Most of my thinking today was all about kicking off Delta Green missions. What I have is a four way table that gives you a starting point. The four options are:
Victim and Deed
I think of this as Miss Scarlet with a tire iron, from Cleudo. You get briefed on who the victim was and what happened, your mission is to find the who and why.
Culprit and Victim
I think of this as the revenge scenario. You know who is under threat, and from whom, but the where, when and how is unknown.
Culprit
In this scenario you have a Person of Interest, but what, when and where is all unknown.
Culprit and Deed
This us the mad scientist scenario. You know who and what they are trying to do, but the when, when and why are unknown.
Those basic templates don’t tell you a lot but we can now start to fill in details. I am filling a spreadsheet with d100 oracles. The first was a list of interesting victims, then possible culprits. Then it started to get a bit weirder as I build more tables.
As I play I don’t roll on the tables until my agent is in a position to learn the fact. If I get hold of an autopsy report then I can roll on a cause of death table, for example.
I am trying to follow a Culprit, Deed, Victim, Means, Motive and Opportunity method, but at each stage I can ask ‘Is there anything Unnatural here?’ To start I am putting the chance of there being something Unnatural at just 10%. It means that agents will not be tripping over cosmic horrors at every turn.
What I have so far is enough to create a briefing, a start of the mission or entry to the scene of crime. Once there I can start to use skills to control the flow of information.
Now it is all about filling in details.