Modern Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green Campaign Help: Players Play Themselves!

[Teonas]

Howdy folks!

I've been lurking on the forum for a while and haven't gotten around to posting anything, mostly from a sense that everyone here is way more knowledgeable than I am about all things related to dice-rolling or otherwise tabletop-oriented. :tongue:

I've been DMing in one fashion or another for about eight years (Savage Worlds, D&D, Call of Cthulhu), and I got a request to run a modern-day Lovecraftian horror/conspiracy game from some of my players. I know that Delta Green is effectively modern-day Call of Cthulhu, so I've been looking into that for ideas and inspiration, but another request from my players makes it a little more interesting.

As the title of the thread says, they all want to play themselves in this game, not federal agents or paranormal investigators or anyone with a relationship to the occult (at least in the beginning). I know there are a number of horror games where the characters are the players (Outbreak: Undead comes to mind), but as I was looking into some of the written material for Delta Green it kind of presupposes that you A) Know your way around a firearm; B) Have at least a rudimentary knowledge of Things That Go Bump In The Night; and C) Have access to a support network that gives you missions and material to work with, regardless of its official connections.

I guess I have a few questions for the forum. Has anyone ever run a game like this before? If so, how did it go and what advice would you give? If not, do people think that this would be a good idea or a terrible one? Lastly, any opinions for creating a campaign in which these ordinary folks can investigate horrible and terrifying truths and go mad in the process? I am a big fan of including as many paranoia-inducing elements as possible. :biggrin:

Thanks again so much for your help! I'll try and answer any clarifying questions or the like ASAP :)

[Kaspar]

When people are asked to stat themselves up as rpg characters, they tend to make either owerpowered characters, or get too self-depreciating, depending on their self-image. Better to give everyone the same points/xp/whatever, preventing any arguments. The players would still look over each other's sheets, but the commentary would me more like 'I think you are actually better at X than Y, you should put the extra point there'.

Is this intended to be a oneshoot where they are all expected to die, or go mad, or go mad and then die... or are you planing something more longlasting? in which case what sort of themes you want to focus on? Things that go bump in the night? Ghosts, hauntings and psychic phenomena? Society being corrupted by lovecraftian cults? Alien abductions? Dark government conspiracies? Perhaps they get caught between Delta Green and MJ12?

[Kami2awa]

It kind of presupposes that you A) Know your way around a firearm; B) Have at least a rudimentary knowledge of Things That Go Bump In The Night; and C) Have access to a support network that gives you missions and material to work with, regardless of its official connections.
:)

Well, the basis of Delta Green is that you are part of a minor conspiracy to begin with, which leads to A, B and C. However, Delta Green agents would have to start somewhere - i.e. they have to get recruited.

So, you can run the first adventure as their first encounter with the supernatural. A lot of Call of Cthulhu scenarios (not necessarily the Delta Green ones) don't require violence to win, or even that the PCs have any particular combat skills. I'd run the first one as plain Call of Cthulhu - the PCs are ordinary people, with no initial knowledge of the reality of the supernatural.

In the course of that adventure, they run into one or more Delta Green agents, and learn what Delta Green is. In the aftermath, the agents recruit them to Delta Green. After this point, you can give them an opportunity to learn weapon skills (I mean, wouldn't you want to be able to defend yourself once you knew supernatural beasts were after you?) and then run the more conventional Delta Green scenarios.

This could run into some problems, of course (the main one being if the PCs refuse to join Delta Green), but hopefully if your group is up for playing Delta Green to start with then they won't have this issue!

[Teonas]

Thanks for your help and advice!



Is this intended to be a oneshoot where they are all expected to die, or go mad, or go mad and then die... or are you planing something more longlasting? in which case what sort of themes you want to focus on? Things that go bump in the night? Ghosts, hauntings and psychic phenomena? Society being corrupted by lovecraftian cults? Alien abductions? Dark government conspiracies? Perhaps they get caught between Delta Green and MJ12?

I was hoping to run at least a few sessions, but ideally no more than two or three, so I'd want to resolve everything rather quickly (one way or another). I like the idea of being caught between two different organizations, like Delta Green and MJ12 or some of the others listed in the lore. As for the mechanics I'm not too worried, and I'd agree with you that the best bet would be to give everyone the same point build.

Kami2awa, I think that's a pretty solid idea to bring the players into the fold in some respects. I like the concept of them being given some piece of information or an artifact desired by "in-the-know" groups and having to figure out what it does or says while being hounded by unsavory types.

[Kaspar]

Might be funny if both DG and MJ12 was trying to recruit them. 'Join us! We're the good guys here!'

From DG perspective MJ12 are the ones who sold humanity (and American citizens in particular) out in excange for tech, and DG are the only ones still fighting the good fight, no matter how little support they get.

From MJ12 perspective they are the legitimate government agency and DG are a criminal conspiracy trying to infiltrate the government. And while, yes, they did sign off on an agreement where the aliens are allowed to abduct people and MJ12 will just cover it up, they don't have the ability to stop the aliens anyway- and letting the public know about it would just cause mass panic and only make things worse. So all MJ12 can do is try to learn more and bide their time until they can actually secure USA airspace.

[Kami2awa]

Building on what I said earlier, practically any pre-published CoC scenario could be run this way - either add an NPC Delta Green agent, or just have a pre-written NPC be secretly working for Delta Green.

[Flemkopf]

I've heard about a few groups who have done this sort of thing. One of the major ways to make it work is you have each player's character be statted up by the other players. They look at the player and figure out what sort of actual skills they have, and how to translate those into whatever system you're using. (If you need to you can have it take place a few years in the future and use people's hobbies as extra skills.) One of the other things to do is you have the game start at the very table you're sitting at, with all of you (including the dm) playing a game. Suddenly, you hear a knock on the door, something comes in to attack you, and the dm sacrifices himself in a suitably heroic way in order to give the other players a chance to escape. You then roll from there, and it gets even more entertaining if you have someone you know suddenly burst into the room and joins you. From there you can either keep it grounded in this world and create a huge conspiracy, or have yourselves get sucked into some alternate timeline/dimension/world/whatever. I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for, but I've heard good things about that sort of game.

[Talyn]

Here's the problem when players play themselves - ESPECIALLY in a horror game - it's way too easy to 'take it personally' when something bad happens to the character. We had a guy play himself in a Hunter: the Vigil game, and it became too uncomfortable when he started the inevitable 'lose loved ones to the monsters -> become more extreme and crazy' progression. We ended up retiring the character so he could make a different one who was less close to home.

Unless you are playing a one-shot, I would strongly recommend that you NOT have your players roll themselves.

[Kami2awa]

I agree that RPing yourself is hard. I would also suggest avoiding it in horror games unless your players are going to be happy with it. Any particular reason why they don't want original characters?

[Teonas]

Yeah, I hadn't quite figured out how to remove myself from the story yet, but a heroic sacrifice or sudden disappearance seems as good as any!

As for the emotional drawbacks of playing yourself in a tabletop, I had some of the same reservations as well--hence my desire to ask on the forums and get a wider opinion base. The players were interested in playing themselves because it was an experience they were not used to, mainly, and thought it would be fun to see how they would react in supernatural or horrifying circumstances. Despite their assurances, I can totally see how that could make for some very uncomfortable situations involving loved ones or your bodily/mental integrity when things start to go south. That said, I admit that it does appeal to me to build a game world that closely mimics our own that the players can explore and confront problems more or less as themselves. At the very least, I'll try and make them aware of the risks of introducing an analogue of themselves into the game if they decide to go that route.

Again, I'm not planning on running more than two or three games of this, for what it's worth.

Thanks again, everybody!