Table chaos, sharp play, bad plans.
RPPR Actual Play records tabletop sessions as they actually move: recaps, jokes, tactical pauses, rules checks, and sudden character choices all in the mix. Recent episodes range from D&D in Ptolus to The One Ring, Fall of Delta Green, and playtest horror scenarios.
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RPPR Actual Play treats tabletop roleplaying as a conversation that happens to generate a story. The recordings leave in the table noise that many shows would polish away. Someone remembers the recap. Someone else corrects the episode number. A rules question interrupts a joke, and the joke becomes part of the scene anyway. Recent D&D episodes in Ptolus have the group tracking cultists, missing party members, sewer fights, strange loot, custom armor, and a rat named Blinky with a kind of practical chaos that feels very lived-in. The fantasy material can be grim, but the table keeps finding dry angles on intimidation, corpses, accounting, shopping, and bad decisions. The One Ring episode changes the palette without changing the rhythm. It introduces hobbits through family connections, Bag End lore, Shire dates, walking sticks, enormous feet, and players settling into the joke before the adventure has fully started. The Fall of Delta Green run pushes harder into dread. Agents pursue Simon Orne, pass through Marseille tunnels, reach Carcosa, deal with Baltimore consequences, and keep weighing mission logic against supernatural damage. The comedy there is not softening the horror so much as giving the players a way to survive talking about it. Labyrinth Signal adds another layer: playtesting, system comparison, scenario craft, and body-horror premises all happen in the open. The show is especially good when mechanical choices and character panic occupy the same breath. It trusts listeners to follow campaign continuity, setting jargon, and quick table shorthand. It also rewards that attention with moments where the whole room snaps into a plan, a chase, or a bad realization at once. This is not a clean radio drama. It is a record of skilled, funny players building pressure together. The result is loose, sharp, and often bleakly comic.
Made for: For listeners who like actual play with visible table dynamics: rules talk, recaps, tactical debate, character voice, and group banter left intact. It especially fits fans of D&D, Fall of Delta Green horror, The One Ring, and experimental scenario playtests.
What sets it apart: RPPR Actual Play keeps the machinery of play in the foreground, so the story grows from clarifications, jokes, planning arguments, and sudden rulings. The mix of fantasy campaigns, investigative horror, known settings, and playtest material gives it a broader texture than a single-system campaign feed.
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.
Six murder hobos enter a cult dungeon; you stay for the cookie dispute mid-combat.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A clinical horror run where the cure is real and the basement is worse.
Labyrinth Signal: Alienation of the Flesh drops a playtest crew into a newly built clinic built around tissue alienation syndrome, a disease that has left millions alienated from parts of their own body. The setup is blunt and bleak.
A black-light pursuit makes Carcosa feel tactical, while a familiar door gives the chase a personal charge.
Carcosa first plays less like a mythic destination than a field problem: Agent David Nelson has followed Simon Orr and the Necromancer through a portal, then has to work out what a seasoned FBI investigator does after landing in the past.
A sending stone turns an official escort into a magical standoff, with every bad decision getting funnier as it spreads.
Roleplaying Public Radio turns an official escort into a pressure cooker, where a sending stone, a lucky roll, and a jumpy group with swords and wands are enough to set off a magical standoff.
A cultist cleanup turns into banter-heavy combat and interrogation in a room full of dead bodies.
RPPR Actual Play stays with Russ Bain and the table in the aftermath of a cultist raid in a D&D 5th Edition Totalist Campaign session: most cultists are dead, one is still alive, and a waitress remains tied up in a gift bag.
Actual play, aftertalk, and tactical table chatter.
Lore-heavy campaigns, live-table chaos.
Dry banter, bad odds, real dice.
Grim fantasy, bad plans, live-table chaos.
The party returns from Dereloft to Waterdeep, where they find the city in crisis.
The party interrogates a captured cultist after raiding a gathering, learning about the Brotherhood of Venom.
RPPR Actual Play’s “Delta Green: The Labor of Dogs – Episode 9” resumes after a Chinese Zodiac-themed Russian roulette game leaves Emma Masterson holding a revolver and Estelle Kunigande with severe facial damage.
RPPR Actual Play’s “Delta Green: The Labor of Dogs – Episode 8” follows Bridget’s investigators through a 3 p.m.
RPPR Actual Play follows a Dungeons & Dragons 5E party through a cultist dungeon beneath the sewers of a fantasy metropolis.
Jess Payne opens a sponsored RPPR Actual Play for the Roguelite Kickstarter, set to launch April 28th, 2026, which adapts video-game roguelikes (descended from 1970s mainframe game Rogue) to tabletop.
RPPR Actual Play's Ptolus campaign, Episode 9, opens with the party choosing between a rooftop, front-door, or sewer entry into a two-story Chaos Cult tenement in Old Town.
This episode is a recap of a Dungeons and Dragons 5E actual play campaign set in Ptolus, focusing on recent events like sewer fights and tracking down scabs.
The players continue their D&D 5E campaign in Ptolus, dealing with the aftermath of raiding a cultist gathering and preparing to interrogate a captured cultist.
The Dungeon Master and players discuss loot acquisition and character upgrades after exploring Pathanus House in their D&D 5E Ptolus campaign.
A group of players begin an actual play session of The One Ring RPG, setting up their hobbit characters for an adventure in the Shire.
This episode is the finale of a Delta Green roleplaying campaign where agents discuss their investigation in Baltimore to stop necromancer Simon Orne, including memorable events like losing a hand to a dream god and sneaking a corpse out of a morgue.
Russ Payton brings RPPR Actual Play back to Labyrinth Signal with Alienation of the Flesh.
RPPR Actual Play episode 16 places Delta Green agents David Nelson, Timothy, Agent Garrison, and Dr.
This episode continues a Delta Green role-playing campaign where players in Marseille pursue a necromancer through tunnels, dealing with undead guardians and character dynamics.
This episode features players introducing their characters and recent escapades in a Fate Accelerated role-playing game session focused on Drow and Dracoliches.
The hosts of a Dungeons & Dragons actual play podcast recap their previous adventure involving a trip to hell and character interactions.
This episode is a roleplaying game session where the host and players recap previous events and introduce their characters in a fantasy setting involving Drow and Dracoliches.
The players recap their previous session in a Fate Accelerated roleplaying game, focusing on political intrigue and interactions with factions in the city of Darylift.