In this exclusive post-campaign wrap-up, the creators and cast from Dead Letter Bureau and Hand on the Door break down the final curtain call of Damnatio Memoriae. Joining the crew are Patrick G. (the season's Handler) and Hank (the lead writer of the campaign), pulling back the curtain on the actual trauma, hidden mechanics, and structural design choices that shaped the season.

Made in partnership with Hand on the Door.

Patrick G - Handler and co-writer

Damnatio Memoriae Written by Hank Belanger

Music by Sam Winham - Listen to more of his jams.

Cast

Sam as Mull

Jimmy as Moorison

Jordan as Magpie

Nick as Miles

thanks.

2

Hey, I'm Patrick G.

3

I was the handler for Demnatia Memoriae for the fine people from Hands on the Door and uh

Dead Letter Bureau.

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I also helped uh edit and made some of the handouts for Demnatia Memoriae.

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Is it cool?

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Sam, I played mole and I'm from hand on the door also.

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I'm the game mom.

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And then I popcorned to Jimmy.

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doubt.

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uh

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Yeah, I'm Jordan from Dead Letter Bureau and I was Agent Magpie today.

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And I am Nick, I played Miles, and I'm from Dead Little Bureau as well, and I edit the

show.

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Over to you, Hank.

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Hi, I'm Hank.

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I wrote the campaign with lot of help from Patrick and yeah, just very excited that you

guys uh got to play it.

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Yeah, it was a blast.

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Yeah, dude, it was really fun.

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There were a bunch of times where I was like, fuck yeah, when stuff was happening.

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So I was very stoked most.

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I don't want to hype it too much, but I've played a lot of the scenarios, not necessarily

campaigns, like the Delta Green official ones, and this was so much more fun.

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The writing and stuff was much more interesting, and the twists and turns, I felt like it

didn't follow that.

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that like, hey, investigate, kind of fight a monster cover up, right?

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Like the structure of this was really cool.

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And I know it's kind of a, you can only do it once type of thing, but it's super cool.

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So thank you.

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Yeah.

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yeah, definitely the takeaway when writing this was like go for the big swing because it

started out as a single scenario adventure and then basically it after Yeah, well then it

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was like well, you know if you get to do this twist once um What's the biggest what's the

biggest swing you can take with that?

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Yeah, that's cool.

30

Sam, did you have question?

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Yeah, I mean, I could kind of see the breakdown of that because the structure was this

nice, ah you know, three part.

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eh And then you're obviously playing with expectations because I know when Patrick was

like, oh, now you go in the past.

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I was like, book.

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Yeah.

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Which I guess spoilers and.

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Don't listen to this before you've listened to the show.

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Or fuck it, listen to this before you listen to the show, whatever.

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Fuck it, man.

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You got free will.

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Yeah, yeah, what?

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Why?

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I had a couple questions about that actually, like thinking through that.

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think my first big one, and you know, maybe everybody writes differently.

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I know when I write for our show or when I write for any of the stuff, you know, we do,

there's always something.

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that I'm basing it around.

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Sometimes it's based around like a personal experience that I'm like working some shit

through.

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Sometimes it's based around something really weird that sits with me for a while.

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You know, we do a lot of improv games on our show and that's usually how I come up with

stuff.

49

Seems like that there could be something there or what was, was there anything like that,

I guess, underlying this or how did that inspiration happen?

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Hank, you're on air.

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What's your trauma?

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Yeah, ready to hear the drama dump.

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And we've got a therapist here, so this is actually a patient-client relationship.

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uh

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Yeah, so.

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have to roll psychotherapy.

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Yeah, correct.

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Oh yeah, and two doctors, man.

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This is going to be expensive.

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god.

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I'm dealing with, I'm going through a braces treatment right now and a whole insurance

problem so I got enough going on with that.

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But no, the actual trauma is that um when I was in high school there was uh what we

thought was a very real school shooter situation.

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um Pretty much everyone hiding in the, um I was hiding in a dark room.

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um

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basically thinking about like did I not send enough text to my family and Then it kind of

happened to a lesser extent again when I was in college And then the other so that's kind

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of the mass violence Aspect of it which just kind of started I started noticing that I got

kind of anxious around just being in crowds and Just like oh gosh, what what if something

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happens?

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And the other thing was that the memory loss, which I've been scared of for ages, I used

to be scared of Groundhog Day, where it was like, they're just forgetting every loop, But

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no, that's kind of from my great grandmother and um my grandfather, who uh recently

passed, of Parkinson's.

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And ah he basically is Roger Douglas in this campaign.

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um So this is kind of my...

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to him I guess even though he would not approve of this work.

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um

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appreciate it as Roger Douglas doesn't get a super great light in the...

75

No.

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Well, it's a tribute anyways.

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That's good, that's good.

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Yeah, but that's kind of where the intersection kind of happened was trying to think

about, um you know, that thinking of, you know, so many, you know, terrible mass violent

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things happen in the United States, at least right now.

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And um I definitely can't remember them all.

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So.

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that's what I was gonna say just to that comment is that it, that's what it struck me as

is like this idea that we have so many things coming at us at once.

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And then, uh yeah, yeah.

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This idea that like the mytho stuff or the weird stuff is just a reflection of the awful

things that we deal with every day.

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It really struck me with that.

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So good job on that.

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Yeah.

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you.

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I forgot to send you guys, now you can download it and look at it, which you might think

is fun.

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yeah, that'd be great.

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drop your link.

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interesting.

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ah Just to see all the beats.

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Yeah, I am kind of interested in some of those things potentially.

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I feel like there's a lot of.

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to even understand just the corners that we didn't look at.

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Yeah.

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guys covered a lot of ground.

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um I think there's a very scant handful of things you guys didn't do.

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um I think the only clue I worked on that you guys didn't follow up on was you never

translated the chant because you hated the chant and avoided the chant at all costs.

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I think that may have been because I saw the geometric shapes and I was like don't tell me

this I don't want to know it because I get the sense that if I see the shapes and then I

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hear the chant I'm gonna turn into a worm god.

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Okay oh yeah.

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For sure.

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think for Moll it's because he started with 40 sanity.

