NPC assistance
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From: "M-Zodiac"
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1998 23:35:13 -1000

Any consensus on exactly how much non-PC assistance DG should be able to provide?

Whenever none of the PCs have a skill, or need extra muscle, etc. One of our players tries to go crying to their sister Cell.

I usually deny them totally, leaving the team to figure stuff out on their own. It's been mentioned that a more-suited cell should take the mission, but I have a huge hatred of abandoning my well-crafted (huh, yeah, right) adventure halfway done.

Advice? Flames?


Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 11:19:12 +0100
From: Phil Ward

Any consensus on exactly how much non-PC assistance DG should be able to provide?

I would try to limit them to information and skills from other cells, by which I mean not allowing them access to extra team-members with burglary skills for a covert penetration, but rather letting them have researches who can investigate specific artefacts within their skill-set.

Another cell might have a micro-biologist in a university who has access to the perfect equipment to investigate this spore sample.

Muscle can be appropriated through legitimate channels, and often should be.

If they start relying on sister cells, make it known to the cell leader that their performance is being closely examined, and that they are distracting their sister cell from it's own work. Have the sister cell ask them for extra cannon-fodder for a raid, and then have one of the more important members of their team take debilitating injury that makes it hard to function in their own adventures. You could have the sister cell requisition their gear, leaving them dangerously low on ammo or spare ID! Give them another assessment/red-herring scenario. Have another cell's contact go rogue on them with information that could call down a group of NRO-DELTA technicians on their head.

or threaten to turn state's evidence to a congressional oversight committee.

have another team take credit within DG for the kill, and credit for any arrests or lives save in the overt side of the investigation

There are lots of way to make them stand on their own.

I seem to remember somebody's .sig saying the only thing more scary than a GM who says "No", is a GM who says "yes".

Let them complete the current mission, and then write a few small scenario's where they will ask for support, and play some of the above idea's on them… It ought to make them think anwyay :-)


From: "David Farnell"
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 22:34:11 +0900

And Phil wrote some good stuff too, all dutifully snipped as it was so good I have no comments on it directly. I only have this to add: if it REALLY gets on your nerves, and especially if they're ever sloppy on contact procedures, have their attempt to contact the sister cell cause it to get "made" by the enemy. Then the sister cell gets wiped out (really horribly, one by one, maybe with one of them calling up the players in desperation screaming "You bastards, it's all your faulaaaauuuggggggglglglglglg…").

And of course, the players have no idea if THEY'VE been made…let it hang over their heads, the guilt, the paranoia, have DG sever all contact for a time so none of their calls connect (all the numbers have been changed), all the drops are too dangerous to approach, that kind of thing. Hell, for all they know, they've single-handedly wiped out DG with their carelessness. A dozen cells could've gone done because of them.

Then, have the one surviving member of the sister cell come for a visit. Is she with THEM now? Is she planning revenge for the deaths of her friends and her own horrible maiming, the loss of her career and perhaps even her family, who have been "disappeared"? But she says she wants them for one little mission, all forgiven, DG forgives them, it's OK, just one little mission…

After all, what choice do they have? Where are they gonna run?

Heh, heh, heh.


From: Rick
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 13:40:57 +0000

I usually deny them totally, leaving the team to figure stuff out on their own. It's been mentioned that a more-suited cell should take the mission, but I have a huge hatred of abandoning my well-crafted (huh, yeah, right) adventure halfway done.

I don't think denying them totally is completely out of line…

as the only "in the know" agent on my team (got one that's starting to suspect and 3 others that are clueless newbies), I "know" that Cell A has assigned the best available resources to the problem — my group has to handle it because there's nobody else available who's more capable…

in terms of additional support, etc., I'd expect little in the way of "field work", though I don't think that expecting lab or research support is out of line for a team, provided they're in a position to request and receive that (kind of hard to get even that kind of help if you're off on some island or in a sub… but then how the heck did you get yourself into such a silly predicament anyways?) :)


Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 16:01:19 +0100
From: Phil Ward

And Phil wrote some good stuff too, all dutifully snipped as it was so good I have no comments on it directly.

Ta very much.

I only have this to add: if it REALLY gets on your nerves, and especially if they're ever sloppy on contact procedures, have their attempt to contact the sister cell cause it to get "made" by the enemy. Then the sister cell gets wiped out.

I missed that one, an obvious progression really :-)

Perhaps you could start out by making an example of one of their friendlies….

I had this happen to me in a Dark Conspiracy game, we got to watch cyborgs and grey's dimension walk into the base of an FBI paranormal investigations team with HMG's, they blew people to pieces and then d-walked back out again.
The base's security camera's recorded the whole thing.

Perhaps A-Cell sends them to invetigate why Cell+1 has been so quiet, and they eventually tie down evidence that points to one of thei rown investigations.

Make an adventure revolve around it, and let the hgorrow build slowly…

Then, have the one surviving member of the sister cell come for a visit. Is she with THEM now? Is she planning revenge for the deaths of her friends and her own horrible maiming, the loss of her career and perhaps even her family, who have been "disappeared"?

does anyone remember balloon animals and eyelids? I have it ready for the ice-cave here somewhere…..


From: Robert Thomas
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 20:08:41 GMT0BST

I usually deny them totally, leaving the team to figure stuff out on their own. It's been mentioned that a more-suited cell should take the mission, but I have a huge hatred of abandoning my well-crafted (huh, yeah, right) adventure halfway done.

