Celebrim said:
Yet another glowing review. Am I the only one in the world that found Delta Green to be a trite, predictable, lame, and utterly uncompelling setting containing absolutely no suprises?
Yes.
You have a world that basically conforms on the surface to the UFO myth, and if you scratch the surface, it basically conforms to the UFO myth. Why was this considered such a good idea?
The real trick was blending the Cthulhu Mythos so convincingly, so seamlessly with UFO myths. It's a worked example of putting the Big C into
anything, much like various efforts to put mythos overtones over real historical events. If you're not into the Cthulhu Mythos enough to see how cleverly it was overlayed, you may not care. The point of the game wasn't Conspiracy theory- it was Lovecraft-themed conspiracy theory. It's so like conventional UFO myth because it's not supposed to sound like something no one hadn't heard before- in the mid to late 90s everyone knew the basics of the Roswell story. It wasn't supposed to take conspiracy theory anywhere new. It was supposed to take something familiar to people, something quite game-able, and twist it with Modern Cosmicism. And it did. And did so gloriously. The familiarity is an
advantage. CoC has always thrived on verisimilitude, a sense of realism in everything but the Mythos. This is crucial to the atmosphere. Delta Green is Fox Mulder as a depressed, suicidable alcoholic who put a bullet in Skully's head after her pregnancy turned weird. It's Mulder working for the Cigarette-Smoking Man after he showed him "The Truth" and Mulder agreed it had to be kept a secret.
Then, of course, there's the
vibe. Not everyone perceives it, but the DGML has spent years trying to explain it. I can't explain it to you. You either feel it, or you don't. But the DG vibe is something precious to me. I can't understand not liking DG for the reasons you stated as much as I can't understand not liking DG because it "Gives to much power to the players, ruining the horror feel." Neither makes any sense, nor washes with my own experiences. Delta Green was about "personal apocalypse", and that either appeals or it doesn't, I guess.
"Personal Apocalypse" is a hard theme to explain. It's self-destruction, paranoia, and desperation. It's addiction, ignorance and annihilation. It's all sorts of things.
Plus, of course, it's an extremely well put together, comprehensive setting that has plot hooks screaming out of every paragraph. There is a reason it is so well loved, so awarded, so critically acclaimed- it is the finest RPG sourcebook ever made. It took Call of Cthulhu in a whole new direction. It is my gold standard for a sourcebook.