[GODLIKE] - Thirty-Three Starter Talent Packages

Godlike is a game of "gritty" superpowers in World War 2.

The following superpowers - called Talents in game - are designed to be bolted on to starting characters built on 25-points (the "baseline" default).

You can randomly roll a power from the list using a D33.

1) HEAVY LIFTER (20 points)

Add 5 dice and 1 Wiggle Dice (+5d+1wd) to your PC's base BODY stat. That is, if your PC has Body 2, you now roll 7d and can set your wiggle-dice to create a match or expand a successful roll's width.

How much you can lift, throw etc. depends on your base stat (ask your GM), but from these 6d alone you can:

• lift up to 1 ton with a successful roll, 
• add +1 wound boxes to your torso and all limbs, 
• inflict an extra +2 width in shock damage from melee attacks
  

If your willpower ever hits 0, these extra dice vanish until you regain at least 1 willpower.

Add 5 Will to your Base Will.

[GODLIKE] - Basic Rules and Making Characters

 

Godlike: probably the best RPG about super-powered soldiers fighting in WWII.

Also my favorite RPG about super-powered soldiers fighting in WWII.

I bought the first edition in hardback back when it came out in 2001 when it first came out and haven't looked back. Best bit of a bad year, methinks.

Anyway, Godlike: it's an easy game to learn, and not exceptionally difficult to master, and because I have a habit of running it for people who've never played it, I've written up a simple guide for players.

If you want a far better summary of character creation than I could ever provide, you can find a more cogent, complete and professionally written piece (from the actual creators) free HERE at DrivethruRPG!

You'll also probably want a CHARACTER SHEET.

Very handy.

You can buy the full game HERE. 

And you should. It's good.

[DELTA GREEN] - Some British Agencies and Professions

A tentative and far from perfect selection of fan-made British professions for PISCES games. Technically all PISCES officers are part of PISCES no matter what skillset they have - so it's perfectly acceptable for a player to pick any of the professions from the Agents Handbook, slap down the points and then say "Fuck off, Filth - I'm with Section" when someone queries what they're playing as. It's a hell of a lot easier than faffing about with what your PC's previous life was before they got black-bagged by the Gods. But RPG'ers gonna RPG, I guess...

> BRITISH ARMY
While British Army's role in the War on Terror has increased the number of soldiers stumbling onto the Unnatural - something that should provide PISCES with the pick of the crop - the sweeping range of cuts and regimental amalgamations introduced into the military over the last decade has made it somewhat harder to pull in those people they actually want. 

When they do get the opportunity, Section goes for intelligence officers (particularly interrogators and members of the military police), sappers from the Royal Corps of Signals or Royal Engineers, and soldiers from the Brigade of Gurkhas. The hardy psychology and toughness of the latter are particularly appealing, Gurkhas having been used on numerous operations against the occult since 1968.

Brigade of Gurkhas Soldier: 
Alertness 50%, Athletics 50%, Bureaucracy 30%, Drive 40%, Firearms 40%, First Aid 40%, Foreign Language (English) 40%, Heavy Weapons 40%, Melee Weapons 60% Military Science (Land) 40%, Navigate 40%, Persuade 30%, Unarmed Combat 50%.
Pick any four from:
Artillery 20%
Demolitions 20%
Heavy Machinery 30%
Occult 30%
Search 40%
SIGINT 20%
Swim 40%
Bonds: 3
Special: All Gurkhas carry a kukri in a sheath hidden in the small of their back. It deals 1D8 damage. Their native language is Nepali.

Military Policeman (Provost)
Alertness 60%, Bureaucracy 40%, Criminology 40%, Drive 50%, Firearms 40%, First Aid 30%, Forensics 50%, HUMINT 50%, Law 20%, Melee Weapons 50%, Navigate 40%, Persuade 40%, Search 50%, Unarmed Combat 60%
Bonds: 3

Royal Engineer Sapper
Alertness 50%, Athletics 50%, Bureaucracy 30%, Craft (Military Engineering) 40%, Demolitions 20%, Drive 40%, Firearms 40%, First Aid 40%, Heavy Machinery 50%, Military Science (Land) 40%, Navigate 40%, Persuade 30%, Science (Player Choice) 30%, Science (Physics) 40%, Unarmed Combat 40%
Bonds: 4

77th Brigade Interrogation Specialist
Alertness 50%, Bureaucracy 40%, Criminology 40%, Drive 40%, Firearms 40%, First Aid 40%, Foreign Language 50%, Foreign Language 40%, HUMINT 60%, Persuade 60%, Pharmacy 40%, Psychotherapy 40%, SIGINT 40%, Unarmed Combat 50%
Bonds: 2

Army Air Corps Helicopter Pilot
As Pilot.

