Call of Cthulhu: Operation Downslope

yog1A group of British commandos infiltrate occupied France to rescue a defecting scientist in a mountain top command post and research lab. In order to save the scientist, they must take out a team of German soldiers and pose as them. Once inside, the team discovers the Nazis are tapping into unnatural forces to further their war efforts. Can the commandos carry out their mission even though they weren’t briefed?

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28 Comments

  1. (Slow Clap) Bravo Aaron. This was a masterpiece, sincerely.

  2. At long last, we listeners have been briefed.

  3. And Aaron became the herald of the apocalypse.

    Tom’s games are the best.

  4. You folks run A LOT of CoC/Delta Green. There are some other horror-based rpgs out there I’d like to see you try:
    1. GURPS Horror
    2. Chronicles of Darkness
    3. Beast the Primordial
    4. Bloodshadows
    5. Shadow of the Demon Lord
    6. Urban Shadows
    7. Silent Legions
    8. The Void
    9. Savage Worlds Horror
    10. tremulus

    For me, your CoC/DG sessions have gotten fairly routine. Definitely not as interesting as when the podcast first started years ago. You folks have touched quite a few systems but maybe using something else for the horror genre is due?

    Also, maybe more sword & sorcery games. Have you folks ran Shadowrun yet? I didn’t see an episode for it. Pathfinder? Vampire? Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition? Numenera? Star Wars? These are all very popular systems that should make for great sessions, in my opinion.

    Guess I’m just tired of cultists and Nazis, especially knowing how creative you folks can be. Regardless of whether I continue to listen or not, great podcast folks 🙂

  5. I LOVE Tom cthulhu games.

    I was laughing so hard at work that I was getting weird looks from my coworkers.

    Great stuff. Need more Cthulhu!

  6. At long last… that which was prophesied has come to pass…. behold its glory

  7. Hi EW,

    RPPR does lean heavily on using Call/Delta Green (on average one episode per month) but they’ve covered a lot of other horror systems in both oneshots and campaigns.

    This may be old new to you if you’re one of us old-guard listeners, but have you tried:

    http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/slender-man-campaigns-and-one-shots/

    http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/category/systems/gumshoe/fear-itself-gumshoe/

    http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/category/systems/all-flesh-must-be-eaten/

    http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2015/10/genre/horror/dread-moonbase-red/

    http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2012/01/genre/horror/little-fears-polybius/

    http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2013/08/genre/horror/slasher-flick-the-festival/

    and while some games have been played in Cthulhu-titled systems, the content may not be, like http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2013/01/systems/call-of-cthulhu/call-of-cthulhu-preemptive-revenge/

    As to your other suggestions, there’s a died-in-the-making Pathfinder campaign available in B-sides volume 3: https://gumroad.com/l/pBlS#

    You can find the three episode Mutants and Masterminds campaign “age of masks” in the original podcast feed: http://slangdesign.com/rppr/tag/mutants-and-masterminds/

    Some of the hosts have expressed interest in running Numenara, but outside of that there’s been very little stated interest in World of Darkness, the Fantasy Flight Star Wars games, or any big Sword and Sorcery campaigns among the main crew. I know an Upwind mini-campaign is on the way, so that might sate it a bit.

  8. After New World, sword and sorcery would be hard to top. That one was epic and a Beast at 30+ episodes. I would be down for a ransom for a Changleing the Lost campaign. I know WoD triggers Caleb but he’d create a masterpiece with the setting.

  9. I feel like this scenario turned into a love letter written by Tom to Aaron’s worst (best) impulses. The last 10 minutes were fantastic. Bravo.

  10. I’m never playing WoD or NWoD guys. It’s just not happening. Ever. We all need to make our piece with it.

  11. More Upwind is most welcome!

  12. Thank you for the responses folks. And Caleb.

    Thesauradon, it was the mentioned “Age of Masks” M&M2e campaign that first brought me to this awesome podcast years ago. Got addicted to Ross’ game show-host voice, Tom’s tactical excellence, and Aaron is hilarious. Thank you for the links, but yeah, I’ve listened to 99% of it.

