Delta Green: Agent's Handbook

Delta Green RPG

by Dennis Detwiller, Christopher Gunning, Shane Ivey

Born of the U.S. government’s 1928 raid on the degenerate coastal town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, the covert agency known as Delta Green opposes the forces of darkness with honor, but without glory. Delta Green agents fight to save humanity from unnatural horrors — often at a shattering personal cost.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Horror, Cthulhu Mythos, Gaming, Games, Reference, Science Fiction

192 pages, Hardcover

Published April 19, 2016

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good overview of player creation with standard rules a gamer needs to know. I'm not a fan of bonds in one-shots as players abuse it to avoid serious SAN hits. Otherwise, a fun and fast read.

MY GRADE: B plus.

[kirkesque · Rating 5 out of 5]

(From April 30. Just got around to posting it.)

This is not a review.
 This is, perhaps, strange ramblings on a stranger morning still, or:
Mumbling Through Coffee at Lake Hali Resort

The Old vs. New Delta Green:
Conspiracies and fear of what's out there have given way to the personal horror of what is in there…

...

I have loved the rpg Call of Cthulhu since I was a wee young lad in the summer of 1982 and a pair of high school gents from Alabama (one of whom plays rugby in Mobile and the other has multiple PhDs and teaches lit in Birmingham) who ran rpgs as part of a summer program at the local college laughed evilly at my after-game query concerning the horror on the Chaosium box. "That's a bit more involved than Top Secret" (which we just played), was all they would tell me. They were right.

When I did first play, I loved having my investigator get shrivelled by a ghoul in my intro game. I never knew the death of a character would leave me so pleased.

What I haven’t loved about CoC is the concept of bringing investigators into any scenario with something akin to: y'know that eccentric uncle you didn't know about until he died last week? It seems he died and left you this musty ancient tome which will cause you to immediately drop everything and run around the world complete with a budget from an unseen backer or family trust.

Which made me love all the more the only really tangible ("No ideas but in things") idea the original CoC offered for plausible reasoning behind continued investigation in ye ol' yog-sothothery: the Theron Marks Society.

Theron Marks Society was an early attempt to fill the void cast by a lack of rational motivation behind Cthuluvian investigations that existed prior to the writing of Delta Green.

Delta Green is kinda like the inevitable manifestation of visions Theron Marks had while smoking Tsathogguan DMT.

Helpless against the terrifying and epiphanic onslaught.

That is the keystone, I think, to Lovecraftian horror. The revelation of weird cosmology that transgresses human psyche may be the cornerstone, but the key is the futile inevitability of the madness, the slow psycho-spiritual decay which breeds madness from even the slightest brushes with the unnatural mythos.

But let's cut to the chase here:
This is the first boot of the reboot funded by Arc Dream's Kickstarter. The first of… quite a few, it seems.
Compared to the 90s first edition—the CoC supplemental sourcebook—the Agent's Handbook is sublimated into a pure germ of information and imagination. Delta Green a stand alone game now, not a supplement for CoC. The changes are subtle but precise. A handful of examples include the Cthulhu Mythos skill is now being titled Unnatural; the rules for sanity do not allow for "getting used to the awfulness"; the toll taken on the Agent is mapped through vignettes of their relationship to work, home life, their contacts, and each other. As they fight with Delta Green against comic horrors, the mundane aspects of their world are also pushed back.
Compared to the recent release of Call of Cthulhu 7th edition, Delta Green truly separates itself. To my reading, the latest edition of CoC is murky and bland; it took a fine dram of single malt aged Islay Scotch, dropped a couple of ice cubes in, and sprayed it with water. Now it is slightly neutered and, well, Disneyfied. Delta Green took their beginnings, boiled away a lot of the cultural conspiracy and static noise that separated the UFO ethos of the '90s from the human-terrors of a post-bin Laden world. The Agent's Handbook doesn't focus its attention of the horror of the mythos, but glances in the other direction, showing the humans who task themselves with the thankless—and morally unforgivable—duty of defending against the unnatural forces of a pan-dimensional cosmos at a cost of their own compassion. To defend what is good in humanity, Agents erode the same in themselves. Or, perhaps, they end up as a disposal job for their partners.

If you've ever watched John Carpenter's The Thing, the ending of that plays out like a training film for Delta Green. Like Lovecraft's fiction, Delta Green focuses on what you do when everything becomes hopeless. There is no 911 to call, there is no cavalry going to come and save us, and we are not going to MacGyver our way out of this. Now what do we do? Humanity may be doomed and yet we try to maintain a spark of it while we still can. A single tiny light struggle against the encroaching darkness… especially if that tiny light is the fuse to a bundle of dynamite, and the encroaching darkness is a foetid critter that actually can be physically destroyed.

