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Courtesty of Adam Scott Glancy
Courtesty of Adam Scott Glancy

U-Boote Heraus! Part 1 of a Call of Cthulhu scenario

Run at Gencon 2009 by Adam Scott Glancy of Pagan Publishing

U-boat warfare in World War 1 was a grim, grisly affair but one crew will find themselves embroiled in a struggle far darker than the war to end all wars.  What secrets does the strange cargo ship with its odd crew hold? How do you use a potato masher grenade? What does a Maxim machine gun do to a rowboat full of sailors? Find out the answer to some of these questions and more with part 1 of U-Boote Heraus.

Players: Shane Ivey, Greg Stolze, Tom Church, Frank Frey, Hansrainer Peitz, Ross Payton

Please note that this is an epic scenario and the first part is about five and a half hours.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:25:19 — 149.0MB)

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We here at Role Playing Public Radio are fortunate to play a lot of role playing games. A LOT. Because we’ve posted so many games, you may have missed our very best episodes. Whether you’re a new listener or an old one who just hasn’t gone through the entire archives, we have a lot of great episodes you may not have heard.

Top Ten One Shot Episodes of RPPR Actual Play (as arbitrarily decided by me and in no particular order)

  1. Candle Cove: Based on the creepypasta story of the same name, Candle Cove pits investigators against a cult and a demon in a 3 way battle.
  2. Lady GaGa 2.0: A cyberpunk adventure set in the 1980s version of cyberpunk. Lady GaGa and her band take on mercenary jobs for poorly explained reasons.
  3. Bryson Springs: Horrors lurk in a Hooverville in 1935. What is the Fisher of Men?
  4. Sucrose Park: A playtest for my book, Road Trip. A group of kids and their monster pals fight a crazed giant rat and brain!
  5. Lover in the Ice: A monster preys on a town isolated in a snowstorm. Only a team of Delta Green agents can stop it before it escapes.
  6. The Legacy of NIMH: Remember the Secret of NIMH? We added things to it. Dark things. 😀
  7. The Dangers of Fraternization: Berlin after World War 2 was a hotbed of crime and political intrigue.
  8. A Glorious Fall: An introduction to Eclipse Phase, a transhuman sci-fi horror RPG.
  9. Call of Cthulhu: Shanghaied: Shark fighting, cave cows, and Deep Ones, oh my!
  10. Preemptive Revenge: Time travel is terrifying in the hands of the callous.

Hilarious Episodes

  • The Jet Fuel Formula: There is a Rocky and Bullwinkle RPG and we played it. Turns out it’s actually pretty good at emulating the show!
  • A Rough Night at Three Feathers: Weary travelers stop at an inn. Then the murders start. Run in Zweihander but set in Warhammer Fantasy.
  • Macbeth: The Play’s the Thing turns Shakespeare into a RPG. Our take on Macbeth is…unique.
  • The Eliminators: Rifts is not the most mechanically balanced game system. We still played it, much to Caleb’s chagrin.
  • The Haunting: The Best-Worst game EVER. The real horror comes from the actions of the players.
  • Slasher Flick: Synthopia: A 1980s action film, only the players are bad guys trying to survive the relentless assault of the hero Jack Shade.
  • Revelations: It starts our as a creepy horror scenario and then we realized we were playing Cthulhu Dark.
  • Night Vale Traditional Games Club: Set in the small town of Night Vale, a group of players get together to play a board game.
  • Fiasco: News Channel Six: Man Rooster fights are the least of Ramble Turducken’s problems in this dark comedic one shot.
  • Dungeon Crawl Classics: Sailors on the Starless Sea: Sixteen peasants enter a dungeon – will any get out?

