar to anyone who read the old Countdown splat for the original Delta Green. There's some additional exposition regarding why John Tynes picked the character "Madame Sosostris" as the creator of the deck, based on her appearance in literary works from the interwar period.

RPG Sanity Systems

By me

Let's clean out the drafts folder with a survey of RPG SAN systems, inspired by a discussion in the SA traditional games chat. I think essays are generally boring and reveal more about the author than they do about the topic of discussion. With that in mind I'll focus on games I've actually played and enjoyed.

2022 Delta Green Shotgun Scenario Reviews

The 2022 Delta Green Shotgun Scenario Contest wrapped a few weeks ago. I've largely lost interest in Delta Green over the last year or two, but I sent in three scenarios anyway.

 

Reviews of all 53 submissions under the cut.

Delta Green Play Report: Eight Folds to Infinity

You stand on a vast red plain, which extends to the horizon. Mountains are visible in the distance, silhouetted red by a green haze that filters upward into the darkness beyond. The plain is red, ankle deep in blood.

Before you is a massive desk, like a judge would use. It towers above you. On the desk is written:

 

Sitting at the desk, peering down at you, is a gray little man in a green accountant’s visor and red vest. He squints, and asks, in his dusty voice: How many people have you killed?

Delta Green - Shooting For Survival

I've cooled off on Delta Green over the years, but I was recently asked by a friend of the blog to repost this article from my DG master document. I wrote it a few years ago when I first started playing Delta Green. I saw a lot of characters die because the players misunderstood how the game system worked, made poor choices due to rules inexperience, and didn't take advantage of simple but easily forgotten mechanics that would have protected them. Automatic weapons and explosives killed more Agents than all the monsters in the game combined.

The tips presented here are mechanical rather than tactical. They will not save Agents from poorly chosen fights, bad strategic decisions, or an overly bloodthirsty attitude that comes back to bite them. But nobody should die because of a game rule that wasn't intuitive.

Drinks Post - Runoff

For all the recipes that were either too simple or not good enough to make it into the main drinks post series.

Dutch Russian

This is a stock photo from Wikipedia.

Availability: Tricky. I had to go to a megastore to find genever, and they only had one kind.

This is a White Russian with genever instead of vodka. It tastes like a malted milkshake. Delicious, but nothing to run home about.

Clean Living - a Resident Evil Adventure

Resident Evil! It's not my favorite series - in fact the only one I've ever played is 4. The setting is kind of bloated with too many prequels and spinoffs and retcons that create a ridiculous Metal Gear style pileup of conspiracies.

But I saw a thread on the traditional games board that captured my imagination: what would it be like living in a world where anyone with a grudge could turn over a rock and find thirty new bio-organic weapons. And it reminded me of one of my favorite settings of all time: the B.P.R.D.

By Guy Davis, the best of the B.P.R.D. artists

So I wrote up a rules hack for Delta Green, along with an adventure and some pregens to play with it. You can read them here.

Here's a play report of how the playtest went.

THE UNITED STATES IN 2021

Since President Adams’ assassination in 2013, the United States has been in a permanent state of emergency - a police state in an endless struggle against yearly bioterror attacks. Wild mutants breeding in the woods for decades, filtering out into population centers. Cults and militias brewing new strains of viruses bought on the black market. Zombies staggering into crowded malls. Secret military tribunals. Bodies in sealed bags, tipped into an autoclave.

That’s been the new normal for almost a decade. And it’s not all bad. The biological revolution that unleashed neverending horror on the world also opened a treasure trove of medical and pharmaceutical discoveries. When’s the last time you heard of someone dying of heart disease, or cancer? So people live around the shortages and empty shelves, the long lines, the endless checkpoints manned by guards in full MOPP gear, pointing flamethrowers and rocket launchers at families in sedans. You shop for groceries, pick up the kids from school, spray your groceries down with bleach, and hope to God the thing on the back of your hand is just a rash.

THE DIVISION OF SECURITY OPERATIONS
Empowered by the 2001 PROTECT America Federal Bioterrorism Commission Act, refreshed every year by Congress during the usual appropriation cycle, the Division of Security Operations is the cabinet level agency which assumed the duties of both the FBC and the National Counterterrorism Center. Unlike its predecessors, the DSO has broad authority to assemble Joint Terrorism Task Forces on a permanent basis, in effect skimming personnel from other law enforcement, military and intelligence three letter agencies.

