 |
What follows is an archival copy of public information. Content herein is believed to be of historical interest to Delta Green fandom and should remain untouched, as a sign of respect for the original author(s). The article must be removed on request by copyright holders, if any. Please improve the wiki with living documents inspired by the ideas here. |
 |
The following material was imported from the Ice Cave. |
Hauled up from the archives…
This is one of the first discussions started on the list, back when the listmembers were simply getting acquainted and started gauging the quantity of data available through the Delta Green List.
The following document is not indexed, as it is a considered a required reading for Keepers, expecially if they do not intend to limit their games to the USA scenario.
This is not a long document.
Go on and read it.
The Curator.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 12:47:43 EDT
From: SteveL1979
I have to say I'm impressed with the geographic diversity of the people who've posted as part of the "information exchange" — this list seems to have people on it from just about every continent! That's a definite information resource plus. :)
Out of curiousity, a question for the non-Americans on the list: since DG is based strongly around US events, settings, and government agencies, how does that affect your view of or use of the book? Do you, or would you, run games with American PCs, or do you adapt the information presented to your own countries or regions?
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:09:07 -0800
From: Gareth Wood
I have only run one short DG adventure, and it was set in and around Boston, with FBI agents. Odd, since I am in Vancouver Canada. I plan to start a campaign set in the Pacific Northwest, western Canada, and parts of the arctic. Dependin on how it goes, I may need info on Turkey, Iran, and Israel. The strong US feeling of DG is adaptable to other nations pretty easily. The Greys and such are pretty worldwide, so could be anywhere.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 22:28:32 +0200
From: PM
I've always liked to use US locations in my games (you may consider it is exotism for us :-) and besides we're so immersed in american TV shows than the United States are at least moderately known to all of my players. So I've used DG for US based adventures just like I used CoC for US based stories (despite the release of the 1920 France Sourcebook a few years ago). Another thing is our own agencies are much more rigidly defined than the US ones (think about the comment about big polices agencies in the beginning of the Big Brother chapter) and because of that less fun to use. And rather than creating a fictitious agency (a la Aegis i Conspiracy X), I prefer to use DG as per se, even if I may create a european equivalent later for my players to be confronted to).
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 22:58:26
From: Davide Mana
I'm working on an adaptation of sorts.
Let me explain…
My first DG campaign is still being tested down in the lab. We had sort of a "dry run" this week, with one of my players keeping a (supposedly) stand-alone US-based scenario, using an old, unrelated, home made cinematic game-system.
The whole US.GOV agents/conspiracy/aliens athmosphere was rather well received.
The real problem was another: a government-issued weapon ad a badge were generally taken to mean "unlimited ammo and impunity" - some of the players (including a normally very level-headed young woman) simply went on rampage.
Still ok in the above mentioned scenario, but a certified suicide attitude in a DG game (the way I see it, at least).
So, to avoid things taking a suicidal run and spoiling the whole setting, I'm moving the introductory campaign back on this side of the Atlantic, in Geneva (Switzerland) to be more precise; as it's a "Old Nazis"-fuelled business, this might even help (as the K-cabal are on their home turf here). And I'm giving my players some really low-impact characters: security-cleared "readers" in a DG sponsored "Foundation", like the one featured in the "Three days of the Condor" movie (and "Six days of… " novel).
More infos are available if someone is interested, of course.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:37:43 -0700
From: Phil A Posehn
In regard to DG being primarily centered around U.S. intelligence agencies: Can anyone tell me the compartmental structure of British Military Intelligence? As I understand it M.I.5 is similar to our FBI in some areas, and M.I.6 is a lot like the CIA, but as I understand it there are M.I. departments up to M.I.12 and possibly beyond. These strike me as useful sources of NPCs.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:03:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris Womack
In regard to DG being primarily centered around U.S. intelligence agencies: Can anyone tell me the compartmental structure of British Military Intelligence? As I understand it M.I.5 is similar to our FBI in some areas, and M.I.6 is a lot like the CIA, but as I understand it there are M.I. departments up to M.I.12 and possibly beyond. These strike me as useful sources of NPCs.