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So it wasn't exactly the best starting, but it was actually 30 technically.

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thought narratively that was like one of the most fun components was just like knowing

that he was the powder keg that we had to kind of like work around because also like we

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did depend on you for an awful lot.

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em Yeah.

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em

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ahead, Mack, bye.

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Or Jordan.

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I'm gonna.

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Yeah, yeah, right.

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That's just me now.

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I honestly had to work really hard not to ask my characters or my questions in character

here, too.

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If there's anything else about that other topic, I was just going to launch into a trio of

questions.

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um So I do have to roll relatively soon, but I had three questions that are all kind of

centered around the um the big bad lady in the center of this.

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um So I'm curious, first and foremost, how how Mother Hydra chose her victims?

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Yes, so that is basically reaching out to people who were already kind of susceptible to

this kind of on-the-short voice in your ear um telling you again and again and again for

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ages to do terrible things until eventually just kind of broke you down.

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Yeah, enough sleepless nights.

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If your willpower hits zero, you become Mother Hydra's killer.

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I don't remember if we actually wrote that in or if that's just how I'm running it.

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Okay, yeah.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Because it's maybe mean.

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Hmm.

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Yeah, so some of the killers are definitely um sympathetic, but some of them are also

just, you know, they did not need a lot of encouragement.

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Which that's a pretty cool underlying like mirror of the whole like intrusive thoughts

like I can't you know it's like I don't want to do this but like my brain like why do I

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keep having this thought and then eventually it becomes a plague and yeah but anyway keep

going Jordan

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Yeah, I'm writing down comments.

133

Yeah.

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a groove like a wheelbarrow.

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I'm writing down some comments cause Jordan, I want you to get your questions, but this is

like, there's a couple things about.

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Yeah, for sure.

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Believe me, I would not have three questions if I had more time, I would have many more.

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um yeah, what?

139

Yeah, yeah.

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What, from like a game timeline perspective, what if we pussyfooted around the Bon Marché

and we didn't get there until Anthony Hayden's timeline progressed?

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So, January 2nd, a woman with a bomb vest detonates it on the ferry to Bainbridge Island.

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um If that happens and you do nothing about it, you could theoretically fuck around for

another 66 days before another mass casualty event, but Mother Hydra is like

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growing pretty slowly down in that basement actually.

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I don't think there's an exponential growth here at all.

145

um The killings happen in accelerating and decelerating waves and I think you could

potentially leave Hydra in that basement for years and just let her kill...

146

I don't know.

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Ten...

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five, 10 people every couple of months and it will never resolve itself.

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It will expand in area, but it won't, and it might expand in like consequences, like, I

don't know, airliners start going down or something.

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But I think it's all very small.

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It's not an apocalypse, you know, it's into.

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to become an epicenter, right?

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So it's, well, right, but she wouldn't want to be known for that, right?

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And so it's escalating, but in a malignant way, not in, like you said, not an exponential

way.

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right.

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And I do think that she wants to be here too.

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Like it's an intrusion that this is some way of pulling herself into reality while

obliterating the parts of it that are a threat to her.

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Yeah, when you read the text, it's not super spelled out, but there is kind of some

implication that the dimension that she comes from is pretty awful and...

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question is what was the inspiration or what did that mean to you, to her, to everything?

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Yeah, so this started off as a game based off of the Labyrinth source book.

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um So there is, does everyone know that?

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um

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actually have not read it.

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Yes, yes I do.

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Okay, well it's not spoilers to say that one of the factions in that game is centered on

the town of Stanton.

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And Stanton is just Chelan.

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um And I read that and I grew up around or going to Chelan a lot.

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And I was like, this is bullshit.

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Like, they got all this wrong.

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um And so, sorry, I'm trying to remember the question now.

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It's really just about Mother Hydra's home plane and what that represented metaphorically

or what it meant to her also.

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Yeah, so the main villains from those, uh from that, are very nihilistic in nature.

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yeah, ah so drawing on that was kind of the idea of, yeah, a place that is just so

terrible, you feel so terrible, and then breaking into this reality is almost her uh

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spreading that uh misery and nihilism and just...

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tearing down other people.

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um The actual inspiration for it, like the other dimension and everything, I think Patrick

came up with a lot of the stuff that you guys saw.

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um I was drawing from uh the short story Hydra by Henry Kuttner.

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I should have read that.

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It's hard to find.

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I could only find an audio version.

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Really?

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What?

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Interesting.

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mean, to make it unsearchable in today's terms means that like, you know, your creative

juices are safe, which is, that's pretty fun.

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eh Sick.

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Thank you so much for entertaining me.

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I do got a skedaddle, but thank you guys.

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This was phenomenal.

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thank you.

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It was delight to play with you.

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Same, same, same.

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Many more times.

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Bye.

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Thanks.

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I also gotta run at 6.30 because I'm also playing this campaign.

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I'm trying to wrap it up.

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You're good.

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Yeah.

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lined this right up.

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Where's your team?

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Are they about to go in?

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Are you hoping they are about to go in?

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guys experienced the attack on your families.

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um They are dealing with that right now.

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One of them...

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Jimmy's wife.

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I, oh, I meant to tell you this.

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No, actually Sam did.

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will.

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No, I did.

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And I know I did.

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You killed the mood.

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I killed my wife.

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And I think.

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Well, so this is what's interesting is you're like, do you want to do anything?

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And we had I've been thinking over this, which I think is a credit to like a good.

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No, I think it's a credit to like a good game when you leave and you're like.

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shit, I should have done this differently.

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And you there's one point where like, what do you want to do?

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Because essentially, I'm like playing my wife as like a proxy.

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And I'm like, I should have just told her to run.

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And we even talked about it before.

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But I got invested in the situation.

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And I didn't.

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And one, like, that's not what I should have done.

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And especially at playing like a character with a search and rescue kind of crisis

management background.

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That's what I should have done.

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But

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even like the best of the best of like crisis management, like emergency response people,

they're gonna make bad fucking calls when it's their family involved, which is why as a

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doctor, when people are like, my family, they're like, hey, what should I do?

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And I'm like, I'll give you some general advice, but I don't wanna be your doctor, cause I

have blind spots when it comes to my family.

