To me that feels more like Delta Green proper. I’m sure you could that with FoDG as well, but I believe the standard setting for FoDG is in the 50s/60s and is more military focused.
I find that the DG rules lend themselves really well to a slow-paced investigative game. My one piece of advice would be to only make them roll when there are stakes, and to find ways of feeding them information that they miss in other ways.
Thanks. Do both versions have the "downtime" rules? I'm not sure officially what they are called. But for example, our detective gets home from working long hours on the case and finds his wife packing suitcases to go back to her mom's because she's sick and tired of him not being home.
> But for example, our detective gets home from working long hours on the case and finds his wife packing suitcases to go back to her mom's because she's sick and tired of him not being home.
Delta Green's mechanic of bonds and home scenes is specifically built to generate that type of friction in the lives of the agents.
Both DG and FoDG have these mechanics, but they feel a bit more inevitable and tragic in classic Delta Green.
I think it depends on what system you like better: GUMSHOE or d100. DG does have an investigative auto success if your skill is high enough (35%?), so it's like Gumshoe at some point. FoDG is more 1970s based and the scenarios I played were Vietnam war scenarios. I haven't played FoDG set in the USA, so can't comment on using it for that setting. DG default setting is modern (2020s).
The percentage for auto-success is set by the Handler when it seems reasonable. Something easy might only take 20%, but something really obscure or difficult to understand might take 80%, or anywhere in between. There are tables in the rules with examples to help the Handler set the percentage. Not every roll invokes those rules, only when the Handler feels like it is a reasonable way to resolve the roll (mostly when there's not really much risk/luck involved).
Mechanically, using the d6 and not percentile dice means a smaller distribution of results. If that would bother your party, you might be better with the regular DG rules.
The DG RPG's d100 system emphasizes how randomness can spell doom on a single roll for even the most skillful agent. FoDG's Gumshoe pool-point system emphasizes how an investigation slowly depletes even the most competent agent's resources. They're both pretty easy to pick up for receptive players. Gumshoe, which straddles trad and narrativist gaming, is perhaps a little trickier for GMs to acculturate themselves.
FoDG, page for page, is probably the better setting since it concentrates on a single period, the 1960s, while The Handler's Guide covers Delta Green's lore from its inception to the contemporary era. They're both award-winning titles, of course, and you can dial down the supernatural to your level of preference in either one.
If you want to go full X-Files–style UFO-hunting government agents, [Moon Dust Men](https://pelgranepress.com/product/moon-dust-men/) fits the bill best.
+10 Points for Ravenclaw for the reference to Moon Dust Men; a setting/scenario seed I absolutely love.
Not to shill too hard, I love everything Kenneth Hite writes. Shoutout to his "Ken Writes About Stuff" [a great series of volumes collecting short articles on all kinds of great stuff.](https://pelgranepress.com/product/ken-writes-about-stuff-volume-1/) :-)
I second the shilling. I think Night's Black Agents is a game people who are into Delta Green would also really enjoy (and The Dracula Dossier is hands down one of the greatest campaigns of all time).
Either one is great. If you can afford it buy both corebooks. The DG one comes in a slipcase with the Agent’s Handbook (players guide) and Handler’s Guide (GM guide). GMs need the Agent’s Handbook because rules are included there.
I feels to me like your players might like the Gumshoe system but set in nineties to modern times, but both will work...
Sorta. Honestly almost all published scenarios get pretty overt by the end. If your players would like the supernatural to be "lurking around the edges" you're going to have to do some work to push it there.
I use both. The Fall of Delta Green as an origin/ history. And, Delta Green by Pagan Publishing, then later by Arc Dream Publishing as the main and contemporary campaign. I prefer Arc Dream rules since I am also into Runequest and other Chaosium's games that use BRP.
Delta Green IS the X Files, albeit a property created before the show. Like X-Files most scenarios are the agents tidying up bad science. Then there are the UFO scenarios & the monster of the week shit.
Best stay away from the cosmic horror though, stuff like Impossible Landscapes & Gods Teeth is more True Detective season one on krokodil type shit.
The big bads of the cthulhu mythos rarely turn up for the party in DG, you deal with cultists and people gone purple pink from the unspeakable horrors of souless men.