BRIEFING
Yesterday, local police in Lubbock, Texas making a routine traffic stop found a hermetically sealed container filled with plagas spores. Thankfully the driver was apprehended without incident, and the container secured without releasing its contents.

We’ve got people checking out the trucking operation, and the source of the package. We need you to investigate the destination. According to the shipping records, the box hiding the spores was destined for a community in Central Washington called Squiddler’s Patch, up in the Okanogan National Forest. We’re sending you in undercover to sniff out the operation, with the option to go loud and neutralize any threat that can’t wait for a followup team.

Fallout: Yellowstone - Session One

Building on the success of my last two Fallout sandboxes, I recently ran my first session of Fallout: Yellowstone.

I had three players, one returning from a previous Fallout adventure.

• Professor Delores, high powered scientist
• Ethan Hollister, eagle eyed wasteland scout
• Dani Masterson, villager from Colorado

They entered Yellowstone under the following pretenses:

Your prairie village in Montana has been struck by plague. A burrowing creature with a glowing belly bit a child, who fell ill a few days later. By the time the town doctor noticed the swelling in the kid’s lymph nodes, the disease had already spread among the populace. It’s easy to treat with antibiotics, but the town doesn’t have nearly enough. The caravan was due a week ago, and hasn’t shown up yet.

You were spared the ravages of the disease. You’ve been sent South into the seething cauldron of Yellowstone, to search for enough medicine to save your town. You were given a healthy supply of bits (the silver tokens used as money in Montana) and the last of the stimpaks (a rare trade good from down South, since Broc Flower and Xander Root don’t grow in the tundra).

As you travel South from Gardiner along the 89, the air smells like pollen, flowers and sulfur. The peaks and valleys are covered with snow, but everywhere else you see evidence of Spring. You heard this place was spared the worst ravages of the nuclear dust storms that swept the region after the war, but you'd never seen it for yourself.

There's a fort up ahead.

 

Twelve Handmade Pregens for Delta Green

Twelve Handmade Pregens for Delta Green

Some explanatory text:

I made these characters because I wasn't happy with the pregens available for Delta Green.

• The ones in Need to Know are... okay. But they aren't how I would create a character, and my rule is that I never give out a pregen I wouldn't want to play myself
• The list of hundreds and hundreds of random Agents is great if you need a new character fast, but it's not something I'd hand a brand new player.
• I admittedly haven't read the Agent Dossiers that came out a year or two ago, so those could be great and I wouldn't know.

I built these characters the way I build my own - very competent at their jobs, but with a good spread of secondary skills high enough to be useful. I've found that new players to a system are happy to be blown up, shot, eaten by monsters and go insane. But if their first exposure to a game is failing at everything they try because their character "can't do anything", they're going to disengage early. In my experience, giving out characters that are just slightly min/maxed also makes the players more confident, which makes them more willing to make stupid/bold moves that make the game fun.

Language skills are all left unassigned, so that the pregens can be used in any setting and still be useful. I favor letting the players leave them blank, with the option to "lock in" what language(s) the character speaks in-game as needed, writing it permanently on the sheet. If you don't want to do this, remind them to assign languages at the beginning of the session, or write them in yourself before the game based on the scenario you're running.

Each pregen comes with a full load of equipment suitable for their profession and role on the team. This cuts away the need for endless gear shopping, and gives the players confidence that they have what they need to do their jobs.

The pregens all come with instructions in the notes section on the back of the sheet. This includes details about the character's personality, tips for playing them, and any special mechanics that the player should know about. These are helpful because even experienced players usually forget things like using a first aid kit to get +20% on a First Aid roll.

Finally, some of the pregens (EASTER, RANDOLPH and ROBERT) know a single ritual. I added this after I noticed that the knowledge/academic based characters were barely getting picked compared to the ones with badges and guns. Knowing a magic spell is more fun than just having 10% in Unnatural, especially in a oneshot where that percentage is unlikely to increase to a useful level. If you don't want the characters to have spells, you can remove them from the "developments which affect home and family" section on the back side of the sheet.

