Mayday Plays - 🕳️The Dead Drop | "Countdown to PISCES" | June 2024

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everybody, it is Sergio. I am the handler for May Day's Delta Green campaign doomed to repeat. And with me for our June edition of the show is the man behind the hands of Bud's RPG review. All the way from across the pond, it is Bud. So nice to have you on man. That's great to be here. Well as always, if you enjoy the show, make sure to like and subscribe. May Day is also running a merch giveaway this month where you can win a t-shirt, poster, stickers, even a month subscription to our Patreon.

Starting point is 00:00:35 And to enter all you have to do is read the latest episode description of Dune to Repeat, episode 26, and we will choose a winner by June 28th. Bud, let's get your plugs out of the way. Where can we find you? Well, most people find me on my YouTube channel, Bud's RPG review, and I also have a podcast called Bud and Griff's Game and Creepy Show where we talk about all things creepy. Well, let's say you're a Protestant parliamentarian looking for a place to hide from those mean old Catholic royalists. Well, come on inside and sync your Curlean auras with your new Shan overlords, because you have found the Dead Drop.

Starting point is 00:01:15 But it is June and we are months, maybe weeks away from the release of the new Pisces source book by Adam Scott Glancy. And in this episode we're going to discuss the new source book and we'll also get into the differences between US and UK law enforcement to help players create their own Pisces agents. I'm very excited for this conversation, Bud. Me too. I think we should go cut right to the chase because you have recently interviewed Adam Scott Glancy on your podcast. First of all, how was it and what did he have to say about the Pisces source book? It was very interesting. I think it's fair to say Adam at first was quite cagey but once we warmed to it he couldn't wait

Starting point is 00:02:01 to tell us all about the things he had planned. He told us a lot about the Pisces book, most of which you can find out on the podcast. And to quote him, he said there was a love letter to British sci-fi and espionage media from the 60s and 70s, which sounds exciting to me. Yeah, you know, as an American I've only been exposed to certain things Doctor Who being one of the most obvious but like The Prisoner is a fantastic series from I think the 60s or 70s and Really an interesting vibe very specifically UK Yeah, I mean thinking also things like James Bond the saint, you know, the kind of that kind of espionage as well I'm hoping it's a bit like that only with lots of horror Yeah, exactly that special Delta Green brand of horror. Just a few weeks ago you released a Bud

Starting point is 00:02:50 Explains video covering the insects from Shagai, also known as the Shan. Can you give us a rundown of what this enemy is about and how they're connected to Pisces? and how they're connected to Pisces? The insects from Shagai, or the Shan, came from the planet Shagai and emerged from the biological mass oceans there to become dominant and gain the ability to absorb radiation like photosynthesis. And as they evolved, they explored the surface of Shag-I and discovered that they'd had visitors before and there were pyramid-shaped buildings made of green minerals. In one of the buildings they found a portal that led them to the court of the demon sultan Azathoth and through Azathoth's influence they became more

Starting point is 00:03:41 intelligent, gained a better understanding of non-Euclidean geometry and worked out how to travel through space at ridiculous speeds. They also gained the ability to be able to shift their own molecules and merge with the Kaleonoras of living creatures and enabling them to plug into their nervous systems and essentially control them like puppets. The connection with Pisces is one of control and their own type of espionage. As I was just saying to you before we began, I've had a number of people contact me and say, how are these connected to Pisces? Well, they are connected to Pisces because they've infiltrated Pisces entirely. And they know exactly what they are and what exactly what's going on.

Starting point is 00:04:31 But that will be revealed in a later video. Can you fill listeners in now that we've got the basic understanding of the Shan problem? Who is Pisces? How do they begin? Where are they going? Well, Pisces are not as old as people think it is. I mean, when people think of this kind of thing in the UK, they think it goes back hundreds of years. It doesn't. It was first produced in Delta Green Countdown, as we all know, and Pisces was originally formed, kind of, through clinical project Delphi, where the Admiralty's Intelligence Department gained the service of self-proclaimed psychics and seers, with the intention of using remote viewing to be able to spy on the enemy, using the likes of Dowsing and

Starting point is 00:05:20 the Tarot. But as they began to analyse them they determined that most of them were fakes, and there was only one that seemed to be genuine. Although they actually couldn't track the movement of enemy warships because there were no landmarks for them to hone in on. Then in 1916, the leader of MI6 revived the program and designated it to a new department called MI13, the Special Reconnaissance Section. And then during World War II, Chair Chill turned MI13 into an Interagency Task Force and renamed it. Pisces, who then report directly to the Prime Minister's office, bypassing the War Office, and MI5 and MI6 and the SOE. All these agencies could request assistance from Pisces, but it was

Starting point is 00:06:15 now Pisces that had the last word on how resources could be used. They faced off against the Karatekia, the Black Ocean Society and SMERSH which is a Russian group or Soviet group. And they have even had short lived alliances with Delta Green when it served their purposes and likewise Delta Green have thrown them a bone occasionally when it helped them. The history between Pisces and the Shands in 1968, as I detailed at the end of the video. Pisces entered Goatswood Forest with a few hundred Gerka soldiers, who were renownedly the toughest soldiers in the world, and two agents were merged with two Shan