The Agent's Handbook whispers a soft doctrine, a viral language that infects the reader and will mutate over the next volumes the Kickstarter has funded: the Case Officers/Handler's/Core Book, The Fall of Delta Green, Impossible Landscapes, and ... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Delta Green is that rare Cthuluvian item that reminds (restores?) the simple Lovecraftian truth that often gets overlooked by the star sludge and tentacles. The worst horrors are not those rising from the depths of a death-like dreaming to call forth to the artists and psychopaths of the world, nor is it that which hounds us through space and time to manifest in the angles that surround us every moment of our lives, rather it is the mirror reflection that sneaks up on us no matter how we approach the mirror. It is the decrepit demise of our humanity, our compassion, and our sanity.

I've always thought Call of Cthulhu focused on the investigation into Mythos Nastiness and paid off with the Big Reveal.
Delta Green: Agent's Handbook focuses on the people who choose to engage in those investigations. The pay off is, as the line goes, meted out with a 9mm retirement plan.



P.S. ...this postscript is meant in no way to slight Detwiller's haunting art in any way...

I miss the horrific fruiting bodies of Blair Reynolds. Please unretire for a cover job.

[Ed]

Ring Side Report- RPG Review of Delta Green: Agent’s Handbook


Originally posted at Throat Punch Games, a new idea everyday!

Product- Delta Green
System-Delta Green
Producer-Arc Dream
Price- $20.00 here
TL; DR-Great RPG with one big problem 87%

Basics- ia ia cthulhu fhtagn- BUT NOW WITH GUNS! Delta Green is Call of Cthulhu if run by the government as secret agencies vie for power and try to keep the horrors from beyond time and space from destroying the world or taking over the United States! Can you handle the truth?

Mechanics or Crunch-Let’s break the mechanics up and give the basics as well as my assessment.


Base Mechanics-Delta Green is a classic percentile based system. You have a skill or an ability rating, and you roll under that number to succeed. As I grow older, I like this no fuss/no muss methods of rolling dice to avoid overly math-y systems.


Difficulty-When a situation is harder or easier than normal, the GM might ask you to add or subtract 10% or 20% to or from your skill or ability total. Again, it’s a simple and easy way to modulate difficulty.


Combat- Combat is basically simple. Characters act in dexterity order from high to low. On your turn you do one action. These actions range from move, shoot, or aim among other things. For actions that require a roll, you roll under a skill as above. There is no given dodge roll if you are attacked. If you haven’t acted in a round, you can forgo your next action to try to dodge an attack by rolling under the attack roll. Damage is a single dice roll that subtracts from a hit point total. Go too low on the hit point total and you pass out. Also, some weapons have a lethality rating. If you roll in that range, the weapon just kills the target in one go!


Personal Life and Sanity- Just like other horror RPG, Delta Green has a sanity system. Characters lose sanity and gain mental illness as they go crazier and crazier dealing with horrors beyond time. This system throws in bonds as a serious component as men and women lose family members, friends, and loved ones. Think of the PTSD struck veteran, but now add the fact that he/she deals with monsters beyond human ken. Players may lose family members or whole families as they slowly go deeper and deeper into the world of Cthulhu slipping away from normal. That level of commitment to roleplaying in the mechanics is awesome.


Advancement-Advancement is a snap in this game as well. When a player attempts a roll in this game and they fail, they mark the skill with an X. At the end of the game session, any skill that you failed that you had at least 1% in, you gain an additional 1%. Also, between sessions, a character can gain 1 in an ability or they can gain 1d10 in a skill if they spend time working on it. If they do, they lose 1 level in a bond as they lose touch with someone they felt was important!


Summary- I really want to like this game more than I do. The addition of solid role-playing psychology makes this a great way to blend the theme and mechanics of a world where things just can’t be and can’t be dealt with rationally. However, combat just makes me irrationally angry. I don’t like systems where you can’t move and act. That’s a minor issue as if all the players and monsters abide by this rule, I can deal. However, the rules as written basically make it better to have a lower dexterity. You get to react to an attack, but people who go fast can’t. I can understand not being able to take your next action if you dodge, but this game penalizes people who go first. Sure, it can be a minor issue if you don’t fight much, and I can deal with not having a dodge roll at all. But, this irks me deeply to my core. Therefore, it’s an ok system with a serious flaw. 3.5/5


Theme or Fluff-I mentioned above how much I love the commitment to theme the game has in its mechanics. This game might even be darker than Call of Cthulhu as this game brings the role of sanity and psychology to the forefront in a very post-9/11 way as the psychology of the soldier is experienced first hand. The book is full of stories and fragments of people trying to handle the unhandable. It’s deep and immersive in a way I can really dig, safely and from afar. 5/5

Execution-This is a well put together book. It flows well, has great art, and the PDF is well done and hyperlinked. I like the index, the layout, and the whole book overall. Some things could use a bit more organization, but the book is an exhaustive reference on both the government and the paranormal for new players. 4.5/5

