lategaming

Premise:

Game start is June 2000.

There are superheroes. There is no known definitive reason for their being, but they’ve been among us for decades. During the war years, the Allies and Axis powers deployed their own superbeings in the armed struggle and the US continued to use superbeings in all of their conflicts for the next 50 years. There are some of these teams and individuals still active. The most famous in the US was “The American Dream” - a team of patriotic superbeings who contributed widely to the Allied cause, as well as being the main strike force in Vietnam.

The US (where our game is set) is divided on the issue of superbeings. Many feel there has to be some sort of licensing of superbeings as there are some who can literally flatten cities with their powers and it is perhaps only luck which has prevented this thus far.

The Watch Tower:
The US Government has taken the initiative of starting a federated system for superbeing protection of cities and states: The Watch Tower. Each state has a minimum of 1 Watchtower installation with at least one superbeing stationed there. Some locations are luckier than others and the resources available to the WatchTower in San Francisco would be very different to the resources provided to a WatchTower in Idaho or Montana. Upkeep of the WatchTower is an accounting nightmare due to the necessity to ensure that the WatchTower makes money through licensing of trademarks, images, intellectual property and technology. The WatchTowers may also “sell” additional protections beyond the necessary to cities, regions, corporations and private individuals.

FORTRESS:
The realisation that state prisons and penitentiaries are utterly insufficient for the incarceration of superbeings came early but it wasn’t until the mid-80s that anyone could do anything about it. Technology could, in some cases, suppress the abilities of superbeings but in the mid-90s, a task force focussed on solving this problem came up with Fortress. Some of their restraints have been described as inhumane, but we are reminded that humane solutions are for human beings. FORTRESS is incorporated as a public-held company under the watchful reign of the CEO, President and major shareholder, Jorden Grainger.

Personalities:

BloodRage - multiple serial killer and US-based terrorist. After a series of very public displays including the 1998 bombing of the Orange County Womens Correctional Facility in which 120 people died and an unknown number of superhuman felons escaped, BloodRage disappeared and has not been seen in public since.

Atomic I: One of the heroes of the Vietnam-era American Dream, badly injured by BloodRage, but returned to active duty as an independent in 1999. His power, manipulation of nuclear radiation, has resulted in his being contracted over the years out to other nations in order to clear up nuclear spills in Chernobyl, Hamm-Uentrop, Hessen, Tomsk and Tokai-mura. He is a senior member of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Atomic III: Though born unpowered, the son of Atomic I developed advanced technology which permitted him to manipulate intense magnetic fields. This technology was subsequently licensed to nations and corporations in order to better control their nuclear reactors and high-energy colliders. In early 1999, Atomic III was missing, presumed dead and his magnetic-impluse gauntlets were used in a crime wave which resulted in the death of the superbeing Lifeline.

Lifeline: Born with the ability to heal others of almost any injury or affliction, Lifeline craved a peaceful life. His powers, though potent, worked best on superbeings and he felt real guilt that they were not more effective on normal humans. in many cases, his healing abilities were only temporary when applied to normal humans. Lifeline was assassinated by persons unknown in 1999. it is known that superbeings from around the globe, heroic and criminal, attended his funeral.

Vitesse: the national hero of France, known for his television and movie appearances, excessive use of stimulants and liberal attitudes to clothing, porn and sex in the media.

Prodigy: major shareholder of the UK-based Prodigy Corporation, Prodigy is now in his mid-20s and still the major supplier of advanced technology to the highest bidder. Prodigy has collaborated with others to build some of the advanced technology we see in use and his company provides the IP protection and licensing for all parties.

The Protectors: based on the west coast of the USA, the Protectors provide a non-governmental alternative to the WatchTower. Their roster: Inferno, Sparkle, Warhead

Moon Boy: the only active member of the original WWII-era American Dream. The scope of his abilities are unknown.

Malice: one of the known escapees of the Orange county Penitentiary bombing in 1998. Malice was captured in late 1999 and placed within Fortress.

The Zombie Squad: mostly inactive “team” of superbeings based in Miami who were partially active during the early 90s. Some of their number still respond but most have simply disappeared.

Hemlock: international assassin.

WatchTower New York: possibly the best funded WatchTower in the country. Roster: The Enigma, White Lightning, Minddancer, Shatter, Scorch, Sentinel, Metalon, SkyWarrior, Dominic Drake. The current team has just lost the extremely lucrative franchise to the WatchTower in New York after a series of costly mishaps and poor public opinion.