Starting point is 00:07:10 merged with Tu Shan at the temple ship that lies buried in Goatswood Forest. They decided rather than to keep them there as essentially slaves that they would set them free and they used the Delta Green agents to divert the Gehrkas away from where the temple ship was. When the Shan entered their minds, they realised that they had these deep secrets about the unnatural and so decided to take the trip along and move from person to person gaining what they could from the various different Pisces agents. And as such many, many branches of the UK government are completely infiltrated by the Shan. They know everything that's going on. I think that the Pisces origin is interesting when you compare it to the Delta Green origin because it seems like Pisces had a little bit more

Starting point is 00:07:59 control, a little bit more authority than Delta Green ever had. There was maybe a moment before Vietnam that Delta Green had some budget, etc. before they became cowboys. In Pisces it seems to be a little bit different, where even Winston Churchill was aware of their existence and authorized it, etc. Oh, absolutely. One of the big differences between the Secret Service in America versus in the UK is in the UK the budget is invisible. Basically this goes back over a hundred years when it was voted on to make this anything to do with espionage and spying

Starting point is 00:08:41 on other countries to make the cash invisible. No one knows what it's spent on. And that's still to this day, the case in the UK. I think that's very interesting. And it actually details it in countdown on page 20. There's a whole little section that kind of highlights that for folks. Well, this whole conversation is leading us to kind of an advice segment or a segment that I wanted to talk to you about, which is the difference, the many differences between the US and UK law enforcement. We'll

Starting point is 00:09:12 have kind of an extended conversation here about it, but what are some of the differences that we can discuss between the two? Well, as everyone knows, in the UK, the police don't carry guns. Which I mean I've got lots of American friends and they can't believe it. They're like, well how do they shoot people? I don't like, they don't shoot people. I think British law enforcement is trained much more around de-escalation. I've seen the videos on YouTube of American police just making things worse by the second. And plus in the UK the criminals don't carry guns because guns are hard to get hold of in the UK. We don't have this kind of proliferation of them like you do in the US. Like you can literally go

Starting point is 00:10:03 to Walmart and buy a gun. You can't do that here. You have to have a gun license and there's all sorts of hoops you have to jump through. I think the usual people that can carry guns are farmers and that's to kill things on their land like foxes and things like that. Right, I think I saw a statistic that it was like shotguns was the most common weapon. There's a statistic I have here that 3% of UK citizens own firearms. Meanwhile, 36% of the US population carry firearms. And then they're the ones who've admitted carrying them. Yeah, right. What about the ones who've got them but don't tell anyone? But I mean, as I say, it's never

Starting point is 00:10:42 been a problem in this country, so we don't view it as a problem. It's just people just don't carry guns. Which is strange for me because I've been to, throughout Europe, like in the likes of Italy, the police carry guns. Yeah, so it's very much a cultural component of why, you know, maybe it's not so common. I do find it interesting that, you know, one of the other differences between the police is that UK officers that do carry guns probably have very long periods of training to have the permission basically and usually they're called into a situation only when it's really escalated to a dangerous place. Yeah, I mean, especially in the likes of central London, you will see police carrying weaponry,

Starting point is 00:11:30 but then that's a target for terrorism. If ever there was a target, as much as New York is a target for terrorism, and Washington DC, central London is as well, because that's where the Houses of Parliament, the House of Commons, Downing Street, all the important base of power in the UK is based there. So you will see police with flack jackets on and semi-automatics, but they look uncomfortable, which is weird. It's something because people kind of avoid them in this country. They're given a wide berth. Even though they're not going to just shoot you if you go and talk to them, people still give them a wide berth. That's another thing I've noticed in a lot of videos while doing the research is a lot of times folks comment that they feel a lot more comfortable walking up to a UK police officer to ask for advice about how to get around

Starting point is 00:12:20 etc. Where in the US you give police wide berths at all times. There's an interesting law, which you may not be aware of, because British law goes back so far, that if you're a pregnant woman in the UK and you need to use the bathroom you can ask a policeman for their helmet to go in. What? Seriously? And I don't think it's ever been repealed, so if you're pregnant and you really need, if you really need the bathroom you can go to a policeman, you know, with the tall hat on and ask for it and they've got to give it to you. That's good to know. I'm sure players and handlers are writing these jokes down now as we speak. There are over 18,000 police agencies in the US, which I believe differs from the UK, where there's basically one giant umbrella for the police force.

Starting point is 00:13:09 Am I right about that? Almost right. Okay. There is, except the police of central London are their own thing. Gotcha. I think I'm right on that. I read it recently, something about that. It's the central border of London. There's like the border of London and the central London and they're their own force.

Starting point is 00:13:30 I think it's based on what they do. It's looking after politicians and... Sure. That kind of thing. The reason I bring it up is that, you know, in the US it's so common that you hear of a police officer who has performed some kind of misconduct, been too aggressive or, you know, there's some kind of corruption or something. And it is so often that they can simply move to another county, another state and get work. I find that unbelievable.