Summary-Delta Green is a great RPG with one serious flaw. Now, as a gaming group, you can play this however you see fit. It’s a flaw that you can fix by all deciding that this is how the game runs. It’s a flaw I will fix instantly in my tables, but the rules as written make me spitting mad. And it’s just that one part. The rest is amazing. I love the depth of little extra bits that the authors throw in about government jurisdiction and random trivia that are in the book. The art is great and the treatment of psychological factors in our veterans is phenomenal. Sure, this is a just a game, but the level of depth that game goes into to use these conditions as things a person would experience if they experienced Lovecraftian horrors is excellent. I like everything in this EXCEPT one thing. If you can get past that one thing, this is a great RPG that really updates Lovecraft to the post 9/11 world. And since it’s under $20, it’s well worth the look even if you just use it for a guidebook to government organizations in your horror games. 87%

[Petra]

I imagine that the Delta Green core rulebook would've been easier to read a decade ago, but god it was uncomfortable given the fascist nightmare that the US is today. It's a TTRPG that's basically "X-Files meets Call of Cthulhu" - player characters are people from various branches of the US government who have been invited into the conspiratorial group Delta Green, who investigate and stop various Lovecraftian nasties. As a result, the book frequently has an almost jingoistic cop-worshipping tone at points where the FBI or whatever are the only hope for stopping the end of the world. This would've been icky enough normally because ACAB baby but in 2025, where the FBI have decided that all trans people are terrorists, ICE are acting as an anti-immigrant secret police, and some of my beloved friends are making plans to leave the country because their lives are being threatened by these organisations just for who they are? It genuinely made me feel sick to read the sections talking about how great those organisations are and what good they do, and that's just how I feel as a British person. I could never pitch a campaign of this to my TTRPG group of online American friends, that's for certain. Maybe I was just pitched this wrong; in the Quinns Quest review he talks about how, in play, Delta Green felt incredibly critical of the US government's tendency to use up and spit out people but that didn't come across to read. I know that modules such as God's Teeth depict the US government as as much of a force for evil as the actual eldritch horrors and I wish that tone was in the book. "The player characters have made a deal with a devil wearing red white and blue to stop the end of everything" is the sort of tone I'd prefer for this premise instead of "awesome cops shoot Cthulhu with a shotgun".

To talk about actual mechanics, I liked how your characters automatically succeed if they're good enough at something and the Bonds are pretty interesting - when your character takes sanity damage, they can go home and inflict that on their friends and family, ruining their relationship in exchange for the PC being better off. Bleak and full of drama, just how I like it. In general I think the sanity system isn't as bad as it could've been; it's less "I saw a big squid and so now I'm the Joker" and more "the stress of the horrors I deal with is making me slip into depression". It's still playing mentally ill people for fun so it's not good, but it's marginally more palatable.

I'm glad that I read through the very good Impossible Landscapes module (which does not have the uncomfy jingoistic tone) before the core rulebook, because if I'd read the core rulebook first I probably would've regretted my purchase massively and lost all my enthusiasm for running it. I might just send the shorter quickstart to my players when I get around to running Impossible Landscapes instead of this because god it was uncomfortable.

I gotta read more novels or something dawg, almost everything I've read this year is a comic or a TTRPG rulebook.

[Ines · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is honestly the best role-playing rulebook I have ever held in my hand. And I am not talking about the rules or the setting, because those are, as always and at least to some degree, a matter of personal preference. I like them, obviously, or I would not have bought this book and taken the time to write such a long review.

If the setting of Delta Green seems at all interesting to you, I highly suggest you download the free quickstart and have a look at it! And then go and buy yourself a physical copy of this book, it's totally worth it. Reading the digital version does not do it justice.

THE BOOK ITSELF:

- Binding & physical quality are awesome, it feels like I could use it for years and it would not come apart.
- The design is the best I've seen. It fits setting and theme of the game perfectly, helps me find information fast, there are helpful overviews and summaries, it's easily readable, the illustrations are great - just looking into the book makes me want to play Delta Green.
- The table of contents, glossary and index are very clear and helpful, one of THE most important things in an rpg rulebook!
- Additionally to that, short paragraphs with headlines that stand out to the eye help you find what you are looking for.
- It's full colour, which I usually don't need in a role-playing book, but here it definitely adds to the quality.
- I dig the matte cover.
- Also: serif font. More and more rpg books use sans serif font for their main text and I wish people would learn that those are just not for printed texts!

All in all, the quality in writing, composition and production really impressed me.

THE CONTENT:

The illustrations of seemingly random documents on desks tell their own stories on closer inspection and I just love that.

I'm not going to go very deep into the rules themselves. You either like BRP or you don't. I think it fits this game, but would not use it for others.
The updated rules are easy to understand and make sense, reading them I know a lot of people have put a lot of thought into them. They also come together to create a coherent set of rules, which is important to me. There are optional rules for people who want to roll less or more dice, make the game more tactical or more personal, which is also something I appreciate, since I'm more on the 'less dice rolling'-side of things and there are a lot of different playing styles out there, and Delta Green could be for more than one of them, depending on how you play your game. I like it when a rulebook acknowledges that and supports it.

