I ran "Operation: Aladdin's Cave," a play test of The Fall of DELTA GREEN in March 2017. I was under blackout rules and couldn't talk about it until pre-orders were available. This is a review of the play test materials, not the final published book.
I found this a great translation of the Delta Green (DG) rules to GUMSHOE. All the new rules in DG showed up in The Fall of DELTA GREEN: Bonds, Lethality, Adapting to Trauma, Automatic Weapons, etc.
What's new for GUMSHOE?
- Rules for generating characters belonging to the military and intelligence services during the Vietnam Era. Also templates for other professions such as an Activist (protester).
- New Modern Skills such as Criminology, Military Science, HUMINT, Data Retrieval, Fringe Science, SIGINT, Traffic Analysis.
- Lots of new combat rules and options: Critical Hits, Called Shots, Disarming, Evasion, Sniping, Suppressive Fire, Autofire, Walking Fire, Shot Dry, Weapon Jams, Heavy Weapons (such as grenades, mines, mortars, bombs, missiles). These new rules add needed flavor to the generally dry GUMSHOE combat rules.
- Rules for Drugs and Addiction. I mean, what's the Vietnam War without drugs and alcohol?
- Chase Rules including Multiple Pursuers, Ramming, Attacks During Chases, using Investigative Abilities during the chase.
I loved the combat options and how Lethality was implemented.
The play test didn't have pictures or any setting material on Vietnam, so I can't comment on those things, but I do hope they'll add setting and background material for the Vietnam War. Otherwise, you'll have to watch Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Good Morning Vietnam, The Deer Hunter, We Were Soldiers, Hamburger Hill.
The play testers went through "Operation: Alladin's Cave" pretty quickly and enjoyed it. It was a good introduction to the game.
Overall, I found this a good solid book and highly recommend it.
