Category: Roleplaying Games

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Cold City Play Test One

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.

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Cold City Hot War Report Four is out now!

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

Download Report Four at DrivethruRPG.com
Download Report Four Direct from Handiwork Games

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. 

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Episode Two of Games in History, History in Games

In this second episode of Games in History, History in Games series, Malcolm Craig and Jon Hodgson discuss (at least initially for a few moments) the idea of how change in historical research is received, and what that has meant for their own games.

About the series After two successful talks on the topic, at both UK Games Expo, and Liverpool John Moores University, Dr Malcolm Craig and not-Dr Jon Hodgson bring their rambling style of anecdote and deep passion for historical subjects in gaming to YouTube for your delight and wonderment. Dr Malcolm Craig is a senior lecturer in history at Liverpool John Moores University. Jon Hodgson is a games designer, artist and writer, as well as the owner of Handiwork Games. Together they fight crime er talk about history in games and games in history!

Find out more about the series
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Cold City: Hot War Report Two is out!

The second Cold City/Hot War report is out now! These regular free PDF reports will bring you behind-the-scenes info, extra historical inspiration, and ideas on things to read to learn more about the Cold War period in the run up to the release of Cold City/Hot War Second Edition.
In Report Two author Malcolm Craig talks answers the question “Will there be any changes?” in the new edition. And the answer is yes. And in History Report Two, Malcolm has further reading recommendations on the topic of all history being provisional…

Get Report Two at DrivethruRPG
Find out more about Cold City: Hot War
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Handmade Maskwitches: A Return to Doggerland

We made our RPG Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland as an art experiment with an early version of AI. Which very quickly proved itself to be something we were not keen to be involved in: over a very short space of time it moved from an interesting new planet to explore to something else entirely. So we’ve left it behind.

But the Maskwitches game remains good, and we want to remake it with new all handmade artwork, which is well within our powers to achieve. It’ll be a long term project, but that’s ok.

While we will lose some of the especially weird reflexive nature of exploring the deep past through the eyes of something so contemporary and unknown as AI, we feel it’s worth continuing the game in a new direction.


And so here is a candid look at the first outing of the model we’ve made for the cover, a sort of horrific “Girl’s World” from the other side. Enjoy.

Find out more about Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland
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The Loss of the Trials of the Twin Seas Pallet

Hello. Jon Here.

A few people have asked questions about this topic, and there are some heroes in the sorry tale which I would like to highlight. It also feels like a story that should be told definitively and in one place. So without further ado, the whole sorry tale of our missing Twin Seas pallet, in detail, for your reading pleasure. And once this story is told here, we can point to this post without having to retell the story. ever. again.

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KING BEOWULF: on playability

(Sign ups are open right now for the KING BEOWULF campaign, which launches on Tuesday 17th October)

When we first set about seriously nailing the aims of BEOWULF Age of Heroes, several themes came out:

To solve a problem for 5e players. We all liked 5e, but we knew “just another 5e book” wasn’t an option for us. It needed to identify something that players struggle with, and provide a solution. For BEOWULF, that’s duet play: the ability to have a satisfying 5e gaming session with one GM and one player.  The delight in the voices of playtesters when they realised they need only find one other player to get a BEOWULF game going will stick with us forever!

We also wanted to make use of what we were good at: adapting source material, knowing a bunch about the early medieval period and the deep influences we learned about working on Tolkien games, as well as an aptitude for the kind of art Jon is known for. 

KING BEOWULF is no different in this regard. We wanted to identify a problem and present an elegant solution, one which allows players to have more fun, and be more creative than ever before. 

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