Looking forward to seeing what your group comes up with! When we played we handled setup very similarly, except ended up with full-on pulp action with a touch of noir.

Maybe ask them if there's anything they want to see, any locations, themes or events they want to play with? We ended up with stuff like empty factories and big explosions, and a very definite request to have no sewers (my games always have sewers).

I'm playing in this so I'll hopefully be posting some player-side AP very soon. Cold City has been something that I have been wanting to play for a good long time now so this is quite the moment for me. No pressure like, Andrew.... hehehe!

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

Andy hits the nail on the head: asking about what scenes, locations and so forth the players would like is really helpful. Establishing if there are any prior relationships between the characters is good: perhaps the British bloke and the Soviet officer encountered each other while Mr Smith was part of a diplomatic mission to Moscow during the war?

When you say that you are going to give expanded narrative control to the players, how are you going to handle this and what limits do you propose to set (if any)?

Looking forward to hearing how your game goes.

Cheers
Malc

Contested Ground Studios

I intend to experiment with giving players complete narrative control. They can add or change elements of the plot, npcs, locations etc.

The only limitation I think I would impose initially is that any direct change to another PC must be with that persons consent.

As far as setting out prior relationships etc, that sort of thing is a given for our group in any game we play from D&D to Pendragon to Cold City.

We had our first session tonight which dealt with character creation and themes and mood. Below is the post I made following it to our gaming boards.

As part of creation I decided by fiat that the players had been part of the same team for some time. I also asked each player to briefly detail a previous mission the team had been involved in.

I have not included national or personal agendas as we have decided that those elements will remain closed for the game. Having read those agendas they will I think make for a very interesting game. If you want to know what they are let me know and I will pm/e-mail them to you.

I have also tried to give some explanation to traist to avoid the multi functional Lucky, I am the Law, Best Cop in wherever type generic traits which can always be brought into any conflict.
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OK, we have now had the initial character creation session and a few things have come out. Your three previous missions you have completed were as follows:

The Thule Society:

Dodgy cultists were kidnapping people of the street and mutilating them. Sent by the Riussian RPA chief investigations lead to an old abandoned warehouse, a circle of blood and a "thing" created from the missing body parts twitching in the middle of it while cultists perfromed some unspeakable ritual. You disrupted the ceremony and killed various acolytes but the leader and his two henchmen escaped. Two tongueless acolytes currently sit in the RPA cells refusing to divulge any information, they are quite insane.

One of our men is missing:

There was a time when your team had four members, the last being a British officer, Captain George Huckerby, a former SOE operative and liason officer with the french resistance. He went awol during a routine mission and you tracked him into the Back Forest where you found him dead in his car, all of the blood sucked from his body. Burying your comrade you left the area after hearing rumours of a certain fearful Romanian Mountain Company in the area.

Former trust levels:

USA 2, French 4, Russian 1

Down and Dirty:

Reports of ST activity lead to the slums of east Berlin. Investigation brings the team into the sewers of the city where a small cell of new ST's, capable of infecting others with their evil virus are being controlled by a crazed Nazi scientist, Lars Lagenhoff, former SS oficer. The cell is destroyed but Herr Lagenhoff escapes.

Locations and Theme

The game will be set predominantly at night. Snow or rain will be ever present and the landcape will be the blasted wasteland of the Russian sector. Broken buildings whose innards jut into the sky like the rib bones of long dead dinosaurs will be the norm. Permanent winter feel with no sign of any greenery.

Locations will include, Hitlers Bunker, the Ghettoes and the Russian sector.

The focus will be more on ST's and twisted technology and less on the occult and cultists although they may be present.

Rules:

As presented it is the players choice as to whether or not they bring a negative trait to the table. There was some discussion about whether other players or GM could compel their use, as SotC aspects can be compelled. I think it is an interesting idea and would be happy to run it that way depending on player input.

Dave: French

Name: Inspector Luc Gaspode

An elderly french policeman during the Vichy era occupation government. A double agent for the resistance who became aware of the Nazi experiments during his investigations. In particular aware that many captured resistance members were sent to various unmarked medical facilities in eastern Germany which were overrun by the Russians in the push for Berlin. Assigned to the RPA due to his exposure to the twisted technology.

