Post mortem: Hourglass and the perfect gunfight soundtrack
I just finished running Hourglass (from Black Sites) for my group. I haven't seen this scenario discussed very much on here, but it immediately jumped out to me as one I simply had to run for one simple reason: I had no idea what I would do in that situation!
I now know what not to do. Don't kill a bunch of local police and then call in the FBI. Still, it was good fun.
If you're planning to run this, the first thing you should know is what it's really about. The text says it's about an evil group of wizards body swapping their way to immortality and the cult they've formed around them. What it's actually about is the very real phenomenon of it being an open secret that a church is harboring abusers while being completely immune to any consequences. Though I haven't run God's Teeth, it seems like Hourglass is basically a mini version of it in some sense.
Figuring out who the abusers are is pretty easy. Actually doing something about it--especially while keeping things under wraps--is another matter entirely. For that reason, I don't think this is a good scenario for inexperienced Delta Green players. It's very open ended, with little time pressure, and lots of pitfalls. And my players basically fell into every single one. They were discovered by the cult, tailed by corrupt police, attacked by meth dealers, harassed by private investigators, and hounded by local news. Each misstep makes the actual investigation harder and harder and the chance of a successful op practically vanishes.
My players had only prior experience with Last Things Last and BLACKSAT. Both pretty limited in scope. In retrospect this was probably too big of a jump in difficulty. Though, like I said, it was still fun even though the op was a complete failure!
The highlight for me was the attack by the meth dealers. If you take only one thing away from this review, let it be this: play this track the next time your players get in a gun fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01WOpAG5rd0 (thanks Quinns Quest!)
The agents were hanging out at their motel after a relatively uneventful day of investigation. One agent notices that throughout the afternoon all the other cars had left the motel parking lot and theirs is the only one left. They go down to the motel office to see what's up. Strangely, the office is empty (the corrupt cops had paid off the motel to clear everyone out). I start playing the track. My players all look at me and ask what I'm doing. shrug "I'm just playing some music." My players are now actively panicking. They're all talking over each other trying to figure out what is going on and what to do. I chime in, "You hear tires squeal in the distance and engines revving, approaching the motel."
The atmosphere at the table was electric. Just a perfect TTRPG experience. I'm now desperately searching for the perfect "Shit hitting the fan" track for our next scenario: Observer Effect.