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I should have told her to run and I didn't and she died because I didn't tell her to run.

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I mean, maybe she would have died anyway, but running would have been the smart choice and

I didn't make that call.

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Um, and that's, that's on me and realistic.

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I was aghast.

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I was not trying to kill your bond.

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I was actively trying not to.

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And you guys kept calling for rolls.

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You're like, okay, can she roll to sneak away?

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I'm like, yeah, I guess.

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She's not gonna succeed and then she'd bomb it.

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And can I roll to take the knife from him?

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It's like, yeah, sure.

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You

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And then you like crit failed twice in a row, like trying to run.

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I'm like, yeah, she's dead.

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I'm so sorry.

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And I think even in...

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time I should just tell you instead of rolling anything my wife gets away safely And I

should just say that

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It was supposed to make you nervous and be like, get out of there, honey.

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Get out of there and call the police.

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Yeah, Patrick, I watched this all go down as somebody who has played with Jimmy now for a

third of my life.

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And I was like, A, don't do that because he's going to be like, I'll roll this and do that

and do this.

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And then when you called on me, I was like, second mistake.

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was like, you are second strike here to play the.

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it's intense.

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of like permission to do thicc.

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I don't know.

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I I think like as a player I want to like and you're great as a handler and so I don't

want to I've played games that go badly where players don't understand what's happening

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and they're like I do that you know you're playing a D &D game and the wizards like I cast

kill all the enemies and you're like that's not a thing

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Yeah, you gotta respect the fiction.

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uh Sam, can you give Hank here a preview of the voice you did for Morrison's wife?

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In what I believe is the most...

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like The Simpsons.

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Yeah, what was your first name?

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What was Agent Morrison's first name?

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well, it was his name is chase Brown.

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That's his real name

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like, oh, Jace, Jace!

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I didn't know we were going for a serious moment, so I went real fucked up on it.

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And then it landed, but didn't land.

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Yeah.

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And she was like, oh no, oh no!

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Yep.

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Yeah, I did.

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Yeah, I really hit the tone perfectly.

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mean, it was great.

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Like I, you know, I, I think that one of the things that makes Delta Green good, or one of

the things that I think we all appreciate about Delta Green, Call of Cthulhu, as opposed

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to D &D or other systems is like people you care about die.

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Like it's, that's a thing.

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And I think that's some of the catharsis to like writing these things and playing them out

as people.

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It's like, there's something real about this or at least

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mirroring reality.

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And I do feel attacking or going after bonds is a really good uh thing.

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It's something that doesn't get done a lot, I think, em but it's a very good,

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made me want to run this scenario, is in Home Sweet Home, you get two calls.

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The first is like a shooting threat.

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And the second is, I'm outside of your bond's house.

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In five minutes, I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna kill them.

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I'm like, holy shit, that's so cool.

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Cause if I think back to like the published scenarios, there's probably only, there's like

one I can think about that does that um in any form.

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And it's a lot more magical.

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You know what I mean?

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At least that's okay.

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I won't say anything, but it just in general is a lot, this was a lot more grounded.

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Do you know I mean?

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And I feel like fucking with bonds in a grounded manner is really good because when it

becomes this whole like,

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uh, you know, some monster, yeah, like shoots a laser or something.

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Then it's like, yeah, this sucks.

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But like, but when it's like something that you can actually see, it just drives home.

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It's like it forces a good scene between you and your bond.

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And even somebody who maybe doesn't want to do the acting part, who isn't as comfortable,

um, not that we did any acting there, but like who's less comfortable, you know, role

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playing out.

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It still kind of forces some of that.

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Yeah, it's.

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wild.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I will say like two quick thoughts on that one.

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I feel like for a lot of our games and I think for a lot of people's games, bonds just

become like a sanity sink.

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And yeah, and yeah, it's not enjoyable.

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I think this forced bonds to be what I think bonds should be.

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And especially because there was a point afterward where you're like, do you guys want to

project on your bonds?

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And I was like, well, one of mine's dead.

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And you're like, yeah, shit.

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So.

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You know, it, becomes also like a reminder.

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Um, so I just loved, I think it was, I like that use of bonds as like a weak point more

than I like bonds being used as a San Los sink.

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Um, and then

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better as like a narrative device that you that the player has given the DM I think

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And then also Hank, when you said, Hank, when you said you have to leave at six 30, did

you mean like in three minutes?

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in a few minutes that I'm joining a discord call so I'm sure it'll take I'm sure it'll

take five minutes for everyone to actually show up 15 minutes to actually get playing

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Yeah.

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All right, Nick, do you got any questions?

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Yeah, I mean, I have more than I can ask.

326

I would say to distill it down, I, sorry I wrote it down.

327

Whoops, I had like four, so.

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Happy to answer questions in Discord as well.

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also fine.

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And I'll stick around for a couple minutes.

331

Do you have anything specifically for Hank, who wrote?

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yeah.

333

So Hank, um you you talked about the trauma that led up to writing this.

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uh How long did it take to write?

335

And then how did Patrick interface with you?

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Was it mostly you?

337

Was it both of you?

338

What was the process like behind it?

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I this over kind of like the week of Christmas and I want to say I wrote the first draft

in

340

maybe even 2022.

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And that went nowhere and it sat there for a year.

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And then I rewrote it after thinking about it for a year.

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And Patrick randomly responded when I shared it in the reanimators discord like, yeah, I'd

run this.

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And then I learned that he was running it.

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And just having one person actually like run something that...

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I was like working on basically encouraged me to actually take it seriously and try to

push it extremely, extremely hard towards making it look like a finished product.

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And I couldn't have done that without Patrick, who's also offering a bunch of, you know,

great feedback and uh additional writing even, I would say, and just great editing all

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around and providing scans of props.

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So

350

I think it is, think truly like Patrick kind of got it to the finish line.

351

Awesome, that's great.

352

Yeah, yeah, I love it.

353

And I'm excited to read it look at the layout and stuff.

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I haven't opened it yet.

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But um yeah, I have a last question, unless somebody else has a question for Hank.

356

maybe one other thing, so go for it, Nick.

357

Well, I just want to say, are you writing anything like now?

