Handler Tricks and Tips

How to Riff in Delta Green

I get a lot of emails saying some version of the following: “We played X mission, but the Agents focused on
Y, which was not deeply outlined in the mission, and it ruined the game,” or, “The Players decided to
suddenly do something completely counterintuitive and I didn’t know what to do.”

To this, I have two things to say.

For one, no mission or campaign — even those that are 180,000 words long — can ever come anywhere
near covering every outcome possible in play. That’s just a fact. I could be writing IMPOSSIBLE
LANDSCAPES for the next decade, it could be 1,900 pages, and it would STILL fail to cover all the angles.

Secondly, being a Handler requires sterner stuff than rote repetition from a book, and a blank look when
you reach the defined edges of a mission. If the book stops and the players send their Agents onward in a
direction not covered in the mission, you, the Handler, must pick up that slack. That’s the remit for the job,
after all. That’s the minimum in.

Being a Handler is an exciting but taxing job. You are emcee, rules moderator, entertainer, story-teller and
writer all in one. Of all of these things, entertainer is the most oft overlooked. You are there to guarantee fun
is had at the table and that involves A LOT of things. Balance. Pacing. Making certain everyone at the table
has their moments. Making sure the rules don’t bog the game down. And more (and there’s always more and
more and more). It’s not just about regurgitating the mission back in bite-sized chunks and rolling dice.

Now, having said all of that, there IS good news…The problems that knock a Delta Green game off track
tend to fall into just a few categories, and there are several easy tricks to kick-start the game back on track.

First, let’s look at those problems.

The Problem
The problems I see most often in Delta Green games are almost always one of the following:

Too Much Too Fast

The Handler rushes to the confrontation or revelation. A half hour into the game you’ve confronted the big-
bad and have figured out what is going on…now it’s all about planning a perfect assault for the next 3
hours.

This is a problem that can kill games dead. Too much too soon in a game about conspiracy and horror is
often fatal, and not in a good way.

The Revelation Falls Flat

The big reveal fails to make an impact. The monster underwhelms. The secret fails to seem special. The
Agents guess everything and defang the threat before anything happens. You’ve all seen it before; there’s
nothing worse than a swing and a miss.

 //Handler Tips and Tricks// //©2021 Delta Green Partnership//

A central theme in Delta Green is that the reveals — horrific and otherwise — need to land and be
meaningful. Players and their Agents should reel at the big revelations, not yawn. But sometimes such things
just fall flat. There are a lot of reasons possible as to why: it just isn’t that great a reveal, the timing was off,
no one was listening. But the outcome is the same: the game takes a stumble towards not being fun.

Lack of Engagement
The players aren’t asking questions or taking notes. They need to be prodded to choose to do anything.
They need to be reminded over and over again who is who and what is going on. They’re on their phones or
talking to one another while you, the Handler, narrate, and only later do they ask questions like, “hey, was
sheriff what’s-his-face at the murder scene?” even though their Agent spoke to the sheriff for 20 minutes.

Delta Green is about investigation, which requires player agency. Without that agency, and if the players just
sit and expect everything to be rolled out to them as they need it sets a bad precedent and no matter what
you run, it’s likely it just won’t work.

Too Long Between Scares

The game has become a police procedural with none of the drama and even less horror. No matter how
desperately the player’s direct their Agents, they just can’t seem to find the bad-guy, monster, or threat.
Whether this is because they miss a clue, fail a skill roll, or just plain overlook obvious (even ridiculously
obvious) clues doesn’t matter. What matters is Delta Green is about payoffs — moments of wonder,
conspiracy and horror that erupt and try to gobble up the Agents.

Without these unnatural threats, Delta Green can become very monotonous indeed.

These four things are the greatest problems with almost all the Delta Green games I am exposed to that
don’t work. But, of course, you came here for solutions. Let’s talk solutions.

Solutions
When I run Delta Green, I like to think of it like jazz. There’s a central theme. There’s reoccurring riffs.
There are different ups and downs, but you kind of have a feeling where the music is going, or at least what
the intent of the music is. But, when you break it down to its core, I’m just making it up. To the players it
(hopefully!) feels unbroken and structured, but to me, it’s never decided until my mouth opens in the
moment.

I’ll let you in on a secret: many of my most popular missions were nothing more than a scribbled note
followed by four or five hours of improvisation live, at the game table, and then (and only then) written
down.

VISCID was entirely created on the fly at Gen Con for a table of RPG pros and a great time was had. I
essentially had nothing of the investigation written, just some vague ideas. Same with the original NIGHT
FLOORS and MUSIC FROM A DARKENED ROOM.

I just…made them up as I went along.

But how do you get from, “that isn’t in the mission write-up so I have no idea what happens,” to “as fast as
the players can imagine options, I imagine engaging gameplay to fit it”? Well, it’s easier than you think and
the leap is far less gulf-like than you might imagine.

 //Handler Tips and Tricks// //©2021 Delta Green Partnership//

Here’s the basics of my toolset.