Starting point is 00:13:59 Yeah, it seems much, much harder to pull that off in the UK. No, you can't. Your next job, if you lose your job as a policeman, for the kind of thing that people lose their jobs for in the US, would be a security guard. You'd never get in the police force again. They don't have a habit, I don't think, of moving people around. It's if you've been proven to be someone who's too aggressive,

Starting point is 00:14:23 too adressed happy, then they would get rid of you. You mentioned earlier that it kind of has to do with the philosophy of law enforcement and the two are very different. US officers have a more militaristic approach to law enforcement. Like we said, there is not as much of a focus on de-escalation, but the UK is kind of built off of something a little different. The UK, in the UK, the police were originally formed to protect the rich and then obviously it expanded to the point where it was the whole UK. I mean, as you know, the Peelian

Starting point is 00:14:54 principles is what it was, the idea you can talk someone down and you'd be amazed how often it does happen. Because I've seen the videos of like people who are clearly suffering from some mental distress getting gunned down by American police. In the UK, they're more likely to go over and sit and chat to them and say, come on, are you OK? You know, and move them on or get them help. It's a completely different philosophy. But obviously the big argument for the police in America is they might have a weapon, they might have a gun, which I totally get. I totally get that that could be the case. It's not really necessarily the case here. You're more likely to be stabbed and shot in the UK, which I know is neither the great, but one's far more survival than the other.

Starting point is 00:15:37 Is there any UK media that you would maybe recommend, folks who are, you know, excited to play a Pisces agent or is trying to get into the mindset of a UK law enforcement that you think does a good job of portraying them? I would say Hoff Fuzz is probably the name as you get some of the police alike rather than some kind of police drama where people jumping across the cars. Like The Sweeney, there used to be a show called The Sweeney. See used to be a show called The Sweeney. See, the problem you have with especially intelligence agencies in the UK and the media is it's guesswork to a large degree because the intelligence agencies like their budget are largely invisible to the people of this country. We just know that they go about their business and that's it.

Starting point is 00:16:22 But the difference in policing throughout the UK based on location makes that difficult. You know, you could have like, you know, kind of the little cozy kind of old women solving crime kind of thing, but that has no basis in reality when compared to, you know, a matrix van full of police and riot gear trying to round up a load of teenagers throwing bricks at a shop. It's a different thing entirely. So it's hard to kind of find that. I mean if I was an American producer and you told me that Matrix story I'd be like that's where the story is, that's where the action is. All around the area, Norris Green, I'd scroll the walls as fuck the Matrix and for years I thought he was talking

Starting point is 00:16:59 about the movie and I was still thinking to, it's actually a good movie for people. I didn't know about all that because I moved away from that area. I didn't know what it was about. And then there was a TV show about it. A guy called Ross Kemp. He goes to all these kind of like the LA gangs and talks to them and films them. And for the most part they're really kind of reciprocative, you know, they will talk to him and tell him about their life and he did one in Liverpool, the gangs up in, not as green in Liverpool. They're largely just from poor families, you know, teenage boys and everywhere you go it's just like bombed out houses and it's just a grim place to live and no one that produces

Starting point is 00:17:45 people like that. But to put that on TV that'd be hard. But then equally you could put something about the central, the police of central London and it'd be a completely different betrayal. As regards to intelligence agencies, I mean we all know James Bond's a load of nonsense. You know it's cartoonized intelligence, isn't it? You know, Roger Moore running across the heads of crocodiles and stuff like that. It's a bit ridiculous. I think it's a lot less glamorous.

Starting point is 00:18:13 Yeah, and it seems like, you know, a modern agent isn't some handsome, dashing person. Usually it's somebody that can disappear in a crowd, a very plain looking person. An absolutely plain looking guy, yeah. What a bit of a lady. So let's get back to Pisces. Um, the origins seem based in intelligence and espionage.

Starting point is 00:18:35 You know, we're talking about MI5, MI6. Um, these, I assume are the most likely organizations that a Pisces agents would be recruited from. Do you agree? Yeah, I'd, are the most likely organizations that a Pisces agents would be recruited from. Do you agree? Yeah, I'd agree with that. And maybe special branch of New Scotland Yard, possibly detectives, because the equivalent of a detective here would be someone in the FBI, which as we know in Delta Green, the perfect agent for Delta Green is an FBI agent, as they stress throughout the books. MI5 and MI6 are probably

Starting point is 00:19:09 closer to CIA than they are the FBI. They read Secret Service kind of things. But yeah, I think probably either like kind of a New Scotland Yard detective who's kind of walked the streets of the scene at all, or MI5 and MI6, probably, yeah. But I did read that someone was explaining that MI5 is about affairs that happen on British soil, they are referred to as security service or the SS. This quote was saying that MI5 is a little bit more comparable to the FBI, whereas the MI6 is similar to the CIA in terms of its directives overseas, that kind of thing. That would make sense. I wasn't sure about, as I said, being someone who's not necessarily researched it and doesn't really know much about the British intelligence services, it's