In a newish blog, 10 by 10, they opine about the potential lack of balance in superhero games. I mean - Superman and Batman teamups? How does that work out? One can chew through steel, the other can…um…buy hotels with spare change…

All said, having either as an enemy would be A BAD THING®.

Anyway, on 10by 10 they have a video from a couple of very funny British comedians. So go look on this blog post and give 10 by 10 some trafficy goodness.

Of course, in my superhero games there’s plenty of opportunity to equalise power but if one guy wants to forego all of his points and just have “a BMX” and skill in riding it when everyone else is a son of Krypton, then you gotta give him what he wants and then TELL him that he can’t really be involved in the fight against Galactus’ heralds becaurse, frankly, tere isn’t a BMX jump that high.

Are you compelled to make allowances though? I say yes - because the time to make objections was during the character generation process. You should have spotted it then.

Over the last few years I’ve come to appreciate different methods of character generation. I’m not especially keen on point allocation systems due to concerns that they are unrealistic because a) not everyone is equal and b) they’re prone to abuse by min-maxing. (I find the latter to be more evident in games where you have hundreds of points and points give traits which different advantages and yes I am pointing the fingers straight at Champions even more than anything here).

I did however opt for point allocation systems for all of my games so far (with some minor exceptions in the generations, most notable in Testament/Creed and Zombi).

I really don’t like random generation - even though my randomly generated character in kinnygraham’s Delta Green scored lowest in his stat rolls and yet is arguably the most stoic player character (the other two being dead and mad).

An idea which I love is mentioned today on Collective Endeavour. Character generation by interrogation - which fits in well with the “1984″ theme of his game.

Which is best? Heck, I don’t know.

What I do know is that in the 20-odd years I’ve been a roleplayer I’ve spent far too much time generating characters (including hours and hours spent making characters for MERP for games that were never played).

We played Zombi at the local TTN meeting because it allowed us to have character generation done within 10 minutes of sitting down.

Amber! Now there’s a game. I never got to play it due to not having any players but I loved READING the character generation system even if, having never read the books, it was a bit beyond me.

My personal favourite was the generation system in HeroWars. I loved the idea of writing a short paragraph about a character and then underlining the bits that could be used as traits.

Rayden Kauppinnen was born in the Northern Reaches of Volyvia. He was apprenticed to Master-Jarl Tuppenijk and on his 19th birthday became a Journeyman in the Lore. During his Challenge of Certainty, he was given a Return Thread as a gratitude from the village of Chernetzy. These days he travels the roads as a Lore Mendicant with only his wits and a piebald pony with a stern temperament for company.

Oh….just writing that makes me want to play it…whatever the game is???

We’re not talking about games which are designed to get the GM a date with the hot new girl in the gaming club (as mabmorrigan will likely relate happily later) but rather games which can be started quickly, how to pick up a game and get started and the pitfalls of doing so.

Games that can be started quickly

I designed SpaceNinjaCyberCrisis XDO and Zombi to be pickup games. Small size books, really simple character sheets, simple rules, only using d6 dice and strong, easily identifiable genres. Likewise, The 23rd Letter, though more involved for the GM is good for In Media Res gaming and I think that qualifies. Another excellent pickup game in my opinion was the Quick Play Vampire rules from White Wolf. Not only were they free, but the rules were vastly simplified. You can download the Demo rules from White Wolf’s web site. Similar games might include Mikko Kauppinen’s PowerGame or some of the games from the Indie RPG Designers Forum. There are some indie games which are very limited in scope, being more like Adventures with Quick Play Rules added (and The Mountain Witch would be a perfect example of this).

How to pick up a game and get started

Okay, you’ve an idea of where to start and assuming that you’re going to avoid the “Adventure with Rules” type of games, then you’re going to wonder where to get started. We’ve recently had a post telling us that pregenerated characters are bad, mmmkay. So, you’re going to need to make up some characters. Just tell them what you want. You’ve a grain of an idea in there and you need that to get the game started. Ivor and Paul in my TTN game will know this as I just told them “Make up characters who work at a TV station.” Without further prompting from me they made up a roving cameraman and his anchor. They’re good players so despite the fact I only had the bare bones of a plot (it’s Zombi, what else is needed), they threw me a few bones. As the game went on, my imagination started working again and soon I had a plot, an idea, a conspiracy and a game!