Fallout: Seattle Political Compass

 

From my Fallout: Seattle series

Fallout: Seattle Masterpost

This is a masterpost for my Fallout: Seattle mini campaign. It includes play reports of all the sessions, the rules I used, and the GM sandbox, in case you're interested in using it yourself.

Islands of Seattle By Jeffrey Lin

First, the Play Reports. I tested this with four Delta Green players, three of whom had also played in the previous Two Sun Campaign.

• Session One
• Session Two

Next, the system itself:

• Player Document - start here
• Player Map - what the players see at the beginning of the game
• GM Sandbox - the content that populates the world
• GM Map - the place where it all happens
• Character Sheet - auto calculates so you don't have to
• Folder, containing all of the above

Fallout: Seattle - Session 2

Session two of Fallout: Seattle. Session 1 saw the players getting to know the major players of the Drowned City, and come up with a plan to find a fusion core.

In attendance, same as last time:

• Elizabeth "Scythe" Forscythe, scavenger from the ruins of Two Sun
• Professor Delores, high powered scientist and Amazon
• Dr Emily Ridgeway, surly drugrunner
• Chews on Fat, smooth talking tribal and "honorable cannibal"

The Seekers woke up early at Establishing Shots, woke up Sean the Researcher, and went to the Gun Runners' outlet store on the South side of the Sound. Chewie picked up a Ripper, while Delores grabbed a set of Security Armor to boost her substantial natural defenses (she grabbed a perk to boost her damage resistance after last session).

 

Before dropping Sean off on Capitol Island, the team decided to check out the neat mansion they saw on Beacon Island.

The Turner-Koepf House

They passed a solitary buoy on the canoe ride over - a ghoul in a life vest, which tried its best to thrash toward them and didn't achieve much of anything. The hike up the hill to the house didn't reveal anything of interest. The house itself had a rickety wooden fence around it, written in English and simplified Chinese, warning visitors to go around and use the front gate. The front gate had a sign instructing visitors to deposit their weapons in a green plastic recycling bin - which had a tarp and drainage holes in the bottom to protect its contents from water. The players dropped their gear off and followed the path to the house, where a sign on the front door instructed them to knock and then step well back of the door.

Fallout: Two Sun Political Compass

 

Based on the Fallout: Two Sun campaign

Fallout: Seattle - Session 1

After I finished Fallout: Two Sun, I had the idea for a "DLC" adventure set in Seattle. I didn't have a whole lot of ideas I liked, at first. The breakthrough came when I remembered Jeffrey Linn's Flooded Seattle Map. Not only did this create a lot of unique terrain for the players to explore, it also reduced the amount of the city I had to fill out and detail. So I worked on it for a couple weeks, and ran the first session.

 

After nuking Two Sun, Scythe and Spider made it all the way to Washington in their fusion powered M113. Then the casing on the ACAV's fusion core failed, and they had to find a new one. Spider stayed behind to guard the vehicle, while Scythe took the new friends they made along the way North to the Drowned City, to find a new one.

 

(I had three returning players from the Two Sun series, but only one of them brought a character from that game. The others made new ones)

• Elizabeth "Scythe" Forscythe, scavenger from the ruins of Two Sun
  
• Professor Delores, high powered scientist and Amazon
• Dr Emily Ridgeway, surly drugrunner
  
• Chews on Fat, smooth talking tribal and "honorable cannibal"

Play began at Thanh Tran, an old Vietnamese cultural center in South Seattle, which now sat right on the waterfront in the flooded city. Chews On Fat, descended from a tribe of Chinese-American internees, angrily began tearing the anti-Chinese propaganda posters down, but was interrupted by Harbormaster Osman, owner of the docks and restorer of canoes and wood burning steamboats.

Osman gave the Seekers a basic rundown of the situation in the Drowned City.

Based on the previously linked map by Jeffrey Linn

 

Fallout: Two Sun - Masterpost

This is a materpost for my Fallout: Two Sun mini campaign. It includes play reports of all the sessions, the rules I used, and the scenario document in case you're interested in using it yourself.

I'd been thinking about running this game for years, but kept putting it off because of the heavy content lift. I came back to my old design documents this year after the randomizer mod rejuvenated my interest in New Vegas.

