A couple weeks ago, I was able to join Dragons Beyond's impressive historical "Bunkerstein", here's my report of what transpired and the pros and cons of this very fun evening. The setting for the game was an infamous Bunker in Berlin during April 1945. I had previously been committed to another event that evening, but when things fell through on the farm (as so often happens) my schedule changed and I was able to make the time-slot work out. Coming in at the last minute I was given a list of historical personalities to choose from to play as, I picked the one I am most familiar with the head of the German Navy, Admiral Karl Doenitz. My goals were as follows:
"1) You have two U-boats standing by to take AH and his entourage to an unassailable fortress known as Base 211 in Antarctica; you must convince AH to head to Naval HQ in Northern Germany.
2) Should AH turn suicidal, ensure you are designated the new leader of Germany; do not let Himmler, Goering, or Krebs get the job.
3) If needed, once aboard the U-Boat you can perform a marriage at sea for AH and EB.
You are aware that Speer has not implemented a scorched earth policy as directed, he may be an ally."
The layout of the Bunker was a series of interconnected rooms, with the exception of the Main Hall they all had occupancy limits, most of the players started unarmed (and with the cramped quarters of the Bunker it was nearly impossible to have a fight or murder take place without everyone in the game quickly becoming aware). In order to pass through the various voice-channel rooms, you followed the map, using Joshuagaxian Space as pioneered in SpaceStein. The referee informed us he would be in the Cloak Room channel solo-playing a game that recreated the defenses of the city, but to send him a DM if we needed adjudication or had special messages to send out over the radio in the Switchboard (such as requesting that Navy HQ prepare 2 U-Boats for sea).
The game started quickly with a marriage between AH and EB, I was ordered to go make some wedding soup in the kitchen, while AH quickly took other players into the Operations Room to discuss various things. One by one people would filter into the Kitchen to see how the soup was coming, I spent considerable time in there talking with various players, trying to suss out who could be trusted and who needed to be taken care of if possible. After about 15 minutes the soup was ready, and several players found various excuses to not partake of it (fearing poison or other foul play). As AH kept slipping away with people for private one on one chats, it became apparent that several factions had started to emerge. Bormann and Speer were forming some sort of plan to get AH away with them, the SS were forming plans to pull him under their wing and influence, Goering was trying to do the same and using the Luftwaffe to bring a plane in near by for us to escape to. I was able to bring some over to the idea of using the U-Boats to escape and conduct a guerilla war in exile from our secret base, while the SS wanted to flee to the Alps to continue fighting from there. As the night proceeded and the Soviets drew nearer, AH grew increasingly unhinged, issuing non-sensical orders and rambling on and on about time-flux machines, I knew something must be done or the madman would ensure we would be trapped like rats by the Soviet menace.
After we had received word that the Reichstag had been captured, I and one of the slighted SS generals made our move, we knew that Goering had become close with AH, and cornered him in the main hall. We drew our pistols that had been acquired searching various rooms in the Bunker during the preceding hours and gunned him down where he stood. The commotion soon brought the rest of the players in, and we came up with the cover story that he had become traitorous and tried to threaten us into his plan to kidnap AH and sue for peace with the Allies. AH had taken my accomplice into the Cloak Room for questioning, Speer had gone to the Generator Room to get supplies for our escape from the city (with Goering dead I had managaed to convince everyone that from reports I had seen that the way to the Alps was untenable, the air was cloaked with Allied planes, and the safest route for escape was to go North to Naval HQ and escape by U-Boat).
Shortly after Speer disappeared the lights went out, and a rush of air could be felt as he made his way through the crowd and exited the Bunker in the confusing dark. The rest of us fumbled for flashlights, and I made my way around the wall to the door to the Cloak Room where I hoped I could convince AH to name me his successor before putting him down as well. Unfortunately for me, AH didn't buy our story that Goering had turned traitor and was waiting for me to see if I would confess to my lie. I drew my pistol as he drew his, my shot rang out and winged him in the arm, his wild blaze of fire in the dark forced me to retreat. I fell back into the entryway of the Bunker and into the arms of the guards who promptly arrested me. By this point the other players were able to convince him that we couldn't leave, the lack of power was possibly from Soviets near by. They had heard Goering call for an airplane to land at the Tiergarten, but when we arrived it was over run by Soviet troops. We quickly rushed from block to block North and West through the falling city and AH announced he would be shaving his trademark moustache to help avoid detection by the Soviet soldiers, where the Ref was using the results of his boardgame to determine what if anything was around. And eventually we made it across the river to the "safety" of the NW suburbs. At this point we'd been playing for a few hours and the ref asked AH to make a decision about the prisoners (myself and my accomplice); I was able to successfully plead my case that he needed me to get to the U-Boats, as he was now unrecognizable, so we could escape a crumbling Germany and that my shot had been in startled self-defense not an assassination attempt. We quickly piled into a truck and headed to Naval HQ, the game was over with a couple dead, 1 missing in the City (Speer), and a small handful on the run to parts unknown.
In the wrap-up discussion after the game, a couple players mentioned that they would have felt more comfortable if they'd known more about the people they were playing, and we all agreed that due to excellent roleplaying it was hard to get time alone with AH; especially as he became more deranged no one wanted to step on his toes, earn his ire, and be ordered to certain death. One of the most unique aspects was the time keeping mechanic, where the ref played a solo-game so none of us knew how close things were to ending with all of us losing by the Bunker being captured (really kept the tension up) and once we escaped we didn't know where in the city was safe, making it all a tense guessing game to try and get out (very immersive). The other interesting and new (to me) mechanic the ref came up with after learning from Josh's SpaceStein was to outsource to the players the searching of rooms; if you were looking for something that might be reasonably found there you had a 1-in-6 chance of finding it (i.e. a knife in the kitchen, or rope in the store room), if it was something less likely to be found (like a pistol in Bormann's office drawer) it was a 1-in-12 chance, each round of searching took 10 minutes of real time, meaning that it was possible you'd be caught in the act by other players. The set up factions were well done, and figuring out who you could turn or who you could trust and how to get them alone to discuss things away from prying ears was an interesting challenge (greatly helped by the room occupancy limits). All in all a fun evening was spent with friends playing what is probably the most controversial "stein" that will ever be run.
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