Action 1
Influence 4
Reason 3

Positive Traits:

This questioning will go on for hours - used for interrogations where time is not a factor

A badge for every occasion - has contacts with and badges for various different official organisations

Social Chameleon - due to his role as a double agent he can fit into new social situations without difficulty

Educated Man - a true connoissuer of fine wide, food and culture

Negative Traits:

The sex appeal is gone - a formar lothario who doesnt realise that age has dulled his romantic appeal

Annoyingly stubborn - a tendency to over focus on a single issue even to his own detriment

Frail and elderly - Luc is in his late 60's and it shows, his earlier excessive lifestyle is catching up on him in his old age

Trust:

Yuri Stepanov 1
Troy Washington 3

Ben: American

Name: Troy Washington

A gungho american grunt who entered the war as it was finishing. His first posting was to Berlin just as the allies captured the City. He believes in america and all things american, a true cultural imperialist. While he had no previous experience of the twisted technology pyschological profiling indicated that he was well suited for dealing with the horrors they posed by virtue of his utter disdain for all things non american.

Action 2
Influence 4
Reason 2

Positive Traits:

PTSD is for wimps - Troy is a mans man and doesnt let things phase him

Say helo to my little friend - while no gun bunny he has received excellent military training from the americans and is familiar with firearms and explosives

Laden with contraband - he has access to lots of things people want, cigarettes booze, stockings, women, you name it he can probably get it

Negative Traits:

Overpaid, oversexed, over here - the quintesential arrogant, brash, over bearing american GI

Cultural superiority complex - if its not american then its not worth jack shit

Trust:

Yuri Stepanov 2
Luc Gaspode 2

Neil: Russian

Name: Yuri Stepanov

Yuri is a hard bitten, hard drinking Russian military medic who has seen more than is good for him. He has sent men back into battle patched up as fast as he could when the Russians found themselves grinding against the first generation ST armies the Germans threw against them. When the Russians overwhelmed eastern germany they took control of a series of medical facilities where the ST programme was being perfected. Given his experiences Yuri was placed as a senior researcher is Project Vanya overseeing the many german test subjects including a number of french resistance who still survived. Eventually his loose tongue got him transferred off the programme and sent to the RPA where his overseers watch him closely.

Action 3
Influence 2
Reason 3

Positive Traits:

Grizzled Field Medic - Yuri posseses finely honed medical skills and is rarely phased by blood and gore

Physical endurance - a true Russian workhorse, he can keep going when others collapse from exhaustion. Some might say he keeps working so he doesnt have to confront what he has done

Man of Faith - Yuri has kept his faith even through the horrors he has witnessed, a dangerous quality in Stalinist Russia

Ghetto Angel - Yuri is seeking some form of attonment for what he has seen and done and so tries to assuage his guilt by helping the downtrodden and dispossessed of the Russian quarter.

Negative Traits:

Escape in a Bottle - even the workhorse has to stop or sleep sometimes. Vodka helps keep the dreams at bay

Suspected dissident - His known faith and loose tongue make Yuri a marked man. Should he step out of line or return to the motherland than men in fur hats will likely want to talk to him

Blocking out the past - Yuri remains haunted by his past experiences and refuses to deal with them. Being confronted by his past work or similar issue will bring much of his tortured emotions to the fore

Trust:

Troy Washington 3
Luc Gaspode 1

Does anyone have an easily printable version of the character sheet handy?

Jason Morningstar did a very excellent alternative character sheet for Cold City. Drop me a line at malcolm [at] contestedground [dot] co [dot] uk and I'll email the PDF to you. It really is well worth using.

Cheers
Malc

Contested Ground Studios

We play the first proper session tomorrow. Below is the brief initial information given to the players.
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Below is a very brief synopsis of four of the main NPC's you will be familiar with at the start of the game.

The game will start at an old abandoned railway station. You have been dispatched there by Colonel Karakov following reports that Herr Lagenhoff has been spotted in the region. A british officer, Captain Danvers has already left to conduct surveillance. You have been ordered to join Danvers, locate Lagenhoff and capture him alive if possible.

Col Karakov has made it abundantly clear that if you fail he will make life very difficult for you. He is already angry at you for failing to capture Lagenhoff the first timeyou encountered him about a week ago. This time he must not be allowed to get away.

Colonel Karakov

USSR RPA director. A veteran of many different wars he has high standards for those operatives who serve with him and little time for failure of excuses. He is your primary liaison and manages all operations in the Russian sector. He sees the threat from the Lagenhoff experiment as being the most important issue for the RPA to tackle at the moment although some of his fellow directors disagree.

Major Chernokovsky

Primary aide to Colonel Karakov and privy to many high level discussions and meetings. Believed to be the MGB contact within the USSR RPA sector. Has extensive knowledge of the twisted technology and reads every report before it crosses the Colonels desk. Anyone wanting to meet with the RPA director must first go through him.

The Honourable Sir Myles Wright

Former British intelligence officer and now RPA director. Considered a pompous, stuffy ass and something of an embarrassment by his fellow senior RPA members. He is tolerated as he controls one of the most effective informant networks in the city and is generally aware of anything that happens well before anyone else.