On the other hand, they are very clear on the intended feeling and contents of the game, that it's about personal horror, and I appreciate that clarity in content and direction/style. I want to know what you want your game to be about, not 176 possible ways I can play it. The introduction paragraphs make it clear what this game is about and transport the intended feeling of Delta Green stories very well.

As a non-US citizen, I appreciate the very informative overview of federal agencies and suggested professions within them. They are not too long, do not dwell on unnecessary details, but tell me who does what, so I can read up on the ones that would be interesting to my scenario or my player character(s).

I would take half a star off for too many tables on equipment. For a game that is about personal experiences and horror, this just seems too simulatory to me and I just know I will have people argueing with me about single numbers and rolls when I try to play it at a convention. A lot of tables tend to appeal to people who love lots of numbers and altough I understand the need to appeal to this particular playing style (because I have a feeling most of the US gamers, which are probably the largest target group for this game, play it very tactically), it seems, to me, to be at odds with the intended goal of the game. But since I can just ignore those tables and make it clear to my players that I will simplify equipment, this really just comes down to personal preference.

I had a lot of fun with the 1st edition of Delta Green and expect I will have even more with this one. I backed the Kickstarter and am still very happy I did.

[Kelvin Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't going to review the game because I didn't think it would be fair to do so, for two reasons. The first is that it is not complete; as I type this post the rules are available as the Agent's Handbook, and as the title suggests, this is for players. There are rules for character generation, skills, and combat, but nothing on adversaries, magic, or the setting itself. I have a certain distaste for games that split the core rules across multiple books, but it's not a bad idea as such; even so it's worth mentioning that the full game is not available at this time.

The other reason I haven't reviewed the game is that I haven't played it. My current Dracula Dossier game uses the firearms rules from DGAH -- but is otherwise fifth edition Call of Cthulhu -- and I helped my friend Ben modify the rules for his Beyond the Mountains of Madness game, but I haven't used the rules as intended. I don't know if my review can be fair if I haven't played the game, but I'll do my best.

In order to maintain compatibility with older DG material, the new game uses a d100 based system. I was surprised to discover that it's not based on CoC, or even Chaosium's d100 ruleset, but rather it's a modification of Mongoose's RuneQuest 2/Legend with the sanity rules borrowed from -- of all places -- 2004's Unearthed Arcana for D&D3. This strikes me as a bit of a roundabout way of doing things when there's a CoC licence available, but I assume the designers had a good reason. Anyway, the important thing is that it's compatible with CoC and older DG material, albeit with a bit of shoving.

The general approach seems to be to tidy up and modernise CoC's rules; this was also the stated intent of the seventh edition of the venerable rpg, and I think DG is more successful in that regard than Chaosium's own effort, not least because it -- for the most part, anyway -- keeps things simple.

Where CoC7 is characterised by adding more rules -- improvement by way of elaboration -- DG goes more for standardisation and ironing out the weird spiky bits CoC built up over the years. One good example is the firearms rules; CoC has some wonky combat rules in general, and the mechanics for gunfights are probably the wonkiest of all, with all sorts of exceptions "spot rules" and fully-automatic gunfire looking more like Rifts than even the most pulpy Mythos tale.

DG strips this back to a simple mechanic based on at most two die rolls and optional modifiers. There is an argument that it's a bit bland as most weapons more powerful than a pistol will either kill outright or do 2d10 damage, but I will take that over the old clusterfudge of one-fifth chances, multiple fire rates, modified initiative steps, and so on. There are exceptions built into the DG shooting rules, but they make sense; instant kill attacks don't work on supernatural creatures, for example. Otherworldly entities break the rules of the game, which is quite fitting.

Another example is character generation, which in DG is based on packages with defined skill values, so there's none of the fiddly points spending of CoC; I quite like the fiddly points spending bit of character generation but I understand that not everyone agrees and I acknowledge that dumping it makes the process faster and smoother, although again there's a hint of blandness to it.

In general, most of the changes DG makes are in a similar vein but there are a couple of occasions where the game wanders off in the opposite direction; for example, the mechanics for acquiring equipment go on for nine pages complete with little coloured icons that are used only for this subsystem. I can see why the rules exist -- the designers want to model agents pulling in favours or diverting funds and resources, and so on; good thematic secret agenty type stuff -- but when most of the game seems to be aiming for simplicity, if not elegance, it's jarring to slam into a big steaming block of rules for buying a shotgun.

There are a few other odd decisions in there too; the examples of sanity loss include "being fired from one's job", which, yes, is stressful and can indeed have an effect on someone's mental health, but it's a bit weird to see that in a game of Lovecraftian horror, and with the same mechanical significance as "find a corpse". Then there's DG's replacement for the Cthulhu Mythos skill, which works in the same exact way as the original, but is called "Unnatural", a beige word that looks like a placeholder waiting for a more evocative term that never came.

