Delta Green'd Session Reports (#1 & #2)

Characters
- Claire, ex-cop, recovering alcoholic, divorced mom.
- Lenny, college student / mailman, honorably discharged from the US Army, closeted gay.

The Situation So Far
- Lenny woke up from nightmares the other night to a text from an old friend/crush from the army named Kyle. They went to a bar to catch up and Kyle gave Lenny some weird pills.

- The next day, Lenny got a strange letter from the Bureau masquerading as his dead army buddy asking him to go get briefed in the kitchen of a closed-down french restaurant. There he met Nobody, who gave him a burner phone and his cursory briefing.

- Back in the 90s there was this party drug called Reverb, got big, then people started disappearing. They think it's got supernatural properties, and last time they got involved directly and tried to get to the source, whoever was manufacturing closed shop and disappeared or killed all the network before going dark. Here's the official DEA report, here's ties to a new age cult and a neo-nazi biker gang. The job is to figure out who the source is and making sure they stop spreading the drug. Also learning whatever they can about it is ideal. The pay starts at a grand, and Nobody may be able to negotiate for more if Lenny needs it.

- Lenny decides this is a two people job and calls his friend Claire, offers to split the reward and points out her police background might help. She calls an old druggie informant, High Sally, who namedrops one "Roofie". She also mentions that she saw a guy straight up melt into goo after taking the drug, but she's high as a kite so take it with a grain of salt.

- Meanwhile, Lenny goes clubbing and meets a cute girl who thinks he's interested, and invites him back to a party where she thinks her dealer will be, one Damien Lucas.

--- session #1 lasted about two hours, we took things fairly slow, I think part of it was a duet and then Claire's player joined us maybe at the halfway mark. Overall it was a good session, although one bit of criticism I tried to work on for the next one was to describe environments and people more. I experimented with that a bit in the second session in a style I would describe as pretentious TV show camera work. It had mixed reception.

Tonight's Game
- At the party, Lenny got in an embarrassing situation with Cynthia (the cute girl from last session?) as she realized he just wanted to get close to the Reverb dealer. He hid in a bathroom to change clothes after getting booze spilled onto them, while Claire tried to psych herself up before going into a party filled with alcohol.

- Three thugs drove in front of the house and crashed the party, seeking Damien Lucas. A heated exchange escalated in the backyard when one of the thugs hit Damien with a bottle. Our heroes intervened, and Damien booked it. The thugs ignored the two interlopers when they saw he was about to escape, and a chase ensued.

- At the end of the chase, things escalated further when Damien pulled a gun as two of the thugs tried to force him out of his car. Claire managed to pin one guy down, while Lenny got elbowed in the guts, punched in the face, and in the confusion, Damien shot one of the thug in the head, point blank. This sent the other one running, while Claire and Lenny got in the back of the car and the three of them noped out of the situation.

- After nearly crashing the car and almost managing to bullshit a very confused and frustrated Damien, they eventually stopped in a quiet part of town and interrogated the dealer. He let them know that he didn't know much, wanted out for a while, and figured the thugs came for him because their friend took Reverb and either had a bad experience. Also that while his boss, Bad Luke, is out in the streets, the other major player he's aware of, Rufus Lebron (Roofie) was arrested yesterday by the DEA, and is currently in the City PD's custody. They let him go once they made sure he knew nothing else.

- They threw Damien's gun in the river and discussed their next move, session ended at an hour mark as Kyle called with weird mantras and orgy sounds in the background to let his buddy know "he found the cult".

--- session #2 was an hour long but very high action. I used 24xx mechanics and had the players write down "Ex Cop d8" and "Army Guy d8" in their notes for later, plus Lenny's condition since he got punched and sick from a Stress Dice roll (triggered when the thug got shot next to him). I tried to describe a bit more, though pacing was still a point of contention. Next time I'll try and have more establishing shots and play time after these before introducing a bang or asking to move things along, to see if this helps.

Delta Green?
Yeah so, I'm not using the ruleset as I run shit FKR-like, currently with some 2400 dicing cause I'm in love with it (Stress Dice is from Orbital Decay specifically). And I'm not really using the setting cause I already went ahead and replaced the Program with the Bureau (as in Federal Bureau of Control - and no I did not finish either Alan Wakes or Control, so this is very loosely handpicking Ideas I find cool and dropping them in my game to make a urban fantasy / cosmic horror setting). But it's Cthulhu kinda and I'm using Delta Green scenarios (loosely) so that's what I call it for now.