Scary and/or Creepy Episodes

Adam Scott Glancy’s (Pagan Publishing) Contributions to RPPR Actual Play 

  • Dig to Victory: Horrors lurk in the trenches of Europe during World War 1
  • U-Boote Heraus Part 1 and U-Boote Heraus Part 2: Even submariners are not safe from the Cthulhu Mythos
  • The Night Mission: An aerial WW1 Call of Cthulhu adventure – Bigglesworth away!
  • Divine Fire at PAX 2011: Mr. Glancy took Tom’s original concept and revamped it for the modern era.
  • Shadows of Leuven: a murder mystery set in a small town caught in the chaos of WW1.
  • The Iron Devil: American soldiers travel by train in Siberia and confront horrors beyond their imagining.
  • Call of Cthulhu: Lord of the Peaks: Italian soldiers in the Alpine Mountains battle the elements and monsters.
  • Iconoclasts: A group of terrorists find more than they bargain for when they try to loot an old man’s house.
  • The Wounded: Crippled soldiers in a WW1 era British hospital find an unnatural path to recovery. Dare they take it?
  • The Uncorrupted: Greek soldiers trapped on a remote island find things more deadly than the frontlines.
  • New Rome: A Hollow Earth Expedition game about ape men who rule a Roman style city state.

Notable Episodes of RPPR Actual Play for Various Reasons Which I Shall Briefly Explain

  • Moon Drenched Streets: Our first recorded game of Shadowrun and it was a DOOZY.
  • Deep Shit: A Blue Planet scenario run by the game’s creator, Jeff Barber.
  • They Served Brandyolyn Red: Truly a love story for the ages. A Dungeon Crawl Classic adventure that features a wedding and giant ants.
  • Blessings Unheralded: Our first game of Warhammer 40k: Wrath and Glory is an insightful critique of the setting. Book on a stick!
  • Think Before Asking: Sci-fi one shot based on the dangers of building incredibly powerful artificial intelligences. To summarize: they’re really scary.
  • Andrew’s Fortune Part 1 and Part 2: Caleb’s first game as GM using A Dirty World for the system. A dark noir tale of greed and desperation.
  • Coronet: People washed their clothes with gasoline once upon a time. It was common they had to make educational films to tell people to stop doing it. I based a game on the horror of old educational films like that.
  • Dungeon World: The Ghost Library: We introduce a new player to tabletop gaming with hilarious results.

Notable AP episodes from the main Role Playing Public Radio website

 

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A group of violent, ruthless, and utterly amoral killers is on the loose. There's also vampires too.Tribes of Tokyo is a Night’s Black Agents campaign, set primarily in the bustling capital of Japan.It is a game of thrilling espionage action and dark vampiric horror. A group of security consultants in Tokyo are hired for a typical job, digging up dirt on a mysterious individual by an anonymous client. Unfortunately, the target is not what he seems to be and the consultants find themselves fighting against a conspiracy of inhuman monsters able to climb sheer walls and shrug off gunfire. Who are they and what do they want? More importantly, what will they do to the consultants if they catch them? This group of misfits and washouts from various intelligence and criminal organizations have to find and stop their new adversaries before it’s too late.

This campaign lasted for 13 episodes, plus a single prequel game. It mixes dark occult horror with cinematic spy action scenes, complex schemes, and political intrigue.

All artwork for this campaign was created by Crazon. Check out his Devianart page!

Prequel: Call of Cthulhu – The Iron Banded Box. Set in historical Japan, this scenario is not necessary to listen to but it does add some depth and context to it.

Episodes

  • Episode 1: The Ronin, a group of security consultants, get caught up in a conspiracy of drug dealers and vampires.
  • Episode 2: The investigation begins in the night clubs, as the Ronin look into drug dealers and motorcycle gangs.
  • Episode 3:Tracing the mysterious drug Reverb through the Japanese underworld.
  • Episode 4: Operation Black Dolphin.
  • Episode 5:The vampires retaliate and the Ronin discover a leak in the police department.
  • Episode 6: The capture and interrogation of American Joe, the rogue Yakuza drug dealer.
  • Episode 7: The secrets of the Japanese David Bowie.
  • Episode 8:The Ronin attempt a rescue mission.
  • Episode 9: A side mission undertaken to earn additional cash nets the Ronin unexpected trouble.
  • Episode 10: A journey to a distant realm through means most unusual.
  • Episode 11: Infiltration of a cult compound.
  • Episode 12: A massive assault on the hidden lair of the vampires, but is that all there is to it?
  • Episode 13: The truth behind the Long Vault and final choices.

Post Mortem: Go behind the scenes of Tribes, as Ross, Caleb, Tom, and Aaron discuss what went right and what wrong.