It's not all amending and fixing what came before; DG adds a formal Pendragon-like home phase, in which agents can step away from the current mission and heal, rest both body and mind, research, train, or interact with the game's other main addition, the agents' bonds. These are people or organisations that are important to the character, and can help mitigate sanity loss, but at a cost; they are similar in function to pillars of sanity, one of the better ideas from Trail of Cthulhu. There is a bit of fiddliness and rules-for-the-sake-of-rules in the way bonds and sanity interact, but on the whole these are welcome additions to the game, and I'm a big fan of formal downtime mechanics in rpgs, so it's good to see them in DG.

All in all, I'm quite impressed by DGAH; I do miss some of the eldritch spikiness of CoC, and DG does lack personality, but perhaps that's fitting in a game about anonymous government agents. It seems to be a good game -- although bear in mind my two qualifications above -- but I can't recommend it for the simple reason that I don't think it's good value for money.

The cover price is $39.99 but for that you don't get a complete game; I have no idea how much the inevitable Handler's Handbook will be, but I suspect it will be a similar cost, if not more. What's worse is that DGAH feels padded; it's overwritten and the text size is huge. The book could be two-thirds of its current size without sacrificing anything important and it sort of looks like the only reason it's not is to justify the cover price. For all its faults, CoC7 is only $4 more expensive and you get a complete game, with rules, setting stuff, game-master guidance, and even a couple of adventures.

There is a quickstart pdf available that runs through the basic rules and has a much more sensible price of Pay What You Want. That, I recommend without reservation and, if you like it or you are swimming in piles of cash, then maybe get DGAH. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

[Taddow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a great book, but maybe a little closer to 3.75 stars. Instead of having to come up with a somewhat plausible explanation for a group of individuals from different walks of life dedicating themselves to work together to investigate otherworldly horror and save humanity (like in the Call of Cthulhu RPG), players play a team (mostly from the federal government) tasked with this charge. Agents investigating Lovecraftian horror to save humanity is kinda like the premise of the X-Files television show, but more deadly and insanity-inducing.

I think the game system for this newest edition of Delta Green is simple and effective (I tend of be a fan of percentile-based systems) and I like the extra touch of critical successes/failures and fumbles. I think these add a great narrative tool to differentiate success and "really" great success (or "really" not so great success). I also think the rule of not even to make a roll if a skill is high enough in a field to gain automatic success is a good one. I have already house-ruled this into some of my percentile-based systems and its good to see a game that officially recognizes this.

The combat system seems adequate and appears to provide a rule set for quick lethal combat. One of the other reviewers noted that they were put off by what they saw as a penalty to high DEX characters. His argument is true but after reading the rules thoroughly (granted at the time of this review I have not yet actually played them), the disadvantage of not being able to Dodge ranged attacks after one has already acted doesn't seem to take into account that going first can set the stage for the fight (killing someone before they get to act, conducting suppressing fire, etc.) but, like I said, I am not sure how this will play out in a game (hopefully, I have a Delta Green campaign in my gaming group's future).

I only have two minor gripes about the book. First off, there is a lot of pages (54) dedicated to information on the organization, jurisdictions, training, recommended character skills and bonds, etc. of various Federal and Military agencies. I personally enjoy reading about this kind of stuff, just not in a RPG book. I think that providing a short summary (not the 6 pages you get on the CIA) for each would have been adequate. Perhaps the authors included this material to provide players with detailed information to realistically play agents of those agencies, and I can understand this reasoning, but it just felt a little much in my opinion. Instead of the detailed information on the various agencies, I wished the authors would have instead provided more information on Tradecraft or an example of how players might run an operation. Delta Green, because of the conspiracy, is different than most RPGs where there is "official" backing to go in, conduct an investigation, kill the bad guys and leave someone else to clean it up. I know there is a sample on how to create a scenario in the Handler's Guide, but I think the players could have been given a little more than six pages of Tradecraft which basically boiled down to what skill rolls (and opposed rolls) would be used for certain actions.

Do I like Delta Green- yes. Would I play it- yes. The setting and concept is such a great one that I believe it will offer a rewarding gaming experience in the end.

[Anibal · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Convergence” (1992) was the groundbreaking Call of Cthulhu scenario by John Scott Tynes that first introduced the secret government conspiracy known as Delta Green. A few years later, in 1996, a full setting supplement for Call of Cthulhu received widespread praise and industry recognition, winning the Origins Award for Best RPG Supplement. Players were captivated by its conspiracies, its tone, and the sheer quality of both official releases and fan-created material. That supplement was Delta Green.

And it truly deserved to become an independent game.

While the BRP rules worked wonderfully for Call of Cthulhu and many other systems, there was clear room for refinement. Delta Green needed deeper focus: more detail about the agents themselves, their original organizations, military units, and government offices and, most importantly, a clearer exploration of why they fight. The human connection mattered.