Personally, I'd say consider the request's effect on the balance of play, if the characters are still taking the lead in the actions fine if they want NPC's taking all the dangerous actions treat em like mushrooms, keep em in the dark and feed em s**t. They may get info but it can be whatever you want them to know not what their roleplaying and when it comes down to the bottom line what their roles would provide them, (and we all know how many times PC's make very annoying and inconvienient skill roles). As for when it comes to consultations they should be able to get most requests filled via their own organisations or contacts. An example of which was my character on Shane Iveys game Operation Sandman, so far we suspect a government operation / experiment is being performed in New York so my character who is CIA just did a little netwoking with his colleages to informally find out that there was a possibility of an illegal black operation other people enquiring could be stonewalled, they CIA never said that there was an operation but the characters feelings and experience pointed to the conclusion that there was a possibility that something was going on an NPC believes what you want them to and reports this to the players, effectively blocking this kind of informal information exchange on an almost subliminal level.

Of course it could just be Shane winding me up but my character now suspects that there is a possibility of Government involvement and is getting more paranoid by the day!

About the equipment requisitions again its a case of reasonable requests, you can get alot from a beauracracy just by taking the time to fill in the appropriate forms, and if something is sufficiently important, it is likely that it would be sufficiently important to Cell A for them to justify an unusual solution such as providing the requisition or applying pressure behind the scenes to key figures who won't know the reasons for the pressure. After all in all the investigations and reports of the Mythos that DG has made, some prominant people must feature and possibly have peformed questionalble acts if the info were to surface well they'd rather it didn't and would be prepared to make an error in the present by OK a request that would normally be refused than face the consequences of their earlier actions.

Of course what can be achieved by DG cell A this way must be carefull controlled by the Keeper, if you want them doing it on their own, just let them exhaust all the possibilities their furtive little minds can conjour then when they rsort to doing it themselves:

LET EM HAVE IT!


From: Shane Ivey
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 19:35:40 EDT

Any consensus on exactly how much non-PC assistance DG should be able to provide?

This is one of those things that depends mostly on the tastes of the Keeper. If you don't mind the headache of running lots of NPCs, then go ahead and pile them on. But see what I said in my last post about exposure. The more people help the players out, the more likely one of them will be to figure out that something big and illegal is going on. If the players are getting help from black-ops types this won't be e big deal (unless they are not DG-aware and run into some of the horrors that the players are exploring!), but if the players are getting help from law enforcement officers (FBI, DEA, Border Patrol, whatever) they are FAR more likely to have their ally start asking questions about the operation and its legality. Even if the NPC does not ask the players directy, he or she ought to start thinking about it and maybe start keeping track of things for later questioning or follow-up if it turns out to be an illegal operation.

However, I WOULD limit the help they could get from actual DG agents: involving multiple cells increases the jeapordy to compartmental security. In the imperfect world, of course, agents may need to be drawn from other cells to assist in a case, but this should be described as an option of last resort. Otherwise, I'd say give the players access to plenty of help, but remember that it will be that much more dangerous for them to operate illegally or in secrecy.


Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1998 07:59:16 -0700
From: Josh Shaw

However the point I'd like to address is:

If the players are getting help from black-ops types this won't be e big deal (unless they are not DG-aware and run into some of the horrors that the players are exploring!)

The other problem is that, unlike Delta Green agents, a fair number of covert operators take the idea of reporting what they're doing to their superiors somewhat seriously. Nothing could be worse (OK, all kinds of things could be worse but most of them involve some kind of death or dismemberment) than an agent coming back to their desk after a tough assignment only to find their boss holding a memo from NSA asking him what the hell agent "Goober" was doing and who's going to pay for the three lost gunships?

Not to mention that the more covert the agency that the PC's are tapping for resources, the more deeply it's going to be infiltrated by MJ-12.

Paradoxically, the more covert the PC's "home agency", the worse this problem can get. Director Sphincter at NSA might assume that an op involving FBI personnel was just "some law-enforcement thing" and let it slide even if he lost a man or two helping out. OTOH, if the personnel involved were CIA he might start wondering what was going on and why he wasn't informed. This could lead to asking questions. Even worse, if the agents involved were from his own agency he might start asking questions around the lunch room about who's f*ck-up was that? This causes interest throughout the organization as now his buddies, all of whom of course assume they *they're* important enough to be kept informed, start wondering too. Soon, internal rumors start and then somebody with real authority takes notice of the rumor and the whole process starts over again at a higher level.

, but if the players are getting help from law enforcement officers (FBI, DEA, Border Patrol, whatever) they are FAR more likely to have their ally start asking questions about the operation and its legality.

Although at least they're used to the Feds treating them like mushrooms. While Shane is right, that they're lots more likely to raise objections before and during the operation, they at least are likely after the op to write it off as "some top-secret government thing" and let it slide. Unless your agents violated a whole slew of major statutes (and how likely is that? :-) and some self-righteous cops gets a bee in his bonnet and starts investigating *them*.

It's like thermodynamics; you can't win, you can't break even, you can't quit the game.


Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 00:13:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: The Man in Black

Any consensus on exactly how much non-PC assistance DG should be able to provide?

Actually I went crying to the local police dept and US Marshals service for more shooters, although it was later determined that a "no witnesses" policy would be better suited to the situation. I *informed* SELENE about this. I'll admit to using DG contacts for research consulting, that's how I always thought it should be done anyway.

Man, I was really sleep-deprived that day. No wonder we all got slaughtered. (Obituaries forthcoming :)

I usually deny them totally, leaving the team to figure stuff out on their own. It's been mentioned that a more-suited cell should take the mission, but I have a huge hatred of abandoning my well-crafted (huh, yeah, right) adventure halfway done.

Then why don't you drop hints during character creation?

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