Control Group (2019) is a collection of four mid-length original scenarios for Delta Green. Each of the scenarios stands alone as a one-shot, but the more intriguing thing is the rough framework for connecting them all. More on that in a minute.

The first is my favorite, involving a team of astronauts accompanying two people who have no business being on a shuttle. Those two are under orders to repair a black ops satellite. Things get weirder from there. I love how audacious it is to set a scenario on a space shuttle, and it seems like a recipe for disaster, but it totally works. The second scenario is a little wobbly for me, depicting an attempt by US forces in Afghanistan at a bit of regional diplomacy that goes terribly wrong. It sure is tense, and the messed up politics of the real world adds dimension to it, but I dunno, it feels fraught to me. This hesitance carries through to the third scenario, which it excellent, but involves a supernatural pandemic and I am just never going to be in the mood to run that in a post-2020 world, you know? That’s just me, though — even though I am unlikely to run these, I appreciate the commitment to having Delta Green’s horror butt up against real world horrors.

All three of those use pre-gens and the idea is to have the survivors come together for the fourth, a really excellent, really goey investigation of a feel-good cult that has real strong X-Files vibes in the best possible ways. I love this scenario and I love how the framework pulls disparate characters into it.