Scopique
ScopiqueDead horse beaten, I’ve been neck-deep in “horror TTRPG” ephemera for the past week or two and it’s overtaken my psyche.
It started with The Secret World which I am, of course, a massive fan of and a backer for all things that Star Anvil is bringing to the TTRPG space. While Funcom continues to shit on the Most Unique Property in MMODom in favor of their latest “will eventually abandon” scam, Star Anvil is doing the Lawd’s Work in bringing The Secret World to the unbound world of tabletop RPGs. What I have learned, however, is that Star Anvil is hamstrung by what TSW can be. In many respects, TSW is an amazing property, injecting cosmic horror into modern day life but there’s still a hard break on how far it will go. To move beyond the PG-13 rating, one needs to move into other TTRPGS, such as the (new to me) Delta Green. This TTRPG has been in play since (AFAIK) 2016 which doesn’t predate TSW as a property, but does do as an unfettered setting. There’s a post inherent in the comparison between video game horror and TTRPG horror that I am not qualified to make, but in my limited time with Delta Green (measured in days compared to TSW’s years), a lot more horror can be done within the boundless confines of TTRPGs.
So this post is really a compare/contrast between TSW and Delta Green in terms of which one is the “better” of the tabletop RPGs. “Better”, of course, is going to be subjective, but when we’re talking about something like the horror genre, the measuring stick is going to be whichever makes people the most uncomfortable in the moment, which one is going to make people consider stepping away from the table, and which is going to stick with people after the session is complete.
Keep in mind, though, that I have yet to run either system, so my evaluation is completely technical based on the systems as they present through published materials. Also, my options are purely subjective, which is par of the course as this is my blog.
The Secret World – Horror With Guardrails
Horror in video games is not new, and I suppose we could trace it back to such luminaries as Doom (yes) and System Shock. These games tick boxes like “hellscapes” filled with blood, gore, and explosions of the same, as well as psychological situations which are intended to make people uncomfortable.
The Secret World was a watershed moment in MMOdom because it deviated from the “sword and board” high-fantasy settings that dominated the MMO genre at the time. It didn’t take the easy road of “science fiction” like Neocron or Earth and Beyond did before it, but struck out on its own into the horror genre which had no representation in the MMO space. At the time, this was extraordinary; now we are inundated with jump-scare crap or “gore-orror”, whereas TSW went the Lovescraftian route into psychological horror as well as providing a mileau for cosmic horror that no MMO had the balls to approach. On top of that it included a groundbreaking series of narrative puzzles that we might only see in point-and-click adventures from the 1980’s that required players to do research outside of the game, through game-tangent associated websites and deep-dives into Wikipedia. TSW was more than just “an MMO”; it was the very conspiracy that it sought to model through story. But Funcom did the property dirty, acquiescing to the complaints of traditional min/maxers and was forced to split the game along mechanical lines, ultimately destroying the one unique property in a sea of “WoW-chasers”.
Still, despite it’s horror-centric premise, TSW had to limit itself to ESRB/PEGI/etc lanes in order to fit a bill. Many of the missions were off-putting, but few could be considered “unhinged” which is saying something in a medium where killing enemies by reducing them to bloody mist is considered baseline. There are a lot of good ideas in TSW such as the “Black Signal” or “Virgula Divina”, but the game had to rely more on jump scares than a sense of baseline terror. Still, it did what it could; I remember more quests from the TSW video game than pretty much any other MMO, and I have played a lot of MMOs in my time.
Star Anvil, maybe in keeping up the spirit of the video game or limited by what Funcom will allow for the TSW property, has provided some good but not stellar material for The Secret World TTRPG. The two currently released modules “Stoneward Bound” and “Contagion” are good adventures within the confines of TSW, but aren’t really the kind of stories that would keep anyone up at night. This isn’t to say that the work done by Star Anvil is sub-standard; I absolutely appreciate keeping the door open for TSW so people can extend it since Funcom seems unwilling to do so.