Starting point is 00:20:00 difficult for me to say, but that would make sense that you have two different agencies that you know one operator on British soil the other one operates abroad. That would make total sense to me. And there are other MIs as well don't forget. Well I'm hoping that the source book provides you know more of these kinds of insights you know the Pisces source book, into understanding some of the differences, because I assume Adam understands that a lot of US game players are going to be reading this and hoping to get some insight. Do you have any tips or advice or experience to tell US handlers when portraying UK law enforcement? Well, it's worth pointing out that although Adam Scroancy is the guy piecing it together he didn't write it. It was a group of British writers that wrote it. So you would hope that they've done their

Starting point is 00:20:51 research on the whole shebang. For US handlers when portraying UK law enforcement it's remember no guns and be nice. At least try to be nice. The police in the UK are much more likely to try and de-escalate, find out as much information as they can, rather than check to see if someone has warrants. You see it a lot on YouTube don't you? Pull over a driver and try and hit him for everything that he possibly can. In the UK it's not quite the same as that. If you were going to run a Pisces campaign you need to base it on where you're setting it as well. You're setting it in some leafy village in the Lake District countryside. It's going to be completely different to what it would be in

Starting point is 00:21:36 Manchester City Centre or Central London. That's a good point. The police are a different species entirely, depending on where they are. Any advice for players, as opposed to handlers, in terms of playing Pisces agencies? I know that there's definitely a British attitude, sense of humor that is different than American sensibilities. The British sense of humor, I once heard it described as, it was known to Singer Björk, she once described it as if you look at an old building in the UK and then you get up close and you see the gargoyles and she said that's what British humour is like. She's from Iceland, she said that's what the British sense of humour is like. It looks on the face of it to be an old grey building but when you get closer you see the humour. Once you understand the British mindset there's a humour that runs through it. And it even

Starting point is 00:22:30 runs through the gaming that comes from the UK. I mean look at Warhammer. Warhammer has a real vein of humour that runs through it, which makes it a very likeable game in that sense. So yeah, it's to keep the sense of humour. I think another thing that players can take away from our conversation too is like you said earlier, the UK intelligence has a little bit more of a carrot stick method. I know that in Countdown, Glancy described them being kind of turned off by Delta Green's methods, you know, the kind of shoot first, ask questions later method. Yeah, I see that, yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:09 And the UK intelligence kind of preferred to build friendships and alliances, that kind of thing. Well, that goes back to how intelligence started. Right. Because it was all across Europe and they were all related. Everyone knew each other, all amongst the Admiralty and the Royalty, they all knew each other and could speak each other's languages. So it was very easy to spy on someone you were

Starting point is 00:23:33 distantly related to because they trusted you. Yeah. And I think that that's followed through into modern thinking with the UK. I could be completely wrong, but that's a belief I have, that the more willing as you say to be kind of you scratch my back I scratch yours. Like there was the thing last year wasn't there about the thing in front of Congress with the UFOs and the guys coming forward saying and there's been a lot of things online about it and someone

Starting point is 00:24:05 supposedly in the know said China had reverse engineered something, agreed with America to show them it, America agreed to give them something in return, then America then Chinese showed them it and America didn't follow up on their part. That seems to be the running theme that we're gonna get something off you, we're gonna promise you the world, but you're never gonna see it. So I think that's where as with the British they'll give you something back, which develops that level of trust. And I would hope that the American and British intelligence services would help each other anyway. We share a lot of cultural similarities. Our troops fight together in the Middle East. Yeah. And we speak the same language as well. I mean, you know, we

Starting point is 00:24:55 are from Venus and Mars culturally to a large degree, but we share more than we... we have more similarities than we have differences, I think. I think you're right, yeah. I mean, I feel like we could probably talk about this subject for hours, because like you said, there are so many differences. But, you know, hopefully what we've discussed so far is helpful for players and handlers to kind of get into the mindset of a Pisces agent. You know, let's kind of shift our discussion a little bit. We've been talking so much about Pisces. I want to get into a little bit of a scenario discussion with you. So Alex Ghiott and you have produced a couple of scenarios. Can you tell me about your experience designing these scenarios? What inspired you to make the first ones? Well the first one was Viral, which is a platinum bestseller on the Miscanthonic repository. I was running Impossible Landscapes. Alex was one of my players. Alex has been a patron of mine for my channel

Starting point is 00:25:56 for years, and so I asked him if he'd like to play. And I created one... have you heard of Air Liminal? The game Liminal? Yes. Well I wrote a scenario based around a group of ghost hunters going to an island off the coast of Scotland to investigate this tower that was on the... I wrote this scenario, ran it a couple of times and then just shelved it. And in one of the sessions of Impossible Landscapes, I mentioned this scenario to Alex and he said to me, that sounds like I'd make a really good Coral Cthulhu scenario, you know. Do you want to work on it together? And I said, yeah, yeah, I suppose so. And then it

Starting point is 00:26:38 turned into this beast where we sold like thousands of copies of it. Scenario design is hard. It's not as simple as writing the scenario and then releasing it. Play testing is the big pain. I ran VIRAL six times during play testing and by the end of the sixth time I was sick of it. Because people predictably did the same things. Whether that was down to my DM in style, I don't know, but they predictably did follow the same kind of sort of route and they missed a lot of things. So we tried to put in this mechanic where we could kind of influence how they went, which as it turned out seems to be the thing people love the most about it. The interaction with the outside world.

