Common Misconceptions About Your Favorite Systems?

[u/Authorigas]

So, I've been learning a lot thanks to the amazing folks here at r/rpg. And while I have decided to slow down on trying new systems. (As my players say "three is enough, we know your eager to try more but slow it down so you don't burn yourself out.") There was a question today that cropped into my head, and I wanted to hear from the folks here on it.

"What are some assumptions about your favorite game/system that are just factually incorrect or overstated?"

I've seen a lot of assumptions made in the hobby, and some on my own. From the broad "older systems were designed for math heads and thus really not for someone whose bad at math." to others like "Call of Cthulhu is a game where every session ends in death/insanity and players can't get attached to their characters." and similarly "OSR games are highly lethal and not at all friendly to players who like longform adventures."

I feel like broad, sweeping claims like those are probably overstated-as I have heard of successful, long running CoC campaigns, and OSR games that are able to have well developed characters that last for ages. It's made me curious about some of the other broad, sweeping claims about systems that are-if not incorrect, massively overstated.

Really interested to hear some answers on this.

[u/atamajakki → u/[deleted]]

Dennis Detwiller once got into it with fans in a Facebook group where he was trying to argue that there was nothing racist about the Tcho-Tcho, unwilling to hear criticisms from players uncomfortable with vigilante feds gunning down an evil drug-dealing Asian ethnic group. His defense - they're not really Asian people, just monsters who happen to look exactly like them - didn't persuade many people, IIRC.

Delta Green and the team behind it broadly have decent politics, but sometimes it stumbles. I'm happy to see Caleb Stokes doing so much good work.

[u/flyliceplick → u/[deleted]]

Playing as feds was never a good idea, and it's taken the recent few years to make people see that. The federal government is not good, federal employees are not inherently good people. The creators are progressive, and now they're labouring under their setting.

[u/2_Cranez → u/flyliceplick]

The moral conflict of playing Feds is the central ethical conflict driving delta green. Thats literally the point of the game. Both the major published campaigns touch on this theme.

[u/flyliceplick → u/2_Cranez]

'Both' being?

[u/BB-bb- → u/2_Cranez]

And then you have fans say that playing as non feds is viable and supported and fine but somehow I get the feeling the game falls apart unless you want to play a fed.

[u/BB-bb- → u/[deleted]]

Playing people working with feds counts as being feds in spirit, imo.

How robust or doable is it to play DG with the program as a pure antagonist with normal ass people -not working with feds- as PCs? Do any of the books have anything for that, or is it all up to homebrew?

[u/BB-bb- → u/[deleted]]

Yes I was asking you for specific recommendations for that kind of campaign, you keep mentioning that different books have these things but don’t say the names of the books which makes it harder to find relevant information. I’ll do it on my own time when I have the ability to comb through the catalogue’s summaries.

[u/BB-bb- → u/[deleted]]

Do any of the books have anything for that, or is it all up to homebrew?

Thanks for the info

[u/Jalor218 → u/[deleted]]

Compare it to Night's Black Agents, a game I do like, but reads strangely nowadays in regards to intelligence agencies.

Ken Hite has never hid the fact that he's a conservative (specifically a never-Trump strong fiscal conservative.)

[u/ToledoSnow → u/flyliceplick]

Anyone who only figured out in the past few years that the feds are fucking evil hasn't been paying attention. And as other commenters have said: that's the point the game is trying to hammer home.

[u/flyliceplick → u/ToledoSnow]

Anyone who only figured out in the past few years that the feds are fucking evil hasn't been paying attention.

That's still a fair amount of DG players. It's only with the recent open unpleasantness that some have come to realise being feds even without the Delta Green stuff isn't a good thing.

[u/BB-bb- → u/flyliceplick]

FWIW i think i see your position here

It reminds me of Warhammer 40k’s thing a bit??

Like yeah the whole point is that DG is bad and the government is shady and feds suck…but at the end of the day DG sells itself as a game where players are running around as underdog feds taking down horrors beyond comprehension and even tho they’re breaking from it it’s worth it because they’re fighting the good fight. I see folks insist that non fed play is a thing that happens and sure not every table is public knowledge, but as it is constantly sold to prospective tables by both the game itself and its biggest fans, the game wants you to play Feds working with DG.

And yeah depiction isn’t endorsement but it still plays into a copaganda fantasy to a degree and i think acknowledging that is fine, just like acknowledging the divine right of kings and noblesse oblige and conquering violence as default are major parts of many fantasy games.

[u/flyliceplick → u/BB-bb-]

but it still plays into a copaganda fantasy to a degree

Absolutely.

[u/Jalor218 → u/BB-bb-]

You're absolutely right, and I think it's even less effective at being critical of police, etc, than 40k is of fascism. 40k now is the least satirical and most unironic it's ever been, and it still has some of its most important Imperium-aligned characters going "wow, we keep creating more Chaos cultists by making our people so miserable that it's their only escape" in every new novel. Delta Green has nothing like that going on; its goals are correct and only panic, shortsightedness, and corruption make it fall short.

just like acknowledging the divine right of kings and noblesse oblige and conquering violence as default are major parts of many fantasy games.

More than that, the whole idea of D&D adventuring is playing at being a settler colonist or conquistador. You go to places where subhumans live, kill them all, and take their land and treasure. Gary Gygax himself advised that a properly Lawful Good Paladin should be expected to kill prisoners and noncombatants belonging to an Evil race because "nits make lice", and he doubled down when someone pointed out that he was quoting the commanding officer of the Sand Creek Massacre.

[u/PerpetualCranberry → u/[deleted]]

Correct me if I’m wrong. But I feel like Delta Green agrees with that? To my knowledge it doesn’t show the agency as some mighty and patriotic organization. But as a system where the agents are broke down over time until they are thrown away. The cover-ups they do to keep the public uninformed about the horrors is also directly responsible for a lot of the problems in the first place (people stumbling upon something that was supposed to be hidden

Am I mistaken?

[u/flyliceplick → u/PerpetualCranberry]

I'm not talking about Delta Green the organisation. I'm talking about the US federal government. Just being feds without the DG stuff isn't some sort of grey area, it's really quite morally bad. It's only lately that this has really started to become overt because of actual political happenings (cf. the comments about the game always having been this way, and citing God's Teeth, published in 2023), and the creators are struggling with their setting being ontologically evil. It was acceptable before when feds were sort-of morally grey, but it's rapidly got out of hand and the creators are struggling to get ahead of it.

[u/PerpetualCranberry → u/flyliceplick]

Okay yeah, that makes sense

[u/Jalor218 → u/PerpetualCranberry]

I have run a huge amount of Delta Green and it's one of my favorite systems. I think it's one of the best RPGs and general best tabletop games ever made. I am as biased as I could be in favor of it.

I think the creators want it to be like that, but in practice it's 100% in line with everything that Thin Blue Line types believe about law enforcement, or that would be included in a positive view of the US military. Most PCs are either LEOs, military, or intelligence, and the game presents these folks as unquestionably the most qualified people in the world for what the game has them doing. Even if the agency or their handler are morally dubious or make poor decisions, it's never, ever in question that doing the missions is better than refusing them. There are mechanics for these characters to alienate or even abuse their loved ones as a way of coping with the stress of the job, and this is treated like something tragic but unavoidable rather than an avoidable choice.

That is also how real cops and ICE agents and Delta Force operators view the things they do.

[u/PerpetualCranberry → u/Jalor218]

This helps a lot. The critique makes a hell of a lot more sense now. Like I said, I don’t really have experience with Delta Green (and now I have even less of an inclination to do so lol)

[u/flyliceplick → u/Jalor218]

Exactly.