Magda Bremmer

The German secretary to the Directors of the RPA and much much more. A model of German efficiency she has worked for the RPA since its inception. She is the primary administrator for the whole organisation and has probably the best working knowledge of its operations and history. She is committed to the elimination of the twisted technology from Germany. While not a Director she is consulted on all major decisions by the Directorate.

OK, we ran our first session last night so time for me to jot down some comments about how the game played out and what I could or should have dealt with differently. I will stick GM style comments in italics between the game text.

The game started in the middle of the night. Its 3am on a bleak, cold, snowy winter night in the ruined Russian Quarter. The PC's are hunkered over a patch of trampled snow having been dispatched to capture Herr Lagenhoff, the crazed German scientist who is bent on creating a new horror, self creating zombies. They have been sent by their Russian Director who is determined he has to be found.

The scene opens with the PC's in the ruins of the railway station. The place appears deserted, broken rails, rusting engines and the shells of old railway yards scattered about. It was clearly bombed to crap during the war. From their vantage point a light can be seen in the upper window of one of the sheds.

Mustering a bit of courage they head across the empty yard. Troy, the brash American heads in first, seeing two figures rifling through the pockets of a third man lying on the floor on an upper deck. He approaches only to find they aren’t robbing him, they are eating him. Spotting him the zombies lurch towards him intent on making him their next meal.

At this point we start our first experience of the CC conflict system which was sort of the point of the encounter. This was the first time any of us had played the game so I wanted to give the players a chance to try things out. The dice mechanic was easily explained and the players pick it up very quickly. The consequence system is less clear and not helped by my poor explanation and I am not necessarily sure I was running it properly. It seems that combat operates on a task resolution mechanic - a series of dice rolls until one side “wins” which is at odds with other conflicts which are far more one roll “conflict resolution”. Given these were just mook zombies I treated all consequences as an action stat penalty, when they hit 0 they were dead. I had previously said players would be given narrative control of successful conflicts but that is difficult to do when I set consequences. Am I required to set consequences in line with their description or should I instead be taking control in the combat context. An issue to puzzle over for the moment.

One player also had a real issue with how he actually killed or defeated an npc. From the books it does appear that death is entirely consensual. While I have no issue with that it isn’t really spelled out strongly and of course requires a lot of trust around the table.

Troy opens up on the zombies blowing one away, the second lurches into him knocking him down the stairs into Yuri. The three become tangled up together on the stairs as Yuri and Troy attempt to hurl the zombie off the stairs (and on to Luc!).

This was our first tryout of the multiple participant combat rules. The initial scenario called for the players to work together to try and pitch the zombie off the stairs and so use the combined rules. I think I allowed the use of the trust rules to add here which I am not certain was appropriate. I need to read up on them again. One comment was made that this could lead to an element of power gaming, i.e. always have the person with the higher stat be the helper. This of course would need to be in the context of the narrative but that really is something most players should be able to manage.

Failing to dislodge the zombie our two heroes decide to take different tacks. Yuri seeks to apply his medical knowledge of anatomy to break the creatures spine over the railing while Troy resorts to shooting it in the head at close range.

This used the separate contender version of the multiple combatant rules which seemed to work OK although from a mechanical/statistical point of view I am not convinced it is ever likely to be the “optimal” choice.

While Yuri and Troy struggle with the zombie on the stairs Luc, waiting below, notices the doors to the old yard opening and figures begin to slowly shamble into the room. More zombies! The stairs offer the only safety but they are blocked by our combatants. He shoots several in the press but they keep on coming. Finally Troy finishes off the zombie with a well placed bullet to the brain and the group retreat above. Troy takes his place at the top of the stairs to block the oncoming horde while Luc begins to gather some papers scattered on the floor. Yuri heads for the third body but cannot identify it, his face has been eaten off although he wears the remains of a uniform. As the zombies slowly push their way up the stairs the corpse lurches up and lunges at Yuri, it is one of Herr Lagenhoffs new super zombies. It is quickly put down by Yuri and Troy however Yuri is bitten on the arm by the creature. Luc makes his escape across the top of the rusty old train carriage towards the doors quickly followed by the other two.

At this point I am really trying to give the players a bit of a breathing point to decide how to get out. The zombies are blocking their only direct exit. The additional “super zombie” was probably nothing more than an unnecessary distraction from the real conflict, avoiding the zombie horde. It did however prompt a discussion about the consequence from Yuri being bitten. I suggested an negative trait of Infected which the player wasn’t keen on. We agreed instead on a Paranoid about Infection negative trait.

The players decide to get out by running along the top of the rusted old train to get out by the front door which seems clear now. I am cool with this and they manage to escape out of the doors, shutting them behind them. In hindsight I should perhaps have included some sort of conflict here to get out. While failure would never have resulted in death at such an early stage (even an abject one) it could perhaps have done something with various relevant traits. In any event the PC’s escape only to find the more zombies emerging from ruined buildings and trains scattered around the yard. They wisely decide to get out of there.