358

Like, are you going to release anything soon?

359

Like what's coming up?

360

Yeah, so I'm going to try to do a like re layout version of this for kind of a Final draft

and especially like incorporating any feedback that you guys have like very seriously um

361

So now that it's actually been and Just keep learning them where people keep playtesting

this and says like my gosh, like we can actually do something here um Right now I'm

362

writing a Hawaii uh

363

kind of one shot for Delta Green uh for the Night of the Opera contest.

364

I'm trying to finish a Puerto Rico scenario.

365

I have family from both places, trying to touch on that.

366

then I would like to, the other campaign idea I actually have would be a Cthulhu campaign

in the modern day.

367

um And, because I feel like no one has really given a good shot at uh mirroring the three

acts of

368

Yeah, the three acts of the Call of Cthulhu into a Delta Green campaign.

369

And then after that, I hope to never write for this game again.

370

move to a different game yeah

371

You just wrote something for, um, what's that system called?

372

Arkham Herald.

373

It's an upcoming system for uh like, Brindlewood Bay, if you know that card from

Brindlewood.

374

So they're doing a game where you play as journalists in the 70s investigating Cthulhu

mythos stories basically as reporters.

375

That's cool.

376

Yeah, I may have been talking with you on Discord actually, uh and maybe 9mm someplace

about that, because that sounds very familiar.

377

Yeah, hey!

378

How's it going?

379

Small world.

380

Yeah, I was like, I was like, yeah, I I this person enjoys it.

381

Yeah.

382

That's so funny.

383

Yeah, that was going to be my question is what you're doing next with it.

384

um I guess where you're.

385

Where things are, how'd you feel about doing this from a taking something of yourself that

is so personal and kind of, um again, I mean, it sounds lame kind of, but like drama,

386

which I totally get and turning it into that, was that cathartic for you or does it make

you not want to run it again, do something like this again?

387

Does it make you want to do something more surface level or more like involved in like the

Delta green, like reading through the labyrinth and running something?

388

Cause I could kind of see either way, especially with it being put out there and people

like playing through it, you know?

389

So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

390

I know, guess, I don't feel any, um, like, self, um...

391

I don't feel any hesitation about that just because it feels like, um

392

I know, it felt like important to share in some sense.

393

Like this was, uh...

394

I just was a part of me and it was, uh...

395

I'm always, like as a poorer writer, trying to think of like, okay, well what am I scared

of?

396

What am I scared of?

397

Yeah, we had that conversation and you're like, what are you afraid of?

398

I'm like the ocean.

399

Fuck the ocean.

400

you

401

Yeah, same.

402

I feel that.

403

that's interesting to me.

404

Would you consider, I haven't read through it obviously, would you consider adding any

part about your own personal, what the horror means for you kind of, even if it's somewhat

405

small?

406

The reason I ask that is that I know when I run things, it's helpful for me to get into

the head space of what the writer was doing when they wrote it for like where the horror

407

came from.

408

Cause you could pick up on a lot of different things from this.

409

You could pick up on memory loss.

410

You could pick up on mass shooting.

411

You could pick up on, I mean, there's probably even ways you could go about this with it

becomes more of like the governmental conspiracy side of things, you know?

412

um But, you know, to me, I like hearing those things because even if it's small, it gives

me that sense of like, this is what they were going for.

413

These are the themes.

414

Yeah, that was in the first draft.

415

I hope to include that in the final draft.

416

Yeah, you should.

417

love that.

418

do like kind of a jump off to that question, which is one I've been thinking for a second,

you can totally answer this on Discord if you need to for time.

419

Is there something that you would hope the players would get out of it?

420

Not just like, I had a good time, but like on Sam's note, like themes, it's like, cause we

talk about themes a lot when we're working on stuff.

421

And it's like, if you wanted someone to take away something from this as like a, sticks

with me, what would that be?

422

And that's a heavy question, so don't feel like you have to answer that now.

423

Yeah, no, I I think I know exactly what that is and I think what I'm going to plan for my

own group Is that you know in epilogues, you know, let's say they stopped the bad guy

424

Later on they'll just see a another mass shooting on TV not cause my mother hydra or

anything.

425

It's just still happening

426

Right, yeah, that's excellent.

427

the sign into you gives you early onset dementia.

428

Oh yeah, no that would- that's the other thing.

429

One of my players has done that and so their ending is going to be finding sticky notes

around their house.

430

Um, much like Roger.

431

Oh no!

432

yeah, we were.

433

that downside warning we wouldn't have, but...

434

Uh, there's no warning.

435

That's a trap.

436

so.

437

Yeah.

438

So just very briefly, that is what you just said is really the idea of, how do I put this

together?

439

The idea that you have uh these mass shootings that are happening and you almost have

something that comes in and alleviates you of that pain of the mass shootings of mass

440

casualties of violence.

441

And then you take it away only for people to realize that,

442

They didn't change the actual real world, right?

443

That just changed that we were missing out on stuff.

444

In some ways, it's almost a worse world for people that Mother Hydra is not there because

you are seeing all of these terrible things.

445

Maybe you forget all of that stuff.

446

Maybe you feel more safe, kind of.

447

uh

448

of the questions or comments I wrote down is like population health standpoint question

mark at what level is like the therapeutic index of like removing mother Hydra versus like

449

the damage humans are doing by their own mass shootings because it's like I mean, I don't

remember the number.

450

I think you said a number earlier, Patrick, but you're like, I don't know.

451

five to 10 people a year and then maybe like once every year or two there's like 35, 50

people who die in like a mass casualty event and I'm like that's pretty well within the

452

statistical norms so like

453

yeah.

454

Yeah.

455

But she's only hiding her own associations.

456

She's not hiding all of them.

457

She's only hiding things that she personally influenced that maybe wouldn't have happened

otherwise.

458

But still, and not to keep you, Hank, you can totally sit down, but still, there is

something to be said that if she is preventing those things from people from remembering

459

them and feeling that pain, and we're not doing anything to stop mass casualties, we're

not doing anything as a society to fix this.

460

then your next step is like, well then forget about it.

461

Like if you can just forget about these things, and cause we're not gonna fix them, right?

