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The release of Pelgrane Press's The Fall of DELTA GREEN is bound to trigger more interest among Cthulhu Mythos gamers of every stripe and system in the Cold War period, and resources and setting material for that era. Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying Monograph #357: Berlin 61 is about as specific as it gets for Cold War detail. So how useful is it, and how well has it worn since its original 2008 publication date?

My answers to those two questions are: massively; and fair to middling. As per the Basic Roleplaying Monograph brief, Berlin 61 provides resources for various BRP games and settings, not just Call of Cthulhu. "Though primarily set up for the horror of Call of Cthulhu where players and their characters face off with spies, assassins, cultists and the threat of the Dark Herald Kototh it is also a possible backdrop for straight espionage adventures in the 1960s style and silver age super hero action."

There are six chapters: Introduction, Berlin 61, Mythos, Rules, Super Heroes & Super Spies, and Equipment. As you'd expect, the chapter on the city and the era is one of the meatiest, with a historical timeline for Berlin in the leadup to the construction of the Berlin Wall and immediately after; scenario ideas and seeds; key locations; and organizations and factions in Berlin from the fictional - the Brotherhood of the Cloth and Ragnarök - to the all too real - the CIA, the Gehlen Organization, the GRU, Mossad and OdeSSa, etc. The organizations especially are kitted out with Goals and juicy information on their attitudes to the other factions which could provide the frame for all kinds of interesting in-game conflicts.

The Mythos and Rules section might strike some users as more dispensable. There's a rundown on the new Kotothian Pantheon and other lesser Mythos deities, sorcerous and PSI powers, new monsters (Earth Folk, Eye Spiders, etc.). There are new Rules for BRP on Fate Points, Mad Science giving more PSI-style abilities, new skills, and - arguably more useful - sections on character generation and the various nationalities and backgrounds in Cold War Berlin. The Super Heroes & Super Spies section is a (mercifully) short guide to details and characters appropriate for the BRP Super World and other superhero settings (Doktor Berlin, the Red Brother, etc).

It's in the Equipment section that Berlin 61 once again comes into its own. There is a list of contemporary prices, income levels, and items, with everything from transistor radios to limousines. There is an exhaustively, lovingly detailed rundown of the typical arms and equipment available in arsenals of the period that provides the perfect armourer's companion for any Cold War campaign, in practically any system. There's also plenty on Sixties-era spy gear and specialist tools of the trade. This in itself is almost enough to justify the sticker price.

As you can probably tell by now, I rate this as a hugely uneven piece of work, which at its best, is unbeatable for the period. The chapters on the period and on equipment have more flavour than Ben & Jerry's, and give the budding Cold War GM all the resources they need to create an incredibly detailed, flavourful setting, complete with key locations, allies and antagonists. Much of the material is useful far beyond the narrow confines of Berlin itself. That said, you also have to contend with - to my taste - some far less worthwhile content which comes across almost as filler in parts, as well as B&W artwork that dips at times into the frankly amateur. It's just as well that the high-quality chapters in this monography are strong enough to outweigh that.

Ironically, given my lead-in to this review, Berlin 61 provides a lot of exactly what's lacking in The Fall of DELTA GREEN - that is, really juicy specifics on the actual nuts and bolts and feel of 1960s RPGing. Shelby Babb's review of FoDG opined that "as for the 1960s in RPG form... I think that grail has yet to be found." Well, this monograph strikes me as a ready-made must-have supplement for FoDG, even if it dates from ten years earlier and was put together for a different game system. With it, you can drop your GUMSHOE Delta Green agents into a Sixties Cold War campaign and hit the ground running. The same applies, incidentally, to Arc Dream's release of the new and upgraded Delta Green, for anyone who prefers a BRP/CoC take on the period, or even Call of Cthulhu itself, in any edition up to and including the 7th. And some GMs and players may even like the Mythos material too. As long as you're prepared to pick and choose, you've got a really solid resource with Berlin 61.