Starting point is 00:27:26 Saying go and visit this place, go in that place and that would guide them and the old photos followed the money. So the inspiration behind that, that first one was I'd already actually written most of it. But we just moved it. We moved it from Scotland to an island off the coast of Sicily which puts you in an alien place and to be fair with Call of Cthulhu there's not that many scenarios that have been released especially on this Catonic repository that don't take place outside of America. It's one of not that many that it does. You bring up an interesting notion here of the players were always doing the

Starting point is 00:28:04 same thing. I feel like an inexperienced game designer might think that's great. That means it's exactly doing what it should be. They're always doing what the scenario expects them to do. So it's interesting that you're saying you really wanted to find ways to implement variety in what the player choices were. Yeah, the thing is we detailed this whole island and they always trod, every group we played for trod the same path and there were things we wanted them to go and look at because there were these interesting encounters which would scare them and all, you know.

Starting point is 00:28:37 And so as a way to be able to do that, we created the mechanic of the audience watching the stream, donating money to get them to go. Like in one part there's a Lemongrove, so you donate money and the guy who's the head of the group only sees cash, that's part of one of his character flaws. He wants to be a star, he wants to be famous and he wants to be rich. So as people are donating money and saying go to the Lemongroth, he goes right guys let's go to the Lemongroth and he's the boss, he pays the wages. Every single person who played that character killed it because it gave you a chance to be an absolute douchebag. Right, right. And not having a guilt about it because you're playing this character type.

Starting point is 00:29:27 Because everyone would look at a scenario and like bits of it and dislike bits of it, and it was a way of getting DMs to guide the players to the bits they wanted them to experience, rather than just following the, you know, the railroad around the place kind of thing. following the, you know, the railroads around the place kind of thing. This is a little bit of a difficult question to ask in terms of how layered and how long you can go on about it, but in your opinion, what makes a good horror scenario? Subverting expectations. Doing things that players, the players wouldn't, don't predict. And I think having a, do you know what? Too many scenarios have bad endings. Have a good ending to a scenario. I mean, how many computer games have you played where the first

Starting point is 00:30:14 couple hours of the game are brilliant and then the ending absolutely falls flat on its face? I think things like... there are certain campaigns. Like I like the end of Impossible Landscapes where you end up at like the masked ball and things like that. And even masks, I've now said that, although all roads eventually lead to China. But I think having that great ending, and also there's three endings but I think having that great ending, and also there's three endings with masks where they fail, they partially succeed or they succeed, and they have different effects. I've always thought that you should have a good ending to a scenario. People always like the ending of Viral. Inversion I think has got a great ending, because depending on what you do you end up in different places. You can end up with some really horrific places. But a trip isn't necessarily about the beginning of the trip, it's about the full trip and again from the beginning to

Starting point is 00:31:13 the end. You have to have a good conceit, you have to subvert expectations and I give it a good ending because that's what people play for, for the end, to see everything kind of the new month at the end. Yeah I agree and I think it's interesting because you're not saying you know scare them as much as possible or come up with this the fear the horror kind of comes naturally as you explore the situation you're saying build those strong evocative situations create a strong ending so that that horror really lands. Yeah I mean you know someone once I remember reading somewhere someone said the scariest thing is a closed door and remember there was the house on

Starting point is 00:31:55 what the house on something hill what's it called? It's a fold. There's the house on haunted hill. House of a thousand corpses. It's house on haunted hill. The original black and white version of that had literal door handles with the handles turning. And then they remade the Seekon and it was CGI faces coming out of walls and it just looked cheap and nasty. Whereas the black and white version was genuinely scary. And I think it's the underuse. Less is more. Yeah, less is definitely more in that kind of case. I think it's the same with horror. And I think if you look at Impossible Landscapes, which for me is the benchmark, there's so many... it's not necessarily about things being scary, it's about things being unerving. Like, were they in the third act where you've gained powers and one

Starting point is 00:32:50 of them is you start seeing normal people as actors reading scripts? When I ran it, they went to a pizza shop at some point to have like, kind of, hoods up, have something to eat, what are we going to do? And one of them got up to me and went to the bathroom and saw the server rehearsing the script, have you chosen what you want today? And then kind of hurriedly, and that freaked them out as much as anything else, that they realised that what was going on kind of thing. Yeah, subvert expectations and scary doesn't necessarily mean horrifying, scary can mean weird as well. I guess this is kind of a redundant question, but I'll just ask you just to see if we get

Starting point is 00:33:26 something extra out of it. Any advice for handlers from your experience when designing scenarios of their own? Play-tested to death. Don't trust what you've written is going to be right first time because it invariably isn't. When I ran Seth Skorkowsky, Seth's actually a friend of mine, we've become friends over the years, especially through the lockdown and all that, to the point where we actually met up at Gen Con and he came to our house and we had a night of drinking. He was one of my playtesters on Viral, and when he did his review of it, he outlined a load of cool things we could do. Bear in mind that if someone is willing to go to that trouble

