[Covenant] Conspiracies of the non-failing kind, or, hacking Covenant for Delta Green

Andrew Kenrick's picture

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I got the rather wonderful Delta Green: Eyes Only for christmas. For those of you without the appropriate security clearance, Delta Green is a modern setting for Call of Cthulhu which draws heavily on conspiracy theory and urban lore and melds it seemlessly with the Cthulhu mythos. It's my favourite setting, ever. It is, in short, a work of art and remains John Tynes' finest work.

But, there's a problem, and that problem is the Cthulhu setting. The only bit of it I use is the sanity system. Everything else is either handwaved or gets in the way, and in no way supports what the game is about, which I guess is conspiracies, the corruption of power and knowledge and, umm, things that should not be.

So I'm hunting for a game that lets me enjoy not only the Delta Green setting, but also the game behind it, and I'm wondering whether Covenant will fit the bill.

Do you think Covenant will work well for non-failing conspiracies, for conspiracies that are still going strong, where the world hasn't (yet) fallen down? How about when you chuck in the supernatural, do you think it'll hold up then too?

So help me adapt Covenant for Delta Green! It might be as easy as creating a cell that mimics the conventions and motifs of a Delta Green cell, or it might be a deeper and more meaningful hack!

Hmm...

Matt's picture

Well, I guess it really depends what your game is going to be about...

Covenant works well at taking a group of people, putting their inter-relationships through the wringer due to a climatic change and watching them evolve based on that.

Does that sound like it could fit for Delta Green? To me, it sounds like it might work for a certain spin of DG, but might require more tweaking for a more general approach.

I guess the question is, what do you see DG as being about?

-Matt

Realms Publishing