Check out Tsiolkovsky's Demon's webpage at http://www.cix.co.uk/~coherent-light/
You'll want to follow the Delta Green link, where you'll find descriptions of various UK intelligence agencies, as well as DG character templates and other goodies. Excellent stuff!
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:22:26 +0900
From: Jay and Mikiko Noyes
Out of curiousity, a question for the non-Americans on the list: since DG is based strongly around US events, settings, and government agencies, how does that affect your view of or use of the book? Do you, or would you, run games with American PCs, or do you adapt the information presented to your own countries or regions?
I'm American, but I usually GM to non-Americans. One of the points that I have often had to explain in great detail concerns the diversity of American law inforcement agencies and intelligence agencies. Most countries services tend to be better organized within the service and coordinated between services, whereas the Americna potpourri (sp?) of agencies came about both by accident and by a desire to maintain a division of power: e.g. city police, county sheriffs, the highway patrol, the FBI, and the Secret Service all have overlapping but separate domains. It's always fun explaining that in some cases you can have three or more separate agencies on one case, acting independantly to a greater or lesser degree. A related point that comes up concerns the laws that differ between the states. Gun ownership laws in particular can become tricky. Punishments for drug use vary wildly, as do attitudes for acceptable use of force.
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:51:17 +0000
From: taz2
I basically use the information / rules in the DG book for ideas on structure and to also impact the group (by visiting MJ12's etc) when they least expect it.
I have 'bent' the character stereotypes a bit to fit the nearest UK/Europe organisation that I want to use.
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 22:26:22 +1000
From: Rob Shankly
As a GM I can't say I have ever felt a problem with being "on the fringe" geographically. Australia is "made" for CoC: the City of the Sand Dwellers is somewhere under The Great Sandy Desert (yeah, I know, it's a pretty dull name). Hobart is one of the major ports of embarkation for the Antarctic. The northern coast of Aust was visited by Chinese and Malaccan traders for centuries, there's a fortythousand-year-old Aboriginal culture, then we had all sorts of immigrants… Stories are very easy to set here. We even show up on UFO watch lists!
So how do I use DG?
Option one: US citizens in a foreign country (in this case Australia). Anthony Baxter & I did this for "Melbourne, the Right Place" over Easter. They are agents sent here deliberately: they have simply been sent a bit further than backwoods Vermont.
This gives the Keeper a chance to present a fresh perspective on the home country (does this sound a bit arty? It's true).
It also makes it really easy to cut away the Investigator's support base- no calling on backup in the middle of the outback. Isolated characters = worried players.
Option two: Locals in their own country.
I tend to take all the information given in DG as "true", and then extrapolate it to Australia. Either the PCs are investigating the perfidy of insidious Yankees, or good-guy Americans come to them for assistance (or both). This has the advantage that the players tend to distrust all the American NPCs and trust the Australians. Ha ha ha. We can be double dealing cultists too!
There are a number of US bases here, (quite a few of them are very off limits and cause some genuine paranoia- has anyone read "The Falcon & the Snowman"?. For instance, there is a deep-space tracking station (Tidbinbilla) only an hour from our capital city.
Option Three: Just be Americans at home This isn't as hard as you might think. The USA is much better known to the rest of the world than any other country (Here's a sample from tonight's Melbourne TV guide: "Home Improvement", "Oprah", "Seinfeld", "Silverado", "Singing in the Rain" etc. Three of the last five books I read were set in the USA). For someone like me, putting a story in Omaha is no more difficult than it would be for a New Yorker. With CoC, I feel just as confident of getting Arkham "right" as anyone can. In this case, we simply use DG as printed- the main difficulty is knowing "obvious" facts (is the D.O.B printed on your SocSec card?)
I have only (co)written one big DG story set in Australia. Anthony and I agreed from the outset that we wanted the PCs to be Americans in Melbourne. It was then simply a question of giving them something to investigate, and to explain why they were here.
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:07:40 +0200
From: Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen
Since we started playing CoC some 9 years ago we've kept to the American setting, even though we're all Norwegians. Never been a problem for us, as Rob Shankly pointed out, because America is fairly known to us through TV, movies and such.