Starting point is 00:34:05 to do that and to give you some good advice on things you could do to improve it, don't be precious about it. You are free to pick none, pick all of them, but don't be precious about anything. If that can improve it, do it. And then playtest it once you have done it. I cannot stress this enough, playtest your scenarios. I've read stuff on Miscanthacroposal Street, and I'm not going to name them, and I've read it and I've thought to myself, this has clearly not been playtested. Because there's no way a player would do that, and there's no way you would get that outcome. That is the author assuming. I mean, so many crazy things have happened when I've play-tested. Like when it was play-tested and viral, Griff played

Starting point is 00:34:48 Karina with the characters and there was something he did in character which we wrote into the character later on. Every time he tried to get Karina to do something he would say, no no I'm allergic to that. So just as a way of getting out of it, so we wrote that into Karina's character that she will pretend she is allergic to things to get out of Davin to do them. I like that. And you pick up these little gems along the way. Don't be precious about it, playtest it and listen to the feedback from the playtesters. If people are out and out being mean and just

Starting point is 00:35:21 saying it was terrible, well ignore them, because unless you walk away going, that was terrible, chances are it wasn't and the chances are out of groups someone enjoyed it. Great advice all around you got to listen to your players and you've got to really have an open mind when folks interact with it because like you said they're gonna do things you were not expecting and it should inspire you to improve it. Absolutely. You have clearly read a lot of RPG books you're well read in this. You have clearly read a lot of RPG books. You're well-read in this. I thought it might be a fun thought experiment

Starting point is 00:35:50 to ask you a question regarding Delta Green and kind of like homebrew additional mechanics. Can you think of a mechanic or a rule from another game that you think might actually make an interesting addition to Delta Green? The stress mechanic from Mothership. Hmm on top of the sanity mechanic. Yeah oh yeah yeah you don't take something away in Delta Green you make it worse. The stress mechanic because it can lead to things like panic attacks and heart attacks

Starting point is 00:36:18 which if you're seeing the unnatural in it's all it's all it's unholy glory that could trigger that kind of thing I think the stress makes some sort of stress mechanic and I think also I don't think firearms are handled particularly well from someone who's never handled a gun in their life I know I know a guy who's a policeman he's Irish but he's a policeman in America and he was he says whenever he sees people shooting guns in doors it drives them mad. He said because you shoot the gun in doors it's going to make you deaf. And he said they need to kind of give it a bit more focus about and make people understand guns aren't just like guns and shootouts and TV and movies. They're really deadly things

Starting point is 00:37:01 and it can harm you if they're not used correctly. I think a bit more thought around the mechanics of gunplay because it is in Delta Green. It's not like... it's not like if you played the Pisces campaign, Delta Green and gunplay would be a minimum. But in Delta Green, you know, a policeman can whip out a machine gun. It isn't going to happen in the UK, but it can happen there. And I think there seems, I think, I think maybe a way of improving Delta Green in that sense would be give more attention to that, to the combat of it. It feels a bit kind of, to me at least, a bit pulled from Call of Cthulhu. And yeah, it's got, like, lethality is great. Sure. And that works, I think, because even if you fail the role you can still die. Because some

Starting point is 00:37:52 weapons you just don't get up from. Also, like, the critical system's good, although it is Warhammer's critical system, Warhammer 4th edition. They're all doubles. But yeah, so as far as other games, yeah, I think a stress mechanic which can cause in-game effects would be good. I think you're totally right about that. It's so easy to forget from popular media and stuff, people are firing guns and doors with no consideration of the fact that they're not walking out of there with their hearing because they're so loud. Yeah, yeah, I think that's good. I recently read on the Delta Green mailing list someone made a suggestion to use the mechanics from the game 10 candles. Have you heard of the

Starting point is 00:38:35 game 10 candles? I've heard of it but I've not read it. It's basically a horror system that all you really need are 10 candles and I think maybe one or two other things, maybe some dice. But the point is that every time a candle is snuffed out, a scene ends and you get closer to the end of the story. So by the time the last candle is snuffed out, the story ends and everybody dies effectively. But they suggested maybe that could be applied to the sanity of either one agent or all of the agents involved. I thought that was kind of an interesting kind of one-shot idea to you know all the players know that as these candles go out you get closer and closer to losing your mind. Do these candles stay out for the rest of the game? Yes they don't get turned

Starting point is 00:39:17 back on. So but then you'd have to have a mechanic based on like the home period for Delta Green wouldn't you? Where people can have insanity and bonds restored and improved. Where you could relight a candle. Yeah, that's not a bad idea. I think this person maybe suggested it for like a Delta Green one-shot where you might not necessarily get a home scene. Fair enough. I want to ask you about your original Delta Green scenario, Blackthumb. Right. I don't know how much you've ever promoted this or talked about it but I, you know, when I first started

Starting point is 00:39:49 watching your channel you had mentioned you were going to run it live and so I very eagerly checked in and I thought it was a very interesting experience. Can you talk about the inspiration for that scenario? Well it goes on to the stone tape theory. For the listeners and the viewers can you explain what the stone tape theory is? The stone tape theory is the idea that our environment records traumatic events and through the right conditions they can be seen, heard and in other ways viewed or monitored. The idea being why you see, you know, maidens sat at windows on dark stormy nights and then they vanish, is the fact that these maidens once sat waiting for their beloved to return from war and they

