We gathered together for our first session of Cold City. My “pitch” had been successful, the guys were all fairly eager to begin the new game, and the prospects of a session starting with Char-Gen didn’t elicit the usual queries why we didn’t do the pre-game stuff beforehand.

Still, Char-Gen is quick, relatively painless, and having everyone sit around and listen to others describing their traits helped when it came to Trust and Reasons.

The Players:

Me, Doug. I’ve been the GM forever, and honestly, I have trouble handing over narrative control. Still, I recognize the problem, and Cold City is part of my therapy.

Rob, my longest continual player, the one most interested in reading RPGs, and my frequent sounding board for ideas about the games we’re playing and the way we play.

(Big) Tim. He used to play goons or Captain Kirk. In the last couople years he definitely wins the “most improved” award. History buff.

Chris, my longest chronological player. He likes his dark clothes, elven wizards, and there was a small betting pool that he’d go for the Gauloises-smoking Frenchman. He did.

(Little) Tim. My newest player. He comes from a strong simulationist-style background, his Uncle had him playing HarnMaster when he was eight. Probably the smartest player, but don’t tell him that.

Phase I: Making characters.

This was pretty painless. If I had any wishes, I think a couple more trait examples would have been handy. We fell too easily into the paths of other games, phrases like “Lightning Reflexes” and “Nerves of Steel” were bandied around a lot.

Rob: 
Captain John Ryan, American, Traumatized Infantry Officer.
Draw: His company was annihilated by a twisted tech weapon in the Bulge. He was one of the few survivors.
Action 4, Influence 2, Reason 2.
(+) Superb Soldier – has extensive combat experience and a practical mind set.
(+) Protects Others – doesn’t want to see more lives lost, especially American ones.
(+) Takes Charge – always seizes the initiative and does not hesitate to exceed his authority to get the job done.
(-) Insomniac – often poorly rested due to recurring nightmares.
(-) Prefers simple solutions – mistrusts complex plans and planning.
Trust
Bernard Blackstock (2) Seems likeable enough, and competent for a civilian.
Armand Duclous (1) Full of plots and schemes, who knows whose side he was on in the war?
Igor Komenoshenko (3) A competent military man, who seems capable of doing what it takes to get this terrible job done.

National Agenda
Locate and destroy all active German twisted tech.

Personal Agenda
Find a way to martyr myself that will bring honor rather than shame to my family back home.

(Big) Tim
Political Officer Igor Komenoshenko, Russian MVD officer.
Draw: Komenoshenko was attached to an elite Russian paratroop unit dropped into Warsaw during the Uprising in 1944. Cut-off and overrun by endless numbers of Spezialeinsatztruppen, Komenoshenko earned a commendation from Iosef Stalin for executing fleeing paratroopers.
Action 3, Influence 4, Reason 1.
(+) Fearless in the face of horror.
(+) Dangerous reputation.
(+) Innovative violence creator
(-) Overly Violent, will resort to violence as a solution early.
(-) Slave to Stalin’s will.
Trust
Captain John Ryan (2) A soldier. He may be a filthy American, but he was a nazi-killing American.
Bernard Blackstone (1) Shifty and smug. The Brits started the war and the Motherland payed for it. No more!
Armand Duclous (3) Partisans are Peoples’ Soldiers. They are the heart and definition of the Peoples’ Army.

National Agenda
Find scientists involved in Project Valkyrie and either pump them for information and technology or eliminate them before they can be captured by Americans. 

Personal Agenda
Find the Jewish twins who teleported him from harm in Warsaw. Use them to escape the clutches of Stalin.* This one makes some presumptions on the spread of weird technology, but I decided to allow it. It may be a while before it occurs, and Tim was okay with that.

Chris
Armand Duclous, French Partisan
Draw: Armand was the point of contact for a German scientist working in France. The scientist leaked twisted technology secrets to the allies through Armand’s resistance cell.
Action 2, Influence 3, Reason 3.
(+) Nerves of Steel
(+) Damn lucky
(+) Friendly and charming
(-) Can’t resist urge to meddle
(-) Murderous *This was pitched more as “willing to kill to ensure his cover” and not as “violent psychopath.” We already have one of those in the group.
Trust
Igor Komenoshenko (1) He’s clearly a pawn of Stalin, probably reporting to him directly.
Capt Ryan (1) Boorish American pig, acting like he owns all of Europe.
Bernie Blackwood (4) A proper British gentleman, unimaginative as their food, sure to always do what’s right.

