The Delta Green Sunsetter Campaign - Operation BEHOLDER Report (Session 8)
Today we varied things up a bit in the Sunsetter campaign. Mann prepared an operation and ran it for the Sunsetters, with me joining them as a player rather than a DM this time, so this report will be from the POV of a player.
Session Recap
The operation took place in Athens, West Virginia (pictured above). We were told a man was found dead due to eyes growing inside of him, and that he had come into possession of a statue which seemed to be related to it. We were to go in, locate the distributor and eliminate him, and collect any statues along the way, without contacting police.
First thing we did was to receive a little manila folder with keys for the victim's home and office, schematics for a wooden statue base with occult symbols, the receipt for the statue, and a letter telling us that things were contained for now - presumably from Delta Green.
We split immediately, searched the man's office and home, then found clues pointing us towards the home of Philip Ulster, who had sold the statue to the victim. We went there and a very tense scene happened where we found his wife, broke into her home, got her to surrender but not before calling 911 on us, and we set one of us to act as her and tell the police the call was made by accident.
Afterwards, we waited for her husband, the seller of the statues, to arrive, while the rest of us went up to a factory. We had found the deed to it along with a statue and a pile of cash in a safe in his garden shed.
At the factory, we found basically nothing. It was empty aside from a single suspicious puddle.
Back at home, Phillip appeared and was being uncooperative. Two of us tried interrogating him clandestinely (while telling his wife he had a meth lab and that we were undercover cops) but couldn't get much out of it.
The rest got back from the factory and decided we were gonna torture the information out of him at the factory, but we wanted to test the puddle, so we threw him in it... and he disappeared. We brought what we could to our handler at Quantico and accepted we hadn't quite succeeded at the operation - a success for Delta Green, since we got enough evidence and information that they'd be able to grab him, but not for us.
Going unmentioned was two guys with a truck that were looking for Phillip all day, and appearing every now and then. They were at the place we started the operation, and they appeared shortly before the cops at Phillip's house, so we got the plate for their truck. Turns out they were key to this but we ended up letting them go.
Thoughts
Overall, I had a lot of fun! I had never actually played Delta Green a whole lot, it's more often that I GM it instead, so this was a nice change of pace.
We had a conversation after the session where Mann said he prefers playing DG to running it, as mysteries take effort to make (the good ones do, anyway) and run (ibid), and I totally understand why. Playing a mystery has a lot less moving parts, and even had me antsy and impatient at times because I wanted to find out another clue already, knowing that it was out there somewhere.
I mentioned how I have made a scenario myself (which should see play in 2 or 3 sessions, ish) rather than relying on a prewritten one, but that I don't actually enjoy spending so much time with (the American version of) the real world, or horror, really. I think mysteries themselves are very stimulating and exciting, and that the tension of a police procedural is thrilling, which is how I can run 7 sessions of it with no issue, but making my own would definitely take a toll. I find that this kind of horror is difficult to balance with the wonder that other kinds of fantasy can bring.
Another thing I mentioned in that conversation was the general attitude that the framework of the missions put the players into. This isn't just for horror games, the same thing happens in dungeons, but it feels like, if they want to win at the game, they need to come in with an air of suspicion of the NPCs, and start seeing them as resources to be used and spent. It bothers me in both of these types of game because you most never feel like what you accomplished is helpful to others in a genuine way, it is only helpful to yourself.1
Ultimately it is a matter of taste, but I hope to return my prep towards more optimistic and heroic settings after today.
This isn't to say that all games need to be doing this, or that games don't do this intentionally. I'd say that's perfectly in line with Delta Green.↩