3. Delta Green (1997)
You’d think one game about cosmic horrors beyond human comprehension would be enough in a list of 13 RPGs, but nope! Delta Green is too good to overlook.
The basic premise builds on the epilogue to Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, in which the narrator narcs out the monster fish people who live there to the feds, who then depth-charge the deep-sea trench city. The original Delta Green sourcebook, produced by Pagan Publishing under license for Call Of Cthulhu, is concerned with extrapolating out a fictional world where, since 1927, the military and intelligence agencies of various governments are aware of and move (mostly) in opposition to supernatural forces. Delta Green is the covert department (and sometimes illegal conspiracy) that feeds woefully unprepared American soldiers and law enforcement agents into cosmic breaches in order to keep them closed, and out of public knowledge. The secret history presented by the original sourcebook, and expanded by the standalone RPG (2017) and its many supplements, is infectious and makes The X-Files look simplistic in comparison – the fungi from Yuggoth are manipulating the U.S. government disguised as grey aliens, math equations can kill, and the alternate reality of The King In Yellow waits just around the corner for anyone foolish enough to believe in it.
I’ve devoured every single Delta Green book I have gotten my hands on, and drop everything to read new ones as they come out. Even with their mechanics and deconstructed plots (essential for running them at a table full of friends), they hold their own as effective horror stories, weaving modern anxieties, the fallout from trauma and good old-fashioned monsters into compelling narratives, time and time again.