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Over the years, we’ve run more than a few campaigns, ranging from epic Dungeons and Dragons campaigns like the New World, to short unfinished horror games like Slender Man. I’ve created an index of every campaign we’ve run here. Each one has a unique page describing the concept and linking to every post in order, so you don’t have to hunt through the archives to download the episodes.

Most Popular

  • Impossible Landscapes: A Delta Green campaign of surreal horror run from 2022 to 2023.
    Know Evil: Set in the transhuman sci-fi game, Eclipse Phase and involves a group of covert agents fighting a sinister conspiracy. Recorded between 2011 and 2012.
  • Heroes of New Arcadia: A superhero game where a group of unlikely heroes band together to protect a city from numerous threats. The Inspiration for Base Raiders! Recorded between 2011 and 2013.
  • Fallen Flag: A Red Markets campaign set in Colorado. Run in early to mid 2016.
  • God’s Teeth: A Delta Green campaign of a cursed group of agents investing the Cthulhu Mythos, run during 2015 to 2016.

Complete Campaigns

  • Cointract Island: A Fate Core survival horror campaign set on an island overrun with genetically engineered monsters, fueled by experimental blockchain technology.
  • Heart: Descending Derelictus: A Heart the City Beneath campaign. A group of delvers journey to the Heart, to stop a God from being created. Run from October 2021 to March 2022.
    The Blind Eyes: A Blades in the Dark campaign focused on a group of smugglers uncovering a secret war between powerful factions. Run from summer 2020 to early 2021.
  • Cooper County War: A Red Markets war campaign. A group of takers complete scores to earn bounty to prepare their enclaves for a war against a massive horde of undead. Run from mid 2020 to early 2021.
  • The Eighth Sea: A criminal focused Eclipse Phase 2E campaign about a Martian gang fighting for survival. Run from 2019 to 2020.
  • Nagalisitu: A Reign campaign about a mercenary company guiding a new civilization. Run from late 2018 to early 2019.
  • Gate 9: A Base Raiders campaign following the lives of a crew of new base raiders, as they start as civilians and become world-saving superhumans. Run from 2017 to 2018.
  • Fortunes of War: An Iron Heroes campaign about merchants in wartime. Uses many house rules. Recorded in 2013.
  • Tribes of Tokyo: A Night’s Black Agent campaign pitting espionage agents against a conspiracy of vampires in modern day Japan. Recorded between 2012 and 2013.
  • Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man: A Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands campaign. A group of lost dreamers must find a way back to the waking world. Recorded in 2013.
  • The Final Revelation: A Trail of Cthulhu campaign set in 1930s England. The Friday Group tries to avert an apocalyptic threat to humanity before it is too late. Recorded in 2014.
  • Duality: An Eclipse Phase campaign focused on gatecrashing and the Rimward sections of the solar system. Recorded between summer 2013 to 2015.
  • Atomic Robo: A group of scientists working for Tesladyne fight a genocidal AI across the world. Run from January to May 2015.
  • Masks of Nyarlathotep: The classic campaign, now in Trail of Cthulhu! Run from June 2014 to June 2015.
  • The Spared and The Spoiled: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, as a group of demonically-possessed teachers and parents try to save a local high school through supervillainy. Recorded between 2012 and 2014.
  • The Brutalists: The first Red Markets campaign, run during the game’s beta draft. Run in early to mid 2015.
  • The New World: A grand 4E Dungeons and Dragons campaign, which went from heroic all the way to epic tier. A must listen for all fantasy fans! Recorded between 2008 and 2010.

Incomplete Campaigns

  • Dark Sun: A band of adventurers are tied together by an ancient artifact for unknown reasons. Never completed. Recorded in 2010.
  • Slender Man: A series of horror games based on Slender Man, including an unfinished campaign. Recorded between 2010 and 2011.

 

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Role Playing Public Radio presents a weekly actual play podcast of tabletop role playing game sessions. It is run by Ross Payton, a tabletop RPG writer and podcaster.The cast rotates for different games, but our regular players include Caleb Stokes, Aaron Carsten, Tom Church, Maddy Gibbons, and Thaddeus Stoklasa.

We play a wide variety of RPGs, including Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, Blades in the Dark, Eclipse Phase, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Heart: The City Beneath, and Monster of the Week. We alternate between full campaigns and one shot adventures.

Check out our Campaign Index to see a list of our completed campaigns.

Check out some of our best one shot adventures.