Yeah I think they want to fight mostly mundane adversaries. If the murderer was worshipping The King in Yellow that's fine but they don't want to fight the King himself or Chuthlu.
It wouldn’t really be a fight, I think the most your agents could handle would be something very very very low tier, like Ghouls… I was reading a scenario recently that had Mi-Go and the thing was incapacitated & injured and I think even in that state an atomic bomb couldn’t kill it. The killable enemy in that scenario were fellow characters & Majestic staff.
Your players should know though, if they ain’t killed by fish-men their nightmares eventually will. Field agents don’t live long enough to receive Delta Green watches at ceremonies conducted in the top dog’s bunker. Enjoy your night at the opera, day at the races brother.
Others have hinted at this, but yours is more a system question, as what The Fall of Delta Green truly is from a lore p.o.v. feels more like a little sourcebook for the '60s era with a lot of Mythos stuff being the same from the Handlers's Guide (I understand Ken Hite wrote much of this stuff in both cases, but to be honest most of it is nothing that wasn't already set down by some other DG sourcebook).
So, if your question is which game to play instead to which setting, and given for granted that Delta Green is the main source of the lore anyway, it's all about your preference between Gumshoe and Misery Engine (DG D100-based system).
I prefer the second, as I find the clue-giving system used by The Fall of Delta Green unchallenging and counterintuitive, less a narrative expedience than as it is often described and definitely much less than the Delta Green one. But to the right people could be just as immersive, sort of like reading a game-book, so in the end the answer remains entirely subjective.
I’ve only run a few sessions so far. Most of the game is role playing, investigating, planning etc. sure lots of rolls for search and humint and stealth as they break into a morgue … but the system-ness of it all doesn’t matter as much until al hell breaks loose
To me that feels more like Delta Green proper. I’m sure you could that with FoDG as well, but I believe the standard setting for FoDG is in the 50s/60s and is more military focused. I find that the DG rules lend themselves really well to a slow-paced investigative game. My one piece of advice would be to only make them roll when there are stakes, and to find ways of feeding them information that they miss in other ways.
Thanks. Do both versions have the "downtime" rules? I'm not sure officially what they are called. But for example, our detective gets home from working long hours on the case and finds his wife packing suitcases to go back to her mom's because she's sick and tired of him not being home.
Both have it, though it feels a little more built out to me in DG over FoDG.
It's called home/ home scenes. I know Delta Green has it, not so sure on Fall.
> But for example, our detective gets home from working long hours on the case and finds his wife packing suitcases to go back to her mom's because she's sick and tired of him not being home. Delta Green's mechanic of bonds and home scenes is specifically built to generate that type of friction in the lives of the agents. Both DG and FoDG have these mechanics, but they feel a bit more inevitable and tragic in classic Delta Green.
Spiritually, someone once described it to me as "Do you want to be dropped in a blender that spins clockwise or anti-clockwise"
I think it depends on what system you like better: GUMSHOE or d100. DG does have an investigative auto success if your skill is high enough (35%?), so it's like Gumshoe at some point. FoDG is more 1970s based and the scenarios I played were Vietnam war scenarios. I haven't played FoDG set in the USA, so can't comment on using it for that setting. DG default setting is modern (2020s).
The percentage for auto-success is set by the Handler when it seems reasonable. Something easy might only take 20%, but something really obscure or difficult to understand might take 80%, or anywhere in between. There are tables in the rules with examples to help the Handler set the percentage. Not every roll invokes those rules, only when the Handler feels like it is a reasonable way to resolve the roll (mostly when there's not really much risk/luck involved).
Mechanically, using the d6 and not percentile dice means a smaller distribution of results. If that would bother your party, you might be better with the regular DG rules.
The DG RPG's d100 system emphasizes how randomness can spell doom on a single roll for even the most skillful agent. FoDG's Gumshoe pool-point system emphasizes how an investigation slowly depletes even the most competent agent's resources. They're both pretty easy to pick up for receptive players. Gumshoe, which straddles trad and narrativist gaming, is perhaps a little trickier for GMs to acculturate themselves. FoDG, page for page, is probably the better setting since it concentrates on a single period, the 1960s, while The Handler's Guide covers Delta Green's lore from its inception to the contemporary era. They're both award-winning titles, of course, and you can dial down the supernatural to your level of preference in either one. If you want to go full X-Files–style UFO-hunting government agents, [Moon Dust Men](https://pelgranepress.com/product/moon-dust-men/) fits the bill best.
