R U L E S

General and Specific Requests using the Patron advantage and Reaction Rolls:

Using the process detailed on page 47 of Delta Green, it is possible to forward A-Cell a report on the Agent's current situation or make a specific request and expect some sort of additional information or assistance. Should this be attempted in GURPS, many dice must be rolled. First, roll to see if the Patron appears, this is usually 12 or less for Agents and 9 or less for Friendlies. Should this roll fail then A-Cell is concerned with other things and is unable to respond to the Agents in time, or simply does not have the information or aid requested.

Should the Patronage roll succeed, make a Reaction Roll with appropriate modifiers for past behavior, the reasonableness of the request, etc... Agents start out with a +4 bonus to Reactions from A-Cell, while Friendlies get a +2. This number is not fixed by any means and can rise or fall as circumstances dictate. Should the Reaction Roll indicate a favorable result, then it is possible that the aid requested will be granted or that Alphonse will roll vs. his Mythos Lore-14, contact a friendly with a specialist skill of 15, roll vs. his Research-16 (+5 for Library of Congress access), or his Intelligence Analysis-17 to see if he can come up with an answer for the stumped Agents.

Green Boxes:

One possible benefit to taking Delta Green as a Patron is access to the Green Boxes. These are caches of equipment that come in handy during espionage and conspiratorial activity. A typical Green Box will contain 2dx$1000 worth of equipment (including firearms), and 3dx$100 in actual cash. A critical failure on the Reaction Roll may result in a Green Box with little to no useful material and possibly some rather incriminating evidence (such as the corpse of a cultist) or even worse, some hazardous leftovers from the last Delta Green operation in the area. Barring such unfortunate circumstances, players may usually determine the contents of a Green Box to save the GM's some work.

Petty Cash is also available from A-Cell, usually at a -1 on the reaction roll per $1000 requested up to $5000, with an additional -1 for every $2000 beyond that. Thus, requesting $10,000 for some dubious purpose will result in a -8 penalty to the reaction roll (-5 for the first $5000, and -3 for the next three increments after that).

The Mythos Fright Check

When creatures of the Mythos are encountered and the brain twisting thought processes required to understand hypergeometry are attempted, the strain on sanity is often too much to bear. This facet of human frailty displays the fundamental inability of homo sapiens sapiens to comprehend even the slightest hint of reality's true nature.

The maximum bonus to be applied to Will when making a Mythos Fright Check is +4, the benefits of Fearlessness are halved, while Unfazeable merely provides the maximum bonus of +4. This modified willpower is then halved before applying any situational penalties. This is the final number to be checked under the standard GURPS Fright Check rules. Suffice it to say, failure is inevitable in most cases, leaving only the degree of failure to be determined.

To find the Mythos Fright Check penalty in terms of Chaosium's system, simply take the maximum result for lost sanity and divide by two, rounding off. 1d100 SAN losses and Deities are a special case: Minor Great Old Ones such as Rhan-Tegoth and Y'golonac are worth -15. Major Great Old Ones and Minor Outer Gods such as Great Cthulhu or Yibb-Tstll are worth -20. Most Outer Gods such as YOG-SOTHOTH and monstrous avatars of Nyarlathotep are worth -25. Only AZATHOTH is worth -30. This represents a slight departure from a straight conversion and GURPS CthulhuPunk.

Note that Will is equal to IQ (max 14) +/- Strong/Weak Will. This means that the maximum "natural" willpower without the Strong Will advantage is 14, and that Strong Will is not counted as part of the +4 Ceiling to Mythos Fright Checks. In other words, buy strong will, cause it's the best advantage vs. MFC's this side of Unfazeable.

Mythos Familiarity

Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu gives a loose interpretation which allows characters to "get used to awfulness". In GURPS this is represented as an advantage called Mythos Familiarity. It is purchased seperately for each individual species, spell or supernatural horror and costs 1 point per -1 to Mythos Fright Check, minimum 1 point. This advantage reduces Mythos Fright Checks down to regular fright checks. It cannot be taken against Great Old Ones, Outer Gods and their ilk. It can and should be easily lost whenever disadvantages are granted by Fright Checks, as this stays true to the effect of Chaosium's system. It's probably a bad idea to allow characters to start with this advantage, best to allow it gained only during play.

Fate Points

Kind GM that the Man in Black is, I have decided to incorporate a modified version of the Cinematic Rules from GURPS to allow characters a little more control over their fate. This system entails spending earned character points to alter catastrophic rolls. I will also be giving out up to three character points per turn, slightly more than dictated by GURPS rules. Hopefully this policy will mitigate any disasters of the dice that can often spoil a well planned scenario.

By spending one point before a roll is made, a character may automatically succeed at that roll, including Mythos Fright Checks and Dodge rolls. By spending two points before a roll is made, a character can critically succeed at any test without rolling the dice. By spending three points before the dice are rolled, a character can cause another character (including other players) to fail at any die roll.

These fate altering actions can also be taken after the dice are "rolled" by spending 2, 3, and 5 points respectively. Naturally, any expenditure of these points is subject to GM' veto.

However, as these points are spent, they are collected into an "Account" for use by certain antagonists when things go wrong for the MiB's assortment of malefactors. So the bad guys get to do this as well, but only after the protagonists do so.