Running across the yard more zombies begin to emerge all around them. It is clear there are far more here than they can possibly deal with. They dive into their waiting jeep and make a quick exit. As they do so Troy radios his America RPA director looking to get a bomb dropped on the rail yard to clear the zombies.

At this point we initiate a Influence based conflict. We set stakes being that if he succeeds the Americans do what he asks with the American director smoothing things over with the Russians (the yard is in the Russian Quarter). If he fails they will still provide the support but will hang Troy out to dry with the Russians. He invokes one of his agendas and succeeds with I think 3 successes. (I wont say what as the players read here and agendas are currently secret).

While I am happy with the stakes I think I made a mistake in accepting “air bombing” as being the default starting position when I should have tied the extent of the response to the degree of success. I then make a total rookie mistake and revert to traditional GM’ing style. I tell the player what happens as a result of his success. This is despite having said at the outset that I would gave the players total narrative control over the outcomes of successful conflicts. Its not as if I don’t have players who would be happy to narrate, I simply take over out of habit. Bad GM, no biscuit.

The jeep screeches away through the ruined shell of Berlin while behind them the night sky is lit up in flames as the Americans bomb the station.

So ends Scene 1.

Session 1, Scene 2

The players race off into the Berlin night, flames rising into the sky behind them. Uncertain about what to do next they decide (after a little prompting from me) to report back to their Russian Director.

On the way their route is blocked by a number of large Russian personnel carriers. Heavily armed Russian soldiers are moving a large number of dishevelled people into a large rather bare building in the middle of the night. The men have all the signs of prolonged abuse, malnutrition, poor clothing, missing limbs and bandaged wounds.

Yuri decides that he must investigate what is happening here.

At this point Luc also decides that he wants to become involved and follows Yuri over to talk to one of the guards. He declares that he can speak Russian (not previously discussed) and blend in as a Russian due to his social chameleon trait. There is some discussion about how appropriate this is and whether the trait really applies. This isn’t helped by me forgetting to print out the sheets and only bringing brief handwritten versions of the characters. The player insists and I go with it. Having checked the sheet subsequently it isn’t clear if it is really appropriate, I need to be clearer about the effects of traits at character creation in such an open ended system. I should also probably have squelched the proposed addition of speaking Russian. The language issue is actually quite a significant one in CC and the scene really was intended to pull on Yuris history and current feelings.

Yuri and Luc quiz one of the waiting guards. He explains that the men are German PoW’s from the eastern Siberian gulags. Forgotten due to an administrative error they are only now being returned home. The army intends to provide them with some new clothes, a warm meal and then its welcome to East Germany, enjoy your stay!

Yuri circulates amongst the men. They appear to be broken, dispirited and sullen. A few huddle in small groups and they have the look, a look he recognises from his time in the experimental camps of East Germany. He notes the name of the commanding officer and the group heads back to the car.

End of Scene 2

Session 1, Scene 3

The group arrives back at the Russian headquarters for the sector where Colonel Karakov has made his base camp. They are ushered into a bare grey room. A large table dominates the room where Karakov sits. His aide Major Chernokovsky stands behind him idly smoking a cigarette. In one corner of the room Magda Bremmer sits behind a typewriter taking notes of the meeting.

The Colonel is furious with the group. They have failed once again to capture Herr Lagenhoff and place all of Berlin in danger. He derides them for incompetence and makes vague threats to make their lives hell.

This scene wasn’t handled as well as it could have been. The players had a bit of a chance to make some counter points but I played the Colonel as very much not being in the mood to listen. I should have called for a conflict to allow the players to change his point of view which could have driven the story forward rather than just have me rant at the group for a little bit. Part of the problem was my intention to use this as a set up for the next part of the scene.

On the way out of the building Yuri is approached by Major Chernokovsky. The others have headed off to their homes across the city, Luc to his apartment alone, Troy to his latest conquest. The Major apologises for the attitude of the Colonel and sympathises with the plight that Yuri finds himself in with his demanding superiors. He offers to provide him with access to some recently discovered technology created by the Nazi’s to track their zombie armies. There are a couple of problems. It isn’t held by the RPA so he will have to pull some strings to get access to it and its power source isn’t working. He knows that Yuri has worked on similar technology and hopes he will be able to solve the problem.

Chernokovsky only asks for one thing. When the group find Lagenhoff then he must let him know before the Colonel does, all for the Motherland of course. They agree to meet again in the morning.

Again this scene could have called for some sort of conflict between Yuri and Chernokovsky to get more information from him or alter their relationship or views. The two were very much talking around each other and there is a clear tension here for Yuris player. The character has history with this sort of technology and continues with a lot of guilt about what he had to do.

