Following a recent Kickstarter delivery, I now the second editions of Cold City and Hot War, and so I’m turning my attention to Cold City. I’ve had the first edition for years, but for some reason I’ve never got it to the table.
I plan to run Cold City soon, so these are my impressions based on reading the book. Once I’ve run it, we’ll see if anything changes.
What is Cold City?
Cold City is a ttrpg of monster hunting, trust and betrayal written by Malcolm Craig and published by Handiwork Games. It is set in 1950 Berlin, in the ruins of a city shattered by World War II.
During the war, the Nazis experimented with “border science” and created twisted technology and monsters. Now the victors are picking over the spoils.
What do the PCs do?
The PCs are members of the Inter-Allied Scientific Liaison Commission (ISLAC), an international body investigating leftover Nazi technology and border science. So basically, the PCs hunt monsters and twisted technology in 1950 Berlin.
Each PC belongs to one of the four Allied powers: Russia, USA, Britain or France. And none of them truly trust each other, as everybody has hidden agendas – national and personal.
So it’s monster hunting, with a layer of betrayal and distrust. Lovely!
Who are the PCs?
Typically, they are military intelligence personnel seconded to ISLAC. PCs have three attributes: Action (physical stuff), Influence (getting folk to do stuff), and Reason (thinky stuff). I like this; that’s more than enough, and I find many games have too many. (In Traveller, I find it’s never clear when to use EDU rather than INT. I’d much rather have one stat.)
Attributes rank from 1 to 5, and players have eight points to spread among them.
Traits are talents or quirks and might be positive or negative. Characters typically start with four – two positive, one negative and a fourth which might be either. (“Incisive mind, at home with quick reasoning, terrified of monsters.”)
PCS then have two hidden agendas, one national and one personal. (National: “I have been ordered to build relationships with the American agents on my team, suborn them, and turn them to our side.” Personal: “I will perform such a great service to the Motherland that I will be made Hero of the Soviet Union.”)
Finally, characters have Trust with each other. Again, these range from 1 to 5, with a higher number representing more trust. For each level of trust, you must state a reason for that level (eg “He gave me a pack of cigarettes when I had none. He saved me when I was attacked by a creature in the U-Bahn.”). So that helps create bonds and backstory between the characters.
NPC contacts
NPC contacts (“friends, allies, old enemies, family members, lovers, or colleagues”) are created during situation setup (#7 Who else features in the game?). Unfortunately, this happens before players have created their characters. That doesn’t make sense – players don’t know who their characters are yet, so they don’t know which NPC relationships they might want.
While step #7 might help identify interesting NPCs players want to see, Cold City needs a separate step in character generation for connections the PCs already know.
(The worked example even calls this out – as one of the fictional players suggests that they create contacts after they’ve created their characters. I’m not sure how this survived development/playtesting.)
How do they do what they do?
In Cold City, you roll dice to resolve a conflict. Conflicts work as follows:
- Set goals – each side decides what they want out of the conflict.
- Create dice pools – each side assembles their dice pools. PCs use their relevant attribute and add dice for appropriate traits, trust and tools. (The GM, or Control, takes dice from a central pool.)
- Roll the dice – identify the highest dice on each side. Then count each die on the winning side that is higher than the losing side to determine successes.
- Consequences – the winner has narrative control over the outcome of the conflict, and there are mechanical effects such as gaining or losing traits or attributes.
The rules also include a few special rules, such as using negative traits in conflicts, adding extra characters, and what happens when an attribute reaches zero (a crisis occurs).
My first impression from reading the rules was that conflicts didn’t happen too often. I thought this for two reasons:
- First, there are no re-rolls. If you fail the conflict, the narrative moves on, and you deal with the consequences. You don’t get a second go at fighting the monster – at least, not in the same scene.
- Second, consequences can be character-changing (and Control can run out of dice).
So my impression was that you don’t roll dice too often in Cold City. However, after watching the Unconventional GMs’ video, it’s clear you shouldn’t be afraid to roll the dice. (Note that Unconventional GMs is a playtest – it looks like some rules changed in the published game.)
1950 Berlin
Cold City includes a chapter with information on life in 1950 Berlin, the tension between East and West, and a timeline of events since the end of the war. The game also includes details of notable locations, including the U-Bahn (underground), huge concrete flak towers, Spandau prison, and more.
Cold City also includes details on the organisations PCs might work for or encounter, such as the British Experimental Rocket Bureau, CIA, Gehlen Organisation, GRU, Secret Intelligence Services, French Forces in Berlin, and more. Each has a sample hidden agenda you can use for characters from that organisation.
Cold City’s Berlin chapter finishes with details of key ISLAC personnel – the officers likely to brief the players on their missions.
Situations
And what sort of missions are those? Generally, they involve monsters and border science. Cold City includes five different situations. Each situation consists of several sections:
Tone: Cold City can be played in different styles – my preference is for dark horror, but pulp, black comedy and arthouse are options.
