Post Script - The Lurker in the Lake

Unpacking Operation Kerebos

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Thumbnail photo by Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash

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I’ve used Mythic a few times before, mostly for games in a fantasy setting, but I wouldn’t say I’m very experienced with it. Mythic 2E is packed with tables and tools, but I did find it a little intimating at the start, which is why I used a more specific Oracle for my first mission. Rogue Handler is great, but I’m really glad I moved over to Mythic for one reason; Random Events. While Mythic has a lot of great tools, the Random Event aspect is the game changer for me. While running Haruspex, I found my investigation either proceeding in line with what I had thought, and thus was getting predictable, or I was hitting a wall when I would get multiple ‘No’s in a row. That didn’t happen this time, in a large part thanks to the repeated curve balls thrown my way nearly every scene. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s take a more orginised approach to this.

How to use Mythic with Delta Green

In my opinion/experience, Mythic works great in a sandbox. You pick up threads, pursue them, meet characters and it is absolutely fantastic for exploring and engaging with a reactive world. While some of the missions in Delta Green function as a sandbox, it is very much mission based, and I really wanted to tell a story across multiple operations, which meant I needed to make some tweaks. I use the Threads and Characters List to keep track, but I make a simple separation. Any thread or character that pertains to the mission ONLY, goes at the top of the sheet, while threads and characters that are persistent, like Landry, Palmer or Montford, go at the bottom. Sometimes, like in the case of Tracy Castor, someone will move from the top of the sheet to the bottom, such as if we kidnap recruit them into Delta Green. (Sorry Tracy). Persistent Threads, on the other hand, will usually be unanswered questions from a mission, things that pop up that need to be dealt with, but don’t fall in the scope of the mission or persistent clues. For example, at the end of Kerebos, we have two persistent threads. “Danielle Trauma” (From the Random Event that damaged my bond with Danielle) and The Order of Midnight. Anytime I have to roll for Random Events, and it relates to Threads or NPCs, I roll the prompts and a d10, then compare which set of NPCs/Threads it relates to best. This comes up with NPCs a lot more than it does with Threads.

I use the form fillable threads list, which can be found on Mythic’s website for free here https://www.wordmillgames.com/resources/Mythic-GME-2e-Adventure-Lists.pdf.

I found this has been a great way to keep that consistent, Sandbox style feeling, while keeping my missions focused. I’ll put a quick example in below;

Random Event - NPC Action. ‘Distrust Object’. Rolled a 3 on d10, so Characters are Medical Examiner (Mission) and Montford (Persistent).

Depending on the context and location this could go either way. If I’m in the Medical Examiner’s building, or have given him false credentials, I could run it with him, but what if I’m in the middle of the forest with no cell signal? I like to keep my player knowledge as close to my PC knowledge as possible, so in this case, it would make more sense to choose Montford. Maybe he’s having an episode, or wants to destroy some evidence, or is just being a dick. However it rolls out, it gives me another way to keep the action moving, and gives my fellow agents a little more agency.

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Operation Kerebos: Mission Breakdown

Overall, I was very happy with how this mission went. I started with a hook from the Book of Random Tables - Eldritch, but it didn’t feel like enough to base a mission around, so I rolled on the Rogue Handler Mission set up tables and got ‘Victim’ - ‘Federal Employee’. I didn’t want to set it in Seattle again, but I wanted to keep it in the same area/state, so I set it in the fictional town of Summercrest, near Spokane in Washington State. From there, I wanted to know if it was an ‘official’ case, or if I would need a cover. I used a Yes/No oracle for the rest of the set up, but I didn’t note it down effectively, so I didn’t include it in Chapter One. I used UNE for some of the NPC’s, but I also experimented with the Mythic Character tables. I want to work out a happy medium between these two, as sometimes UNE provides a really solid image that feels wasted on a minor character, but the Mythic ones just aren’t as evocative for me. For the story itself though, I feel like I learned a lot. I want to break down a few of the parts that I loved, and a few of the parts that I need to work on.

The Creature - I named the first creature that Kat and Tracy fought by Knight’s Lake ‘The Darkness in The Forest’. I wanted something very Cthulhu-Mythos feeling, so it is a faceless, floating blob with tentacles, mind control and the ability to drain the life force from someone. If it kills someone by draining them, it can put part of it’s consciousness into their body and puppet them around. I was going to call them a ‘Psy-Vampire’ (Totally unrelated to the Star Vampires from The Shambler From the Stars short story) but decided against it, both because the name feels little pulpy, but mostly because the psionic drain skill never actually manifested in gameplay. Over all, I thought it was a good, creepy monster, especially the bigger and scarier one at the end. When I eventually write this up as a scenario to play with a group, I don’t think I would have to change much. I might make the final one a bit more deadly, increase its chance to hit or give it an extra attack, but given how close my team came to death, it might not be necessary.

