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My gaming group has met consistently for several years. We tend to play D&D. They generally aren’t open to new systems, but it’s my personal goal to bring new games to the table. In the last two years, we’ve tried five new systems. Each has been a good experience, but none have stuck. Delta Green was number six.
Preparation
I picked up Kali Ghati and read through it. It seemed like a good scenario. It is presented linearly – go to a base in Afghanistan to investigate a missing agent. Progress to the nearby town. Finally, search for the hidden village.
I then listened to a live play of the scenario where the author Shane Ivey is the Handler. It’s on Spotify and the folks who do it are Red Moon Roleplaying. That was extremely helpful and enjoyable. They didn’t do either of the combat scenarios, but it was still excellent.
I took notes simplifying the adventure into 5 encounters.
1 – FOB Turner
2 – Quluj Khel
3 – Ambush
4 – Kali Ghati
5- Temple.
With the Need to Know quick-start rules, the adventure scenario, and the live play podcast, I felt prepared to run a session with only about 5-6 hours of prep time, most of which was listening to the podcast on my commute. Such a minimal time investment for a new scenario and new system was excellent!
Bringing it to the table
For ease, we used the 6 pregens in the adventure (yes, all 6 of my players showed for both sessions!) They were good characters that we all enjoyed.
We played through the whole scenario in two sessions, stopping the first session after the ambush. The initial arrival, investigation, etc was straightforward. The players adapted quickly to thinking vice rolling. They moved well between scenes and their decisions were their own.
The push towards Varjita mountain and Kali Ghati led to the ambush. That scene was awesome. Only 2 of the 6 pregens had a rifle, the rest only pistols. They had not thought to ask for rifles before. It led to a few sanity rolls for violence and was a gentle introduction to that mechanic. It also allowed a quick introduction of lethality, but on an NPC (the poor gunner in the 2nd MRAP). I didn’t offer them army NPCs. They enjoyed just trying to survive and were quite creative about it.
That first session took four hours. I thought it was a good first session and the group was high on the intensity of the fire fight.
We started session two with them moving on to Kali Ghati. They engaged the villagers in some unexpected ways, but the descriptions in the scenario module equipped me to improvise.
With guides from the village, they went up the mountain to the underground temple. An epic fight broke out and the big nasty thing awoke. The PCs ran madly for their lives. It was glorious levels of insanity, death, and chaos. The players were freaking out and absolutely loving it. When the ones who lived managed to get out of the temple, I described the loud cries of ecstasy from the village. That allowed them to choose another combat or run. They decided to go down the side of the mountain away from the village and called for evac from there.
Conclusion
As I wrapped up the session, two of them asked for closing scenes to reflect on their decisions, sacrificed bonds, and breaking points. The whole table was into it.
Three of the players liked it plenty but would rather have stronger PCs and stay with the d20 system. They are the ones who have gone patiently with me into other RPG lands but always want to return to D&D.
The other three players approached me a week later. “That was the best RPG session I’ve ever played in,” one said. The other two agreed. They want a smaller, regular Delta Green session just the four of us. Looks like I’ve finally found a new game system that might stick for a while!
Personally, I loved it. The system and the adventure are both very well done. I’m excited to take the smaller group on more investigations/adventures. Kali Ghati was a fantastic starting point and a very well written adventure. Highly recommended!
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