Since our current DG campaign is sort of a continuation on some of the cases the 'old' (1920s) cast encountered, it is only natural to keep the American setting. The PCs are actually descendants of the original crew, some have found their ancestor's diary and so on.
In regard to DG being primarily centered around U.S. intelligence agencies: Can anyone tell me the compartmental structure of British Military Intelligence? As I understand it M.I.5 is similar to our FBI in some areas, and M.I.6 is a lot like the CIA, but as I understand it there are M.I. departments up to M.I.12 and possibly beyond. These strike me as useful sources of NPCs.
You could also take a look at Secret Kingdom, good info on British Intelligence (no pun intended ;) at: http://www.cc.umist.ac.uk/sk/index.html
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 12:47:43 EDT
From: SteveL1979
I have to say I'm impressed with the geographic diversity of the people who've posted as part of the "information exchange" — this list seems to have people on it from just about every continent! That's a definite information resource plus. :)
Out of curiosity, a question for the non-Americans on the list: since DG is based strongly around US events, settings, and government agencies, how does that affect your view of or use of the book? Do you, or would you, run games with American PCs, or do you adapt the information presented to your own countries or regions?
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 11:09:07 -0800
From: Gareth Wood
I have only run one short DG adventure, and it was set in and around Boston, with FBI agents. Odd, since I am in Vancouver Canada. I plan to start a campaign set in the Pacific Northwest, western Canada, and parts of the arctic. Depending on how it goes, I may need info on Turkey, Iran, and Israel. The strong US feeling of DG is adaptable to other nations pretty easily. The Greys and such are pretty worldwide, so could be anywhere.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 22:28:32 +0200
From: PM
Out of curiosity, a question for the non-Americans on the list: since DG is based strongly around US events, settings, and government agencies, how does that affect your view of or use of the book? Do you, or would you, run games with American PCs, or do you adapt the information presented to your own countries or regions?
I've always liked to use US locations in my games (you may consider it is exoticism for us :-) and besides we're so immersed in American TV shows than the United States are at least moderately known to all of my players. So I've used DG for US based adventures just like I used CoC for US based stories (despite the release of the 1920 France Sourcebook a few years ago). Another thing is our own agencies are much more rigidly defined than the US one (think about the comment about big polices agencies in the beginning of the Big Brother chapter) and because of that less fun to use. And rather than creating a fictitious agency (a la Aegis i Conspiracy X), I prefer to use DG as per se, even if I may create a European equivalent later for my players to be confronted to).
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 22:58:26
From: Davide Mana
Out of curiosity, a question for the non-Americans on the list: since DG is based strongly around US events, settings, and government agencies, how does that affect your view of or use of the book? Do you, or would you, run games with American PCs, or do you adapt the information presented to your own countries or regions?
I'm working on an adaptation of sorts.
Let me explain…
My first DG campaign is still being tested down in the lab. We had sort of a "dry run" this week, with one of my players keeping a (supposedly) stand-alone US-based scenario, using an old, unrelated, home made cinematic game-system.
The whole US.GOV agents/conspiracy/aliens athmosphere was rather well received.
The real problem was another: a government-issued weapon aNd a badge were generally taken to mean "unlimited ammo and impunity" - some of the players (including a normally very level-headed young woman) simply went on rampage. Still ok in the above mentioned scenario, but a certified suicide attitude in a DG game (the way I see it, at least).
So, to avoid things taking a suicidal run and spoiling the whole setting, I'm moving the introductory campaign back on this side of the Atlantic, in Geneva (Switzerland) to be more precise; as it's a "Old Nazis"-fuelled business, this might even help (as the K-cabal are on their home turf here). And I'm giving my players some really low-impact characters: security-cleared "readers" in a DG sponsored "Foundation", like the one featured in the "Three days of the Condor" movie (and "Six days of… " novel).
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 14:37:43 -0700
From: Phil A Posehn
In regard to DG being primarily centred around U.S. intelligence agencies: Can anyone tell me the compartment structure of British Military Intelligence? As I understand it M.I.5 is similar to our FBI in some areas, and M.I.6 is a lot like the CIA, but as I understand it there are M.I. departments up to M.I.12 and possibly beyond. These strike me as useful sources of NPCs.