National Agenda
Recover twisted technology to assist France in taking its rightful place among the new world powers.

Personal Agenda
Hunt down remaining Nazis and make them pay.

(Little) Tim
Bernard Blackstock, English Agent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service (MI-6).
Draw: Encountered an Altered terror in Belgium after the war.
Action 3, Influence 3, Reason 2
(+) Iron Will
(+) Crack shot with sidearms
(+) Unorthodox thinker
(-) Mistrustful of non-Commonwealth citizens
(-) Ruthless devotion to the Crown *This one really needs some work.
Trust
Igor Komenoshenko (1) Drunken, Stalin-loving, Communist.
Captain John Ryan (3) Slightly disturbed, but decorated, officer. A solid man.
Armand (2) A greasy, womanizing, snail-eating Frenchman.

National Agenda
Investigate and secure any twisted technology that could be used to restore British Naval Superiority.

Personality
Find the creature witnessed in Belgium and eliminate it.

Phase II – History! With the aid of a whiteboard I gave a quick three or four minute presentation on Berlin after WWII. The challenge of the location in East Germany, the nature of the divided government, the Blockade and Airlift, and mentioning that the Wall wouldn’t exist for over a decade, that citizens of all sectors routinely crossed back and forth. I kept it as quick as possible.

Phase III – Play! I was going to use the Prisoner #8 scenario provided, but decided that a “mundane” scenario may serve best both to teach the rules system to the players and to introduce them to the setting.

Scene 1: The basement of the Kammergericht. The characters enter the briefing room singly and select seats. Pragmatically, they all sit in a tight group. *sigh
The briefing officer is Lt Col Arkady Kazakov. He withdraws a thick manila envelope from his brief-case, and just starts the briefing before a breathless WAC enters with a flimsy carbon copy. Kazakov glances at the copy, then puts his folder away and urges the team to go directly to the Morgue under St Joseph’s Hospital. Seek Dr Lutzow immediately. Kazakov grabs his attaché case and departs.

The group stops at the Arsenal on the way to the motor-pool, and secure sidearms. Soon the team are driving their Willy’s Jeep through early evening Berlin Streets.

Scene 2: The Morgue looks as run-down as the basement of the Kammergericht. They are directed to Dr Lutzow. His reaction is sharp: “No! No, no, no, no! This is not an RPA matter! Go away!”

I’ve taken a little liberty here with the rules material. I presume that the RPA doesn’t control a hospital. Thus the Coroners (and various other officials) must be aware of the RPA’s existence, even if the RPA mandate remains shadowy and unknown.

Doctor Horst Lutzow
Action 1, Influence 3, Reason 4
(+) Distrusts the RPA
(+) A well-educated Doctor
(+) Insatiable curiousity
(-) Worried about his sanity
(-) Unsure of himself
Personal Agenda: To find mundane explanations for all the unusual things he’s seen.

Igor opens the first Conflict: Intimidating Dr Lutzow into revealing what is going on vs. Lutzow wanting the RPA agents to depart. Igor takes 4 dice for Influence + 1 for dangerous reputation = 5. Lutzow takes 3 dice for Influence, +1 for disliking the RPA, -1 for being unsure of himself. Tim gets three successes, and I turn narration over to him.

Just now I realize that I didn’t allow him the benefit of Consequences. Damn.

As he seems more intent on narrating the actual intimidation,  I gently take the reins and have Dr Lutzow direct them to the body while he offers to go get the effects.

The corpse is a Caucasian male, in his late twenties or early thirties. The body’s arms are raised in front of him in the “defendo” position. The forward surfaces of the hands and arms, and a neat swath about 18” wide from the left shoulder to just under the right armpit are severely burned to a depth of about 2”. None of the rest of the skin shows any evidence of burns.

