FAQ

First Bulletin is a tabletop roleplaying game about Western influence operations in Cold War Europe (1948–1961). You play operatives attached to a covert broadcast and information apparatus — handlers, case officers, editors, couriers, and fixers — trying to keep a contested city leaning the right way without being exposed. It's tense, plausible, and bureaucratic. Violence is possible but rarely the right tool.

No. First Bulletin is primarily a game of information, leverage, access, and pressure. Combat rules exist and are fully developed, but the game is designed around the idea that violence is the mistake you make when every other tool has failed. Most sessions are won or lost at a desk, a café table, or a checkpoint — not in a firefight.

First Bulletin is designed for 2–6 players. One person takes the role of the Gaffer (the game's term for the Game Master or Dungeon Master) and runs the world, while the remaining players each run an Operative — a Western-aligned agent working in the city.

A session is usually one in-world day. It opens with the First Bulletin — a short radio broadcast read aloud that frames what's happening in the city and what demands attention. From there, the operatives pick a line of effort, push into institutions, and roll the dice when the outcome is uncertain and the stakes are real. The day closes with consequences: heat rises, a contact cools, a file goes missing. Sessions run hot with minimal prep as long as the bulletin gives the table traction.

No. First Bulletin is designed to be accessible to players new to tabletop roleplaying games while offering enough depth to satisfy experienced players. The Core Rulebook includes a Quick Build option that gets new tables moving in around ten minutes, as well as a full Session Zero guide for groups who want more structure upfront.

The core test uses a d6 and a d8 — one for your Attribute and one for your Talent. You add modifiers and read the result against a band: a low result means failure with a cost, a middle result means success with a complication, a high result means clean success with a bonus to spend. That's the engine most of the game runs on.

Attributes represent your Operative's core capacities — broad measures of how they approach problems under pressure. Talents are more specific techniques: things your Operative has trained, practiced, or developed through experience. When you make a test, you choose both an Attribute and a Talent that fit what you're trying to do, and roll both dice together.

Heat represents local attention and procedural pressure — how much the city has noticed your team. It rises when you're loud, public, or sloppy. Drag represents consequences that cling: debts, traces, witnesses, and obligations that accumulate over time. Both function as campaign-level pressure that makes subsequent operations harder if left unmanaged.

The game is set in the real historical period of 1948–1961 in Cold War Europe. The events, factions, and pressures of the era are present and accurate — but the outcomes of play are not fixed. Operatives can alter the course of events in ways history didn't record. A successful operation might prevent a coup that historically occurred. A failed one might accelerate a crisis that never happened. The setting is historical; the results are yours.

The campaign launch date is to be announced. Sign up on the Kickstarter page to receive a single notification when the campaign goes live.

The campaign will fund the Core Rulebook and at least one City Module. Full reward tiers and stretch goals will be announced at launch. See the Kickstarter page for current details.

City Modules are standalone supplements for specific Cold War cities, each containing a full adventure, a city dossier, local factions and adversaries, bulletin packs, and everything needed to run a campaign in that location. Planned cities include Vienna, Helsinki, Lisbon, and several others. Each module is compatible with the Core Rulebook and can be run independently.

Details on PDF availability will be confirmed at launch. Sign up for the Kickstarter notification to be among the first to know.