Subscribe to Talien's Tower on Facebook, Twitter, email or via the Site Feed

Sunday, October 5

Chapter 22: Silicon Dreams - Introduction

This scenario, “Silicon Dreams,” is a GURPS Black Ops scenario from Pyramid Magazine by Jonathan Souza. You can read more about Delta Green at http://www.delta-green.com. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Game Master: Michael Tresca (http://michael.tresca.net)
• Joseph “Archive” Fontaine (Dedicated Hero/Acolyte) played by Joe Lalumia
• Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero/Telepath) played by Jeremy Ortiz (http://www.ninjarobotstudios.com)
• Hank “Guppy” Gupta (Smart Hero/Field Scientist) played by Joseph Tresca (http://www.creepyportfolio.com)
• Kurtis “Hammer” Grange (Fast/Dedicated Hero/Gunslinger) played by George Webster

Silicon Dreams is another one of those scenarios that’s big on ideas but doesn’t have much advice on how to execute them. The plot revolves around the unfortunately named Morgana Lafayette. Her supposed connection to the Greys is what propels the rest of the scenario.

In actual play, the agents had absolutely no interest in Morgana. While she was admittedly a key person, there were a lot of other key people to focus on, specifically the ones in power like the CEO. The agents put together their usual infiltration plan, led by Guppy and Jim-Bean, except that it didn’t work out as well as they hoped. Then I turned the tables on them. After nearly killing the agents, I pressed them for time to keep the plot moving along, which required some drastic measures on the part of the team.

And then they did what they always planned to do: an out-and-out raid on the bad guys’ headquarters. Which was what I wanted all along, but it wasn’t entirely clear how the agents get from Point A (Morgana) to Point B (raid). Although there was quite a bit of explosions, I got the agents to that point anyway.

When we came to the big finale, I was very pleased. I removed the open conflict with Greys (for obvious reasons, if you know Delta Green) and replaced it with the creepy ending to Hangar 18. Hangar 18’s aliens were pretty terrible, but the rest of the movie creeped me out for years after I saw it. I wanted to reproduce that bizarreness, as well as remind the agents that they are dealing with something far more sinister than UFOs. [MORE]

Labels: d20 modern

posted by Mike Tresca at 7:54 AM

Want more? Please consider contributing to my Patreon; Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and the web; buy my books: The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games, The Well of Stars, and Awfully Familiar.

---