 

First, the play reports. I tested the game over three session with a group of veteran Delta Green players.

• Session 1
• Session 2
• Session 3

 

Next, the system itself:

• Player Document - start here
• GM Playset - the content that populates the world
• GM map - the places where it all happens
  
• Character Sheet - auto calculates so you don't have to
  
• Folder, containing all of the above

 
As a bonus, have some character art from my initial concept for this campaign, back in 2015.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Fallout: Two Sun - Session 3

The third and final Fallout: Two Sun session! The version of the rules I used can be found here.

We had a trio of returning players this time:

• Wilbur "Spider" Webb, Odd Job Man - Vault 24 Exile
• Alex Bradshaw, Technician - Vault 24 Exile
  
• Elizabeth "Scythe" Forscythe- Scavenger retained by Vault 25 for odd jobs

Last session, the Exiles retrieved a vital computer component from the Pima Air and Space Museum, bringing it back to Vault 25 - along with a super mutant programmer and his retinue of autocannon armed sentry bots. That brought the Legion onto the Vault's doorstep. Which meant the Overseer had another job for the Exiles: finding weapons of mass destruction to disperse the barbarians at the gate.

The Blue Hoods used their fully functional GECK to fabricate a badass vehicle for the Exiles to travel in. Fully tracked, lightweight, armored, CBRN sealed, and with a plasma rifle in the turret.

 

I think this one's by Malaysia Model Kits

The Exiles had two options: a CIDR base holding New Plague germs in Marana, to the Northwest, or an unfired Titan silo holding a nuclear warhead in Glass Valley to the South. They chose to go South for the missile. The plan was to hook up a remote operating device to the missile silo's control network, allowing the Blue Hoods to fire the missile by radio if the Legion refused to negotiate.

Because none of the Exiles knew how to drive, the Blue Hoods took the liberty of kidnapping a slave from the Legion who could help. Gasket used to be a Highway King, a raider tribe that terrorized Arizona with salvaged vehicles, until the Legion hemmed them in with landmines and roadblocks and wiped them out. She was happy to be behind the wheel of a vehicle again, and even happier to run over the people who had enslaved her.

With a suite of other useful equipment in hand, the Exiles mounted up, and Gasket took them down the bumpy trail, through Pima Wash and down into the alluvial plain of Two Sun.

 

Fallout: Two Sun - Session 2

Session two of Fallout: Two Sun was shorter than the first, but kept the plot moving at a brisk pace. Once again, we used these rules - a riff on the Delta Green system. This session I introduced a short list of perks for the players to choose one,

In attendance:

• Dr Hernando Beckenbauer, Physician - Vault 24 Exile
• Wilbur "Spider" Webb, Odd Job Man - Vault 24 Exile
• Alex Bradshaw, Technician - Vault 24 Exile
  
• Elizabeth "Scythe" Forscythe- Scavenger retained by Vault 25 for odd jobs
  

Last session, the Vault 24 exiles found a new home in Vault 25, a thriving hidden community of congenitally blind Vault Dwellers with superhuman senses. These "blue hoods" were happy to welcome the exiles into the fold, provided they pulled their weight. Vault 25 needed special computer hardware to access their GECK's advanced functions, which wouldn't interface with the assistive technology their vault came with.

 

The most likely place to find the necessary hardware was the flight computer of a B-52 bomber. The nearest place that had one was the Pima Air and Space Museum. The museum was a no-go zone thanks to some pre-war defense systems that annihilated anything which came in line of sight of the building. Witnesses from the tribal population (which the blue hoods kept as "servants" to do things that required eyesight) described it as a noise like a giant cloth ripping - indicating to the exiles that the defense systems had miniguns or some other fast firing weapons. They debated a number of approaches to the problem, including burrowing beneath the museum, welding armor to a vehicle, and using radio signals to hack the automated defenses. Ultimately they settled on observing the site from a safe distance to gauge the defenses, then heading South to the old Tucson speedway to see about salvaging parts to create an armored car and run the blockade.

Before the bombs fell, the Pima Air and Space Museum had its own aircraft graveyard.

The exiles removed the identifying marks from their Vault 25 security armor, shouldered their weapons, consulted their map and hit the road.