Ross Payton

RPPR Actual Play

Leisure EN ↓ 962 episodes

Role Playing Public Radio presents a weekly Actual Play podcast of tabletop role playing game sessions. We play a wide variety of RPGs, from popular classics like Dungeons and Dragons and Call of Cthulhu to indie hits like Red Markets and Fate. Some of our episodes are stand-alone scenarios and we also feature ongoing campaigns in games like Delta Green, Eclipse Phase, and Base Raiders. Give us a listen if you want to hear a great gaming crew fight evil, try outrageous plans to save the day and joke about it.

Author

Ross Payton

Category

Leisure

Latest episode

Jul 9, 2026

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Episodes

Little Fears: Polybius 18.01.2012

A group of kids on summer vacation have found an unusual arcade game called Polybius. While its graphics are old, its gameplay is second to none. Unfortunately, it seems that those who play it are tampering with forces Man Was Not Meant To Know. Find out what happens when the spirits of dead video game enemies haunt the players that killed them!  This was a ransom request game from the Killsplosio...

Call of Cthulhu: The White Stairs 11.01.2012

In the post-war streets of Hiroshima, 1952, two Yakuza clans battle for control of the lucrative black markets and drug trade. The dominant clan is losing their hold because of the lack of leadership from their boss. He sends his two sons and two loyal enforcers on strange errands that have nothing to do with running the business. Soon, the Yakuza find themselves embroiled in a strange battle betw...

Eclipse Phase: Know Evil episode 6 04.01.2012

The Firewall team must rescue a kidnapped hacker currently held prisoner by the sky pirates of Venus. In order to find the pirates' hidden base, they must lure in one of their raiding ships, take out the pirates and capture the ship. The best bait happens to be a luxury zeppelin filled with the idle rich. What better place could there be for a gunfight? Of course, there will be more than a few com...

Cthulhu Dark: Dead Island 26.12.2011

When Ed Healy came to Springfield to visit Meta Games, I stopped by to run a one shot of Cthulhu Dark based on the video game Dead Island. Of course, this happened before the game came out so I basically with zombies at a vacation resort and made it up from there. We had quite a few players for this game including RPPR listeners, Ed Healy, Mike from Bear Swarm and some of the RPPR crew. Enjoy the...

Wild Talents: The Heroes of New Arcadia Episode 6 19.12.2011

This image comes from the hilarious webcomic, Wonderella. In this episode, the heroes of New Arcadia face a seemingly invincible foe - the leader of the Crystal Children cult. His powers stop anyone from attacking him directly or indirectly so he cannot be assassinated or captured. Can our heroes devise a means to stop this powerful psychic cult leader? Aside from that, the heroes have to secure t...

Eclipse Phase: Know Evil episode 5 11.12.2011

This episode brought to you by Kyle Moss, a Killsplosion Kickstarter contributor. After the Firewall agents return to Octavia, the major aerostat city, they decide to track down the pirates holding their target captive. The team splits up to learn more about the mysterious neo-synergist hacker, research the route the pirates will take and maintain their cover as an XP show. The plot has several tw...

Eclipse Phase: Know Evil episode 4 04.12.2011

This episode brought to you by Viktor Engvall, a RPPR fan and Killsplosion contributor. The intrepid Firewall team has made their way to a secret aerostat on Venus called Cloud 9. A war has broken out on the station between Pax Familia and the owners of Cloud 9. The Firewall agents must navigate the unstable station, armed psychopaths at every corner, deadly traps and other threats in order to lea...

Wild Talents: The Heroes of New Arcadia Episode 5 27.11.2011

In this episode the heroes of New Arcadia face two challenges: the Crystal Children and the occult mystery in Fiddler's Green. The cult known as the Crystal Children is led by a powerful metahuman with a unique ability that makes direct confrontations with him impossible. How will they bring this elusive foe to justice? When the other heroes delve into the mystery of the ghost lights of Fiddler's...

Cthulhu Dark: Revelations 22.11.2011

This scenario was played with the excellent ultra-rules-light game, Cthulhu Dark. Download the free PDF and try it out yourself! In a small town in the Midwest, things are about to change. A priest has turned to desperate measures to see his wish come true: to see the bible brought to life. Unfortunately, when the priest resorts to using a ritual in a book of the occult to make his wish come to li...

Eclipse Phase: Know Evil episode 3 15.11.2011

News: Support the Killsplosion Kickstarter and get access to 10 preview RPPR AP episodes including the entire Slender Man World of Darkness Campaign! The Firewall agents have learned where the Nine Lives Syndicate operative is and how to get to her but she won't be there long. The team rushes forward to defeat her guards and capture her before she escapes.  Once captured, she reveals her destinati...

World of Darkness: Slender Man episode 1 09.11.2011

News: Support the Killsplosion Kickstarter and get access to 10 preview RPPR AP episodes including the entire Slender Man World of Darkness Campaign! No one knows what the mysterious entity known as Slender Man really is or what it does with the victims it abducts. Until now. A park ranger that survived the events of Candle Cove was later taken by the Slender Man. After a year, he returns a change...

Wild Talents: The Heroes of New Arcadia Episode 4 04.11.2011

News: Support the Killsplosion Kickstarter and get access to 10 preview RPPR AP episodes! In this episode, the heroes of New Arcadia continue their war against the Syndicate. They discover a weapons manufacturing facility hidden in the city controlled by the Syndicate. The heroes must figure out a way to get inside the facility and destroy the machinery before the Syndicate thugs stop them. They a...