Correctly, the team guess that some kind of heat ray may have been used. This may have been Player knowledge, but it neatly fit their role as RPA investigators with several briefings on twisted technology (if not first hand experience) to their credit.

Dr Lutzow wheels over the effects of the deceased.

The group discover American ID for Sgt Edward Wilder, 213th Service Battalion, stationed at Templhof. He has a pass for entrance to the Eastern sector signed by Capt A Bidwell. His uniform is unmarred, and the group inquire about heat damage. It shows no sign of being exposed to heat (outside of ironed sleeves and pant-legs). There is a worn envelope whose wrinkles betray that it may have contained a thick stack of cash. His Colt is there, unloaded. It has been fired recently, and one bullet is missing.

Questioning Dr Lutzow reveals which precinct brought the body in and that it was found amid the ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof earlier this afternoon. Dr Lutzow refuses to speculate on time of death or cause of the burns.

The American MPs are scheduled to pick up the body in the morning. Capt Ryan informs the Doctor that there will be a team in to pick up the body and take it later tonight. He makes a quick call.

The group splits up. Captain Ryan takes the jeep south to Templehof, and suggests that an American Officer alone may have better results investigating that lead alone, so the other three are left to take the S-Bahn to investigate the Precinct and find the crime scene.

The following several scenes were actually inter-leaved, but are presented here as straight narratives:

Scene III:
The police station. I tried to reinforce the run-down nature of East Germany. Chipped tea cups. Worn furniture. Watery tea (re-used tea bags). The visuals from the 1973 offices on Life on Mars helped me visualize what I wanted to achieve with the scene.

After several delays Komenoshenko’s uniform finally paves the three team-mates’ way in to see Lieutenant-Inspector Stransky. Stransky is a bit of a Party toady. Unwilling to endanger his standing in the Party by giving Komenoshenko the run-around, he puts up a small amount of resistance, but it never comes to a conflict that requires dice.

The file reveals that the two discovering officers, Schmidt and Stiesl, heard a shot near the ruins and moved to investigate. They found Wilder’s body, and no one else. Stransky doesn’t offer his theories, the three show little interest in what he thinks anyway, and require him to summon the off-duty Schmidt immediately.

Scene IV
Capt John Ryan arrives at Templehof and passes through security without incident. Arriving at the Sgt’s barracks he makes inquiries about Capt Bidwell. It is late evening, and Capt Bidwell is in the O Club.

Bidwell is a slightly overweight man with small spectacles and a soft southern drawl. They soon find themselves in his office. He confesses to employing Sgt Wilder, and to having authorized the travel papers the Sgt carried. He clearly has no idea that Sgt Wilder is dead. He is curious as to what the matter is. He offers Ryan a drink, and Ryan accepts. Bourbon is poured. Bidwell is sure he isn’t in too much trouble, if he was he’s sure the stern looking Capt would have accepted a drink.

Conflict! Bidwell’s stakes: He doesn’t want to be implicated in any wrong-doing Sgt Wilder may have been caught in. Ryan’s stakes: he wants to find out exactly what Wilder was up to. Bidwell wins a slight victory. He’ll spill some beans about the black market and Wilder’s job, but leave himself basically in the clear.

*I like how stakes can be used for more than “I want him to tell me everything/I want to tell him nothing” conflicts. This allows us to advance beyond the “Adventure is Behind the Locked Door” problem.

Bidwell is shocked to discover Wilder hasn’t returned from his “mission” yet. He tells Ryan that Wilder and others “interact with the local economy to provide senior officers with the delectable consumables they desire.” Basically, he admits to being a smuggler of vodka and cavier. He is unaware of any other side business, but assumes his men do business in silk stockings and other items as well. All in the interest of promoting capitalism.

When Ryan reveals Wilder is dead Bidwell is shocked. His unit has never suffered a casualty! (Unlike Ryan’s. The unconscious (by Bidwell, not by me) dig had a marked effect on the player). He offers to co-operate fully to get to the bottom of things.

Scene V
Blackstock, Duclous, Komenoshenko, and Constable Schmidt arrive at the crime scene. They investigate, aided by Schmidt’s flashlight. The spent .45 casing isn’t found, amid the rubble and slushy February snow, but faint blood stains are!