Pitfalls

The biggest issue for me is longevity. I really enjoy long campaigns and pickup games don’t really provide for that a lot of the time. I’ve told my TTN players to make some more characters in their spare time as mortality is a real danger and it’s easy enough to find ways to introduce them. Without longevity of character (an issue I often have with Call of Cthulhu), I tend to find games a little unfulfilling.

Conclusion

I’m already writing some game design notes for WotW and Viride and I see these as Action games and Culture games (more on that later) and I have a couple of idea for Pickup games. Games that are little more than Adventures with rules….Watch this space.

I have a list that is rapidly growing of things to post here, but for some reason this is on my mind just now, so…

When I was growing up, roleplaying was that weird thing you did afterschool that no one was entirely sure wasn’t some form of devil-worship.  The stigma seems to have abated some as the years have passed — thank heavens — and I’ve been glad to see more parents allowing or encouraging their children to take up rping.  It’s a good compromise between the old pasttime of books and the modern advent of video games… all the adventure, not so solitary, a bit of risk, and no vegging out in front of the tele.  Yes, good solution.

One thing I’d really like to encourage GM’s to look at is the extraordinary possibilities of using roleplaying as an educational tool.  I’ve done this a number of times with some youth groups in various areas where I’ve lived, and always with astounding results.

Roleplaying is a wonderful vehicle for relaying vital facts and information in way that is anything but boring.  I’ve created roleplaying sessions (using White Wolf’s easy-peasy char-gen modified to hell and back for flexibility’s sake) designed to throw teenagers back into mythological Ireland, bringing them face to face with all the wyrds and wilds of a superstitious world.  All the info I gave them was accurate.  Names of haunts and heroes, and we used a map of Ireland for navigation purposes.  I got compliments from a couple of parents because the kids picked up Irish mythology books at their next round at the library to prepare for the upcoming gaming sessions.  If they could reference me a truth about the time period or a figure from history when something was encountered, I gave them marks for experience.  I had some rather avid little readers on my hands.

I’ve also used rping as a way to help teens prepare for tests on eras in history.  History, unless you just love history, can be a bone-gnawing, sleep-inducing subject.  But if you take that same history, get youth involved in making characters from that time period, it can change their interest level drastically.  When they have to answer questions such as “Where did my character live?”, “What did they wear?”, “How big was my family?”, “What did my dad do?”, and so forth, they’re learning a multi-level approach to history which ensures comprehension.  Roleplaying requires investigation of social, economic, political, artistic, and religious movements.  Anytime you get more than one facet on the jewel of a period in history, you have a better grip on its worth.  You can take rote facts and drop them into “newspaper clippings”.  You can have war casualty figures delivered via courier.  There are endless ways to make history come alive for kids through roleplaying.

I haven’t even touched on the possibilities of using roleplaying situations to help youth confront issues of loyalty, peer pressure, death, jealousy, and more advanced human ethics in a controlled situation.  But it’s all there.  I would really like to see more teens roleplaying.  And more GM’s willing to cater to that age level.  Roleplaying may be immense fun, but it’s also an arena where learning, even for us adults, never ends.

The most difficult character I ever had to play was one drawn from a stack of manila folders in a gameroom in Astoria, Oregon. It was a one-nighter session — not my usual brand of poison, but I was a girl in a room filled with guys and Guinness, and anything becomes more palatable with Guinness. I was rather pleased to have made the cut. Out of 20+ interested applicants in the game, six of us actually got to participate. Didn’t dawn on me until years later that my participation may have had nothing to do with my… er… literal participation. I wasn’t very clued in back then.

The GM had a basic AD&D adventure planned. Normal character classifications… none of this hybrid, super-specialized, “Well, in this supplement, you cross a mage with a ninja” craziness. One-night only. Goal? Survive until 2 am. Simple.

Um, not.

Probably should have taken it as a warning sign that we didn’t need to bring anything with us and all efforts to pitch character ideas were brushed off rather nonchalantly. The confusion was rectified when we walked in to find the folders sitting neatly in the middle of the table along with a note: “Choose one”.

I wasn’t as courageous back then as I am now, so I sure didn’t take the first pick. But wasn’t willing to be out of control long enough to take whatever was left. So, I have to say, I did it to myself. Third folder of the six picked up. And I wasn’t happy with what I saw.