[DELTA GREEN] - Agent Obtuse's Super-Slick Combat Rules

These are tentative house-rules I need to try out, in hope they speed up combat a bit and put more emphasis on rolling to do things rather than rolling Firearms until someone falls over.

Maybe they'll even work?

(They probably won't.)

[DELTA GREEN] - Pulp Action Feats and Special Training

For my 1940s "Monster Squad" scenarios I've decided to add a little extra flair. Players may pick any two from the following lists to give to their PCs (that is, two feats, two special trainings, or one feat and one special training). 

In most cases, feats offer unique bonuses in combat or special effects outside of it. Special trainings are typically - though not always - tied to a skill or statistic.

Learning a new feat or special training is a Home Scene; doing so reduces one Bond by 1D4.

 CLOSE-COMBAT FEATS

SUCKER-PUNCH: Rename your Unarmed to something more auspicious (e.g. Karate, Commando training, Wrestling savante). On a successful Unarmed attack roll you don't need to roll for damage; instead you may choose how much it inflicts, up to the maximum allowed (e.g. if your Unarmed deals 1D4 damage, a successful roll can inflict 1, 2, 3 or 4 damage). On a Critical success you can inflict up to double that amount.

ARMOR-BUSTER: On a Critical Unarmed or Melee roll you can choose to "tear apart" physical armor, removing the equivalent of your maximum damage (e.g. you critically succeed at Unarmed for 1D4 damage; you choose to rip apart 4-points of the opponent's 5-points of armor, leaving it with only 1-point). Things this feat can be used upon are up to the Handler, but might include: armor provided by cars, deep ones' scales, bulletproof glass, etc. It is unlikely to work on buildings, Huge creatures or vehicles like tanks.

FIGHTING TO LIVE: You are skilled in the art of Melee weapons. After a successful Melee attack roll you don't need to roll for damage; instead you may choose how much it inflicts, up to the maximum allowed (e.g. if your weapon deals 1D6 damage, a successful roll can inflict 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 damage). On a Critical success you can inflict up to double that amount.

KNIFEY-SPOONY: Pick a single melee weapon as your signature weapon. You gain a +20% to your Melee Weapon roll when using it in combat. If you permanently lose this weapon for whatever reason, you must choose a new signature weapon for your next Opera.

JAILHOUSE SHEATH: You can secrete one small knife (1D4, AP3) or sap (1D6) about your person which is unable to found during a visual or pat-down search. This concealment will not withstand X-rays, a metal detector, or full cavity search. It takes one round to ready the weapon for combat.

PISCES Campaign - WONDER WALL - Session Three (After-Action Report)

Operation Roster (linked to After-Action Reports):

+ Ronald "Al" Frost - previously AFO with the Met's Diplomatic Protection Service
+ Chloe Thornes - ex-MI6 case officer with overseas experience in Russia
+ George Crackanthorpe - old-hand MI6 secondee
+ Holly Walker - a PISCES shrink and professional skeptic
+ Simon Spencer - millennial bad-boy computer hacker given another chance at life

WONDER WALL: SESSION THREE

"Forget it. This stinks. The whole operation stinks. And I'm gonna find out why..."

Leaving Hatton Garden Police Station, officers Frost, Thornes and a bandaged-handed Spencer pondered what they should do next. The had more than enough clues to go around - the dead shoot-out suspects and its injured survivor (still in ICU), the Kacey woman, the blue stone - but nothing they felt was concrete just yet. Phoning Control, Frost gave a brief and deliberately imprecise run-down on what they'd learned and informed his superiors the team would join up with their colleagues in Team Wenseclas and help with their "rat problem."

At the same time Crackanthorpe and Walker were having their own desires for aid. Drenched by rain, standing in a graveyard full of names, lost out of time, they sneaked out as swiftly as possible. Again they patched their wounds back in their car, Crackanthorpe applying bandages to his blood-soaked belly and switching to a spare shirt. Walker called the other team, requesting they meet up at Brixton Police Station to assist, as Crackanthorpe started the car and headed for an unannounced meeting with Det. Sgt. Styles...