    My new plan is to become a Patreon backer and buy an episode of tremulus or SotDL.

    What level of Patreon contribution gets Caleb into WoD? Also, please make Tom run more stuff.

  13. Halfway through. If this doesn’t end in a Catch-22/Kafkaesque/David Lynch situation where the players meet their doppelgangers from other dimensions/timestreams which erupts into everyone demanding of everyone else “have you been briefed? who has the briefing?? WHO”; then I feel an opportunity was lost.

    I get it now. Talking to Caleb about the World of Darkness is like talking to a Jets fan. You can talk about football, the AFC east, even the Patriots; but bringing up Superbowl chances is just not something you do.

  14. So when it was starting, I was thinking: this is a pretty good new intro to Divine Fire.

    Also, pretty sure I’ve heard Caleb play a WoD game.

  15. Wow Aaron, just wow.

  16. Sorry to dash your hopes, EW, but money-to-run-suggested-games isn’t how the current Patreon works. If you pay enough to get in a patreon game then you’re going to play what a cast member wants to run. The best chance you’d have to get them to play one of your preferred horror games would be to suggest it during the gen con meetup. (Everyone’s drunk except Tom)

    I’m not suggesting you don’t start patronizing Ross and Co, I think After Hours is worth every money unit!

    If you want to play some more diverse horror games (and I’m kind of flabbergasted if you found God’s Teeth to be routine Lovecraft) then maybe you could look around the forums or, if you can stomach the endless whirlpool of vaporwave, the Gen Con Groupme.

  17. Author

    Tom has a campaign on Tabletop Tales right now: http://tabletoptales.roleplayingpublicradio.com/tag/the-scorches/

    We also recorded a 4 session mini campaign run by Tom using the sci-fi RPG Hc Svnt Dracones – that will start in November.

    We also have an Inverse World one shot from Aaron coming up soon and a month of Upwind in October.

    BTW, Red Markets is very much a horror game and it is not like CoC or DG in the least. I did just finish posting a 3 session game of Night’s Black Agents, which is also horror.

  18. EW, what have you thought of my Civil War Cthulhu games? They’re in CoC or ToC, but I do my best to make creative use of the setting.

    Speaking of this scenario — great stuff from front to back. This was an all-star cast of quality roleplaying. I truly felt immersed.

  19. “Fuck you and fuck your chalk!” made my whole day.

  20. Ah!

    Ahhhh!

    Ahhhhhhhhhh!

    Amazing.

  21. This one was a delight. I love the difference between how different RPPR members run CoC.

    I was definitely picturing the results from the change to time as the characters returning to the stone circle and finding the base abandoned. One character leaves the circle and deconstructs since they no longer have a place in the timeline.

    Or a different army occupies the base or Yithians or …

    re: WoD, even without meth house associations, it feels like a bit of a step back to do WoD after you’ve played ORE. In my experience, anyways.

  22. I sort of got the impression that between New World and the Iron Heroes campaign (the name of which I forget) folks were kind of burned out on D&D and close derivatives thereof. I know that I have certainly found that I’m not terribly interested in listening to them anymore (mostly because of how lengthy and yet not terribly exciting the combats seem to get). But I am all for more Dungeon World or other PBTA stuff by the RPPR crew. Then again, I always enjoy the horror stuff too.

    And I still think y’all would really dig Soth. All hail Soth.

  23. Like any gaming group some systems are going to harder to sell than others, and like Malkav11 pointed out some make better/smoother listening. In my own group I know there are concepts or systems that I shant be running any time soon based on player engagement or simple scheduling.

    One of these days I’ll have to find out if Caleb’s extreme distaste for WoD is ever explained in detail. I’d really like to know, listening to some of the After Hours episodes definitely shows how much context and zeitgeist affect how people view games and media and as someone who is probably at the older end of the community here I alternate between agreeing and gritting my teeth when the guys discuss certain systems or products.

  24. One man standing ovation here, for Aaron.

  25. Is this available someone like in a source book or something if we want to run it for our players?

  26. @Alex: This is a scenario I designed myself. All my notes are in loose leaf notebooks.

  27. I’m still going to vote that David was best Captain.


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