I also give the players the chance to author in what they do that evening. Yuri spends the night in the slums tending to the sick. This very much plays into his Ghetto Angel trait and I cant help feeling like a mechanic could be helpful here. The traits are so close to SotC aspects I am very tempted to port them wholesale but for now I have decided to stick with the game as written.

The other two are happy for the game to progress to the next section. I tell Luc’s player that a letter is waiting for him at his home from Pierre, a former resistance member believed turned traitor who claimed to have become a double agent. He wants to meet at a café in the French quarter for breakfast.

End of Scene 3

Session 1, Scene 4

Scene 4 consists really of three separate individual scenes, one for each PC.

When morning comes around Troy decides to investigate the ruined station now that he will have the benefit of daylight. Concerned that the zombies might have come from some underground bunker or storage depo he spends some time digging through the wreckage. Nothing comes of his search although it does seem clear that the zombies were hidden in various different parts of the yard under cover.

At this point I have fallen somewhat into the classic CoC investigation plot trap. There are several ideas I think the players could pursue but they haven’t identified them. The files pulled from last night haven’t revealed anything obvious and the players are looking a little stumped. I could have introduced something here to push things forward but didn’t.

Yuri arrives hungover and tired from his long night working in the slums. He meets with Chernokovsky who takes him to a large warehouse in an out of the way part of town. He is shown into an underground bunker in which a large metal chair is set into the floor. Attached to it are three more organic looking chairs, each designed to take one subject. Yuri recognises these are the power sources he has made use of previously. He is quickly able to make the adjustments necessary to get the machine up and running.

Chernokovsky assures him that he will acquire the necessary human subjects needed to power it in due course. This leaves Yuri feeling somewhat uneasy given his background and he is escorted out of the building. Deciding that he may want to get back in Yuri pockets his security badge as he leaves.

I wasn’t very impressed with my description of this area. I intended the machine to be some huge great sprawling things of wires and pulsating tubes dominating the whole warehouse. Instead I made it some small armchair thing buried in an underground bunker. I also included a comedy skullcap, a mistake in hindsight and a reference to our current Pendragon campaign which I could have avoided.

I didn’t call for any conflict for Yuri to fix the machines. I actively want them to be in play, he wasn’t being opposed so his modifications worked. It also makes him evaluate whether Yuri will be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to power them. I narrated in that the people used would not be killed but it drains them every time it is used, taking more of their lives each time.

I did call for a conflict to sneak the badge out. Stakes were set where he would get the badge regardless of success or failure. On a success it would mean he hadn’t been spotted, failure and the guards notice and his actions are reported to the authorities. Yuri draws on his Suspected Dissident negative trait. It doesn’t come up but he does fail the conflict. I mention off the cuff that he gets a black mark on his file and three will mean a visit by the MGB. In hindsight this is more likely what I would have included if the trait die had come up and not just for a failure.

Luc makes his meeting with Pierre at a small café in the French quarter. Pierre looks the same as the last day he saw him, over 7 years ago. The two chat for a while about old times, each making references to what has gone before. Pierre appears to know what Luc is doing in the RPA, Luc makes veiled threats about the guillotine for collaborators.

Pierre then comes down to business. He believes that Luc is interested in finding the members of the French resistance now held by the Russians. Pierre claims to know where they are and asks one thing, that Luc kill Sir Myles Wright, British RPA Director. Pierre accuses Wright of being a traitor but will say no more. He offers to contact him again in a few days.

Again this is a scene in which I could have introduced a social conflict between the two. Luc’s player was clearly pushing for more information but Pierre was highly reluctant. There are reasons for that which may become apparent later but him revealing more information could have had interesting ramifications which pushed the story along. This game is only planned for 3 sessions so there shouldn’t be a need to hold back on getting all the elements and issues out in the open.

The group then get together to discuss what to do. Neither Luc nor Yuri share what has happened with them. The players are clearly a bit unsure of which way to go next. I have obviously made the other avenues of investigation too obscure. I decide to move things on and Ms Bremmer interrupts their discussion, Sir Myles Wright would like to see them all urgently.

End of Scene 4

Session 1, Scene 5

The group is ushered into the rather plush office of Sir Myles Wright, British Director of the RPA. It is a lavish room, thick carpets, wood panelling, imported luxuries and expensive paintings on the walls. A total contrast to everywhere else they have been. Sir Myles has a reputation for being something of a rambler and a twit. Not today it seems, he is excited to see the group and insists they join him in a trip to Spandau prison. Something strange has happened which has him very animated.