PISCES Campaign - WONDER WALL - Session Two (After-Action Report)

Operation Roster (linked to After-Action Reports):

+ Ronald "Al" Frost - previously AFO with the Met's Diplomatic Protection Service
+ Chloe Thornes - ex-MI6 case officer with overseas experience in Russia
+ George Crackanthorpe - old-hand MI6 secondee
+ Holly Walker - a PISCES shrink and professional skeptic
+ Simon Spencer - millennial bad-boy computer hacker given another chance at life

WONDER WALL: SESSION TWO

"From mice to men
And then to rats
But only snakes behave like that..."

Last time we left the PISCES lads and ladettes, Team Wenceslas (Officers Walker and Crackanthorpe) had set up a surveillance post in one of the abandoned flats at the top of the Wyndham Court estate. Hoping to catch a snifter of Old Scratch's existence beyond second-hand stories, they tossed their bedrolls on the dirty, beer-can-and-tin-foil strewn floor and readied for the long haul.

Night falls, electric lights come on. Across the estate people return home to the warmth of their apartments. A bored Crackanthorpe saunters outside to poke his head around the estate after dark. He takes the stairs down to the fifth floor walkway, and as he rounds the corner spots one of those greasy "rat-prints" on a flat window. Inside, the sound of a TV buzzes.

Then something fat and heavy ran across his foot. A black rat. Behind him - tired of waiting, having come down to find him - Walker watched the creature rush past her.

Ahead on the balcony, the electric lights flickered out one by one. A solid darkness advanced...

Swallowing the two PISCES agents in impenetrable gloom.

Esoteric Enterprises - Continuity of Government Bunker Complex

"Alright. Flush the bombers, get the subs in launch mode. We are at DEFCON 1."

Unless you've been hiding under a rock most of your life (and, to be fair, if that was the case I can guarantee you definitely know what I'm talking about), you've probably heard of Continuity of Government.

Continuity of Government (C.O.G.) is the planning and preparation for how government can continue after a catastrophe, like a nuclear war or asteroid strike or Cthulhu waking up. Among the most important parts, beside laying out a list of contingencies and picking a Designated Survivor to sit out all the public events in case a bomb goes off, is building bunkers to hide in until the radiation levels drop enough for a go at repopulating the Earth.

Obviously, the government's not just going to let any Tom, Dick or Harry into those super-special-secret bunkers they've built though. Nope; only the lucky few, the most important, cleverest, bestest people are at the top of that list. Oddly enough, the guys who drew up the list - namely the politicians - seem to think politicians are the most important, cleverest, bestest people for the job.

Whatever the case, there are a lot of those bunkers. Most were built a long time ago, back during the Cold War. A lot are just sitting there. Unmanned. Untouched. Unused. Safe. Secure.

Now home to other things.

This is an underworld C.O.G. chamber for Esoteric Enterprises.

Esoteric Enterprises - Alternative Connecting Tunnels

Down, down, deeper and down...

Esoteric Enterprises is an occult dungeon-crawler where you raid the mystical underworld of a contemporary city, murdering the inhabitants and stealing their stuff. Some people will try to tell you it's an OSR Unknown Armies without the metaplot; a better description might be murderhobo Jim Butcher meets D&D. Despite its often wonky rules and editing, it's pretty fun.

Its best part (beside flamethrowing feral undead and ripping off occult weirdos) is the randomly generated map, where you toss a handful of dice onto paper to create nodes and beasties and gangs, then slot the pieces together jigsaw fashion to make a surprisingly coherent whole.

This is a rejig for Table 83: Connecting Tunnels (p.149), which trims back one of my biggest bugbears: the three sewers, three subways, and three storm drains (!!! - three exclamation points - !!!) on the list. Instead, it reshuffles the pieces a little and replaces some of more common roll-ups with bits I wanted to play with. While the layout does increase the dice-rolling you can solve that pretty easily by just picking the least used, cooler or more logical option instead of randomizing it.