Daniel Martinez - I had in the back of my mind that hunting down Daniel would be the first act, and would lead to more clues, and maybe be the lynchpin of the whole investigation. In a way, he was. Mythic giving the interrupt scene with an NPC Negative for Daniel, and then the prompt just made sense, and it added a level of sadness and helplessness to the story that I’m not sure I would have managed without Mythic. It meant half my leads went up in smoke, but were replaced by something a lot more concrete.

The Order of Midnight - I knew that I wanted to have something that connected my missions, but going into this one, I knew it was too early. But when it turned out there was a wealthy, murderous lunatic doing some evil ritual in town, I almost didn’t ask the oracle of there was a connection to Lester Roth, because it just made sense. I’ve been reading the Conspiracy source book, which details the 1990s setting, and there’s a certain faction that is a big inspiration for these guys. but we’ll see how they turn out, as the dice are always in charge of the story.

With that being said, while playing and editing, I can see a few places I want to improve as I play more and get used to the systems, both Delta Green and Mythic.

Over reliance on combat - I absolutely love the Delta Green combat system. It feels fast, deadly and tense. However, most published scenarios do not feature combat as a primary focus, because it’s pretty easy to turn into a disaster. 3 or 4 combat encounters in one scenario is a bit much to handle, and I have a tendency to introduce an enemy as a knee jerk reaction when I get a random event. Between the dogs, the zombie, the two monsters and the raid, it was a lot of combat. I’m hoping to lean more into the investigative side of the game in future chapters.

The feral dogs - I think this just came down to the initial hook not really gripping me. It gave me something to focus on, but I didn’t really do anything with the reveal that the dogs were strange, goat legged abominations. I had in the back of my mind that it was a side effect of all the sacrificial rituals Aaron Foster was doing, and that the creature in the lake could control them, but I didn’t really go into enough detail to wrap up that thread. Not everything has to be relevant, of course, but I wish I had wrapped it up better.

Hand waving dialogue - there were a few times, mostly when talking to minor NPC’s, where I didn’t want to get bogged down in the sentence by sentence discussion. It was usually when Kat was threating someone (politely) and either using legal precedent or her dubious charm. When playing solo, it is important to zoom out and zoom in on scenes, but I feel like I was treating the opportunities like they were between me and the meat of the investigation. The finished product that I post is very similar to what I write the first time, just usually with the grammar and tenses tidied up. I try to picture the scene as completely as possible. But sometimes, I just feel like my skill roll and general idea of what I’m saying should be enough to move me forward, and it felt a little jarring on a reread. I’m still a big believer in zooming in/out, but it will be something to work on.

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Lastly, I wanted to touch on the home scene. This is something I also plan on improving on, but I think it’s more of a work in progress right now. Home Scenes are usually vignettes, short little scenes to see what has changed in your agents life after the inevitable trauma that they go through. Because it’s just me, I’m hoping to make them a bit more impactful and really dive into Kat’s life outside of her missions, but I’m still working out the kinks. One thing that I introduced this time was a Random Event to go alone with the Home Activity. My hope is to move along some of the persistent Threads between missions. This time, I introduced a character that I had in the back of my mind for a while. He’ll be popping up again, I’m sure. Moving forward, I will likely have a dedicated chapter just for home scenes, but it depends on how the rolls go. Given the content, it’s a bit more of a writing project rather than a Solo RP project, because there’s no gameplay, just vibes. I feel like Kat is really growing as a character, and she feels very fleshed out to me, so I want to get that written down so she feels fleshed out on the page. I’ll end this post script with a fun fact. Kat’s Persuade is now 91. This is a 21 point increase over the starting value, which means she has failed an alarming amount of times! As I said in my last post script, I am rolling skills more often that necessary, but this is still statistically very unlikely! I’ll try to cut down on rolling skills, and relying more on the oracle moving forward.

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What did you think of Operation Kerebos? and do you like these Post Script breakdowns? Let me know! Thanks for reading! My next mission, Operation Winter Strain, will be dropping soon!