Enter Arc Dream Publishing, which evolved Delta Green into a fully independent role-playing game, purpose-built for modern settings from the 1990s to the present day. This new incarnation emphasizes the personal cost of the war against the Unnatural: the crushing weight of bureaucracy, the fragility of human relationships, and the very real danger of tactical operations. The result is a true RPG masterpiece, a line that has won more than a dozen ENnie Awards (if I’m not mistaken) over its lifetime and it all began here, with the Delta Green: Agent’s Handbook.

To play Delta Green, you really only need this book. While it remains compatible with Call of Cthulhu, there are significant differences between the two systems though adapting scenarios from one to the other is relatively easy. Not that you will need it, the Delta Green line as some of the most impressive campaigns and scenarios in existence!

The changes are substantial and meaningful: new skills such as HUMINT (Human Intelligence); a modifier system rather than advantage/disadvantage dice; Bonds and Motivations, which are essential for preserving sanity during Home Scenes between missions; and the (in)famous Lethality rules, which turn combat into a brutally dangerous affair with real chances of instant death. The game also features surprisingly well-researched mental disorders and psychological effects. While some generalization is inevitable in a role-playing game, the level of care and detail here is genuinely impressive. Agents may even adapt to violence and stress, but always at a profound personal cost.

Character creation is clear, engaging, and rich in detail. The descriptions of organizations, professions, and career paths make it easy to create believable, interesting characters. A significant portion of the book is dedicated to explaining how these agencies operate, and it is page count very well spent.

As accessible as BRP itself, Delta Green is easy to learn and quick to get to the table. That said, it is best suited for mature players, given its focus on family, personal relationships, loss, moral compromise, and adult themes.

Highly recommended. Delta Green: Agent’s Handbook is not just an excellent game — it is a landmark in the history of the RPG hobby.

[Benjamin]

Another Bundle of Holding purchase, this time the Arc Dream, post-Pagan Publishing version of Delta Green. (Can you tell I've made a list of all my Bundle purchases and am trying to finally check them off like the geekiest to-do list ever and of no moral value?)

This bundle consists of

* Agent's Handbooks (for players)
* Handler's Guide (for the GM, updating the world of Delta Green from 90s paranoia to 00s paranoia, which, as they point out, is the transition from fighting far-flung conspiracies and organizations to being worried about lone wolves and one-offs, because now DG has been reincorporated as part of the government that is dedicated to fighting terror, though there are still old-school operatives who are trying to stay off the radar)
* Handler's Screen (I can't imagine printing a functional game screen from any e-version)
* Extraordinary Renditions (fiction)
* Tales from Failed Anatomies (fiction)
* Night at the Opera (six adventures)
* Kali Ghati (adventure)

The DG Handlers Guide outlines several different campaign frames, but I'm sort of left not certain what the prototypical DG campaign is in the 2010s. Like the 90s campaign could be DG vs. aliens and Nazis, with the possibility of Majestic-12 interference. But in the 10s, what's the frame? The books make clear the themes, which is that this isn't a power fantasy, but a fantasy of fear and loss of control.

But then I read Night at the Opera, which outlines six adventures which... might be some of the best adventure setups that I've ever read? And one of them is a haunted house, which at this point shouldn't be interesting, but is laid out so well. The others are also pretty ordinary on some level: accident with chemical unleashes monster (except that monster thinks it's a person and there's more than one); mission gone wrong needs to be investigated (except it's played like Rashomon, with the characters taking on different roles in the past), etc.

That still doesn't quite tell me what a big campaign frame might be, but I'll take it.

[Billy Kid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovecraft X The X-Files tabletop roleplaying game. Delta Green has been kicking around for decades and so it has so much modules written for it, critical for an investigative RPG like this where the devil is in the details and it's much harder to run a game like this without any supporting material.

I've never played or ran a game like this but reading through both rulebooks and some modules has left me curious to try. Even if I never play the game itself, the rulebooks are a goldmine of ideas to reuse elsewhere.

The module Impossible Landscapes based less around the Lovecraftian mythos and more on the King in Yellow, and the danger of memetics. Reading through about half of it was really eye-opening because of how both evocative and detailed it was. I feel confident that although this kind of roleplaying experience is likely to be a little harder to run, I think it would be rewarding to do so, especially with the help of modules like this.

Book 1: Delta Green - Agent's Handbook* ★★★★★
Book 2: Delta Green - Handler's Guide ★★★★★
Book 3: Delta Green - Impossible Landscapes* ★★★★★
Book 4: Delta Green - Hourglass ★★★★

[Nicholas Stonehouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great presentation. The way everything is made to look like loose classified files on a desk. Things are circled, underlined, highlighted, redacted, crumpled, and stained. It really looks like an investigation that has dragged on for years and damaged all those involved.

