Delta Green vs Night's Black Agents
Compare Delta Green and Night's Black Agents side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Delta Green | Night's Black Agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Investigation, Mission-Based, Character-Driven, Deadly, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Skill-Based, Espionage, Gritty, Weird, Strong GM Support | Investigation, Espionage, Character-Driven, Gritty |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d100 at or below a skill percentage or a statistic multiplied by five. Successful doubles and 01 are critical successes; failed doubles and 100 are fumbles. In opposed tests, a critical beats an ordinary success, then the higher successful roll wins. | GUMSHOE engine. Investigative abilities auto-succeed: if you have the skill and there's a clue, you find it. General abilities (combat, athletics) roll 1d6 + spent points vs. difficulty 4. Point pools refresh between sessions, creating resource-management tension. Four play modes (Burn, Dust, Mirror, Stakes) tune mechanics to your preferred espionage tone. |
| Dice | d100 | d6 |
| Complexity | Medium | Medium |
| Availability | Free quickstart | Paid |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | Book tools not listed |
| License | All Rights Reserved | GUMSHOE SRD (CC BY 3.0 / OGL) |
| Third-Party Publishing | Noncommercial only — Publisher fan-content guidelines | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Arc Dream Publishing | Pelgrane Press |
| Year | 2016 | 2012 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Polish, Spanish | English |
| Best For | Groups who want modern investigative horror built around dangerous assignments and the relationships agents sacrifice to keep their work secret. | Groups who want spy-thriller action fused with supernatural horror: burned agents unraveling a vampire conspiracy through investigation, chases, and tradecraft. |
| Highlights | Expertise can reveal clues without a roll when agents have time to investigate. Bonds let agents reduce sanity loss by damaging relationships they depend on. The core pair provides threat-building procedures and a complete operation with pacing tools and several possible outcomes. | Investigation never stalls: clues flow automatically, Conspyramid campaign structure is a well-designed GM tool, four tonal modes let you dial in the spy genre you want, highly modular vampire creation system, works stripped of vampires for pure espionage |
| Considerations | Combat can kill an agent abruptly or leave permanent injuries. Sanity loss can force behavior outside the player’s control. Handlers must prepare the mystery and judge what evidence the agents can uncover. | NPC combat math can feel unbalanced against PCs, multiple point pools to track can bottleneck play, narrow genre focus limits reuse, requires significant GM prep for conspiracy networks |