Using the Rules, Not Trapped in the Rules

Used To Fix: Lack of Engagement, Too Long Between Scares
For me the rules are there to do two things: give everyone a shared frame of reference and to reinforce a
feeling at the table (doesn’t much matter what feeling, just that the rules are there to make the players feel
something).

Whenever those two things aren’t important (and each is more important at some times and not so much in
others), you don’t need to concern yourself with the rules. In any case, the game should never be the SATs. If
a rule question comes up — as they sometimes do — speed is preferred over accuracy. I’d rather have a fast
ruling than all of us diving into a rulebook aside for ten minutes while the mission fades in our mind.

The rules are a toolset for the Handler, they do not dictate to the Handler and they should never feel like a
burden for anyone at the table. If there are rule asides, keep them short and sweet; otherwise, you’ll find a
lack or engagement, and that time between scares might become too long.

Grabbing On To Possibilities
Used To Fix: Lack of Engagement, Too Much Too Fast
I’m always looking for what the players are thinking while we’re playing, and luckily, most players talk
through what they think, at the table. They discuss plans and ideas and what they think is going on. As a
Handler, when that happens listen up. Many times, such asides are filled with great ideas, ways to hook the
Agents, or great little moments to raise the horror up or quash it back down.

For example (and this is true) once a player made a toss-away statement of being creeped out by old-timey
photos, so, a session or two later, when one of the Agents vanished due to the machinations of the King in
Yellow, I had their Agent turn up in an old-timey photograph well known to the player’s Agent. That’s how
they knew the man had vanished — there he was in black in white in a photo they knew was taken 70 years
before.

These little tidbits (I scribble them down on a pad while I play) are ammo to stretch the game out, to add
more depth to the game that resonates with the players, or to add in more avenues of pursuit so they don’t
arrive at the revelation of the mission too soon.

Deepening Mysteries
Used To Fix: Lack of Engagement, Too Much Too Fast, The Revelation Falls Flat
Anything bit of lore or history in the mission can be expanded upon, and often, can be expanded on on-the-
fly. Adding new and interesting tidbits for the Agents to investigate, even red herrings, is a must for the
Handler.

Was the cult they’re investigating around in the 1960s and 1970s? Describe an old, yellowed pamphlet
talking about a free concert out on the cult farm with the strange, hand-drawn NEBLODZIN scrawled
upon the bottom of the flower-power design. Where does that bizarre occultist go every Wednesday with the
strange case? Follow and surveil him to find out he’s into hot yoga and the strange case is a fancy yoga mat
carrier. Add flavour. Add detail. Expand.

 //Handler Tips and Tricks// //©2021 Delta Green Partnership//

Whenever the player Agents pull back a curtain, it’s your job to have another curtain ready to obscure their
clear view to the heart of the mission.

With these little riffs, a Handler can bob, weave and turn in such a way that the players follow their lead no
matter where they go. There’s always another trail to follow or clue to track, until the players come to the
conclusion at the table that they need focus and begin planning — and BAM, then you’ve got them.

Hinting at Horrors
Used To Fix: Lack of Engagement, Too Much Too Fast, The Revelation Falls Flat,
Too Long Between Scares
Uncertainty is key. It’s all fine and good to see an unnatural creature, but it’s better to see hints of it; at least,
at first. I mean, we all know there is likely to be a confrontation at some point, but building up to that
confrontation is important. The key here is making it interesting.

Just what the hell cut 2-foot long slashes in the side of the Jeep Wrangler (and don’t they look like CLAW
marks?). What left the puddle of near industrial quality chlorine outside of the window at the house where
people are seen outside at night? Who keeps phoning at midnight and saying “it’s coming” in a croaking,
inhuman voice?

Stretch it out. String them along. Add all you can to the horror without directly revealing it and you’ll find
engagement at the table rising, as the players struggle to uncover the truth of the mystery.

Knocking ‘em Flat

Used To Fix: Lack of Engagement, Too Long Between Scares
Sometimes a Handler just needs to kick down the door and go in shooting. Still, this should not be used all
that often. Confrontation by a serious unnatural threat, or even the big-bad when the Agents least expect it
is a great way to get everyone excited.

If you plan to do this, try to do it in a way where the players least expect it is coming but it makes sense.
For example, I ran a game where the Agents were studying an old mansion. They made it a point of staying
at the Motel within 300 yards of the hill the ruined mansion was on, so they could monitor it. Everyday
they’d go in and catalogue items, and they became convinced that someone was hidden inside the walls.
Every night they’d walk back to the hotel and wind-down.

One night, one of the Agents found that something had followed them home from the mansion, pried the
bathroom window open, and was waiting for them in the darkened room. The next 8 turns were incredible
and completely unexpected (and involved a murder with a motel iron).

When the shadowed figure burst from the room, jumped from the second floor and vanished across the
highway on all fours leaving a trail of the slain Agent’s blood, you can bet the other players felt engaged.