Starting point is 00:40:32 would sit there sad and in hope. But it's also the idea that locations where people have been murdered, replay the screams of the dead. I mean there was recently, I must say recently, I think it was last year, there was a report on this on a house in Columbia that they found, where people were taken by the Colombian gangs and tortured and murdered, and while they were doing the broadcast, although they didn't hear the time, you could hear people screaming, and that would be an example of the stone-taped areas, their environment recorded them. The idea with Blackthumb was, Blackthumb himself was a North Korean defector who'd stolen various artifacts through his connections with the government that allowed

Starting point is 00:41:18 him to do, to use hypergeometry. And the character of Thumbin had a sword that could cut holes to step through like portals and he had a mask. And the mask allowed him to project insanity loss, sorry, project sanity loss that he would lose to cast and spells onto people in the camps of North Korea. Which is what it was. This artifact allowed them to basically drive the people who were being worked to death in North Korea to pass the sand loss onto him. And he had a spell book, which was a cube of green tablets that were written in Korean. And it was to do with the North Korean government hoarding magic and trying to kind of reverse engineer it. And in it he was a young, young Korean who had basically killed so many people that had driven him mad

Starting point is 00:42:18 and in turn become a serial killer. It was initially about a woman going missing who had been seen, her ghost had been seen on the anniversary of death, running across the road, and it was the idea that Delta Green had obtained footage of it, and then they had technology which would allow them to replay the last moments, with the idea being the stone tape theory and they had Yithian technology which had some sort of exotic energy source which would allow them to project onto the area and slow time down and be able to see the murdered person and lead them to where they were buried. One of them is they end up at an actual role playing game convention who look like they are cosplaying as like men in black agents, which I thought was fun,

Starting point is 00:43:07 but in retrospect it's not necessarily fitting with Delta Green. I had a blast when you were running that, especially because I could tell all the players were like, what the hell is going on here? I got the feeling you were kind of like, you know, goading them a little bit with that whole sequence. Seth's character was a Pisces agent, isn't that ironically, who stole the power source from Delta Green. Because obviously, you know, it's a battle of wits amongst these two groups. But yeah, back to the recording of it. Yeah, in retrospect, I don't think it was very good. I mean, there's definitely some really fun elements. I love the the North Korean element, I love the the stone tape theory element, but it does seem like they're almost like

Starting point is 00:43:48 you're forcing them to work together. Yeah, well the idea was Black Thumb appears right near the climax of the scenario and then causes mayhem when he appears and then goes again, taking one of the agents with him And obviously all the agents wake up, you know, handcuff to beds, and at a time later they don't know how they got there, and they've been exposed by Phenomenix. The next part was going to be, well I might as well spoil it, I'm probably not going to write it, it was going to be a group of special forces agents going into the swamps of Florida. The what they call the Florida. The Everglades.

Starting point is 00:44:31 Everglades where basically they dealt with a tractor transmission of the events. What happened in Blackthumb that appeared on the news to being broadcast from the center of the Everglades, the swamps. So they sent a special forces agent in and he found a castle, someone's built like a folly. A castle there and it's this rich German guy. And he had basically bought PhenomenX with the idea of exposing D'Artur Green and he was actually a Karatekian agent. We've talked about previous scenarios, ones that you felt were really strong and you've obviously had a success in terms of the folks downloading it and running it. What are

Starting point is 00:45:13 some lessons you think you can learn from the execution of this scenario? I'd probably make it less railroad-y. I'll probably redo the convention but I probably wouldn't do that. It seemed, in retrospect, slightly silly that Delta Green was sending someone there. Although it was explained, like, this is where we were told to meet, and the guy who comes in to speak to them says, this is where we were told, don't ask me, I was just told to come here and meet this kind of thing. I would probably do that differently and make it a bit more serious. And I probably wouldn't have in the original scenario, we had roadblocks and things like that and I probably wouldn't have Blackthumb himself appear. That would probably be at a post, you know, kind of a credit after credit scene.

Starting point is 00:45:59 I still really enjoyed it. You know, I suppose there's nowhere currently to view this scenario. It's on YouTube. If you go to Chambers of Roleplay, because it was James, who is a Twitch streamer, who ran it. I think he put the whole thing there. It's there and watchable. Yeah, I'll try to track it down and put it in our description, because I do think it's an interesting watch and I remember enjoying many of the elements about it. You mentioned the con, the convention as maybe you wouldn't include it. I don't know. I really liked something about it because it's so disarming for the agents. And then I remember you explaining that this is a bit of a spoiler that, you

Starting point is 00:46:45 know, randomly a neck beard will walk in and sit down and kind of amongst the guys and he's got a sword and that turns out to be like a... He was someone sent in with his hat to record them, yeah. Yeah, he was an agent of the person with the own phenomenon X picked to look like someone who could easily make this mistake. I like that element. I think, you know, sometimes throwing it in and if it's naturally a funny thing, it's not that bad. I think comedy and horror kind of go hand in hand sometimes. You have to have moments of it all just downhill, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So on your podcast, you talk about ghosts and the supernatural. Do you think that there is maybe more room