At this point Myles is being portrayed as a rather eccentric John Snow, not quite what I had in mind when I wrote him. He is in the core book but has gone through several significant changes. I should perhaps have had him be more standoffish and give the players a chance to pump him for information and allow those with more social traits to use them.

Myles reveals that Spandau is home to more than the 7 known prisoners. An 8th is held there securely, a man called Gehler. He was an aide to Hitler and the only man found alive in the bunker when it was taken. It is believed he was responsible for destroying the Fuhrers remains so they could not be defiled by the Russians.

He was held by the Russians for several years until the British discovered his existence. He has been in Spandau since then. He hasn’t spoken a word in 5 years and seems to be impervious to harm.

The Bentley pulls through the gates of Spandau Prison which clang shut with ominous finality. Taking the lead Myles leads our group down into a series of deep concrete tunnels. Water drips down rotting stonework and pipes hiss overhead. He brings them to a room with a large one way mirror. Gehler sits, stark naked and covered in tattoos at a simple table. He is speaking in a language none there understand, identified as an ancient form of Hebrew. He repeats “bring me Washington” over and over again. As Troy arrives at the window he stops.

The group continue to discuss what has happened while Troy makes his way into the room. Gehler approaches him and takes his hand. He seems happy to see him and says he has been waiting for him. He names him the Fuhrers heir and the chosen one. He claims that Hitler is not dead and that he is coming back. Disconcerted Troy pulls away and heads out of the room. As he does Gehler leaps on him, his voice changing to that of a man tortured, looking up at the window he starts to scream, “you have to stop him, you must”. Troy blacks out and his vision expands, he finds himself floating in mid air and in front of him the sky from horizon to horizon is a huge sheet of flame. Behind it something seems to be trying to push through.

Troy recovers and makes a quick exit from the room.

This scene is the one I probably had the most difficulty with. This is in part not being really clear what I wanted out of it before I started it or what position I really wanted to put Troy in. I allowed Gehler to ramble on for far too long and be questioned when I really needed to focus what he was saying and bring his part to a close quickly. As such it really didn’t work and lost much of the impact it could have had. A lesson for next time perhaps.

I also could have easily introduced a conflict between Gehler and Troy to release more information or to allow him to define his own position or introduce his own views given I had agreed on free narrative control on successful conflicts.

This brought the session to a close. Overall I thought there were some decent elements but a number of issues that I really need to work on before the next one. Making sure to allow for proper meaningful conflicts, giving players narrative control and more focused scene framing are all needed. still, it was enjoyable to be in the GM'ing chair again, its been quite a while.

End of scene 5 and the Session

One thing that we did forget to do was to decide on consequences for conflicts beyond combat. Given the game has no advancement system as such this seems to be an important consideration and one which I totally overlooked during the game.

Just to add, I'm not ignoring this thread! There's a lot to take in and think about here, so I just thought I'd pop this note in to say that I will be making a fuller response in the near future.

But, thanks for such an extensive write-up!

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

It's a wow of an AP report and I really like the combination of the story that evolved in the game, plot detail and your own thoughts on how things went. Good stuff.

It's understandable to come up against some of the problems you highlighted if you've not been involved in the GM role for a while. Allowing player narration is an important part of the game, but you shouldn't allow it to reveal facts that you have created as part of the story. The example that I think I used in the Companion was that of the player setting a goal they they wished to get information from someone tye had accosted in the street. The character is successful, but the player then goes to say "...and the man is a Soviet secret agent!". This would be outside the authority of the player in that situation. They could certainly say "And he reveals something important, possibly secret to us as a result" This gives a clear indicator to you, the GM, that the player wants to know more. And, as a result of their success, you should give it to them as truthfully and openly as possible.

You're right, conflicts should be meaningful: meaning, conflict and consequences are all key parts of a good conflict (how many times can I use conflict in one sentence?). It is also important to take consequences as the result of conflicts, whether they be combat or not.

Oh, it's an easy trap to fall in to at times, I do it myself. I find that giving the players what is need to keep the game moving along and making the conflicts about people and their relationships, about significant and meaningful things that will have lasting outcomes for people, that's what is the heart of the game. The process of investigation is somewhat secondary to that goal.

Thanks again for such an extensive AP. It really is a pleasure to read about peoples experiences with Cold City and I really look forward to hearing how the next session goes.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

What sort of feedback have you had from the players on what they'd like more/less of in the fiction/game and what they'd like more/less of from you as GM?

Having played (well, run) Cold City recently at a convention I've had a lot of musing on it recently too.

I'm reading that you have a strong direction for where you want the story to go, or to develop in a certain way. I guess this is seen in the scenes that you see coming up and how the player character should solve problems.

One interesting thing for the GM to do if you have narrational rights going to players is to actually sit back and react to the players' choices, and facilitate them driving the story. But this doesn't work for everyone as Shevy found out in a game a little while back.

