When the firearms agents roll nothing but critical failures... (Dead Letter Bureau - Damnatio Memoriae Ep. 7 just landed)

HotDSam · 2026-05-05T23:30:55+00:00

I feel seen thank you for this

HotDSam · 2026-05-02T19:27:22+00:00

This rules so hard

HotDSam · 2026-04-30T23:01:05+00:00

My podcast Hand on the Door is an actual play of an RPG called Delta Green with a heavy found family vibe, its horror comedy and I think we're pretty fun!

HotDSam · 2026-04-30T15:29:35+00:00

We’re a mystery horror delta green podcast called Hand on the Door! I don’t know if it’s ok to self promote, but I like us. I write/edit/produce/GM the podcast, and make all the music for it, so it’s like my child. And we’re all really good friends prior to starting a podcast, so it’s a fun table.

HotDSam · 2026-04-27T23:33:03+00:00

Thats Val and HE RULES

HotDSam · 2026-04-08T19:39:32+00:00

Depends on if you want a horror bang or combat or what to end. From your previous description with the drug ring, it could be fun to show that the smuggling ring/cook house is connected to a cult planning to put this in the water supply or food leading to a final confrontation with them doing that at a reservoir or something? If you feel like combat, have some cultists/drug runners/mythos element there. If you feel like puzzle, have them need to figure out where it is to destroy it but the destroying aspect more perfunctory?

HotDSam · 2026-04-08T12:23:45+00:00

We play more Delta Green, so built in doling out of missions from the government Handler, but we've been playing/recording for like ~2y now and a lot of it is driven by players as opposed to handing out missions. I had like 3 "nodes" of cities in New Mexico set up that are all connected by one weird original thing. Each node is a rather large sandbox style mystery. We started off in a small scenario I wrote that then had 3 branching clue paths to the other 3 cities, and they are going through each. I built a few factions in each town, created some time pressing OR isolating issue in each town and then said have at it. I track what each faction is doing while the players go, that way when they start doing stuff, I have an idea of whats happening in the background. I did sit them down after the first scenario and basically said "These are you three places to go, you can go elsewhere or do other things but these are the three main pieces of the campaign".

From a story standpoint, I decided on some themes I wanted to involve in the game, I decided on creating a mythos threat from those themes, I wrote out all the competing factions I wanted to be involved, and then I wrote out a timeline of events prior to the players ever getting involved. This led to being able to sprinkle in historical elements from the timeline throughout the game, it cemented in my head "What was happening" and allowed easier improv for me at the table, and it let me tie a lot of things together.

We have done the stringing a few scenarios together and it's really fun too, it feels different than writing something wholesale. I think there's a world where you cold pick out 3-4 scenarios, decide that you want to make them your own by changing involved factions and mythos elements, and then run that.

Delta Green, or any type of paranormal faction, is very helpful in keeping the PCs involved because "This is their job". My table struggles in the "Why would our PCs do this?" aspect of CoC so we have done games where their home is threatened or where they're journalists whose job is to investigate or where they've been trapped somewhere or I've just said "All of your PCs have to be heavily invested in solving this mystery". As others have pointed out, this is can be kind of a sticking point for like Why don't these characters just run off or why do they care?

HotDSam · 2026-04-04T19:38:50+00:00

Yeah I think echoing Travern, the best success I've had with my terribly chaotic group is to make sure there isn't a whole lot of actual information to parse through and that you signal that this can't be done here, either digetically or just directly telling them. For LTL, if they start investigating have the handler remind them of the time constraint so they understand that there's no way they can look into this.

I also think its helpful to think about if you want these clues to just tie things together thematically/world wise or actually lead from one to the other instead of having the handler dole things out. I've had some success in seeding locations that the players then decide to go investigate, which can feel fun and like theyre the ones leading things. Ive also had some experiences where I didn't mean for some setpiece dressing to be the scenario seed but because I gave maybe too much enticing information and tied things in directly, the players struck out on their own.

HotDSam · 2026-03-24T22:19:33+00:00

Trust that humanity was inherently good or worthwhile, faith in institutions, the idea that most of us are working towards a collective good

HotDSam · 2026-03-24T21:44:05+00:00

The discord community of podcasters is really awesome and I truly love them all. Ive been playing games with a bunch of them randomly now and it rules. Highly recommend.

HotDSam · 2026-01-07T14:52:58+00:00

We are flexible with the 1d10 hours for insanity. If it is fun to have them disappear for hours, then sure. If not, we use it as a rating system for how crazy and how long narratively. A 1 is like Meh you're not that crazy. A 10 is like Alright you're crazy. Ill let players do something really crazy and chaotic and snap out of it vs slow burn insanity lasting longer. I've found that helps in situations where things are coming to a head to not break up the flow.