Call of Cthulhu: The Night Clerk 30.10.2011

News: Support RPPR with the new ransom game, Killsplosion! Get 10 preview AP episodes! Two office workers check into a banal hotel as a winter storm hits the city. Little do they suspect that the hotel is a nexus for unspeakable evil. This evil is not a man or an entity but the hotel itself. Brace yourself for a blast of architectural horror from RPPR!

Eclipse Phase: Know Evil episode 2 24.10.2011

News: Support RPPR with the new ransom game, Killsplosion! Get 10 preview AP episodes! The Firewall team barely escapes the hellish space station known as Thought, only to find themselves at the edge of a massive conspiracy. In order to learn more, they must make connections with the criminal underworld in order to track down the human trafficker that led them into Thought in the first place. Ther...

Dark Sun Episode 05: Antlion part 2 16.10.2011

This episode is sponsored by Audible Books. Sign up today and get a free 14 day trial and audiobook. In the conclusion of the RPPR Dark Sun campaign, our heroes find themselves under siege. Desperate villagers attack them while their erstwhile allies are as dangerous as ever. How will they get out of the antlion's pit? Find out in this last episode of Dark Sun! A note: We stopped playing Dark Sun...

Call of Cthulhu: The Horrible Lonely House in the Woods 09.10.2011

Three Harvard college students find themselves stranded in the wilderness of Maine. A man lurches in front of their car as they travel through the forest. The man is injured and their only shelter is a house near the road. Little do they know of the ancient evil that dwells in the house. This one shot is from the magazine Worlds of Cthulhu issue #4. I ran the scenario back in 2009 and I've never h...

Rifts: The Eliminators 30.09.2011

In a grimdark post-apocalyptic future, where the earth has been devastated by nuclear war, dimensional rifts and Nazi cos-players, only a few gritty heroes stand between a new apocalypse, a post-post apocalypse or a meta apocalypse or an apocalypse squared or a neo-apocalypse or an epic apocalypse or a mega damage apocalypse or a dragon cyborg juicer apocalypse wielding a rune blade with Atlantean...

Eclipse Phase: Know Evil episode 1 25.09.2011

Learn more about the campaign on the RPPR forums.  In the future, only 5% of humanity remains after rogue AIs known as the TITANs turned Earth into a hellish wasteland and then disappeared. The remainder lives throughout the solar system. Only a secret vigilante organization known as Firewall protects humanity from the remnants of the TITANs and any other existential threats. One team of low level...

Wild Talents: The Heroes of New Arcadia Episode 3 18.09.2011

The war against crime continues! In this double length episode, our heroes first encounter a fellow metahuman, Raoul - a skilled underground fighting champion. He has a problem though - a death cult has kidnapped his child. He needs the help of a few heroes to rescue his kid and stop the cult. In the second half of this episode, the heroes encounter two lieutenants in the Syndicate and their hench...

Call of Cthulhu: The Night Mission 12.09.2011

At Gencon this year, Caleb and I sat down for a chance to play in one of Adam Scott Glancy's WW1 Call of Cthulhu games. This time, we were pilots for British Army on a night time bombing mission. 3 de Havilland DH4 planes, each with a pilot and gunner. Unfortunately, one of the bombs was dropped on the wrong place and certain seals are broken. Find out what the hapless pilots awaken and if they ma...

Fiasco at Gencon 2011: Transatlantic 08.09.2011

I finally got a chance to try out the indie RPG, Fiasco at Gencon this year. I played with several people from the Arc Dream crew, including Shane Ivey and Greg Stolze. We used the Transatlantic playset: The time is 1932, the place? Somewhere in the mid-Atlantic aboard the luxury cruise ship Leviathan, a week out of Southampton en route to New York. On this flagship cruiser’s maiden voyage, the Ca...

Eclipse Phase: Think Before Asking 01.09.2011

An  Eclipse Phase Scenario written by Anders Sandberg and available as a free PDF. "We call it the gorgon-in-a-box problem. There is a gorgon inside the box, and we want to figure out  what it is doing. Unfortunately we will turn to stone if we see her face, and she might try to make us see  it. Dr Toshiro Driscoll-Toyoda, presentation to Naos Planning Board

Wild Talents: The Heroes of New Arcadia Episode 2 27.08.2011

In this episode of the New Arcadia campaign, our heroes have begun the fight against the Syndicate - a powerful criminal organization dedicated to consolidating its control over all organized crime in the state. It achieves this through the use of illegal super-soldier technology. Their enforcers are capable of taking down dozens of normal thugs in a battle so they have taken most of the city's cr...

Old School Hack at Gencon 2011 with Kirin Robinson 21.08.2011

I was fortunate enough to meet up with Ennie-award winner Kirin Robinson at this year's Gencon and talk him into running a session of his game, Old School Hack. It's a free, rules-light game of adventuring and dungeon crawling. Characters can be fighters or dwarves but not dwarven fighters. Caleb and I joined Simeon and Meg from the Arc Dream crew with the Angry DM as we went on a quest of liberat...

GURPS: Modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – Judgment Day 04 11.08.2011

We played these games a while ago. Funny story about this. I thought we played 3 sessions but in fact, Tom ran 4 sessions of this mini campaign. I scheduled these games to be posted while I was away at Gencon 2011. I did not think that there was a fourth game until a listener commented about it to me. So, I checked the archives and found the ACTUAL conclusion of the game. So, uh, enjoy the dramati...

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