Uses the Call of Cthulhu system as a jumping off point and adds some improvements and complications. I love the new Critical/Fumble system. It makes so much more sense that a higher skill would give you more opportunities for Crits and less Fumbles. Other rules like Lethality and Requisitions make a lot more sense in the modern world.

Some things get a bit complicated. I'm sure you can ignore a lot of these rules but it seems like every single weapon, temporary affliction, disorder, and Bond scene has its own set of rules. There are easily a hundred of these which means flipping back to the book which should rarely be done. I admit I only have the Starter Kit for Cthulhu but I imagine even the full book is more simplified than Delta Green. For most situations I prefer a universal template that applies across multiple variations of the same concept.

Skipped the back half of the book. Seems unnecessary to include this much info on the government agencies. Maybe they just wanted to pad out the page count or something.

[Steve Lucido · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very straight forward book that covers character creation and the game mechanics of this horror RPG based on the Cthulhu mythos. The system draws it's foundation from the Chaosium Basic RPG system that was also at the heart of the original Call of Cthulhu RPG. It is refined and intuitive making it fairly easy for players to grasp and for GM's to moderate.

The game branches off from the CoC formula in that characters don't investigate the mythos but instead are that with covering it up and destroying any links that could be found by the public. There are mechanics where the characters can have scenes at home where they interact with their 'Bonds'; family and loved ones that help to keep them grounded against the inevitable damage to their psyche they confront during missions. This system helps to really bring home the sense that these characters are just flawed people.

Originally Delta Green was released as a 'Modern Day' supplement for the original Call of Cthulhu game, but now Arc Dream released this standalone game and have just done an amazing job of making a purpose built system that really succeeds in capturing the feel of this conspiratorial and clandestine world.

I'm really impressed and I really want to run and/or play this game.

[Øystein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a huge fan of Delta Green ever since reading the original 1997 rulebook sometime in the early noughts, and have been hankering for this ever since I discovered it was becoming a stand-alone system. This Player's Handbook covers the rules and mechanics of the game. I wasn't disappointed, and this might be the best Player's Handbook I've read. The writing is clear, concise and focused on having a good experience, and the presentation is properly moody.

What was slightlty disappointing though is the mechanics. At it's core it's reusing the D100 skills from Call of Cthulhu's BRPG with slightly modified attributes from D&D, and adding some custom systems. I can understand why they wanted to stick close to the D20 system, but really wish they'd dare to stray further as every divergence they present is a major improvement.

[Luke Costin · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if you took the otherworldly horrors of the Call of Cthulhu and smashed it together with the covert world of The X-Files, You get Delta Green.

A pitch black RPG where you play expendable assets trying to cover up world ending threats, all at the expense of your home life and mental health. This isn't the escapist fantasy RPG in the vein of a DnD, but instead puts you in extraordinary situations while you play as very ordinary people.
While this might not sounds fun, the core rules behind this game make it a very interesting game to see yourself role-playing as the good guy having to do very bad things.

It gets a bit heavy on explaining each branch of the US government towards the end of the book, but I honestly think you should skip these unless you are playing a certain member of that agency

Now, I just want to read some more of the messed up scenarios that Arc Dream publish

[Mikael Cerbing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, this looks really promising.
It feels like a more focused CoC with quite a few improvments. Improvments that I will steal to CoC in the future.
The one that sticks out is the rules for automatic fire. I will implement that one into all games where it fits.
Also, a lot more intetesting sanity system. Might steal if possible.
Less dice rolling for things. Will steal.
Very handy way to hook players to the adventure. "Do this or we might kill you". Easy to implement in DG, might be harder in other games.
So, as read and not played, this looks really good. And easy.
The last 40 pages about different federal agancies was quite boring to read. Can see how it can come in handy for the players. And I think its good that its there. But it was still boring. And Im nog capable to skim books. Thats a me-problem.

[Pedro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un gran regreso para uno de los ya clásicos settings de Call of Cthulhu. Delta Green te mete en la piel de un equipo especializado en neutralizar y combatir amenazas antinaturales y evitar que el mundo entre en contacto o sepa de la existencia de los horrores cósmicos que plagan la tierra. El manual da todas las reglas para crear un agente con autorización ¨DG¨ y explica el sistema de experiencia, vínculos, cordura, traumas y todo lo que hace a este juego único dentro de los entornos de CoC. Detalla muy bien y con información precisa la labor de todas las agencia policiales, militares y gubernmentales de las cuales DG podría reclutar agentes. Este nivel de detalle tiene el potencial para dar un nivel de realismo al juego que nunca antes había visto en un RPG. Altamente recomendado.

[Kevin Moyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a rulebook and introduction to the world of Delta Green, this has everything you need and more. So far, I have only read the handbook and haven't run a gameplay session, but this leaves me excited to get into one! My rating on this is purely based on the Agent's Handbook, but I see the potential for sessions or campaigns to be even better.