DICE	DICE	TUNNEL TYPE
D4	D4	Reccently dug by residents
D4	D6	Ancient ruins
D4	D8	Steam tunnels (1-3: active, 4-6: inactive)
D4	D10	Communication tunnels (1-3: historic, 4-6: modern)
D4	D12	Smugglers' tunnels
D4	D20	Utility tunnels
D6	D6	Subway line (1-2: 1-track, 3-4: 2-track, 5: 3-track, 6: derelict)
D6	D8	Construction works / Big Dig
D6	D10	Basement throughway (1-3: historic, 4-6: modern)
D6	D12	Sewer connector (1-3: historic, 4-6: modern)
D6	D20	Ventilation tunnels
D8	D8	Storm drain (1-3: historic, 4-6: modern)
D8	D10	Abandoned traffic tunnel (1-3: foot, 4-6: vehicular)
D8	D12	Water tunnels (1-3: canal system, 4-6: underground river)
D8	D20	Geological formation (1-3: lava tubes, 4-6: karst tunnels)
D10	D10	Sewer network (1-3: dilapidated, 4-6: under construction)
D10	D12	Storm drain (1-3: derelict, 4-6: historic)
D10	D20	Ancient tunnel dug by undercity residents
D12	D12	Abandoned mineshaft
D12	D20	High-speed railroute (1-2: 2-track, 3-4: derelict, 5-6: specialized)
D20	D20	Eldritch formation (1-3: dead/fossilized creature, 4-6: unnatural construction

PISCES Campaign - WONDER WALL - Session Two Prep

NEWS AND PUBLIC SOURCE INFO

BNC 24: Police are appealing for anyone with footage of the gun-battle and car-chase in central London yesterday to come forward. The incident, which left a tourist and two alleged attackers dead, saw Waterloo Station and surrounding roads closed. Four men, including two police officers, are being treated in hospital for injuries.

Star News: At a presser this evening, Commander Harry Singh of London Counter-terrorism Command stated that the Strand shoot-out was not a "terror incident" but organized crime, with investigations remaining under the Metropolitan Police's Organized Crime Division. Information on those killed and injured will be released at "an appropriate time, when families have been informed" he added.

The Daily Crucible: English police forces' heavy-handed tactics in breaking up "rave culture" are damaging public trust, say community figures. Last month's dispersal of crowds at an illegal rave in Essex, which left six officers injured and led to the arrest of thirty-four people, has come under scrutiny following evidence that officers failed to present noise abatement writs to the rave's organizers prior to sending in riot police.

London Mail: Three boats carrying 43 migrants were caught in the English Channel yesterday, bringing this month's tally to more than 500. Numbers have surged since the bulldozing of the "Amazon" refugee camp outside Calais, a popular congregating site for those looking to escape to Britain. While Minister for Immigration Jason Woolpit-Coates has vowed to dismantle the organized smuggling gangs that prey on such individuals, the London Mail can report none of those who made it to the UK in the last year have yet been deported...

WATERCOOLER TALK

Gary in D-Section says the chiefs are in a flap over yesterday's debacle - and our friends in SIS have been on the phone, shouting all night. Everyone involved, and I mean everyone who breathed the same air, is being called to the carpet for a 2pm debrief and wall-to-wall bollocking. Do NOT be late.

Rumor from the armorers is pistols will be signed-out on a "will permit" basis. Still no license-to-kill with it though, so unless you found a 00 designation in your cornflakes this morning, weigh your options before taking it up. You pays your money, you takes your chances, as my old man used to say.

Our lad in the Met says someone's pushing hard - really hard - to make sure this doesn't get marked as a terror incident. According to them, Organized Crime's been told to back off too, which means someone's running interference. As to why, who knows? You didn't hear it from me, mind.

PISCES Campaign - WONDER WALL - Session One (After-Action Report)

Operation Roster (linked to After-Action Reports):

+ Ronald "Al" Frost - previously AFO with the Met's Diplomatic Protection Service
+ Chloe Thornes - ex-MI6 case officer with overseas experience in Russia
+ George Crackanthorpe - old-hand MI6 secondee
+ Holly Walker - a PISCES shrink and professional skeptic
+ Simon Spencer - millennial bad-boy computer hacker given another chance at life

WONDER WALL: SESSION ONE

A drab gray day in London. From the 23rd floor of the Severn Aerospace Building it was hard to tell if the Thames reflected the gunbolt hue of the sky or vice-versa. Sipping coffee, doodling on notepads, chit-chatting about the Gunners, the officers waited for today's Control - a middle-aged, tweed-jacketed type with a personality far too hip for his years - to brief them. "The Gods have spoken," he said. "The Sorting Hat chosen its candidates." He pinned photographs and papers to the whiteboard on the wall. Two issues had come up requiring the Section's involvement...