First of all, let me just say how much I truly dislike playing fighter class characters. I know you need them, I know they’re important, and I’ve owed my paper-hide to fighters many a time over. So, it would be just my luck to get a fighter. That wasn’t the kicker though. My intelligence and wisdom scores were.

I don’t remember if my INT was a 6 and my WIS an 8 or the other way around, but I don’t think it mattered in retrospect. I was your typical all-brawns, no-brain brute force, and I was pissed (which probably helped the character portrayal). For good reason, too.

See, I’m usually the character in the party that takes stock of everyone’s gear, calculates the approximate trajectory of a grappling hook in a west wind, and comes up with the thing the GM never thought someone would do. I take a particular pride in being a pain in the GM’s creative ass. That’s right, it’s messed up, and I’m sure it has everything to do with a need for vengeance for every time a brilliant player did it to me. Oh, and I like watching smart creative people squirm. (This is going to come back and haunt me, I swear).

The conundrum was how to take my naturally smart, cunning self and dumb it down to fit the character. I don’t know how to act generally brainless despite my knack for peopling my life with good examples of the trait. And coming up with great ideas is part of the joy of gaming for me. So… what to do?

I kept my great ideas. For every situation or choice we faced, I allowed myself my naturally cunning response — and kept my mouth shut while I rolled a d10. Anything less than an 8, and that idea never saw the light of day. God forbid I roll a 1 or 2, because then I had to come up with something STUPID on purpose. If I managed something above an 8, I spit the idea out. I was a veritable Forrest Gump of insight and ingenuity. Most of the time everyone wanted to pour MiracleGro into the cavity where my brain should have been, and occasionally, I was an accidental genius. The hardest thing was biting back all those wonderfully creative ideas because “my character wouldn’t have been able to come up with this”.

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting the “Here’s your character!” trick on a few groups I’ve GM’d for. Some folks eat it up. Others, you give them a well-developed character and it’s like telling them to climb inside a locked box. What I learned from my tough little rping experience is how hard it is to put aside your ego and the things you’re good at in order to play something truly, and how attached we get to our strengths. I really began to appreciate my talents more after that session. There’s nothing like feigning “not having a clue” to make you glad you have more than several.

So… what was your most difficult character? And what did it teach you?

Congratulations — you’ve managed to rustle up a handful of players, maybe even titillated them with a hint of what’s in store for them. You’ve slogged through the char-gen process and, like horses held too long at the ready, the characters are chomping at the bit for what’s waiting for them down the road. Now, my friend, it’s all on you.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” And that axiom holds true as steel in the arena of tabletop gaming. Setting the scene for your players, especially the first scene, is as vital to the flow of a night’s gaming (or a year’s campaign!) as good directions are for someone who’s never been to your house. If you take nothing else seriously that first night, it better be this.

There are all kinds of “how-to”s out there on how to create a great scene. How to describe, how to set up, how to think like an inhabitant of that world, how to yadda-yadda-yadda. So rather than recreate the wheel, I think I’d like to discuss the psychology of creating a good scene and what’s really at stake when you are at the cusp of a new session. These are the things I’ve found most important in creating the proper mindset for myself as a GM. Being aware of these has helped me write better scenes and get things off to a better start than any simple “how to”.

Always Remember:

You Are Their Eyes. And their ears. And their hands. You have total sensory domination over the characters. Seem intimidating? Don’t let it be. Get drunk on it. Our senses are the most direct line to our most primitive emotional states. Your characters (in a playing sense) are born the moment they enter this new world, and their first experience will be touching this environment to which only you hold the key. Controlling what your players experience sensually in an opening scene determines whether or not the characters feel like this new world is a benevolent or hostile or indifferent place. While there is such a thing as “being overly descriptive”, you can usually be quite forgiven for being a tad verbose in an opening scene. Choose your words carefully, for they are your sole arsenal. Descriptives issued in embellished, high-gothic style tend to disassociate characters from their humanity; the suspension of reality is quite intense, but for supernatural thrillers, such a veil between the real and the not-to-be-believed is welcome. Descriptives that are earthy and rugged tend to flesh out characters quickly because they call on our own sensory memories. Where you walk the line between the down-to-earth and not-of-this-world is up to you. But the path you take and the way it touches the characters’ “physical” forms can and does determine a lot of the mood of your game.

You Are Their God. Kind of. For now. Keep in mind that this is, literally, the last moment you will have these characters completely in your control. From here on out, they will begin to shape this world you gave them to their liking. Such is free will, and it’s a bitch. Anything you want put in place — be it a mood, a theme, whatever — do it now. It’ll stick. And it’s your last chance. Use it wisely.