They dismiss Schmidt (not wanting any additional witnesses to anything weird that may be about to occur) and proceed. The bloodstains form a trail leading away from the ruined station towards a row of tenements, many empty shells devastated by the war.

Scene VI
Ryan and Bidwell investigate Wilder’s quarters. Not much of interest is found. Pin-ups, letters to and from home, a bottle of bourbon (alcohol in quarters is against regulations, but who is going to bother a Sergeant over a bottle?) And a locked foot-locker.  Ryan doesn’t hesitate, and finds a bar prized off of a bunk to pry the lock open. The lock doesn’t break, but the clasp does. There, under the neatly folded underwear are several bottles of Vodka, a small cache of money, mostly American, and a thing. Looking like a conch-shell with three bowling ball holes on one side and a pistol grip, it is obviously twisted alien technology.

Ryan and Bidwell part company, Ryan carrying the conch/pistol, after leaving promises to smooth things over for Bidwell.

Scene VII “We’re gong to be surprised when he shoots us with a death-ray.”
Blackstock, Duclous, and Komenoshenko enter an old tenement that the blood trail leads to. Half of the tenement is ruined, damaged by bombs has been amplified by five years of exposure to the elements. The other half seems fairly stable, but thick black-out curtains block any light that may have escaped from the third floor.

Duclous creeps up in advance, Trusting the other two to watch his back he focuses his perception forward ….

Conflict! Duclous wants to detect the man guarding the stairs. The black marketer wants to shoot anyone not giving the proper password. Duclous adds four! dice for his trust of Blackstock. He wins the challenge, and dodges to one side and slips past the gunman, getting behind him.

Conflict! Duclous wants to “pin” the man with a knife to the throat, the man wants to escape. Duclous gets a four point victory … he’s got a prisoner!

Duclous Consequence: (+) Reacts quickly in times of Stress.

The other two charge up the stairs, and hearing a commotion from the middle door, Blackstock kicks it in. Blackstock sees that the three apartments on this side of the tenement have been crudely conjoined, and that at least one man darts towards the back of the building.

Conflict! Blackstock wants to catch him/them. He’ll get trust dice from the Russian providing “covering fire.” Komenoshenko wants to shoot them.  Black Marketeer #2 & 3 want to Escape.

Blackstock uses Unorthodox Thinking, and instead of chasing them down the fire-escape stairs he throws himself over the rail, lets himself hang for a second, and drops a floor quickly. Extra die!

Blackstock beats his Marketeer (Slight) so lurches forward and manages to grab a coat-tail. Komenoshenko fires but hits the railing twice, while his Marketeer vaults the rail and drops the last twelve feet to the snow. (Slight victory for the bad guy).

Blackstock and his man have a fist-fight on the fire-escape. It’s a pair of slight victories for Blackstock, before he catches the man on the button and knocks him down.
Meanwhile Komenoshenko engages the other man in a gun-battle. The Black Marketeer gets two slight victories and Komenoshenko gets one. Morale is flagging on both sides as the negative consequences begin to add up. Finally Blackstock is in a position to add his firepower. The Black Marketeer is shot down, although Blackstock was trying to disable him, Komenoshenko had no such qualms.

Both Komenoshenko and Blackstock increase Trust in each other by one to 2 each. (Big) Tim recovers one of Komenoshenko’s “flipped” Traits with his Consequence

Searching the place the three find the injured and near-death Black Marketeer that Wilder must have shot. And lots and lots of stuff, the equivalent of a black market Warehouse. They also find a wall safe that has been ripped from a wall and carried to the rooms.

Komenoshenko recovers a point of lost Influence after successfully coercing one of the men into revealing the combination. They find large stacks of currency, DeutscheMarks, OstMarks, and American Dollars. And three of the conch/pistols!

The “heroes” loot some booze, divvy up some cash, grab the strange conch/pistols and prepare to find transport to get them and their prisoners back to the Kammergericht for a proper “debriefing” and to meet up with Captain Ryan.

Time was up. We had to stop due to life pressures. I think we had a heck of a first session. I also think it’s going to be a while before all of us get a hang of handing over/taking hold of narrative authority as conflicts resolve. We’ll see how things go in two weeks when the next session is scheduled.

