Looking Upon the Face of a Dead God: the aftermath of a 1D10/1D100 SAN test

art from Lovecraft: The Blasphemously Large First Issue by Daniel Govar and Mat Lopes

In Delta Green, if a Great Old One makes a big enough appearance in the game for you to have to make a SAN roll, the game's usually over. But sometimes it's not the end. Maybe a Shan only briefly exposed your mind to Azathoth as a punishment, or like Johansen, you ram Cthulhu in the face with a steamboat, who understandably decides to go back to sleep. You've still lost 1D10, 1D20, or 1D100 SAN, which is an awful lot. Just because Yog-Sothoth didn't let the Old Ones break through and trample all over the earth doesn't mean you survived. There's a good chance you're babbling at 0 SAN or some other number low enough for an exit from field work. In this post, I'm going to crunch the numbers to find the probabilities of the different results of a 1D10/1D100 or 1D20/1D100 SAN test.

How I Use Inhuman Stat Tests in Delta Green

Delta Green has some monsters (and people) with stats outside of the normal human range of 3-18. Just using the rules in the Agent's Handbook makes resolving stat tests a bit weird when the stat in question is at 20 or higher. Fortunately, page 188 of the Handler's Guide has us covered: they succeed on all rolls except for 100, which fails and fumbles, and critically succeed when the dice match and if the result is less than or equal to their stat. I like this rule. It's elegant, and because of the way opposed tests work, it makes 20 CON different from 30 CON, since one is more likely to critically succeed.

Ghouls – A Dipterous Reflavoring

art by Tayna Rezunenko

 

“Ghouls are usually described as doglike or canine in appearance, a description that has as much to do with their pack behavior and habit of digging as it does their specific skull shape.
… 

To change up ghoul imagery, try other graveyard scavengers. Ghouls in your campaign might also resemble or at least evoke:
… 

Flies (bristles on arms, segmented eyes, green-blue sheen on flesh)”

 

 — Kenneth Hite et al., “Hideous Creatures – A Bestiary of the Cthulhu Mythos”

I decided to take Mr. Hite’s advice to heart, and write a retheme for one of my favorite monsters in Delta Green. The book lists several other aesthetic options, but I had the most ideas for flies and they were the most different from your 'stereotypical ghoul.' I also took the opportunity to elaborate on and rewrite some existing mechanics I felt were too vague or just didn’t like.

Guest Post - The Green Mafia

In just about every power structure one of the surest ways to get ahead is to have friends who are already ahead. An Ivy League education isn’t just valuable for its curriculum after all, it allows for networking with people who will almost certainly end up in positions of power. Similar patterns can be seen within specific organizations. In the British Army, The Rifles were represented among the highest ranked generals almost nine times as much as they were in the wider army, leading to their nickname — The Black Mafia. In the Russian Army a similar phenomenon, this time with the VDV, is commonly referred to as the Air Assault Mafia.

These are more often than not simply cases where implicit bias and favoritism enables a concentration of power, but Delta Green — both the Program and Outlaws — is a conspiracy made up of long term careerists and deeply driven to accrue power. So, why not a Green Mafia? 

Guest Post - Playing the Man Behind the Man

Spying, operating, burgling or any other ‘kinetic activity’ is usually thought of by players and the general public in a vacuum. Nine times out of ten when Bond or Bourne are doing their action movie thing they are doing it on their own. This makes for great cinema, but poor gameplay in a TTRPG. Luckily, the real world is not so unilateral, analysts put together targeting packages on just about every objective that a ‘doer’ will try to achieve before they ever get into action and this can offer a Delta Green party some ideas on how to include the whole party.

This post uses the example of espionage to detail one way of how to include support characters in a social scene, but the same principle could be applied to just about anything. an analyst who has looked over a cult compound and determined the best approach could give a special operator a bonus to stealth during the raid, just as a psychiatrist might give a case officer a bonus in a social scene. This is not a be all, end all solution to making support characters on par with action men but simply aims to give them another tool.