462

As a society, we've said we accept gun violence, we accept mass casualties.

463

So really in some way, thoughts and prayers, right?

464

And this is like.

465

in the context of therapeutic index.

466

Yeah, no, it is.

467

It's like almost like a population health.

468

Yeah.

469

So sorry.

470

Yeah.

471

Yeah.

472

Yeah.

473

cool to have that kind of analysis, I guess.

474

m

475

a lot of stuff with that because I think a lot of the ways that you're talking about the

hydropaying on praying on people who are susceptible to impulsivity, when you get

476

dementia, you end up being more impulsive.

477

There's these whole there's a whole thing that you tapped tapped into with this that is

from our medical from Jimmy Nye's medical and Nick from your the medical kind of

478

therapeutic mindset.

479

You can like see those things occurring.

480

And so it's like it makes sense to me that when you say it's somebody who's impulsive.

481

is more likely to get this or that it's kind of that, because that is what you see with

people who are losing memory anyways.

482

It's like a self-perpetuating thing.

483

like inhibitory stuff and it manifests in very specific ways.

484

Speaking of that, from the doctor uh point of view, from the therapist point of view, I

would love some notes from all of you on like versimilitude because one of the first

485

things that happened is I was like, yeah, he looks like he's shaky.

486

And you started asking me about symptoms.

487

I was like, oh shit, I'm like right out of my depth.

488

I saw your eyes get wide and I was like, eh how much can I do with this right now?

489

I was like, I know him at least well enough that I could just keep asking some fucking

questions here, so.

490

Yeah.

491

That's how you break any handler.

492

Yeah, that's right, right?

493

You're like, choose my thing that I know a lot about and I'm going to force it on you.

494

Yeah, so fuck you.

495

asshole.

496

not actual dementia.

497

Yeah

498

Yeah.

499

We looked at his brain scans.

500

They're normal.

501

It's hypergeometric dementia.

502

a Patrick original, think that improves the clue.

503

It was cool, yeah.

504

yeah, yeah, for sure.

505

Yes, and we will do that.

506

We should maybe have like just a discussion at some point, because I have, there's a lot

of things I think that I've got Radin-Loran in my brain, so.

507

Mm-hmm.

508

will also say, I...

509

We sometimes on our show and in our games get bogged down in the medical stuff, and I feel

like at some point just being like, fuck you, I'm the handler and this is hypergeometry.

510

Eat a dick.

511

what we did, but that's only because I didn't know enough about medicine.

512

And that's, I love that.

513

like, yeah, no, there, yeah.

514

And too many details.

515

I, this is a tangent, been rereading the Dune series and there's an entry, like an intro

quote about like specialist will just like kill something with arguing over minutiae.

516

And it's, like, that's, that's us.

517

So.

518

As doctors, I hope you appreciated trying to make guns scary in this game.

519

Yes, yeah, yes, no, it is.

520

the fear of, uh it's guns and it's also the idea of random violence.

521

It's something that makes you, yes, it is scary to have these random acts of violence.

522

And I think it's a very terrifying idea to me to think about the loss of memory, uh

specifically in regards to that, in regards to mass and how it affects, yeah.

523

to just like function on a basic level.

524

And also it was helped out by Magpie just like spraying everyone with gunfire.

525

I thought we might all just dive in in there.

526

That was a very close thing to ending the game.

527

That could have, yeah, stopped the game.

528

uh Somebody with a semi-automatic, a fully automatic SMG uh got fight and just unloaded on

the room.

529

uh And uh I gave him a minus 20 for like spraying and that minus 20 was the difference

between hitting and not hitting.

530

I also want to call out one thing about Patrick that you did that was very good with that.

531

When you had, um what's his face, kill that officer, just straight up shoot him, even

though it was just like a miscommunication between our group, that was excellent.

532

Because what that drove home was the idea that like, we weren't fucking, like, and

normally in our games we fuck around a whole lot.

533

And so like,

534

this was not as much of a fuck around game, but still we were like kind of fucking around

like, what do we do about this?

535

And then you were just like pop and killed somebody and like exploded their head.

536

And I was like, this is great.

537

Like that is, it was a, it changed the tenor of things.

538

And I think you kind of maybe felt bad cause you didn't, you thought maybe you

misunderstood us.

539

Even if there was a, yeah, no, it was beautiful.

540

would not, there was no way I would ever allow that to change because it immediately

brought into things.

541

And one thing I would say is that having an agent

542

do something like that, having him do that in the midst of things was excellent for that.

543

It brought home that violence, that guns are real, that like, isn't just some superhero

fantasy that we're playing, not that it really is that way, but you it really brought that

544

down.

545

And I think all four of us were like, fuck, you know?

546

So that was good.

547

Yeah.

548

And it, I think it mirrors.

549

Yeah.

550

No, I was gonna say, I think it mirrors the reality of like a high, um, a high risk

situation where like, I mean, that happens sometimes in Sam and I's line of work where

551

like you tell somebody like, Hey, I want you to do this.

552

And they misunderstand you and they do what you didn't intend and

553

you know, nobody just shoots someone in our line of work, but translating that to Delta

Green, it's like, I didn't want you to do X, I wanted you to do Y.

554

And they're like, I thought you meant X.

555

And in this situation, well, X means I kill this guy on the spot.

556

And you're like, well, fuck, there's no taking that back.

557

It's just very realistic and awesome.

558

pop quiz.

559

You are a Delta Green agent.

560

You have a gun.

561

A cop just saw a super awful unnatural thing and is fleeing the scene.

562

Your co-Delta Green agent points at the guy and shouts, him.

563

Yeah, it's so good.

564

does that mean to you?

565

He's gotta be recruiting to Friendly, No.

566

No, it's bad.

567

um Okay, I do really have to go right now.

568

Yeah, thank you.

569

Take care.

570

meeting you, man.

571

Appreciate it.

572

Yep.

573

Later.

574

Yeah.

575

I cause that was between Morrison and, uh, yeah, Liam.

576

And what I meant was tackle them.

577

Like in my mind, I'm like, get them.

578

meant now, but I'm just saying.

579

him.

580

I told you straight up moment kill him.

581

then the whole situation most like it fuck kill him.