Team Shadwell: Heathrow Airport flagged Chuck Hauser (or rather his passport, AKA Milton Waters), an American citizen, entering the country via Schiphol, Amsterdam. He's booked into the Strand Hotel near Covent Garden. The Gods want him surveilled. No reasons given.

Team Wenceslas: One of PISCES' prognosticators dreamed a dream of doom. Onto the board goes his child-like etching of a ziggurat and stick-figures, drowning in a river of blood, overlooked by the lidless eye of the moon. The actuaries often send in their nightmares, scrawled in crayon; like Nostradamus they think they have meaning.

Sometimes - as in this case - they do.

[DELTA GREEN] - PISCES - A Fictive Background (Locales and Factions)

Another chapter in my unofficial and non-canonical take on modern-day PISCES, Delta Green RPG's British anti-occult agency. A bunch of fractitious groups and locales, with potential seeds and ideas.

PISCES LOCATIONS

+ Severn Aerospace Building, London: in use since the late-1980s, most of this 25-storey office-block in Southwark, south of the Thames, is rented to multinational corporations. Only the top six floors (and roof helicopter pad) are still retained by PISCES, whose somewhat dilapidated collection of open-plan offices, private rooms and operation centers oversee British occult security. New recruits are often surprised by its lack of windows. There is no office for “R.” 

+ Regional Divisionals: the Section operates six regional offices (RDs) in key cities outside London, specifically Belfast, Cardiff, Manchester, Birmingham, York and Edinburgh. Listed as on-the-books  MI5 or National Crime Agency buildings, RDs have offices, vehicles, equipment and materiel for work across the country. RD-Belfast is unique, being located aboard the leaky, decommissioned submarine-tender HMS Celene, currently laid-up on the city’s waterfront.

[DELTA GREEN] - PISCES - A Fictive Background

This is a non-canonical, unofficial interpretation of 21st century PISCES, the British intelligence agency that polices the Empire of ghosties, ghoulies and non-Euclidean beasties in Delta Green the RPG. Thanks must go to mellonbread, whose scenarios focused on the group's collapse into factions has served as the grist for my own setting's somewhat different mill. Which produces Obtusebread.

If you don't know the secret history of PISCES and actually care, you probably shouldn't read this...

PISCES – the Paranormal Intelligence Section for Counter-Intelligence, Espionage and Sabotage – was born in the dark days of 1940, when the German juggernaut seemed all-powerful. Nicknamed the Section and disguised as a division of MI5, PISCES has continued to protect Britain and (unofficially) the Commonwealth from occult threats, be they foreign, alien and domestic.

But there is another more terrible truth. In 1968 an apparently successful operation to clear out the depraved village of Goatswood opened PISCES to alien infiltration. Parasitic alien puritans, trapped on Earth and known as the Shan, subverted PISCES command structure, turning the agency into a tool to destroy worshipers of other gods and find some means of escape from our dying world.

This remained the case until three years ago, when PISCES rank-and-file finally uncovered the rot within their organization. A new conspiracy grew, as field-officers and support staff slowly banded together in readiness for a civil-war. Whoever green-lit what would later become known as the “Unpleasantness” is either dead or extraordinarily tight-lipped, but on a brisk Summer day, as PISCES’ department heads met in supposed secrecy and security, someone gave the order for action.

Many Shan died that day. No few humans too. And as the purge swept through PISCES offices and safe-houses, men and women held down their screaming, begging colleagues, as power-tools bit into their skulls to let the sunlight in. No few old grudges or personal hatreds ended that day too, with a trepanation or a bullet, followed by the claim the unfortunate victim wasn’t truly human.

Having seized power and shown their fellows what lingered in the shadows, over the next few weeks the Section's non-Shan hosts led a great witch-hunt - a period of detentions, interrogations and arbitrary arrests. With the power of the state behind it, PISCES had little to fear from the public finding out. Those who did thought it was an intelligence shake-up, a mole-hunt like back in the 1980s.

No Shan is believed to have survived the purge.

PISCES did survive.

Barely.

My Delta Green Scenarios

Delta Green is an RPG of occult conspiracy horror, where players protect humanity from the cold darkness of the universe and the things that share it with them. It's also an excuse to shoot monsters and burn down buildings.

For my unofficial Delta Green scenarios and other free-to-use mods, odds and sods click to see behind the cut below...

"What rough beast slouches toward Bedlam to be born?" (A.P. Hewn, 1963)