You Are Their Mirror. It’s important that you develop your scenes as well as (if not better than) you develop the interfacing NPCs. For one, the setting of the game is a character that gets nonstop, uninterrupted playtime constantly with every single character. Putting time into your backgrounds, descriptions, and details is well-worth it when you consider the amount of “stage time” the scenes themselves get. Also, characters, especially newly created ones in the hands of inexperienced players, have to have something against which to test themselves. Until they actually develop far enough to have interpersonal conflict or to avoid knee-jerk personality blunders, your scene is their mirror. Setting an eerie tone lets the player explore their character’s courage, stoicism, rationality, superstition. Setting an easygoing tone lets the player stir up their character’s wanderlust, curiosity, ambition, knack for finding trouble. Anything you do gives the character something to bounce off of and begin to discover themselves. It is, literally, the first opportunity the characters have to see themselves, through the looking glass of whatever your imagination conjures for them.

You Are Their Door. Everything a player comes to see and understand about this world is through the aperture of you. If you keep too much detail to yourself, they might never “get in” to your world. If you lay the door wide open, they might see too much. Neither of these is a bad thing, just be aware of how each is useful. You might shut that door and brace it shut with only a crack of light and understanding showing, make them work for what they discover, and their efforts to gain fluency in your vision will weave them in tightly. You might let them in full and overpower them, forcing them to draw back and narrow their scope, instilling in them a sense that, no, they are not indeed “paper gods” here. It’s all about perspective. You give them the truth you want them to have. They will call it sacred or heretical in their own time once the gold proves real or the gilt flakes off. And, my, isn’t that fun?

Setting a scene is solely your responsibility, and you just have to own that one. The scene is the partner with which the characters must dance, and you (most of the time) get to choose the music. You can’t blame your characters for being wallflowers if their date doesn’t show. You can’t blame your players for lack of interest if their dance partner doesn’t seem interesting, coquettish, and a suitable match. Take your scene and style her down to the curve of her lashes and the cut of her dress, breathe her into life and make her alive and responsive. The scene might follow the characters’ leads in time, but initial chemistry is vital. Make it spark. Leave them breathless.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Tonight at TableTopNorth, I decided to eschew my plans of running 2300AD because, simply, the setup is massive and I don’t know my players very well. They seemed to want an action game so I dug out a copy of Zombi, one of my own games, and decided to force them into some hot undead action.

I decided to set it in late August of 1999. Mere weeks after the first recorded rising. Things were about to get ugly in the city (which the players decided was Kansas City) and the police force has been tasked with covering it up. They know the dead walk but there’s a pogrom on talking and desertion has meant that the City has had to hire private security companies to fill in.

Througha combination of impro and planning, the players made up two characters. Jim Buin, a combat cameraman who spent years with the troops and has a recurring nightmare of Mogadishu and Frank Connor, his wealthy socialite anchor. They were dispatched to riots in town by the Head of News, Gaylen Ross. They’re given a official TV van and a big camera.

In town, they fast-talk their way past a dumb uniform cop and find their way through the detritus of a deserted downtown to a riot scene. Ducking into an alley they encounter a half-corpse and decided to scale a fire escape to get a better view of the riot. Once upon the roof, they shoot a live feed of the police containing rioters, rioters who are under attack by another mob and to their horror they realise that this second mob are attacking, biting and eating the rioters!!!

They watch in horror as a pair of SWAT vans arrive and 16 SWAT troops disembark, take up positions and summarily execute the rioters and the second mob. They’re horrified and try to escape but are apprehended by two SWAT cops who try to bring them back to their Lieutenant, a stressed out guy who will do what it is required to keep this shit under wraps. They encounter the still-moving other-half of the half-corpse…which is killed immediately by the SWAT officers (and gives the players the hint that head shots are where it’s at).

While one of the officers is absent, they subdue the other, take his pistol and escape into the alleys with gunfire ringing in their ears. At one point, Jim breaks left and Frank breaks right. Frank reaches their van and tries to drive quickly though he’s clearly panicked and drives the can straight into a grocery store front. He’s concussed but rescued by Jim who throws the van into gear and gets them the hell out of there.