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:22:26 +0900
From: Jay and Mikiko Noyes
Out of curiousity, a question for the non-Americans on the list: since DG is based strongly around US events, settings, and government agencies, how does that affect your view of or use of the book? Do you, or would you, run games with American PCs, or do you adapt the information presented to your own countries or regions?
I'm American, but I usually GM to non-Americans. One of the points that I have often had to explain in great detail concerns the diversity of American law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies. Most countries services tend to be better organised within the service and co-ordinated between services, whereas the American potpourri (sp?) of agencies came about both by accident and by a desire to maintain a division of power: e.g. city police, county sheriffs, the highway patrol, the FBI, and the Secret Service all have overlapping but separate domains. It's always fun explaining that in some cases you can have three or more separate agencies on one case, acting independently to a greater or lesser degree.
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 11:51:17 +0000
From: taz
Do you, or would you, run games with American PCs, or do you adapt the information presented to your own countries or regions?
I basically use the information / rules in the DG book for ideas on structure and to also impact the group (by visiting MJ12's etc) when they least expect it.
I have 'bent' the character stereotypes a bit to fit the nearest UK/Europe organisation that I want to use.
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 22:26:22 +1000
From: Rob Shankly
As a GM I can't say I have ever felt a problem with being "on the fringe" geographically. Australia is "made" for CoC: the City of the Sand Dwellers is somewhere under The Great Sandy Desert (yeah, I know, it's a pretty dull name). Hobart is one of the major ports of embarkation for the Antarctic. The northern coast of Aust was visited by Chinese and Malaccan traders for centuries, there's a fortythousand-year-old Aboriginal culture, then we had all sorts of immigrants…
Stories are very easy to set here. We even show up on UFO watch lists!
So how do I use DG?
Option one: US citizens in a foreign country (in this case Australia). Anthony Baxter & I did this for "Melbourne, the Right Place" over Easter. They are agents sent here deliberately: they have simply been sent a bit further than backwoods Vermont.
This gives the Keeper a chance to present a fresh perspective on the home country (does this sound a bit arty? It's true).
It also makes it really easy to cut away the Investigator's support base- no calling on backup in the middle of the outback. Isolated characters = worried players.
Option two: Locals in their own country. I tend to take all the information given in DG as "true", and then extrapolate it to Australia. Either the PCs are investigating the perfidy of insidious Yankees, or good-guy Americans come to them for assistance (or both). This has the advantage that the players tend to distrust all the American NPCs and trust the Australians. Ha ha ha. We can be double dealing cultists too! There are a number of US bases here, (quite a few of them are very off limits and cause some genuine paranoia- has anyone read "The Falcon & the Snowman"?. For instance, there is a deep-space tracking station (Tidbinbilla) only an hour from our capital city.
Option Three: Just be Americans at home This isn't as hard as you might think. The USA is much better known to the rest of the world than any other country (Here's a sample from tonight's Melbourne TV guide: "Home Improvement", "Oprah", "Seinfeld", "Silverado", "Singing in the Rain" etc. Three of the last five books I read were set in the USA). For someone like me, putting a story in Omaha is no more difficult than it would be for a New Yorker. With CoC, I feel just as confident of getting Arkham "right" as anyone can. In this case, we simply use DG as printed- the main difficulty is knowing "obvious" facts (is the D.O.B printed on your SocSec card?)
I have only (co)written one big DG story set in Australia. Anthony and I agreed from the outset that we wanted the PCs to be Americans in Melbourne. It was then simply a question of giving them something to investigate, and to explain why they were here.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:03:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Chris Womack
Check out Tsiolkovsky's Demon's webpage at http://www.cix.co.uk/~coherent-light/ You'll want to follow the Delta Green link, where you'll find descriptions of various UK intelligence agencies, as well as DG character templates and other goodies. Excellent stuff!
