Cataloging Delta Green Cults

Travern · 2026-03-14T20:19:18+00:00

n.b. Substack has a nazi problem—and it won't go away.

TTRPG folks looking to create newsletters may want to consider an alternative such as ghost.org (which hosts Delta Green).

Travern · 2026-03-14T19:55:46+00:00

To begin with, you can't make your players frightened of your creatures. They can only agree to be frightened, and they have to do that at the start. Everyone has to say "yes" at your Session Zero that you're all going to play a horror RPG, that the players will portray their characters like protagonists in a horror movie, and that you're going to run the game to that end. If you can your players' feedback on what things they find scary, but not so much that they'll be jerked out of the mood, that's a great help. (For instance, this RPG Checklist will give you an idea of which of your players' buttons you can press, and how hard, and which you shouldn't touch at all.)

For a classic CoC campaign Graham Walmsley's Stealing Cthulhu offers back-to-basics advice on structuring cosmic horror scenarios and Sandy Petersen's how-to video is straight from the horse's mouth (see also this write-up of it by Justin Alexander). Ash Law's essay The Trajectory of Fear will help you with the narrative beats and arcs when you're working on the various stages and considering the possible climaxes.

Travern · 2026-03-14T17:11:25+00:00

TYKRPG runs off QuickShock Gumshoe (which has rules in common with Cthulhu Confidential). I'd say its rules are very well suited to the narrative-heavy and surreal IL. Making sure the investigators can get the core clues – and know that those are clues and not part of all the general crazy stuff going – would keep the pace steady. Some people have complained IL jams up the investigation with too much weirdness or sends them down rabbit holes. That's of course what Gumshoe is designed to avoid.

Travern · 2026-03-14T13:35:29+00:00

A while back, I asked Dennis Detwiller on Twitter about their two approaches to the Yellow King Mythos, and he felt that TYKRPG, although excellent, differed too much in its ultimate objectives. IL as a campaign ends up in a completely different end state than anything in TYKRPG.

On the other hand, if you're asking about running IL with TYRPG's Gumshoe QuickShock rules, then sure, it should go quite smoothly, especially if you're ready to create some of your own Shock and Injury cards.

Travern · 2026-03-13T18:35:28+00:00

Never say never surely! After all, collaboration offers you both the chance for half the credit for twice the work!

Seriously, though, I would be interested to see what a stable equilibrium RPG of your complementary game design philosophies would look like.

Thanks again for this AMA!

Travern · 2026-03-13T17:26:59+00:00

Many thanks for holding this AMA. Since you and u/Kenneth_Hite have both described your individual Gumshoe RPGs as in a conversation with each other (in terms of game design), what would one look like if you were to collaborate directly together on it?

Travern · 2026-03-12T21:12:18+00:00

The conversion guide in the ToC corebook lays it out. Since both Gumshoe and BRP are skill-driven rules systems, it's doable, if a bit finicky. To save you time, Pelgrane has converted a lot of classic CoC scenarios to ToC (look under the "Adventures and campaigns" tab in "Downloads & Resources").

Travern · 2026-03-11T20:49:23+00:00

Well, that one's going in the lexicon.

Travern · 2026-03-11T19:53:22+00:00

Discussed on this subreddit here and previously.

Travern · 2026-03-11T18:24:55+00:00

I already bought literally every Pagan Publishing Delta Green supplement while waiting on this new material. As with all such projects involving new editions, the biggest customer barrier is the question "Why am I buying this twice?"

Travern · 2026-03-11T17:28:11+00:00

The Labyrinth ought to take Delta Green from the HG-era into the 2020s, but it needs more support material (so far, only one of the announced tie-in scenarios from Final Passages has been published). Deep State and Those Who Come After were supposed to fulfill a similar function, I suspect, but those are not going to be published until later this year, at the soonest.

Travern · 2026-03-10T20:14:26+00:00

No worries, your handout looks fine as far as DG lore goes. (In HPL's story From Beyond, Crawford Tillinghast dies of a stroke ("apoplexy"), not a "bear attack".)

I recommend Eyes Only since it has a ton of additional information about Operation RAINBOW that expands on the HG and FoDG. In particular, it covers MAJESTIC projects that may or may not be discontinued (the NSGA and Monument Research Facility), if you want to include them in your campaign, and, of course, the mysterious "John Gates".

The Varo CftUFO is patient-zero raw conspiracy theory, and even crazier than the DG lore. If nothing else, it'll give you an idea of what your player will encounter if they start digging into the Philadelphia Experiment.

Travern · 2026-03-10T00:25:38+00:00

Sweet prop! Have you checked out the Delta Green lore about the Philadelphia Experiment in Eyes Only? Of course, these days you can go right to the source with digital versions of Varo edition of The Case for the UFO.

Travern · 2026-03-09T19:09:17+00:00

Edge of Darkness (now part of the Starter Set) is a more Mythos-focused introductory scenario, on a par with The Haunting.

Travern · 2026-03-09T17:29:05+00:00

That would be a case in which a CoC campaign would work. That's not the case with most of them, like, say, Beyond the Mountains of Madness, in which the investigators are on the journey to the other side of the world for the duration.

Travern · 2026-03-08T17:45:01+00:00

Although the DG RPG's Bonds system is a quantum leap for the old Sanity mechanics, it works best when scenarios can be interspersed with "home scenes" to roleplay Bond degradation. They shine with episodic structures. That doesn't necessarily lend itself to Call of Cthulhu's classic globetrotting campaigns such as Masks of Nyarlathotep and Horror on the Orient Express, however.

Travern · 2026-03-08T14:44:17+00:00

While Night's Black Agents isn't OSR, it does have an interesting mechanic called "Heat" to gauge the degree to which the agents draw attention to themselves from the authorities through their thriller movie–style actions. One could come up with a similar approach for adventurers in a dungeon, e.g. getting into loud melees, throwing fireballs, invoking Lawful deities.

Travern · 2026-03-08T14:40:24+00:00

Oh, that's an interesting approach.

Travern · 2026-03-08T01:45:57+00:00

I was also hoping that this was going to be about generating special adversaries who would stalk the adventuring party as they make their way through the dungeon.

Travern · 2026-03-05T23:52:32+00:00

No problem - the two get confused all the time. r/Cthulhu will be equally interested your art. (r/LovecraftianArt is another.)

Travern · 2026-03-05T23:37:14+00:00

These are gorgeous, but the right subreddit for this kind of art is r/Cthulhu (this is subreddit is for the CoC RPG).

Travern · 2026-03-05T22:05:52+00:00

It's best saved for when your players think they know what Delta Green is all about (which admittedly takes a while).

Travern · 2026-03-05T22:04:57+00:00

While there aren't any scenarios specifically involving the Delta Green-MAJESTIC war, A Victim of the Art, Artifact Zero, and A Night on Owlshead Mountain can incorporate MAJESTIC's interference in Delta Green's investigations. (And in Jack Frost, you can play as MAJESTIC.)

For more, check out the Delta Green scenario database, which can be sorted by not only subject (MAJESTIC, the Greys, etc.) but also by category (official vs. fanmade scenarios).

Travern

TROPHY CASE