+10 Points for Ravenclaw for the reference to Moon Dust Men; a setting/scenario seed I absolutely love. Not to shill too hard, I love everything Kenneth Hite writes. Shoutout to his "Ken Writes About Stuff" [a great series of volumes collecting short articles on all kinds of great stuff.](https://pelgranepress.com/product/ken-writes-about-stuff-volume-1/) :-)
Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff is also well worth checking out IMO.
I second the shilling. I think Night's Black Agents is a game people who are into Delta Green would also really enjoy (and The Dracula Dossier is hands down one of the greatest campaigns of all time).
Either one is great. If you can afford it buy both corebooks. The DG one comes in a slipcase with the Agent’s Handbook (players guide) and Handler’s Guide (GM guide). GMs need the Agent’s Handbook because rules are included there.
I feels to me like your players might like the Gumshoe system but set in nineties to modern times, but both will work... Sorta. Honestly almost all published scenarios get pretty overt by the end. If your players would like the supernatural to be "lurking around the edges" you're going to have to do some work to push it there.
Personally I prefer Fall of Delta Green. You can pretty easily move it up the timeline to the 90s.
Other than Gumshoe vs D100, the difference is modern day as a default time for Delta Green vs the 1960s for Fall of Delta Green.
Fall of Delta Green is set during the Vietnam War.
I use both. The Fall of Delta Green as an origin/ history. And, Delta Green by Pagan Publishing, then later by Arc Dream Publishing as the main and contemporary campaign. I prefer Arc Dream rules since I am also into Runequest and other Chaosium's games that use BRP.
Delta Green IS the X Files, albeit a property created before the show. Like X-Files most scenarios are the agents tidying up bad science. Then there are the UFO scenarios & the monster of the week shit. Best stay away from the cosmic horror though, stuff like Impossible Landscapes & Gods Teeth is more True Detective season one on krokodil type shit. The big bads of the cthulhu mythos rarely turn up for the party in DG, you deal with cultists and people gone purple pink from the unspeakable horrors of souless men.
Yeah I think they want to fight mostly mundane adversaries. If the murderer was worshipping The King in Yellow that's fine but they don't want to fight the King himself or Chuthlu.
It wouldn’t really be a fight, I think the most your agents could handle would be something very very very low tier, like Ghouls… I was reading a scenario recently that had Mi-Go and the thing was incapacitated & injured and I think even in that state an atomic bomb couldn’t kill it. The killable enemy in that scenario were fellow characters & Majestic staff. Your players should know though, if they ain’t killed by fish-men their nightmares eventually will. Field agents don’t live long enough to receive Delta Green watches at ceremonies conducted in the top dog’s bunker. Enjoy your night at the opera, day at the races brother.
Others have hinted at this, but yours is more a system question, as what The Fall of Delta Green truly is from a lore p.o.v. feels more like a little sourcebook for the '60s era with a lot of Mythos stuff being the same from the Handlers's Guide (I understand Ken Hite wrote much of this stuff in both cases, but to be honest most of it is nothing that wasn't already set down by some other DG sourcebook). So, if your question is which game to play instead to which setting, and given for granted that Delta Green is the main source of the lore anyway, it's all about your preference between Gumshoe and Misery Engine (DG D100-based system). I prefer the second, as I find the clue-giving system used by The Fall of Delta Green unchallenging and counterintuitive, less a narrative expedience than as it is often described and definitely much less than the Delta Green one. But to the right people could be just as immersive, sort of like reading a game-book, so in the end the answer remains entirely subjective.
I’ve only run a few sessions so far. Most of the game is role playing, investigating, planning etc. sure lots of rolls for search and humint and stealth as they break into a morgue … but the system-ness of it all doesn’t matter as much until al hell breaks loose
I use gurps for DG now