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:07:40 +0200
From: Morten Kjeldseth Pettersen
You could also take a look at Secret Kingdom, good info on British Intelligence (no pun intended ;) at: http://www.cc.umist.ac.uk/sk/index.html
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 10:38:00 -0400
From: Keith Potter
This came over on Jane's regular Intelligence Watch Report summary this week. Given HK's recent status as part of the British Commonwealth, this may (or may not) have some bearing on the recent alert posted by Alphonse. In particular, some of the individuals involved may have worked closely with their British counterparts over recent decades. It certainly shows a new development for the Chinese intelligence services, and may well affect any operations in HK or the surrounding area.
—Keith Potter
Intelligence Watch Report
China
A Hong Kong newspaper has reported that the Security Wing of the Hong Kong police force is recruiting a surveillance team, in what may be an attempt by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to reestablish the Special Branch. The Special Branch, disbanded in 1995, was responsible for monitoring important figures, most of who were Chinese. After it disbanded, the Special Branch's responsibilities were split between the Security Wing and the Criminal Intelligence Bureau. The Security Wing's new surveillance team, which is reportedly based on the Special Branch's team, is thought to be responsible for monitoring pro-democracy groups and radical-pressure organizations with links overseas.
[source: Hong Kong Tung Fang Jih Pao - Kao Ching, 05/18/98]
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 20:06:52 EDT
From: Shane Ivey
There are a number of major US installations in Australia. Chief among them being Pine Gap, but Tidbinbilla, Nurungar and North West Cape are all pretty important too. (Enough so that the USSR had each one targetted with its own ICBM: more than one MIRV per site!). Pine Gap and Nurungar are both satelite ground stations.
Fascinating stuff, IMO. Makes me wish I still had Terror Australis (it was permanently borrowed about 10 years ago and 2500 miles away) so I could see how much would be DG convertible.
Speaking of which, how smoothly would other already-published Cthulhu Now campaigns work with DG? "At Your Door" seems perfectly suited, as are a few scenarios from "The Stars Are Right." What about "Utatti Asfet"?
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 15:10:09 +0900
From: "David Farnell"
I'm just about to start "At Your Door" as a DG/Friendlies game. I've decided to cut a lot of it as some of the players will soon be moving back home to Europe and America (we're in Japan), and we can only get together about once a month. Keepers see below:
Actually, none of the players are DG agents at this time, but a DG NPC (an FBI agent) is running the group as Friendlies. As of yet, they don't know about Delta Green at all, but they know that the woman they've agreed to work for is into some kind of conspiracy (she's been associated with them on and off for several games, acting as a kind of "Deep Throat" character, and they recently agreed to work for her). Her goal is to try to get close to NWI somehow; she's hoping that through this whole FW/DBZ thing she can somehow get into position to hurt NWI.
How does she know that they'll get into such a position? Well, Steven Alzis, of course! Yes, he'll be showing up eventually. When the characters are utterly stuck (like when they have no idea how to break into the DBZ computers or something), he'll show up and give them the password in exchange for the promise of, oh, some of that Milk in the back lab (which will expose them to seeing the manifestation of Shub-Niggurath) or a Jennykin (which necessitates, um, intercourse with our favorite bodybuilder). (I guess they could just give him Jenny herself and let him take care of the intercourse part, but maybe they won't figure that out.) It's not like he really needs them, but if he can get them to do nasty things now, then they'll be more willing to do truly horrific things later on.
I'm cutting out the Landscrapes/Harold Gall thing—I might use it later. It just seemed a distraction, and irrelevant to the plot. But I'm keeping Ately P. North in there, as the procurer of Jenny's house in the country—they'll meet him, too, and he'll give them Jenny's address. (I like the idea of their meeting Nyarlathotep several times over the course of the campaign.)
I also really never liked using Rhan-Tegoth as the god to inhabit the monster preserve. What a silly-looking critter! Instead, Sssuthraa (sp? ah, who cares) is trying to steal a huge statue of Yig, which is really Yig itsself, in deep hibernation. Sssuthraa wants it just to awaken it. But Mr. Shiny wants it for the preserve. I've got another villain from a former adventure who wants to capture is to milk it for POW, and when he sees the PCs, he's going to freak, assuming they're on his trail. Unless it gets destroyed, it'll end up in Samson for the finale (of course, they can't destroy Yig—in fact, destroying the statue may release its spirit, awakening it).