Doug.

Doug,

Thanks for the extensive report, it really does make great and interesting reading. I've cross-posted this to the CGS forums as well.

Character Creation

I take your point about having more examples of traits in the game text. However, I noticed that the traits presented by your players were pretty appropriate to what was going on (such as the descriptors added to the traits of Ryan, something that is mandated explicitly in the text, but actually works well.

As for Hidden Agendas, there’s some awesome stuff there! It really does run the gamut from the simple and direct to the esoteric and complex. So, how easy was it for the group to come up with Hidden Agendas and how important they are to the characters and the story? I’ve had a few cases of people really being stumped by the Hidden Agendas and taking a while to come up with something that they really want to play (although this is outnumbered by the number of people who just go “Right! I have this  cool idea…”)

The Game

OK, a question to start off and one that has been in my mind for a while now (prompted by a suggestion from a couple of people): How do you feel negative traits worked in play? It’s been suggested to me that negative traits just don’t have enough impact or are too easily ignored, so any experience from play that you could offer would be great.

I like the way that you’ve made the setting your own, which is what I really wanted. I didn’t want to make the setting proscriptive and overly restricting. Teleporting twins in Warsaw? Awesome. Alien heat rays? Fantastic. Some groups focus more heavily on the technology/weird science elements of the game, whereas others focus more heavily on the occult/magical elements of the entire thing. Which is cool either way.

One particular bit of play that I thought sounded really cool was the non-conflict between Komenoshenko and Stransky. The fact that a conflict didn’t occur due to the NPC not wishing to risk his standing by pissing off Komenoshenko and Stransky simply rolled over and gave, is really rather cool because it brings in the relationship between fellow Communists and Party members. I liked that a lot.

In the scene between Bidwell and Ryan, I thought the “his unit has never suffered a casualty” moment was excellent. How did this affect the player in question and the actions of Ryan, the character? Was this unfortunate gaffe by Bidwell used as a lever to get more out of him? The stakes in this conflict and the results that came out of it (as the result of a slight success, which isn’t always a very good thing to happen for a character) were interesting in that if Bidwell won, Ryan would still get some of the information he wanted, but Bidwell would also get himself out of a sticky situation. Nice.

You’re right, it does sound like a heck of a first session! A couple of final questions:

How much (if at all) did Hidden Agendas come into play during this first session?
Getting the hang of narrative authority: was this something the group felt more comfortable with by the end of the session or was it still providing some moments of awkwardness?

Thanks for taking the time to post such a great AP about the game. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the next session plays out.

Cheers
Malcolm

Hmmm. Communications in triplicate. That sounds like a bit of flavour I'll have to toss in to the next session.

Hidden Agendas: It took a couple moments of uncomfortable silence (except for Rob/Capt Ryan, who both a) "gets it"; and b) has read most of the rules. He was jotting down notes the minute I handed out the little black "detective pads" and pencils for the players to record info on.

I prompted them with the Agendas for the four example characters, and the sample National Agendas, and they all got over the road-bump eventually.

As for me? One of the problems with planning a session before you see the characters? Not knowing what the players actually want to do. So, no, the Agendas didn't come into play. However, the session ended a little bit earlier than I thought it would (one player had work, another had a dinner) and I believe that the fact that the group have all just discovered the strange conch/pistols will be hooked into several Agendas. Will Ryan, off alone at Templehof, attempt to destroy his? Does Blackstock think they can assist British Naval superiority? Will Duclous try to smuggle one/all of them to France?  And for Komenoshenko ... will interrogations reveal they have anything to do with Project Valkyrie?

I can honesty say that if I dropped the ball during the first session, I'll be ready for the game to reflect what the players have stated matters to their characters in the second session.

Negative Traits: They worked okay. They cost people a die here or there occasionally. The players tried to be a little slippery, but the best part was Chris continually trying to use his negative as a positive ... a product of too many other games. He originally wanted to take (+) Lucky and (-) Lucky -- which would rock after you won a contest and flipped the negative. However I was already pretty iffy on the wide applicability with Lucky. There's one that probably needs a more refined definition.