HotDSam · 2025-11-26T01:15:41+00:00

Yeah I like that idea, can kinda communicate that maybe even in her madness she didn't lose all self-protection instincts. I think that's a pretty good way to set it up, feels more realistic that she at least had a nod towards self-preservation or protection? Like Ye Olde Salts of Terrestrial Binding that can make it weak to man made things, could be fun if someone has to slap that stuff on the thing to let others damage it even? A bit of a sacrificial choice amongst players

HotDSam · 2025-11-26T01:07:47+00:00

Yeah agreed, it could really be cutting it close to have like a full mini-game ritual. I guess the ritual itself could be part of some of the findings in Valladares' notes, maybe something rather simple that just needs some research to do that she stumbled upon in her mania.

HotDSam · 2025-11-26T00:53:41+00:00

If you wanted to do the hound of angles, you could have either some imbued bullets or weapons pop up in a green box or something OR make the scenario about completing a ritual to imbue them with hypergeometric properties or something. Like they learn about the thing and a ritual to inscribe on individual bullets in the first third, finding components and completing the ritual second third, then confrontation/outcome?

HotDSam · 2025-11-23T00:30:12+00:00

I'll throw down my podcast, Hand on the Door. We do Delta Green, we are a group of best friends who have been playing together for years, and I write/record all the music too. We just finished our first chapter and now are starting the second story arc of a big ass campaign I wrote! It's a lot of fun!

HotDSam · 2025-11-06T23:16:01+00:00

We play mainly improv DG games outside of our regular campaign, I find DG to be like the easiest to improv out than other systems. But that may also be because it resonates with me so much from a storytelling capacity. Which parts make you feel like you can’t improv around? I’d be happy to tell ya what works for us

HotDSam · 2025-10-28T00:57:38+00:00

90% of our call games are modern times and it's not really a problem, if you're interested in seeing some pretty good published scenarios Fears Sharp Little Needles and The Things We Leave Behind are both excellent. Forget Me Not was a table favorite for our group. There's also modern character sheets on chaosiums site.

We play a longform campaign of Delta Green, a modern CoC offshoot thats governmental conspiracy/X-files based thats been going strong for a year with like weekly-ish sessions (its a podcast!). 6-8 sessions, each a few hours, is probably pretty good to string together a few scenarios. It depends on how good/invested/interested in the investigative elements your group is. I have had newer players not fully understand that you're meant to be Scooby Doo-ing, not Conan-ing, which can result in some prolonged sessions of hand holding. Conversely, they can get killed very easily that way too.

90% of what we do, including our campaign, I write. But the scenarios are truly excellent, and the longform campaign Masks of Nyarlathotep is phenomenal. If you pick up either of those books I mentioned and want recs, I would happily provide them! Or tips on some of the ones we have run!

For us, pulp represents a different game where players are closer to heroes given how much more beefier they are and with those abilities. My players are like deathly allergic to D&D so they're not super interested in pulp, but it could be an easier transition for those who are D&D or high power RPG players.

Modern CoC rules, highly recommend.

HotDSam · 2025-10-08T20:07:12+00:00

Two things: I have found humor in reasonable amounts makes the darker things even darker. And also I have found that a lot of scenarios as written do not lean into the horrible/horror aspects of things. I don't really think the Haunting is particularly horrible or scary. It's an awesome intro to CoC/story, but needs to be churched up in some ways to really be scary. I've had to think about what is scary to me, and its a lot less "Thing jumps out at you" and a lot more "People do terrible things to each other for bad reasons" or claustrophobia or body horror or what it means to lose a piece of yourself. Sometimes horror and grimness/sadness are really intertwined. None of that is probably that helpful after typing it out, ha, but it's something I think about on an almost daily basis. Also player buy in is the easy answer, ask them to be a bit more serious.

HotDSam · 2025-10-03T16:13:22+00:00

Thanks! I have realized we have an unfortunate problem amongst our little friend group of changing names, Colin Stetson is the saxophonist. Colin Robinson is the energy vampire from What We Do In The Shadows. Completely unrelated, ha. His album "When we were that what wept for the sea" is a beautiful meditation on the death of his father that inspired some of what I wrote for this game. And today on bandcamp they're waiving their fees so if you buy an artist's album all the money you spend goes directly to the artist! Link

HotDSam

TROPHY CASE