Starting point is 00:47:27 for ghosts and haunting scenarios in Delta Green? Yes, but it comes with a however. There's already a ghost scenario, ghost-esque scenario, isn't there? Which is, what's it called? Music from a Darkened Room, I believe youer Room. That's right, yeah. You could probably do more of them but I kind of feel they'd be overkill slightly. I think that the thing is with the success of Viral it was it was a Cthulhu modern

Starting point is 00:47:56 scenario and it was done using all the techniques that people watch on TV so it felt familiar. I think if you were to do it in Delta Green, because see Delta Green is always going after the unnatural being the explanation of everything. You know? And it's about the cover-up as well. Yeah, yeah and people tend not to cover up ghosts do they? People tend to, you know, as we did in Vile, people visit the island and live stream it because they want the clout. With Delta Green, there has to be something more than just ghosts I think. There needs to be something like with Blackthumb I suppose. Yes the girl's ghost was there but there was something far more sinister and it was viewable because of the way Blackthumb had killed her. So I think it needs something more than just being oh it's ghosts.

Starting point is 00:48:46 So I think it needs something more than just being, oh it's ghosts. You're right, it usually ties into the mythos in some way. Are you working on or planning to release any new scenarios for Call of Cthulhu? I was actually writing some before I came on here tonight. Oh nice. We're doing the sequel to Viral. It's called. Exciting. Me and Alex are working on it. I think I've been about three pages of it today doing a specific part of it.

Starting point is 00:49:12 I think it's an absolutely brilliant scenario so far. We've got some great ideas and it follows on directly from the events at the end of viral. And it's going to complete subvert expectations because it's not what you think it's going to be. Love it. So that's hopefully going to be the next release. We think we're going to make a trilogy of scenarios because we realized that this one, the same things we can't do. And then we're going to do a third one to wrap the whole thing up. And invariably beginning with V because we've got viral and

Starting point is 00:49:47 vermis so we're gonna have to think of something beginning with V to do the trilogy. I did ask for listener submitted questions however we mostly got unserious ones asking what your skincare routine is like. One person speculated you might be a pair of disembodied hands so you gotta love the community involvement. These are stunt hands. I won't demand these secrets from you, but I guess a good question we can close on is, let us know what you've got planned for the future of Bud's RPG review channel. I have three ongoing Delta Green projects, which are deep dives into the Labyrinth, Iconoclasts

Starting point is 00:50:32 and God's Teeth. I occasionally like to throw in something interesting, like I've got a Mouse Ritter. Have you had a Mouse Ritter? I have, yes. Games Omnivorous sent me the box set of it, so I'm going to do a review of that at some point. I tend to try and cycle them around, because I'll do videos for my patrons only, which are the deep dive breakdowns of campaigns, which people have said to me they find really, really handy. Sure.

Starting point is 00:50:56 Especially as I have a number of people who are subscribers, who are supporters also, who have ADHD, so they find it hard to focus on a book, but when someone's explaining how it works to them, they take it in. And I'm also going to be doing... I keep on dipping into it and dipping out of it a series called Bud's Guide to Running Impossible Landscapes, and that's going to feature me on camera for the first time. It's going to be done with a sense of humour throughout it, and I'm going to be done with a sense of humour throughout it and I'm going to put in some of the bits of stories and things like that. So there's lots of good stuff for channel supporters. I mean a lot of this stuff

Starting point is 00:51:32 does come out eventually for everyone. Like the big breakdowns eventually are released for everyone, but channel supporters get a private unlisted video of things like for example Massanile Lathertep, which is the whole thing in one video, chaptered out with no adverts. So there is definitely benefits for that kind of thing, plus obviously they will get God's Teeth until they have finished it and then I will release the whole thing. But the main focus at the moment I think is cracking on with the sequel to Viral and I've got a video planned which no one's going to expect for 9000 subscribers. It sounds like now is the time to join your Patreon and to support you so you can get all

Starting point is 00:52:18 this extra content. And also patrons are above a certain level. If I release a scenario, I send them a free PDF. Nice. So for example, Virals £12. I'll send you one for free. It's how you give back to the community that is supporting this. That's great. Yeah. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. That's it, folks. I want to thank everyone for tuning in. Next month, Vince will return to the show. I want to thank you, Bud, next month Vince will return to the show I want to thank you bud for taking some time to hang out with me no problem my obsession with Delta Green came right around the time that I found your channel and I think a lot of folks definitely see you as the guy

Starting point is 00:52:57 who introduced them to Delta Green so thanks for all your work you'd be amazed how often people tell me that I had someone come up and said, you Bud? and I said, might be why? and he said I recognize your hands which was weird. That is a weird way to recognize. I wouldn't mind but I didn't even have the right hands on that day. Well if you want more of my interview with Bud you should make sure to subscribe to our Patreon, where you can access the extended version of this episode, along with every Dead Drop episode for only five bucks.

Starting point is 00:53:31 I want to give a special thanks to our Operator-level patrons. That's Advanced Wars Sammy, Bimblewort, Cameron S, Jonathan M, Kirby's Double, Onk, OGPan, Ren and WTF again. I want everyone to stay safe and we will see you next time.

Mayday Plays - 🕳️The Dead Drop | "Countdown to PISCES" | June 2024

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