Control dice groups: Identifying which of Control’s dice groups should have the most dice.
Key words/phrases: I’m not quite sure what purpose these serve. As part of set-up, the group suggests key words and phrases to “add definition, nuance, and colour to the wider feel of the game”. But I’m not sure how they help here.
What are we doing? The bulk of the situation: the initial setup and what’s going on.
Who are the antagonists? The characters behind the situation and their goals.
Who else features? Other notable NPCs the players might encounter. (Although see my comment above.)
Scenes: Suggested scenes that might be used by Control.
Unfortunately, the situations aren't particularly detailed. There’s no suggested clue trail, so Control will have to improvise. I don’t mind that too much, as too much detail can be constraining, but my initial impression is that there isn’t enough detail for me to run them from the book.
And looking at Cold City through the eyes of someone new to the game, I think that’s a mistake. When I buy a new game, I want to run it straight away, and the situations provided don’t give me the confidence that they’re all I need.
Differences between 1e and 2e
While a few terms change between the first and second editions of Cold City (the Reserve Police Agency is now ISLAC, twisted technology is now border science, and the GM is now Control), the main differences are in the system and the look and feel.
System changes
Essentially, the second edition of Cold City is simpler than the first edition.
For players, it’s pretty similar. However, Control (the new name for the GM) now draws dice from five pools: Monsters, Berlin, Internal Enemies, External Enemies and the Cold.
In first, NPCs and monsters all had stats, and Control built their dice pool in the same way as the players. Now, however, Control simply draws dice from the relevant pool, depending on the nature of the conflict.
(Cold City doesn’t advise how many dice to use, but I’ll get to that.)
Better look and feel
Second edition Cold City is much more polished and professional than 1e.
Cold City is now a full-colour hardback, instead of being a black-and-white softback. It comes with its sister game, Hot War, in a smart slipcase.
What’s missing – an introductory investigation
I think where I struggle with Cold City is that while I understand the rules, I can’t see how it plays at the table. Yes, there’s all the 1950 Berlin background and the hunting for border science technology and monsters – but there’s also the agendas and trust, and I didn’t find it clear how it all meshes together.
What I feel Cold City lacks is a good introductory adventure that explains how it plays.
Yes, Cold City includes example situations, but as I said, none feel developed enough for me to run easily from the book, and it’s unclear how hidden agendas would affect them.
I can also imagine running them with a trad ruleset such as Call of Cthulhu. In fact, I find it easier to imagine running the situations with a trad ruleset.
What makes Cold City different is trust and hidden agendas, but it looks like they might easily take control of the narrative and pull it away from the investigation. Is that how Cold City is supposed to work?
(Some PbtA books have a section describing what happens in your first session – perhaps Cold City needs something like that.)
I guess I’ll find out when I run it.
Things that made me go hmmmm?
Oddly, for a second edition, some fundamental sections are missing. Such as:
- How many players is Cold City for? It doesn’t say. Apparently the sweet spot is 3-5 players, but why not make that clear?
- What sort of dice do you need? And how many? That's in the book, but it’s tucked away on page 47. (You need lots of D10s.)
(For comparison, both editions of Hot War have a “Stuff you need to play” section early in the book that covers the dice needed, although it still doesn't say how many players the game is for.)
Dice questions
Reading through the new rules also raised questions about dice.
First, it's not clear how many dice Control adds to a contest. Players have a strict formula to follow, but Control just grabs some. They are advised to “play hard,” but there is no guidance as to what that actually means. Control can make things easier or more complicated – but that seems odd when there’s no guidance on how many dice to roll in the first place.
(First edition actually has advice for building a dice pool – three dice for weak opposition, five dice for moderately challenging, seven dice for challenging, and nine dice for very challenging. That will probably be my default starting point.)
(Interestingly, this is something that Gaz struggles with in the first contest in the Unconventional GMs video)
Second, it’s not clear what happens when a dice pool runs out. Presumably, if Control has no dice left in a particular Group, does that end that Group's threat? So if Control has no Monster dice left, are there no more monsters until the dice reset?
Third, how does a one-shot end? In other games, investigations end when the narrative ends. In Cold City, a one-shot ends when Control’s dice start running out. How does that work if you’re not at the end of the investigation? And what happens if you reach the narrative end and Control has dice left?
I assume this becomes clear at the table, but these are obvious questions, and the book doesn’t answer them.
Anyway, I’ll find out because I plan to run Cold City soon.
Overall
So at this point in my review, having read the book and thought about play, I find myself both attracted to Cold City and fearful of it.
The concept of hunting Nazi occult science, technology, and monsters in 1950s Berlin is appealing, but the game's 2000s-era indie storytelling system seems opaque.
I’m left with a nagging feeling that Cold City is trying for a narrative, player-led story of agendas, trust and betrayal. But it’s shackled to a fertile Cold War backdrop and traditional mission-based horror-investigation mode, which I suspect often smothers the narrative, player-led game.
But I will find out soon.
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