While heading back to the city, they call in and Gaylen tells them to get out of the city. She’s leaving the station now with her fiancé using the traffic helicopter and suggests they do the same. They divert to the local gun store to find widespread looting and the gun store locked. Frank rings his father who suggests they make tracks to his ranch, 40 miles outside the city. They turn the van around and hit the freeway…Jim makes a call to an old army buddy who tells him to get out of the city and he’d call when he is in a position to give him a sitrep.

…40 miles later they’re pulling up the long drive to the Connors Ranch. They open the front door and Frank is horrified to see the lobby is awash with blood. Jim immediately activates the centra locking on the van from his remote. Frank stumbles into the hall and spies his father, obviously injured, feasting on the remains of his younger brother. His father drops the body and starts to approach Frank and Jim. Jim fires warning shots at Mr Connors but he keeps coming, a murderous look in his eyes. They start to back away and Frank, already established as a rich but incredibly unlucky man, feels an icy hand on his shoulder - his father’s wife, Missy! Already blue from the rigor, she attacks him immediately. Jim, empties the pistol and hits nothing but air and nicks Franks ear and starts to run. Mr Connors is still approaching and Missy grabs Frank’s arm and bites down hard, taking a lump of flesh and gobbling it greedily down. Jim aims carefully and with a careful shot, takes Missy down with one shot to her temple, showering Frank with blood and gore. They back away from Mr Connors and make their way upstairs to his study where Frank says there are rifles and pistols. They’re watchful for the other members of the household - Frank’s sister Lucy, the two stablehands, the maid… - and once in the study they start ringing the other phone extensions in the house to see who answers. José, Ricardo and Lucy are in the stables! And unhurt!

They secure the rifles and the pistols as Mr Connors starts to pummel on the door so they slide out onto the roof and drop to the ground and run to the van and load up. As they start the van, they notice Mr Connors and another walker coming out of the house. They wait til they are close by and BAM! reverse the van over them. They step out of the van and Frank shoots his father’s undead corpse a couple of times and, true to form with his bad luck, also manages to shoot out a tyre in the van. He also notes for the first time that there is blood pumping out of the bite wound on his arm….

They make their way down to the stables to find José, Ricardo and Lucy who are very happy to see them and Jim immediately gets the two men to change the tyre. Frank’s arm is still bleeding profusely and Ricardo uses his animal nursing skills to suture the wound and bandage it up.

Jim rings Gaylen. She’s about 450 miles north but needs to refuel and the only place is a small airfield about 60 miles away from the ranch. they decide to meet up. She tells Jim that the dead are walking, they kill and eat people. Those they kill, get up and kill. Jim looks at Frank very closely….

And we finish up with them loading into the van….and heading for the airfield…..

I really like Gear Krieg - two fisted pulp RPG. Mecha in WW2 just appeals, even more than superheroes in WW2 appeals (though psychics in WW2 appeals even more but more on that later!)

So, imagine my joy when I found this:

Does that not just tickle!

The main page has heaps of more material that would just inspire the imagination nomatter what type of game you’re running.

As I may have mentioned, I’m in KinnyGraham’s DeltaGreen game. The other night, after losing one agent to the nameless horror and receiving a chewing from our DG contact, my character came to two startling revelations.

• There is something horrible out there. Something unworldly. Something that wants to kill us. But it’s all separate incidents. There doesn’t seem to be an all-encompassing conspiracy.
• The government is involved and our erstwhile allies, Delta Green, by telling us that if we get caught we’re on our own, are not on our side.

His reaction, therefore, is to bug out. He’s just had a friend killed, another ally has completely wigged out, he received a chewing from DG and a large proportion of the blame and now there’s some bossy hispanic woman too.

And what’s with the blame? He had the misfortune to be involved with DG (something they engineered). He’s been doing as he is told. And the reason he got the blame for this is because the other two are either a) dead or b) mad as a stick.

Would it be so bad to bug out? To run in a calm, calculated way rather than waiting to join his friends in either the morgue or the asylum? Would Delta Green come after him or would they assume that he just needed a longer leash? Would he find himself living the life of Jason Bourne…except being chased by both Deep Ones and his previous DG allies not to mention the conventional law enforcement officials.

And what would Graham think if I convinced everyone else to bug out? Would he be pissed? Would he want to run with the “DG-Rogue” campaign that I had thrust everyone into? Would he rather confiscate the character, insist I make another and then make it the order of the day that we track down our former comrade (my old character) and terminate with extreme prejudice. I don’t know.

Either way would make an interesting story…