In just about every power structure one of the surest ways to get ahead is to have friends who are already ahead. An Ivy League education isn’t just valuable for its curriculum after all, it allows for networking with people who will almost certainly end up in positions of power. Similar patterns can be seen within specific organizations. In the British Army, The Rifles were represented among the highest ranked generals almost nine times as much as they were in the wider army, leading to their nickname — The Black Mafia. In the Russian Army a similar phenomenon, this time with the VDV, is commonly referred to as the Air Assault Mafia.
These are more often than not simply cases where implicit bias and favoritism enables a concentration of power, but Delta Green — both the Program and Outlaws — is a conspiracy made up of long term careerists and deeply driven to accrue power. So, why not a Green Mafia?
However, Players seem to rarely play highly placed agents. If, for example, one examines the military characters on the roster for the Night at the Opera community, a format where rank does admittedly matter less and has more risk of being disruptive, very few are officers and those that are are normally quite junior. There are only four Agents above the rank of Captain and three of those are scientists or medical personnel, whose ranks are usually inflated compared to career service members. Players do seem more ok with highly ranked enlisted members but from personal experience few seem to lean on their rank much in play. What’s worse, a good deal of players never even indicate how senior their characters are, simply writing their profession as ‘special agent’ or ‘soldier’.
I suspect much of this hesitancy comes from a belief that it is unrealistic for managers to be in the field. Certainly in the real world this is mostly the case, rarely do special agents in charge go door to door or colonels walk point (though it does happen) but luckily Delta Green is not real life nor are the missions agents are sent on their day jobs. That is to say, an Agent’s seniority at their day job does not equate to that in Delta Green and a GS-14 might be a lowly Agent in the Program while an adjunct professor could be a Case Officer. To ‘the group,’ experience matters more than job title. What’s more, in conspiracies like either the Program or Outlaws it could, in fact, make quite a bit of sense to make sure some Agents in senior positions ended up in the field.
People in managerial positions can pull strings, call in more favors and provide top cover for the other Agents, not to mention often dealing with less scrutiny of their actions than their subordinates. A task force might be organized under an Agent’s name who is a managerial position at the FBI, for example, even though the real authority rests on a lower ranked Case Officer your access still provides a useful tool. A senior CIA officer might be tasked with setting up a new special access program which could provide cover for any number of agents. A stint as a liaison to a different agency is a key step in promotion to the very highest ranks of the bureaucracy and provides perfect cover for Delta Green. For civilian Agents, holding a prestigious position makes even more sense, after all, when the federal government needs someone to consult they often look to those at the top of their profession.
Another concern I have seen raised is that highly ranked Agents could be disruptive. There is certainly a chance, but not in my opinion a significant one. Giving a player a higher rank does not put them in a position above the other players, as previously stated there rank structure and pay grades don’t translate over to Delta Green’s conspiracy and one Agent cannot exactly give orders to another. Including an Agent in a managerial position also doesn’t let them bypass an investigation it just replaces the tools they have to investigate. The key thing to do in all of these cases is to talk them through prior to the game and make sure everyone is on board, but you should be handling your session zeros like that anyway.
But how do you use senior positions in play? Luckily Delta Green has some systems in place to lend some more help. Let any Agent in a managerial position make use of the rules for Program Managers and Supervisory Agents (p. 90 and p. 88 respectively). Perhaps, consider bonuses to interpersonal skills when interacting with other members of their organization or allow Military Science or Bureaucracy to stand in as more traditional social skills.
Consider altering some of the character’s tools of the trade. For example, the highest ranked official profession is a Defence Attache, usually a position held by at least an O-5, does not have the tools of the trade for a special operator despite the fact they may have come from special operations. Instead, they simply have Access to an embassy building, armored SUV (with a driver), and diplomatic credentials, still powerful but in a different way. We’ve already covered one benefit of access in a previous post. I would even suggest ignoring my past advice about requisitioning a targeting packet in these cases — an Agent in a senior position can create enough to task their subordinates relatively safely.
It’s hard to give firm rules for how equipment should be handled given the vast array of jobs an Agent could have but some general guidance can be given. If an Agent was expected to carry a firearm as a low level employee, be they law enforcement or military, they probably still have an issued sidearm. Law Enforcement managers can usually pull records from other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, Intelligence officers can pull law enforcement records, prestigious professors can get access to closed archives, etc. Access is a powerful tool, copy down any access explicitly given in the Agency write up and then give players the benefit of the doubt if they press for more.
On a final note, there is a lot of government lingo in this post. If you are interested in better understanding it, a good reference to the pay scales used in government can be found here.
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