Game idea need help

[Oldoneminotaur]

So my players want to play a covert campaign during the cold war and my brain has decided to take a crap and won't work the players is 1 British 1 American 1 Russian and 1 Italian can you guys help with some covert game ideas for the coldwar please

[Jefffar]

Well to start with, 1 or more of those is playing a traitor if they are working together . . . or you need some sort of special circumstance (see Iron Eagle 2) for them to be working together.

[Jack Burton]

So my players want to play a covert campaign during the cold war and my brain has decided to take a crap and won't work the players is 1 British 1 American 1 Russian and 1 Italian can you guys help with some covert game ideas for the coldwar please

To explain why they're all together, a possible reason could be that they're part of a covert NATO team. The Russian could be a defector or double agent who's loyal to the West and is the resident expert on Soviet affairs/military/spycraft.

Possible scenarios:

1. You get intel that a traitorous American naval captain in command of a destroyer is going to meet an East German operative when his ship is docked in Copenhagen for refueling. The purpose of the meting is to sell the East German the plans for the Navy's encrypted communications codes, high-tech radar array or new missile targeting system. You don't know when or where, but the meeting is supposed to happen when the ship is in dock. It could take place in a warehouse outside the naval base but still at the docks, at a dinner party at the US Ambassador's residence, in a shopping district near the naval base or in a park downtown. The team must stop the plans from falling into the wrong hands.

2. A high-level Soviet wants to defect to the West. He or she could be a scientist, researcher, military officer, political figure or other prominent Soviet. It's the team's responsibility to get the Soviet (or Bulgarian, Czechoslovakian, Romanian, etc.) out of their country and into a neighboring friendly country (like West Germany, Austria, Greece, Turkey, etc.). The defector may be resistant to leaving without his or her significant other or if you really want to make it harder, their child or children. When found, the defector tell the team that he or she is willing to go, but he or she has access to a very, very valuable piece of intelligence, missile codes, damaging aerial recon data or scientific/military research that the team could have. The catch is the defector would have to help the team get the item, which would then introduce another objective. This forces the team to choose whether or not they want to pursue a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get the item or just play it safe and get the defector out of the country safely. If they choose to pass up the item, they could not go back at a later time to get it because after the defector flees the country, he or she obviously couldn't return to help the team obtain it.

3. A Dutch radio listening post in Greenland intercepted communications from a Soviet submarine on its way to (insert neutral country here) in order to establish a secret base of operations there. This is particularly disturbing because of that country's recent political relationship with the United States. The country has always leaned toward the Soviets, but relations are thawing now that a new government has been elected there. Any tampering by the Soviets could easily keep the country at odds with the US. Examples of tampering would be to recruit a patsy who has ties to the US and have him or her assassinate a popular labor union boss. Another good use of a patsy would be for the Soviet infiltrators to pose as American CIA agents and convince the patsy to steal a list of the country's spies stationed abroad, knowing that the poor, dumb guy is going to get caught and when interrogated, would spill the beans and say he was stealing the information for the Americans.

OR

The country has always leaned toward the US, but a recent political upheaval there has propelled those to power who are sympathetic to the Soviet Union. The US State Department is making headway, but the situation is still tense. Any meddling by enemy operatives, such as assassinating a government official and framing the US for his murder, could push the country into the arms of the Soviets. A patsy could be used for that one, too. There could be a bunch of things that the Soviet operatives could do to destabilize a country and keep them friendly to the Soviets or push the country away from the Americans. It's the team's job to find the Soviets in the neutral country and as a bonus, maybe even capture the submarine.

4. East Germans posing as Neo-Nazi supporters recruit other like-minded people under the guise of establishing the 4th Reich in the United States. The East Germans don't give a hoot about Hitler or white supremacy... they're only interested in establishing a corps of followers who can be manipulated into carrying out missions to destabilize the US and ignite a race war. The team must go undercover, possibly even as Neo-Nazis, to thwart the East Germans' plans. It may be interesting to involve the police somehow as they investigate reports of the Neo-Nazi group massing illegal weapons or carrying out hate crimes. This obviously takes place in the US, so it might be easier to come up with a setting. Since race is such a sensitive subject, just be careful to not offend your players. Perhaps have a conversation and see if they would be comfortable playing a game that deals with these topics.

5. The Russian team member used to be a member of the Soviet military. He or she was assigned to Russian Shipyard No. 10 - Shkval in Murmansk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_S ... _Number_10). According to intel obtained from a double agent loyal to France, a new conventional ship-to-ground missile type is being test fired from a Soviet cruiser soon at Murmansk. The missile itself is old news, but the fuel that propels it gives the missile a 50% greater range with a much faster top speed. This would make stopping it or even detecting it in time to respond virtually impossible. The Pentagon is worried that if tests are successful, this fuel will be used in submarine-launched nuclear missiles or even intercontinental ballistic missiles. The team has been tasked with infiltrating the research lab at the naval base, sabotaging the experimental fuel by adding a destabilizing chemical compound to the tanks the fuel is stored in and then stealing the research materials. A wrinkle could be thrown in at the lab when the team comes upon a lone scientist there. Do they kill him, do they kidnap him, do they offer him the opportunity to leave with them and defect to the west or do they take a chance and attempt to recruit him as an asset for the CIA (or other intelligence group of NATO)?

OK.. that's all I got. It's bedtime. I hope this at least sparked some ideas for you.

[slade the sniper]

Well, are they all working for their respective governments or are they PNGs? If they are doing government work, it would be hard to jimmy them together, but if they are just "from there" you can do a lot...

Depending on the time period, the Russian could be the guy with the plane post 1991 (those IL-76's are quite the catch for mercs), or the guy with the contacts similar to the illustrious Viktor Bout. The Russian mob could be allying with some of the other organized crime folks, and it isn't like there are not some ex-military types in those groups. Disgruntled vets are a thing, and the Russians have their share of those, so having a bunch of vets deciding to take the pain to their former enemies might be a thing, especially if you use Africa as the battlefield (you could even include a Frenchman), similar to the novel/movie Dogs of War.

-STS

[Peacebringer]

This is like trying to think of a dungeon with 1 fighter, 1 cleric etc. Just because it takes place during the Cold-War era, doesn't mean it has to be about the Cold-War.

When Vietnam invaded Cambodia in the mid-70's, was that part of the Cold-War?