Delta Green – Grasp Exceeding the Means
Delta Green, on the other hand, was apparently tailor made for the unfettered environment of TTRPGs. One one hand it’s refreshing to see what can be done when the restrictions are lifted; on the other hand it’s terrifying to see what can be done when the restrictions are lifted. I read through the entire Delta Green Handler’s (GM’s) rule book, which was, like, 90% backstory about the Delta Green organization and it’s government affiliated history. From there, though, the adventures I have read have been — without hyperbole — damn near insanity inducing. I have read many, many TTRPG modules in my life, and have written several when I was younger, quicker, and smarter, and I could never have reached the levels of dispassionate depravity that Delta Green casually brings to the table. I get the feeling that the writers of these modules don’t want characters to survive the story, which is counter to how I would choose to GM. I like to give my players a chance to Make Good Decisions, but Delta Green really hammers home to the idea that the Universe — the physical, esoteric, and ancient universe — is giving the player-characters the middle finger quickly and without reservation.
In many ways, this is liberating. In other systems, the character is sacrosanct, relying on the player to make good decisions and the GM to not piss of the players by ramming their characters into the wood chipper. It’s easier for everyone when the narrative respects both the time spent creating characters and the difficulty inherent in warming up to new characters mid-narrative. Delta Green throws that out the window as a matter of course. Players shouldn’t be surprised in the least when their primary character is shot, stabbed, poisoned, or, more often than not, goes insane and becomes the property of the GM, thereby forcing them to roll another character. Having a stable of backup characters is considered normal in Delta Green, so the players don’t need to skip a beat during the session when — not if — their primary characters become unplayable.
Who Is the Game Serving?
At the end of the day I find myself asking “who is this game serving?”. Flexible veterans of TTRPGs will probably just shrug off off the need to re-roll a character. Still, in my mind, this is not the standard practice; even when players accept that their character has a real chance of becoming unplayable, I assume that players harbor a belief that they can get their character back under their control. Players can become attached to their characters and I believe that they put their best efforts into creating a Primary Character complete with backstory that fulfills their personal beliefs, and I believe they should since such bonds give the players reasons to take certain actions, avoid others, and role play the hell out of everything in between. I’ve never had to ask a player to re-roll a new character mid-scenario because I respect a player’s attachment to their current character, and that belief gives me pause when considering the differences between The Secret World and Delta Green.
I think that for those who want a straightforward progression without too many situations where players are asked to re-roll, then TSW is the better bet. Although in it’s first incarnation as a TTRPG, TSW has a lot going for it in terms of lore, NPCs, and atmosphere. It’s a horror game, but also a political game as players are encouraged to further their faction’s agenda while in the field. That aspect adds another dimension to the game play which, TBH, seems like a headache for the GM but ultimately can be worth it if the players can play within their lane and the GM can handle the fallout. The TSW TTRPG treatment has opened my eyes to the fact that the game isn’t just about monsters of myth, but about tribalism and inter-factional strife which is a very specific and targeted type of game play.
For those raised on the “X-Files” and who wished network censorship wasn’t so stringent, I recommend Delta Green. There is no reason not to let your freak flag fly in this one. Blood, gore, cosmic horror, psychology, bureaucracy, heavy weapons, library research, history, The Future, conspiracy and cover-ups, spy-novels, and everything else is not just fair game but practically required to be included in a single scenario.
That is not to say that TSW can’t encompass the same world that Delta Green inhabits; actually, incorporating the two in some way could be liberating. While Star Anvil may be hamstring by what Funcom wants to be associated with, there’s no good reason why a Delta Green module can’t be adapted to The Secret World with some massaging. Personally, I think TSW would benefit from some heavier shit like what Delta Green Provides. In Delta Green, players are always at the mercy of greater revelations; were the players in control of characters that could go toe-to-toe with Cosmic Horrors, imagine the fireworks!
For me, though, I am now chomping at the bit to run a Delta Green adventure whereas the Secret World was as much as I could aspire to. I have read the “Music from a Darkened Room” and was sufficiently creeped out by just reading the module that I knew I had to find a way to bring others into this horror. I also read the “Night Visions” portion of the “Control Group” module, and was horrified in ways that made me fondly remember my first and best encounters with Clive Barker, Felix Gilman, and China Meiville. I know how I feel just reading these modules, and would love to see how other people react to having to play through these events. I also consider it a challenge to impart to players the kind of horror that they should experience. If players were bored, or if they left the table with middling thoughts, I would consider my time a failure. If they came to me after with revelations that they couldn’t sleep that night, then I’d be punching the air like I had just won an Oscar. For me, as a perpetual GM, that is the goal: make the players terrified by words and situations that their fictional characters must experience because in some ways, they are experiencing them too.
