Cold City & Hot War return.

I'm really excited to hear about the return of Cold City & Hot War, a pair of roleplaying games that were first released by Contested Ground Studios. They explored trust, intrigue and horror against the setting of the Cold War.

The games are coming to Kickstarter shortly, through Handiwork Games who previously produced the second edition of Contested Ground's a|state.

A gloriously evocative original cover.

I've mentioned them before, especially in #RPGaDay when I called out the dice set for Hot War that I bought and also the fact that it was the coolest looking roleplaying game that I'd seen. Hot War was also the first RPG that I played online, using Skype over early broadband. 

I found Hot War much more approachable than Cold City, because the latter didn't come with a lot of information on post war Berlin. I think that this may have reflected Malcolm Craig's Cold War expertise (it's his academic subject); I wonder if his knowledge of the city and factions was so much that he didn't realise what others wouldn't know. I do think that I could cope with it a lot better now, but I've read a lot around post-war Berlin subsequently. 

I've not really written about the game I ran back in 2008 on the blog (having checked back) but I stumbled upon two write up documents that I'd done at the time which probably were intended to go on either the Contested Ground or Tavern forums. Those versions of the forums are now all gone, so I'll post the write ups separately, as I think that they will give a better flavour of the game through an example than I could through reminiscing. 

Half of the map of London in 1963 I helped with

One of the things that I did during preparation for the mini-campaign was to source an old out of copyright map of London that I photographed and shared with the publisher, who subsequently turned it into an official map for the game. One of my players - Neil - lived in London my use of the map really made it resonant with him.

The setting had some flexibility with how it was pitched; Malcolm Craig told me that my view of London was slightly more optimistic than his, but a legitimate interpretation of the setting.

The games use a light system, and focus on interpersonal play.

I recommend these games.

17 January 2025