Category: Cold City Hot War

Cold City/Hot war creator Malcolm Craig is playtesting the upcoming new edition. Here’s his report of the second session with his new play test group:

Play Session 1

Content Warning: Self harm

If you’ve read the first blog post about playesting the revised version of Cold City, you’ll know how things are starting. If you’ve not read it, then follow the link!

For this session Harvey was sadly absent because of unforeseen circumstances. However, Connor and Amy decided to press on regardless (incorporating the absence of Harvey’s character Edward Richthofen into the story. Nice work).

We got through six significant scenes before the act’s conclusion. We open with a chase by Amy’s character Dr Julia Whitely into the U-Bahn and the capture of a mysterious man (who had a stolen document that gave them some insights into who they might be looking for – a mysterious, though-to-be-dead-in-1945 Nazi scientist called Karl Geissler). Then we had a flashback scene to how the chase started and Connor’s character Kyril Kantarin being left in an apartment with a dead body.

In the fifth free Cold City Hot War Report, designer Malcolm discusses the fruits of the first playtests of the new edition, and the history of the so-called “Malayan Emergency”.

These regular free reports bring you behind-the-scenes info, extra historical inspiration, and ideas on things to read to learn more about the Cold War period: the setting for both Cold City and Hot War. 

These reports are also available for free download at DrivethruRPG.com, where they will be added to your DrivethruRPG cloud library at no charge, for easy access from all your devices.

Cold City/Hot war creator Malcolm Craig is playtesting the upcoming new edition. Here’s his report of the first session with his new playtest group:

1: Situation and Character Creation

Cold City – an RPG of trust, hidden agendas, and monster hunting in early Cold War Berlin – is changing a little. That’s why we’re (re)playtesting a game that came out a long, long time ago. Well, there’s that and the fact that some mechanical elements have changed significantly.

The first thing you do in any Cold City game is decide on the situation. This involves nailing down the tone, who the antagonists are, what the characters are doing, scenes everyone would like to see, and so on. I’ve been very lucky to be accompanied in this playtest by three of my students: Amy, Connor, and Harvey. They all enthusiastically volunteered to playtest the game.

In this fourth free PDF, Cold City/ Hot War author Malcolm discusses the “Bren Gun Effect” and the Strath Report.

About Cold City and Hot War

Originally published in their first editions in 2007 and 2008, we’re honoured and delighted to announce our plan to publish new editions of both Cold City and Hot War in 2024. 

These won’t just be new editions of these cult UK indie games: designer Malcolm Craig, now a senior lecturer in history at Liverpool John Moores University, will be working with Handiwork Games as an integral part of his research work into the history of nuclear war in roleplaying games. 

The third slice of Cold City Hot War Report is out!

In this free PDF, author Malcolm Craig takes a look at upcoming changes to the mechanics of the game, as well as a look at the technology of the Cold War era in which these two RPGs are set.