hyperbear
Crazy 98s Group History
The M Cell Missions
Call of Cthulhu is Chaosium's horror roleplaying game based on the literary works of H. P. Lovecraft from the 1920s and 1930s. Delta Green was originally Pagan Publishing's supplement for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game, but is now an Ennie award-winning stand-alone RPG.
Delta Green postulates that there are aliens among us, with a shadowy organization within the US government covering it up. The players are members of Delta Green, an equally shadowy organization within the US government who's purpose is to protect the world from the aliens, as well as manifestations of the Cthulhu Mythos. There are the usual Cthulhoid baddies (deep ones, ghouls, Nyarlathotep), but added to the mix are occult wielding Nazis, Men In Black, weird occult gangsters, and — of course — the stereotypical aliens known as the Grays.
In 2006, Dennis Detwiller released NEMESIS, a modern horror roleplaying game based on Arc Dream's One Roll Engine game system. These rules included conversion information for playing NEMESIS games set in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. These, along with Shane Ivey's earlier Cthulhulike rules, affords players another game system in which to roleplay Lovecraftian horror.
In 2007, Arc Dream and Pagan Publishing teamed up to produce the 2nd edition of the Delta Green rule book, and Delta Green: Eyes Only, a hardcover compilation of the old Delta Green chapbooks.
After years of discussions, a successful Kickstarter in 2015 resulted in the Delta Green Roleplaying Game. The Agent's Handbook was published in 2016, and the Handler's Guide followed in 2017. Numerous adventures and supplements followed, including the The Labyrinth in 2019. Although descending from Chaosium's BRP system, the Delta Green Roleplaying Game is a completely different system. The sanity subsystem, in particular, is a significant improvement on the original.
Our roleplaying group formed in the summer of 2003. Allan Goodall posted a message to the player listing service of Yog-Sothoth.com stating that he was looking for Call of Cthulhu players in general, and Delta Green players in particular. Jason Gallagher replied to the listing and said that he and a friend — Jimmy Pope — were interested in playing. It soon turned out that Jason had read Allan's Call of Cthulhu write-ups on his original web site from games played with his first RPG group in Toronto. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that this was the same person he'd read about years earlier.
Jason and Jimmy knew enough about Delta Green that Allan decided that their characters were already members of the Delta Green organization. The initial scenario began in August, 2003, and was designed to bring Alana's character into the organization.
The original Delta Green campaign ended at the end of 2006 (though at the time, the intention was to simply pause the campaign for a while), giving the group time to try other games. This led into playtesting when Allan wrote This Favored Land, an American Civil War sourcebook for the Wild Talents roleplaying game. It was during this period that, due to work and timing issues, Jimmy stepped away from the group.
In late 2008, Alana and Jason expressed an interest in returning to Delta Green. As an Arc Dream writer, Allan discussed the idea of running a game using the One Roll Engine. The others agreed, and T Cell was born. The scenario played was "A Night on Owlshead Mountain".
That scenario took a while to complete due to Alana's health issues. By the time the players were ready for a new adventure, the playtesting for the imminent Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity was well underway. This would mean running the game using the Call of Cthulhu rules with the new rules in Targets of Opportunity. With a switch to a new system and a conversion of characters, Alana and Jason suggested that they resurrect M Cell. This required a little ret-conning, but MAYA and MICHAEL were back.
In September, 2009, Dustin Gulledge joined the group. Dustin was involved in playtesting some This Favored Land convention scenarios. Dustin's Agent MURPHY became the new member of a resurrected M Cell. The scenario "From A Lincoln Continental" was Agent MURPHY's first "official" adventure. This new M Cell played two more sessions before the campaign fizzled.
The group was known as the Crazy 98s after a session where an inordinate number of 98s were rolled on percentage dice (that session happened around the time the film Kill Bill came out).