582

Like let's move on from this.

583

Yeah.

584

isn't like...

585

Thank you.

586

imagined was we would grab him and have him prove to the other cops that we didn't kill

this woman and that's what I wanted him to do.

587

I know, I know.

588

Yeah.

589

we're like, oh, let's like get them and then I'll roll persuade and be like, you got to

tell the cops that this isn't real and we're going to do this.

590

And then so for somebody to just be like, pop, was like, okay, yes, this is yeah, it was

good.

591

reaction to that uh interaction.

592

Like I, I could not have come up with anything better if I tried.

593

It was beautiful.

594

That was good.

595

guys have any favorite moments and or any things that you think didn't quite work?

596

The only thing I would say that I wanted to talk eventually with everybody about is more

the playing mole, forgetting things was hard to do.

597

I don't feel like I did a very good job of it, or maybe I did like a middling job of it, I

would say.

598

but like hiding that you've forgotten something was the mission I gave you and you did it

because you had megalomania like

599

that's probably the only thing that I think would be hard to do with that is that if the

options given to be able to do that, then what may be helpful with that is maybe even just

600

a couple examples of how that would look.

601

Do you know I mean?

602

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

603

some like A, A, B, C.

604

Here's some examples.

605

Here's how you can demonstrate it.

606

This, that sort of thing.

607

That's what I do want to put that in.

608

I think that if you are at a table that's maybe new, not that I, I don't know, if you're

at a newer table or newer or whatever, they may not know how to communicate that and it

609

may be kind of frustrating.

610

So if you check out the, we actually added a bunch of notes to this on how to run it as

your first Delta Green campaign um with a bunch of notes for new handlers and stuff like

611

that.

612

Cause the Delta Green campaign jam had an optional uh make your first campaign for new

handlers.

613

Yeah.

614

Cause that's a cool rule or a cool thing.

615

But I think it need, if you have examples for how that could land, it's hard.

616

Yeah.

617

first person who has taken that option.

618

Frankly, up till now, it has been a, like a fake option.

619

It's so that you feel like there's this really awful consequence of what's going on on a

meta level.

620

It's a threat.

621

So you take the willpower loss every time, obviously, because the other thing is like too

crazy to like even consider.

622

And then you did, and I was like, well, shit.

623

Yeah, you're like, now how do we do this?

624

Right.

625

And I think from the player perspective is that em you may not know how to interact with a

story.

626

Cause it, I think the idea of doing it is excellent and playing it off is excellent.

627

But I think a couple examples of how to continue to interact with the story.

628

Cause I don't even know if you need to explain like how you should act and maybe give one

example, but really it should be like the agents are doing this.

629

You want to participate.

630

Here is how you would.

631

participate in this manner kind of way.

632

that was what I, that's where I felt, not loss is way too strong, but that's where I was

like, okay, how do I do something here?

633

You know what I mean?

634

Like do something now, but still also give off that I don't know what the fuck's going on.

635

Luckily, Mole didn't know what the fuck was going on.

636

So.

637

Speaking of almost detonating the campaign, almost as uh wild as gunning down everyone in

the room was Miles pointing at Magpie and going, forget the investigation.

638

He was gonna kill us.

639

Man, like.

640

about that.

641

That's fucking yeah, that's fucking awesome.

642

Yeah

643

you were going with that, but I was along for the ride.

644

I was excited to see where that went.

645

sure.

646

You so what's really interesting about giving you a spell like that, which is based or the

way I gave it to you as a ritual is very Loose right you assign a target and you say what

647

they forget and then it happens and you kept picking these crazy like like these huge wide

but very hard to pick out things like

648

I would have imagined you could say something like, uh forget why you're angry.

649

Yeah, something more.

650

Yeah, I don't, just went big with it.

651

I wouldn't know, right?

652

demolishing like...

653

That's excellent to me though in the way that if somebody was given access to something

that they don't understand what it is, but it carries a tremendous amount of power.

654

That is like, that's like Spider-Man trying to figure out is like webbing shit.

655

That's like the, you're like the baby Cole, like, or whatever, like trying to learn how to

walk or whatever the fuck that is.

656

Like that truly, and like, you're just going to destroy people.

657

It's a nuclear weapon that you don't even really understand that you have, you know?

658

love that you didn't succeed at it until the boss fight, because yeah, that's what it does

is you take the memories.

659

That's cool.

660

there.

661

That's interesting.

662

Yeah, and I don't know.

663

I mean, because Patrick, you've run this before, right?

664

Did you have anyone do?

665

I guess in that in that game, did anyone do the pinpoint like I'm going to do very because

I feel like in, I mean, it's basically like launching a missile, right?

666

And missiles can be like carpet.

667

Well, missiles are bombs and you can do like carpet bombing or you can do targeted

strikes, but targeted strikes are harder.

668

And I think most people are going to

669

just be like, let me carpet bomb this thing.

670

No, so the two other people I ran this for, um it's Majde and Wilder, they're credited as

play testers in this scenario, and uh they're my core gaming group, and so we're super

671

familiar with each other, it's really easy, you know, and they used it exactly the way I

imagined they would.

672

uh They used it to steal a car.

673

Hey.

674

forget that's your car.

675

And they use that to get out of shell and they

676

No, well, so I, I, I say-

677

in this like chat right now with you.

678

None of those people are people who would do something like that.

679

Yeah.

680

a fundamental and basic immediate level.

681

And they used it to solve low stakes problems with willpower loss.

682

And eventually the player who had access to it was like, oh, I'm in a dire threat now.

683

They had uh pissed off Teddy and Teddy's sister to the point where like Wilder was in the

stairwell killing Teddy by smashing his head against like the stairs.

684

and his sister was in the truck with the other guy, like with a gun pressed to his

forehead, and he was like, I need to tell her to forget, like, that she's here, but I only

685

have two willpower left, and it costs three.

686

do I do?

687

A, they need to go the Christian nationalist route that we went, which is always the

correct option.

688

uh And then B,

689

No, that works right up his alley.

690

If you wanted to, oh think, um emphasize that more as a tool, if you gave even one example

of somebody using it, even talking about it as a tool, like quite clearly, where they used

691

it in some small way, I think that would have primed us.