I don't think I always want the Negative Traits weighing in on every contest, though. They were there, they had a deleterious effect on die pools, I'm pretty happy with them.

Komenoshenko & Stransky: A conflict just didn't seem to make sense for me here. For the reasons cited before, but as well on a meta-game level it was a locked door encounter. If Komenoshenko blew his Influence, there would be a whole pile of stuff Stransky new about that the players would be cut off from. "Never make the players roll a roll that will stop the scenario if the fail," I guess.

We haven't seen the last of Stransky, however. Although his status in the Party effects his job prospects, he has no love for the meddling RPA on a purely jurisdictional basis. And Schmidt may not have gone all the way back to the station when the RPA dismissed him.

Another thing to do for next session: Print off a list of German names and surnames. All the VoPo are 'S' names.

Bidwell and Ryan. When Rob/Ryan mentioned that Wilder was dead I dropped my coffee mug/Bidwell let his tumbler slip through his fingers an inch or so to thunk onto the table. As his first reaction to "his unit has never..." Rob let his coffee mug slip onto the table/Ryan dropped his tumbler of bourbon onto the floor.

I think one of the reasons that Bidwell was so conciliatory, and gave up more information than he had to on his slight success, was an attempt to win back Ryan's good graces. It didn't hurt that I played Bidwell as a bit of an obsequious toady in the first place.

Unlike the Komenoshenko & Stransky contest however, this wasn't really a locked door encounter. It was more of a "hidden treasure" encounter, if I follow my metaphorical theme. Ryan could have lost badly, and been shut out by Bidwell, who would no doubt be secure that his high level connections would have protected him.

Final questions: I've pretty much dealt with Hidden Agendas above. With twisted/alien technology in their hands, the group is primed for a number of Agenda based Conflicts. But they didn't effect this session.

Narrative authority? I think we have a sliding scale here. Some players have picked it up faster than others. In one case Rob beat me to the punch, calling another player on the fact that their narrative in no way matched their stake. If anything, he's on top of it.

I think the guys are a little off balance now. This is a game with no routine dice-checks. In the morgue, if they asked about it, I told them about it, with no rolls required. There were no "Dex rolls" crossing the rubble of Anhalter Bahnhof. I only made them roll if there was a Contest with Stakes, where success or failure would have Consequences. In Rob's case, he has taken to this like a fish to water. He quick with Stakes, and smooth with Narration. In Little Tim's case, he's used to having long skill lists, and checking the flame of the torch versus the albedo of the damp ceiling on the illumination chart (facetious comment). He's had some real trouble with it. But he had fun, and he'll get better.

Me too. I'm not sitting in the Perfect GM Seat here. I think I ran a good game, we all had fun. But I've got a ways to go before I consider myself "good" at running Cold City. I do have to focus more on Agendas. I have to become more comfortable handing over Narrative Control to the players. And I have to challenge a group that have some widely different expectations, and make sure they all have a blast. My work is cut out for me.

Doug.

First off, it seems to me that the group is having a blast straight from the off. I think you do yourself too much of a disservice as regards to ‘dropping the ball’. If it’s the first session of a new game that is perhaps in a style unfamiliar to some of the players, then easing them in gently isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The situation is primed to work with the Hidden Agendas in a big way, with so much having been established in that first session. And this will lead to further conflict and story. And that’s when (to my mind) the game really kicks off. The group seems to have been working together so far, so it’ll be very interesting to see (in light of your comments about the different players experience of games) how things develop when the agendas and trust really start to come in to play.

It’s interesting to note your comment about the players being a “a little off balance now”. I’m keen to see how things work when it becomes apparent that the group may actually be working against each other, rather than with each other in the manner of an old-school ‘adventuring party’.

You set yourself good goals as a GM, but remember that you’re there to have fun as well. Don’t get too hung up on stuff like Agendas, as it looks like they will naturally be brought in to the game without too much effort. The game sounds awesome so far and once the players get to grips with the way the game works, they should take a lot of the burden away from you and start running with things themselves. They should be clear that agendas and trust are things that really drive their characters and can contribute hugely to the excitement and fun of the story. With that in mind, the game should get even more exciting than it is already.

Cheers
Malcolm