This page contains the records of my first playthrough of Cold Shadows an RPG written by Alan Bahr, Ben Woerner, Elizabeth Chaipraditkul, Tobie Abad and Drew Wendell and published by Gallant Knight Games. It’s also my first solo-RPG and my first RPG of any sort for more than 20 years.
I also want to record some of my initial thoughts - things I liked and didn’t like about both the experience and the system (but, of course I’ve only played it once, and I have no experience).
How I played
In the segments, block quotes are used to indicate dice rolls. In the end I drew upon several systems to help, but (other than the CS rules themselves) the main ones I used were…
A basic Oracle, that I took from the Tabletop Diversions website. Roll a d6 and then:
1 - No, and
2 or 3 - No, but
4 or 5 - Yes, but
6 - Yes, and
I used that a lot and found it to work really well. I particularly liked the advice to avoid straight Yes/No answers. I did use straightforward 50/50 rolls too though.
I used the Urban Encounter Tables no doubt misusing them terribly. For me, they were useful in adding some flavour - I only came to them late, so used them for about half the mission.
I also used the GM’s Apprentice created by James Turner. Honestly, whilst the inspiration from this was sometimes good, it didn’t feel as useful to me. Perhaps it is partly because the setting (i.e. not fantasy) is not well-suited.
For the most part, I rolled when I felt there was a need to make a decision - or where I wanted to do something, but I was conscious that it might not work out. Some segments certainly worked better than others, the story moved on, the rolls made sense and so on. Generally, more rolls seemed to be better.
The story could continue, picking up more or less where this one ends, giving the main character a new mission. Having some established NPCs is also an advantage from the point of view of building a world which makes sense and which can carry a story forwards.
Actually, this is what I’m planning next