692

But if you don't, then meh.

693

Yeah.

694

I just thought it was two super different ways of using it.

695

and it

696

thought to use it on mole so he wouldn't lose so much sanity at the beginning.

697

I was gonna say, maybe I can negate all of his sand loss by telling him to forget it all

happened.

698

But then magpie and I'm just like, all right, I'm gonna use it for that.

699

Here's the question.

700

the spell?

701

Forget your sand loss?

702

yeah.

703

I wasn't going to let that work for housekeeping reasons.

704

Because we already had trouble with timey-wimey sand loss and being able to forget sand

losses means we have to dig back and figure out what that was and how much it was.

705

Should we include a note that says, hey, they might use it this way, track sand loss on

paper?

706

Yeah, I think two parts for that are that yes, second part is I would give an example for

how it moves from act one to act two to act three for maybe two player sanity so that it's

707

directly spelled out what you want them to do.

708

So like they lose this amount, so then it starts over and then they lose this amount and

this is what it is.

709

Yeah.

710

Yeah.

711

And I think that's one point when you ask like, are there any like points that were

unclear that you'd add clarification?

712

Honestly, the only point where I think from like a, like a, the, glance briefly at the

PDF.

713

The only thing I would add is like, try to make it.

714

And I didn't read it.

715

So maybe it's more clear in the PDF.

716

I just flipped through it, but going from the like flashback and then back to current

time.

717

make that a little bit more clear because I'm still not sure that I did it right.

718

If I'm being honest.

719

not in person, where we can't hold up our sheets to each other and say, oh, this is what

we're doing.

720

and I did also have the thought that I'm like, this may be a problem of playing remotely.

721

And you know, that is what it is.

722

Because you guys shouldn't A.

723

Have to know the mechanic or B.

724

Know the mechanic.

725

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with that.

726

I think it's better as a secret.

727

And I think the way you do that is to give a couple examples and say, this is what it is,

exactly how we have it.

728

And so that way, all you have to do is be like, what was your sanity?

729

What was your sanity?

730

What was your sanity?

731

And then boom, it's like done, you know?

732

I'm a moderately lazy handler, so I don't like track that sort of thing in a way that I

could.

733

And in a way that I know other people do.

734

uh That's, yes.

735

But...

736

problem with the players tracking it is that if, if they don't know the mechanics and they

get something wrong or something happens, then it becomes the storm of now you have to

737

kind of give the mechanic.

738

Yeah, exactly.

739

Whereas if you just had here is how it works and give the example or even give like, if

it's this, then this, then all you have to do is be like, what's your sand?

740

Okay.

741

And then we move on.

742

You know I mean?

743

What, what is it?

744

Now it's this.

745

that we screwed up malls and somewhere in the middle

746

If you want players to track it, I would maybe put in a note to the handler that like at

the end of Act 1, tell the players like on your sheet or if you make a new sheet, make

747

very clear what you're saying is at the end of Act 1.

748

Like you have to know that number.

749

Yeah, and I failed at it because I suck.

750

all of you at the end.

751

Yeah, that's okay.

752

Yeah, whatever.

753

No, I think that those are the only two things that popped out is any part of uh

bottlenecks for just like doing stuff.

754

Otherwise there was no, otherwise it was like fun as hell.

755

So uh yeah, there's, yeah.

756

like, it was, even that was fun as hell.

757

The whole thing was excellent.

758

Oh yeah, that was like not a problem at all.

759

felt like it was anything.

760

I do think the communication of themes is excellent.

761

What I personally, when I read through things and when we play stuff, when I feel most

satisfied is when we walk away and somebody is like, oh, you did this maybe because of

762

this.

763

And I'm like, yeah, you know what I mean?

764

And not like, oh, the guy shot this guy because his wife was cheating on him.

765

Like not the story beats.

766

mean, like they were like, oh, I picked up on the theme of like modern surveillance with

this and like that's.

767

like perfect so

768

So that's hilarious and that all goes to Hank because I don't do themes.

769

really?

770

uh

771

do, um like, I am much better at, like, visual set pieces.

772

And, like, I can imagine a scene and then tell you what I think it's going to look like,

but I can't, I don't, I'm not good at putting together a themed story like that.

773

um Like, I was really happy with the red star place where Hydra lives.

774

Yeah.

775

Yeah.

776

Yeah.

777

Yeah.

778

I noticed consistently throughout is I very much enjoyed your like physical description of

scenes.

779

It was good.

780

I liked it.

781

Yeah, I'm really glad that Hank's themes can come through even with that.

782

That's really cool.

783

the argument that maybe you don't feel good at it, like you probably, mean, you're, you,

you're able to take this and, and the themes come through even with all that, you know?

784

So, yeah.

785

So.

786

I'm glad you took the themes away with you.

787

A technical question, uh what if we'd gotten to Hydra earlier?

788

Because I know somebody, think maybe Jordan asked like, what if we didn't address it and

got to it later?

789

And that made me think like, what if we got to it earlier?

790

Very hard to, very, very hard to.

791

You did, yeah.

792

Gunning it straight from, um you could have, I don't know, cheated and gotten there

straight from Chelan without stopping at Hayden's house.

793

I think you did find a record that he worked at Valerie's Coffee somewhere, but I think

the, I think we do kind of maybe need a stronger hint.

794

Yeah.

795

for towards the Bon Marché from Anthony Hayden's apartment.

796

um Hayden's apartment, yeah.

797

Yeah, that sucks.

798

That's not a...

799

I know what you mean.

800

maybe this is just me and I don't, maybe something about the verbiage of what you said at

the time, but like in Act Two, when we were investigating the people who showed up to the

801

retreat, you know, we talked to whatever name was the lady whose head imploded with worms.

802

ah We talked to her about her past.

803

We looked into Anthony's past.

804

And maybe this is just my investigative style, but it's...

805

very history focused, like personal history focused.

806

And so I was like, we had information even back during Operation Hilo Legacy that he

worked there.

807

And so even as far back as that, that was on my list.

808

But again, I don't know if that's something the average person would do.

809

we need to do a better job of flagging that information, I think.