Still, you can throw in trouble that the PCs have to work around, but crucially you let them work around it. How do they want to tackle the trouble? I'm sensing that at the moment you have a good idea of how any trouble should be tackled and that is how it gets dealt with in the end.

Oh, are finding yourself in conflicts and saying "holy mother, we are in a conflict we need to roll dice" or is it a more abstract "we should stop, look around and find a conflict here"?

Great posts, thanks for putting these up.

We sat down before the game and decided what sort of elements we would like to see included. I have tried to weave them into the game in various different ways.

There is a "plot" as such and I expect the players to get involved. There are various elements that I anticipate but these arent set in stone if the players do something different.

As yet the players havent had much chance to get out there and proactively do stuff for themselves. The session was very short (2 hours or so) and I wanted to set the scene and to introduce the elemnts of conflict in their characters at an early stage.

We play again tomorrow night, lets see what happens.

Looking forward to hearing about it.

I'd actually like to play in your story and be engaged by it. This may make me a roleplaying neanderthal but I'm an unrepentant one. I've given you a little background, I've given you some things I'd like to see in the campaign and I trust you to make an entertaining adventure from them.

"Trad" gaming, gamers and GMs will probably have a great time with Cold City. It has a strong hook that players want to play in and the GM can run an interesting adventure using the system. So, redben, I think you'd love it for sure.

He's the mouthy yank in the APs! (I'm the Russian)

What was interesting about the pre-game was the 'What do you want' stuff. And moreover Andrew's setting of boundaries on what was acceptable. Fore example, I very much wanted to explore the fallout from the concentration camps but he (and I believe another player) did not want to go there. What has happened is that he has quite skillfully wrapped up that theme into the plight of the former Russian prisoners. It takes it from a different angle completely but it occupies the same territory in my headspace. Additionally, he has added in a thread where Yuri is going to have to make a choice between stopping the zombie plague and killing innocent prisoners. Thats all sorts of button pressing for me and a choice that has weighed on my mind for some days now.

Trad or Indie, Narrative or GM Nazi, its very compelling stuff

Neil

Take the King's shilling at http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour/

Given he is one of my players and we have session 2 tonight (3 if you count character creation) I hope he is enjoying it.

Andrew Watson
Currently Playing: Cold City, Pendragon
Currently Testing: Duty and Honour

Ben:American = RedBen, gotcha.

OK, we played again last night and I felt the session went much better. To an extent this may be second session syndrome, the players were more familiar with their characters and the game mechanics. However, i was also trying to be more alert to some of my old trad habits and to make sure I involved the players more.

Before I get on to the AP I want to cover a couple of mechanical/technique issues which cropped up last night:

1. Narrative Control. In the pre game set up I decided that I wanted to give the players full narrative control of ALL elements of the game on successful conflicts. This has worked in some ways and not in others. It has been expanded on so that the players are now actively suggesting scenes to happen during game play and that has been absolutely cool.

Where we have struggled a bit is using it in the conflict resolution. The game in being run in a pretty traditional way, there is a plot/story which is happening around the players and moving forward. They are able to interact with it but so far havent been willing to take it in different directions. That may have various reasons, I suspect they dont want to feel like they are stepping on my toes of what has been produced. In particular during conflicts where they are trying to extract information from NPC's I have ended up taking back control and giving them the information I already know.

I dont think thisis necessarily a bad thing but I have failed to deliver on my initial promise. In the context of the game set up I am not really sure it was ever possible. If I was to do it again then I would structure the game much differently.

2. Healing of Injuries: As I understand it if you take some temporary damage to a stat this can only be removed by successful use of that stat in a subsequent conflict. Yesterday we had a player have his action of 1 (he is a frail elderly frenchman) reduced to 0. This left us a bit stumped about how he ever recovered it. In the end I decided that an afternoon of rest at HQ would be enough.

3. Negative Traits: The point was made last night that at character creation there is no reason not to take the maximum number of available negative traits and thereby get the maximum number of positive ones. You have the choice about whether to use a negative trait or not so they need never come into play.

Now, I have excellent players and they were happy to bring negative traits into play all over the place which was excellent. We also discussed before rolling the dice what the impact would be if the trait came up, both for players and NPC's. It worked well, so well that I am strongly of the view that negative traits should be compellable if a player trys to weasel out of using them.

4. The investigative game: We had quite a long and interesting chat about investigative games and how they worked last night (particularly given in part we are playing in one). The details are now fuzzy in my brain this early before the caffeine kicks in so I will leave it to Neil or Ben to expand on if they want to.

