Cold City
A game of hidden agendas, trust and monster hunting in cold war Berlin. Choose your alliances carefully, but your enemies even moreso.
TYPE
SYSTEM
LANGUAGE
EXPERIENCE
AGE
$15.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Sunday - 4:00 PM UTC
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
Campaign Length / 8+ Sessions
0 / 5 Seats Filled
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About the adventure
In the wake of World War 2, the allied nations of France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America provide stability and lead the effort ot reconstuct Berlin, restoring the ravaged country in the process. Publicly, this is for the peace and prosperity of all; secretly however, the allies are seeking the war time secrets of the German regime. It was a time of occult sorcery, eldritch technology and unnatural beings from other dimensions. The Special Support Group is a multi-national effort working with the remains of the German administration to put an end to these abominations for good, but as the cold war looks overhead, many of those working for the SSG find themselves tasked with conflicting agendas by their superiors back home. They must co-operate in the joint effort to clean up the weird science detritus of the war, while silmultaneously securing the choicest pieces for their own nations, whilst drepive other nations of the same prizes. Cold City is a game set in 1950s Berlin in which the PCs are multi-national agents of the Special Support Group, whose nominal duties involve investgating, suppressing and eliminating the products of Twisted Technology. Every agent has orders from home though that may interfere with their work for the SSG, as well as personal goals that may need the support of their enemies as they turn against their allies and superior officers.
Game style
Roleplay Heavy
Rules as Written (RaW)
Sandbox / Open World
Theater of the Mind
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(3)
Less than a year on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: Inclusive, Storytelling, Creativity
About me
Dedicated indie storygamer based in the UK, been playing and running TTRPGs since Black Box Traveler and Red Box D&D (yes, it's a long time.) I like short, character focused campaigns with emerging stories, paying attention to narrative arcs for all players. Favourite games are Monsterhearts, Dead of Night, My Life with Master, Best Friends and others, and I also enjoy play-out-of-the-box games like For The Queen, Women Are Werewolves, Rest in Pieces and many more. I've run multiple campaigns for friends and TTRPG groups since college, both face-to-face and online, along with multiple attendances at UK conventions and have recently been recruited into the Games on Demand stream at UK Games Expo, running games for a new group of players every 2 hours, all day.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Character creation will form the bulk of the first session and is a collaborative process which includes a prelude scene for each character to showcase their background and how they were drawn into their current role. Cold City uses a combination of attributes, traits, agendas and trust in other PCs to define your character; all this information, plus a set of group decisions about the tone & content of the game, will be logged on a shared Google Sheet.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
You will need a Discord account in order to play; when you join the game, you will be sent an invitation to a small private Discord server on which the game will be played.
What James brings to the table
Cold City is a collaborative storygame, in which everyone participates in agreeing the themes & tones of the story, then contributes speicific features they want to appear in the game, such as places, events, factions and so on. Using a conflict resolution dice pool mechanic, all sides in a conflict declare what's at stake before they roll and therefore what will be won or lost in that conflict. As GM, I'll assist players in creating interesting conflicts with meaningful stakes, which might sometimes include metagaming, e.g. players may know the possible outcomes of a conflict when their PCs are unaware. The campaign will form a complete story-arc, with your GM weaving plots threads, reincorporating ideas from players and the outcomes from conflicts into a satisfying narrative.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How James creates a safe table
The following safety tools will be in effect throughout the campaign: Open Table: players are free to come and go as they need to and should not feel they are interrupting the game if they need to take a break or leave for any reason. No Hate Speech: no matter what regressive opinions characters in the game may have, we will exclude any use of the terms hate speech, including an examples of sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, body shaming and so on. Lines & Veils: we will have a discussion about the tone and content all players find acceptable for the game, including trigger issues, phobias and so on. Pause Button: everyone is empowered to pause the game at any time, with an explanation if they desire; this can be used to take a moment, skip unwanted content, rewind & redo a portrayal of their character they are unhappy with, discuss upcomingh scenes and their ton, etc, Decompression: after every game, time will be available to discuss the game's content with each other, dig a little deeper below the surface of character motivations and generally ground ourselves.
Content warnings
Safety tools used