810

And that is the big key at Hayden's apartment is the $0, zero cents paychecks.

811

Yeah.

812

No, it keyed me in immediately that I was like, we should go there because something weird

is happening, AKA in memory stuff is going on.

813

hadn't fully put together that he was there, but I definitely keyed in on the idea that

like something's happening there repeatedly and this happens only in repeated situations.

814

I think even something as small as it being repeated in each aspect of meaning each

chapter would be enough to key a player in.

815

where it's like there's one clue that points to Valerie there in first one, one clue in

the second, and then bring it up again in the third, then it's not just you saying

816

Valerie's coffee shop, Valerie's coffee shop.

817

Maybe.

818

know how to put it in the first act without giving that information to Roger.

819

And I don't want that to be information that Roger personally has.

820

it's already, Roger is an info dump.

821

He's got a lot going on.

822

so you could make the Bon Marché personal to Anthony, right?

823

Like in the investigation, there could be something, details that like, maybe when he

caught that first charge, he was doing drugs at the Bon Marché, or maybe he worked there

824

before it was shut down, or maybe his mom worked there.

825

You can add like a personal hook where it's like, why?

826

down.

827

He's sad.

828

That really perfect.

829

There it is.

830

like worming her way in.

831

She's like, oh, he has these memories of the Bon Marché.

832

Like, I'm gonna keep him there, right?

833

Yeah.

834

Oh, by the way, ah the name of the thing that is in Anthony, it killed me the first time I

read it because it is only referenced in the ah enemy block.

835

What do you call that?

836

ah Yeah, in the stat block.

837

He has it called the Avatar of Worms.

838

Avatar of Worms, aka Mother Hydra.

839

card.

840

fucking yeah.

841

I was like, that's the only place it's mentioned and I like got to him like, oh that guy,

I know exactly who that is.

842

What the hell.

843

Metal.

844

it's very layered, barren.

845

It's excellent.

846

Yeah, it is very learn-bearing.

847

question for you, Nick, I think because you and Jordan have like a lot of personal

knowledge and history, just, we write a lot of our games or I don't know, Sam and I have

848

talked about games around like Kansas city, St.

849

Louis, Missouri.

850

And I feel like there's something to that, that eases the cognitive burden of an

investigative game in the sense of like Bon Marché.

851

and the coffee shop, do you think that like it being a setting you're familiar or even

like where the fuck is Chelan?

852

Like I didn't know.

853

And so that's like, I'm having to like try and like orient myself to a space that you just

have a natural orientation of.

854

I guess, Patrick, in the game that you ran before, did the people have an intuitive

knowledge of that?

855

And do you think that playing it with people from that geographic area had any influence?

856

Yes, um without the knowledge of the geographical area, there was a lot of very easy, like

everybody had Google Maps open all the time.

857

yeah, and that's totally OK.

858

And having people super familiar with the area was also super easy and super clean.

859

And it felt like gliding.

860

And it was a little tough having half and half.

861

uh

862

because I didn't have a way to like slow it down for the people who have to Google map it.

863

At that point, you think it would be worth including, again, maybe you did, but like

including a very like basic map of the geographic area?

864

And maybe not even...

865

of scenarios that have like, is here, this is here, like in it.

866

Yeah, that's true.

867

Yeah.

868

Alright.

869

Yep.

870

Fair enough.

871

San Juan Island, and I made you all pull up a Google map of it.

872

But we could.

873

matter.

874

It's just like, you just need to know it's about three and a half hours away and that's

about it.

875

Yeah.

876

I'll say I'm someone who is very like heavily space oriented.

877

And so maybe that's why I'm fixating on it.

878

Because I'm like, wait, where the fuck are we going when it doesn't really matter?

879

Like you said, Nick, it's three and a half hours away.

880

It doesn't matter if it's north, south, east, west.

881

But in my mind, I'm like, it does matter.

882

Am I driving into the ocean or am I not?

883

Yeah, I do like that it is oriented so that you can Google map it the whole time.

884

And the Google maps do matter.

885

I'm really upset that the location list I gave you didn't plot the spiral, because that

was a very fun moment for one of my players.

886

Yeah, and that may-

887

about that though, because I had the spiral plotted out, but there was, I don't know what

happened with that, but I had that spiral plotted out.

888

Cause I remember that on, when we were all in discord talking, I was like, there's a

spiral or there was some moment where I was like, this is a spiral.

889

Yeah.

890

did a weird like jaggedy, it wasn't in the date order to make the spiral.

891

Something odd, I gotta check up on that.

892

No, it was cool though, that was a cool moment.

893

Yeah, it was.

894

And like very key to the investigation because that's like, that's how we knew to go to

Valerie's coffee shop.

895

That is the second way of figuring out where you should be going.

896

Well, should we cut it guys?

897

Yeah, sounds good.

898

Cool.

899

got no more questions.

900

I'm sure I have a bunch.

901

I have to like sit and ponder for a little bit because I have more about the themes in

writing too, but yeah.

902

I'd say is like as a comment, um playing like 90 % of the games that I have with Sam,

Patrick, your style is different.

903

And I think there were some miscommunications that resulted in some awesome like missteps

and I fucking loved it.

904

Like I know, I know you were like, I'm not a detail oriented person, but compared to how

we play, I'm like, shit, he's asking me for an updated character sheet.

905

I you are tragically the only person that did not track failures.

906

I'm so sorry.

907

intended to every time and then I didn't.

908

It's like I'm going to keep track of it this time.

909

And then you're like, what were your failures?

910

And I'm like, I don't know.

911

we don't even like update our character sheets on things.

912

They don't want to get better.

913

They want to fail.

914

That's what their whole goal in this game is, is just fail forward.

915

So it is, no.

916

last time we played with our group and it was let's not update our character sheets too

often so that we our characters don't get too strong

917

Oh, I don't know that you have to worry about that.

918

Y'all were at the bottom of the barrel.

919

yeah

920

no thank you very much it was

921

I hope to play with all of you again.

922

This was a ton of fun.

923

Yeah, thank you guys.

924

Appreciate all of this.

925

I love it so much.

926

So yeah, this is a blast.

927

Cool.

928

See you guys later.

929

Yep.