Currently Playing: Cold City, Pendragon
Currently Testing: Duty and Honour

The scene opens where we left off last week. Troy staggers out of the room after his blackout and is immediately met by Sir Myles who seems highly concerned about him. Helping him along he is very keen to know just what Gehler told him in the room. Troy tells him what he said but holds back on what happened during his blackout. Myles wants the medics to look over him and it is agreed that Troy will go back to HQ with him. Yuri, having come out to check Troy is Ok is told to wait at Spandau, a car will be sent to collect them.

Back in the observation room Luc quietly fits a silencer to his pistol under the unobservant noses of the British guards. He heads out and helps Sir Myles get to the car with Troy. As the Bentley glides out of the gates of Spandau the two are left alone in the snow covered exercise yard of Spandau Prison, heavily armed and suspicious British guards watch them from the walls.

I was happier this time with how I played Sir Myles, I think he came off slightly less like the manic John Snow. Troy’s player was happy to go along with what Myles wanted but if he had wanted to avoid it we would have run with a conflict. I could have called for a conflict for Sir Myles to get the rest of the information out of him but decided against it. He is excited and keen to know what happened but doesnt want to alienate the PC's, at least not yet.

I did call for a conflict for Luc to prepare his silenced weapon under the nose of the guards. Luc has been offered the chance of information he wants if he kills Myles so this was very story relevant. If it hadn't been I would just have let it slide. It also meant that I remembered to do explicit stake setting, if he succeeded he would get out without notice and have concealed his weapon well. If not then the guards would notice and would question or stop him, the extent of their response dependant on their degree of success. He succeeded but decided not to try anything, perhaps wise given the group was inside a locked prison filled with heavily armed British army personnel.

Currently Playing: Cold City, Pendragon
Currently Testing: Duty and Honour

Troy and Sir Myles slide through the streets of Berlin without effort. The little British flags on the car bonnet provide them with all of the clout they need and people get out of their way. Instead of heading for RPA HQ the car drives into the British Quarter. Sir Myles returns to his base at British HQ where Troy is admitted to a part of their medical facility which has been screened off from the rest. Serious looking doctors in white coats and attractive nurses see to him while Sir Myles hovers about looking concerned.

The medics take lots of samples for testing, blood, hair and urine and apply various electrodes to his body. Seemingly confused by this Troy questions what is going on but is reassured by Sir Myles that they just want to make sure he is ok. Eventually claiming pressure of work Sir Myles leaves him in the care of the medics.

Troy’s player again seemed happy to go along with this scene. He was making questioning noises to the medics about why it was all necessary. With hindsight I should perhaps have called for a conflict here to feed him some potentially relevant information or to allow him to narrate in his own reasons if he wanted to introduce a sinister undertone.

Meanwhile Luc and Yuri wait in the confines of Spandau prison. Eventually the car sent by Sir Myles arrives, the driver commanded just to drive while the two plan their next move.

As they head through the city Yuri spots Lieutenant Vladimir, the officer they saw herding the returning German PoW’s sat with two others at a bar. Yuri has been suspicious about their fate since he saw them and decides he wants to question him. Luc borrows Yuri’s coat and pulls out one of his many badges in order to impersonate a member of the MGB.

The Lieutenant, concerned about why the MGB would be interested in him agrees to join them in his car. There he is grilled by Yuri about where the prisoners came from and what has happened to them. Worried about his fate at the hand of potential MGB thugs the Lieutenant spills what he knows. The prisoners were sent from Siberia but that was years ago. They have spent the last few years in Russian facilities in East Germany but now the authorities have no use for them and they are being returned home. Yuri recognises these as being part of Project Vanya, the USSR shock troop experiments which he worked on before joining the RPA. The Lieutenant also tells them of a second, much smaller group of test subjects recently arrived in the Russian sector. He doesn’t know where they are but he does know they are French, sparking Luc’s interest.

This was one of my favourite scenes in the game, if only because it was directly authored by one of the players. I knew Yuri was interested in what had happened to the PoW’s and he had specifically asked for the name of the officer in charge. As such the Lieutenant was obviously going to feature in the game again. The player put forward that they saw him while driving through town and I ran with it.

There were two conflicts, one to get him to come with them and then the interrogation. The first had stakes set as follows: success and he comes with you, more successes reduce his level of suspicion and make him more co-operative. Failure and he refuses, reporting the matter back to his commanding officers.

The stakes for the second were: success and he talks, the more successes the more he talks. Fail and he clams up and leaves, reporting the suspicious activities of the alleged MGB agents and earning Yuri another black mark.

These worked for me although we did fall into the narrative control difficulty here. The players didn’t feel able to narrate what he told them and I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea either. Although what he knew wasn’t determined beforehand there was a range of information relevant to the plot that I thought he could be used to introduce at that point in time.

Currently Playing: Cold City, Pendragon
Currently Testing: Duty and Honour