The military/govt types at the end with Shiny are, of course, MJ-12 guys. Lepus will be there, too.
There's a great deal of rewriting to do, esp. with the journals and the computer stuff (Ooo, he has a high-speed dot-matrix printer!). Anybody got any good art of Serpent People? Any other suggestions? Come on, torture my players!! It's fun!
PS: Good adventures from "The Stars Are Right!" to connect with this are "Nemo Solus Sapit" or "Love's Lonely Children." Jatik could hire them initially to find Dr. Candice Lee (NSS) or the true killers of Katherine Hammond (LLC). Either of them could have been employees of Full Wilderness with a little reworking, Dr. Lee quite plausibly a consultant and maybe even lover of Jatik's, Hammond a favored volunteer whom everyone misses when she suffers a relapse into addiction and disappears to sell her body in the park—and is then murdered. This would greatly improve Jatik in the players' eyes—he could be a benevolent authority suffering loss and caring deeply about his lover or minor employee. It could add a lot to his character, making his conversion to the Mythos more disturbing and tragic.
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 04:45:24 -0400
From: Ngo Vinh-Hoi
From Agent Vivian:
A DG-friendly Special Forces officer assigned to the Joint Casualty Resolution Centre in Hanoi has come across an Item of Mutual Interest whilst combing People's Army of Vietnam's (henceforth referred to as the PAVN) archives for documents relating to the fate of American MIAs. A fragment of the field report filed by the 1959 PAVN expedition which first scouted what is now commonly known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail indicates that they suffered high casualties when they came into conflict with a hill tribe known as the Nguoi Trau Den.
The DG-friendly became intrigued because this is same area where several MACV-SOG patrols disappeared a decade later. Notably, while PAVN documents are usually very precise, sometimes even to the point of being pedantic, this field report was in fact quite vague as to the specifics of this incident. Further information was not immediately available since the archives are not well catalogued and are deteriorating due to local environmental factors. The DG-friendly is following up and suggests that it may even be possible to locate and interview surviving members of the expedition, providing that the Vietnamese Government is cooperative. Of course, this is a longterm proposition.
None of my available sources list the Nguoi Trau Den among the 50+ ethnic minorities that are indigenous to Vietnam, but a query was posted to Agent Victor, who replied as follows:
Vivian,
It is not surprising that the Nguoi Trau Den are not referred to in any of the standard sources. They are so universally despised by the other hill tribes that they are generally attacked on sight whenever they come down from the mountaintops. So it's unlikely that any members of the Nguoi Trau Den ever came into contact with foreign ethnologists. It makes you wonder how they became so geographically widespread throughout South East Asia, doesn't it?
"Nguoi Trau Den" is a Vietnamese term which roughly translated means "Black Buffalo People", which is also curious, since they are not generally known as buffalo herders. "Trau" (roughly pronounced "cho" by you roundeyes) is most likely a transliteration of their own name for themselves, which, IIRC, is unrelated to any of the major language groups of SE Asia.
As for what I think of them, if you'd ever met one, you'd agree with me when I say fuck it, kill them all.
Be seeing you,
Victor
Agent Victor is currently on a non-DG operation and unavailable for further commentary, but I think that this snippet of information, however tenuous, warrants further investigation—perhaps Alphonse has something to add? I will urge our DG-friendly to press on as much as possible without alarming Hanoi, while I'll continue with the resources at hand.
Be seeing you,
Vivian
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1998 15:35:23 -0400
From: Ngo Vinh-Hoi
For keepers who are interested, before the DG book came out I had been planning a one-shot scenario based the original People's Army of Viet Nam (PAVN, more commonly known here as the NVA) expedition which scouted what came to be know as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Imagine the spooky feeling I had when just such an incident was referred to in the DG book! In any event, if anyone is interested, I'll be happy to go back to my notes and unearth the true story what happened when that expedition encountered the Tcho-Tchos in the high dark hills…
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 22:01:45 -0700
From: Joseph Camp
There's an interesting (if frustratingly brief) look at the state of the Russian mafia on ABC's web site:
http://www.abcnews.com/sections/world/DailyNews/russiacrime980914.html