The main issue I have with this, though, is the extra information. 30% of the page count is dedicated to describing the backgrounds of various federal agencies in a way that I found extremely boring and only necessary for the truly hardcore roleplayers. I can't complain too much, just in case one of my players wants that information, so I'll leave it at that.

8.3/10 | 2/3 | 4/7

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Lovecraft since 2010, and by that time I'd already been a fan of D&D for a few years. D&D is a great passion of mine so I naturally wondered if Lovecraft's works had a game in the D&D space dedicated to them. A bit of cursory googling lead me to the excellent Call of Cthulhu table top RPG right off, but Delta Green wasn't far behind. The concept intrigued me: you're an agent of a clandestine group that specializes in spotting and neutralizing Lovecraftian threats. I love that kind of thing as I've mentioned in my reviews for Charles Stross's Laundry Files books, but I wasn't ready for it or its parent RPG at the time as I only wanted to play d20 systems in those days. I picked up this and a number of other books for the property from a Humble Bundle earlier this year.

This is your standard core rulebook for an RPG. It uses a slightly modified version of the Call of Cthulhu 7E rules for the most part but the real standout is the bonds system. You get a number of bonds determined by your profession and a few other things that each have a pool of points derived from your Charisma score. Call of Cthulhu and its offshoots frequently throw players into situations where their sanity suffers, which is denoted primarily by damage being done to a player's sanity score. Bonds are damaged alongside of or even in place of a player's sanity score, which can result in various effects on the NPCs that those bonds represent (often a spouse or someone else close to your character).

There are a few things I don't like about this ruleset, namely that it makes an already tough game tougher by adding in the necessity to juggle bonds and by capping starting skill and attribute values even lower than Call of Cthulhu itself does. I'm also not a big fan of how little backstory the titular organization gets in these rules. Perhaps the Handler's Guide (the rulebook for those who wish to run the game rather than play) will have more, but I doubt it as I get the impression that it was left deliberately vague so that GMs can come up with their own concepts for the leadership and other important elements of the organization. I'll wait until I've had a chance to play it to pass final judgment, though.

[C.T. Phipps · Rating 4 out of 5]

DELTA GREEN AGENT'S HANDBOOK is the players guide for the updated 2016 Delta Green setting. Cthulhu vs. secret agents! This one isn't nearly as good as the Handler's sourcebook and not nearly as lore friendly but provides all the necessary information for making characters and figuring out what sort of law enforcement agency they should belong to. It's fairly bare bones and could have used a lot more background creation tips and roleplaying advice.

[Timothy Pitkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simple character generation and nice ideas but I do kind of wish their were more lore stuff in this book as it is pretty much all character creation stuff which is not bad and understandable and the systems are easy to understand but still I would be nice to have like maybe some sample characters but still nice and well done Character Creation book.

[Malum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green have evolved in slightly different directions (although if you know how to play one, you know 95% of the rules of the other), but I like how Delta Green does things, particularly with automatic gunfire and bonds/sanity.

Also, there is a ton of information packed into this relatively light book.

[Chris Aylott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-constructed set of character options for players in the Delta Green modern Lovecraftian setting. I haven't spent much time with the "recent" (now 10 years old) version of Delta Green, but they've done some nice stuff marrying the classic Call of Cthulhu core rules with more modern psychological horror elements from Unknown Armies and other games.

[Stefano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clearly best if you want to play the role-playing game. Unlike the handler manual, it doesn't have a lot of world building so it's a less interesting read for those who don't care about DG. Very US-centric.

[Raye Evangelion]

A nice lean RPG guide that increased my knowledge of federal law enforcement and defense agencies about a hundredfold. Surprisingly little focus on anything Lovecraftian, but I suppose that info is the purview of Handlers. Hope this helps me roleplay.

[Cole Serfass · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is longer than it should be. There is a lot of unnecessary rulings on very niche cases that, at the very least, do not need to be in the player facing book.

Otherwise, excellent, very compelling setting and a system I am interested in running

[Javier Viruete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manual del jugador de Delta green, versión Dream Arc. Cualquier jugador puede leerlo sin encontrar nada de información comprometida.

A destacar la extensa sección de agencias y el pequeño artículo de "Trucos del oficio"

[Ramón Nogueras Pérez · Rating 5 out of 5]

La versión definitiva de una de las mejores ambientaciones del mejor juego de rol para mucha gente. No hay mucho más que decir. Completamente brillante.

[Mark Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well structured RPG that works great as the base book for the new 2016 Delta Green Game. I'm a big fan of the world and the updates into this new edition really make it all come together.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Solid enough character generation rules for modern conspiratorial Lovecraftian role-playing. Good flavour text, but it's not a stand alone - the GMs book is required. Not a criticism, just an observation.

[John Sinclair · Rating 5 out of 5]

This game looks great. I can't wait to give it a go. Looking forward to reading the Handler's Guide.