System Mastery

It's witches aplenty this ween, and that means more than just crooked triangle hats, as we see here in a multicultural witch festival including witchy types from all over the world. The game is a little bit White Wolf and a little bit rock and roll, relatively recent, and we're covering the 1st edition (my understanding is that a second also exists). How powerful are these witches? Let's find out!...

What's that upon the roof I hear? Could it be the pitter-patter of seasonally appropriate witch feet 'pon my shingles? Why, 'tis! Blessed Ween to each and every! This year, it's Ween 3: Season of the Witch, and yes I know this isn't the third Ween, thank you very much. We're starting our witchy run of RPGs with Witch Hunt, a game about Salem in 1692, so you know it's gonna just be super tasteful,...

Let's examine a post-apocalyptic game with a penchant for low-budget outre 90s cinema styles, and a fairly simple core mechanic to boot. It's octaNe, and it's pretty interesting, even if I personally never wanna read about Six String Samurai ever again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And I said GO! If you're wondering if we liked this game, We liked this game, It's mostly fine, But it could use some work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sold to us as the first ever sci-fi RPG (a claim we have learned is dubious), Starfaring is basically Tunnels & Trolls, but with some Star Trek jokes and moving the racism largely from the spell titles to the art. It's still Ken St. Andre, it's still like maybe half a game, and it's still sort of important just because of the era (1977!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic...

Allow us to introducing our game... It's finally here, the box set that sat on my shelf for four years while we waiting for GenCon to be a thing we were willing to do again, and it's still not a live recording, because GenCon was a thing but they forgot to give us a room wired for recordings. What's in this thing? How do you play it? How will our heroes get out of this one? Find out in today's epi...

Apparently what we have here is often considered to be the first stab at a DM-less RPG system! It's from 2003, and boy is it unusual. How does it handle GM-less play, or many of the other things it's stated to handle (such as being an overlay over your current RPG!)? Well, that's what we're here to find out, isn't it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This one is interesting! It seems to be a compilation of two books, but is largely a single game about steampunk furry anime fantasy guys that also have airships and cool guns. The character builds can actually be pretty dang satisfying, but does it make any sense? Let's find out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's rules, for horror. From the DTRPG files, we've read a 2003 horror game with some neat ideas, some snarky stuff, and a slow burning lingering sense that there's a lot of Christianity stuff in here (in retrospect, the fact that it's from Crucifiction Games might have been a big hint). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And now to take a look at Savage Worlds with a game world overlay. We love Rifts anyway around here, and want to see it in all the formats. What do you think of the model for reviewing sandbox games that sell campaign settings? Should we keep doing it this way in the future? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So we might be a bit off schedule but that's okay, because we spent the time stuck in various airports and cities reading Savage Worlds so we could talk about it with you! A somewhat new game, Savage Worlds is a toolbox system similar to GURPS or the like, except it has an eye towards fast heroic play instead of accurate simulation stuff. Does it hit the mark? Well let's talk about it. Learn more...

Well well well, if it isn't a Palladium game. And one of those weird ones where Simbieda didn't write it or pretend to have written it! Valley of the Pharaohs came out in 1983, making it the first ever Palladium game published, and boy does that age show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jon's special blend of DrivethruRPG search criteria has kicked us up a truly interesting and unusual blend of superheroes, afrofuturism, strong Christian undertones, and Poser art that is definitely connected to a webcomic.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well I suppose it was about time. Let's dive into the world of world creation by taking a hard look at GURPS, one of the earliest examples of the "Do anything at all" RPG model, from Steve Jackson Games. If I can post this right. My tech level is pretty low. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy April Fools! Well, sort of. We were busy. We actually were hosting a quiz show thing on April 1st proper. So this early April episode will have to serve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is this, some sort of generic universal role playing system? Some sort of master book to rule them all? It's Infinite Domains and it arrived on the scene in 1996 to throw a new hat into the ring of "do anything" RPG systems, starting with a fantasy set of trappings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Set in the far future on the other side of a brutal and deadly war on Earth, Fractured Kingdom is concerned with folks rendered extraordinary by exposure to a world of dreams and power beyond and suffusing our own. It's from 2013, but it drinks like a 2003! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know you read about this in some message board or listicle article years ago. And you know you've always wondered what the heck it actually is. Well wonder no longer, friends! Answers await you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Night falls on Darkest Vancouver. Will you be ready to draw your coolest anime sword and battle the eternal dancefight against the other forever-walkers like yourself? Today's episode is a comedy game that sort of uses Highlander rules to make fun of White Wolf. It's neat! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A lightweight anime-inspired comedy game from... 1987? Damn, Mike Pondsmith must have been one of those guys that bought unlabeled anime VHS tapes from trenchcoat weirdos at comic cons when they still had walking room in them. Whatever the case may be, this is a fun, weird read. But a good game? Well let's find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No no, not Saga Edition, the other one. This is OGL shovel-ware Star Wars. It's got a real prominent author all right, but these "Just change the names on D&D stuff" versions of OGL content are so hard to fit to anything, let alone something as demanding and iconic as Star Wars. Did they do it? Well, check it out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

To close out our year we've decided to take a little look at a couple of very little games, because we just had a lot of family business going on around this time. We discuss a solo game about surviving a zombie apocalypse in the dead of winter, and another one about being word wizards exploring a lexicon library. Merry festive times to all! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adc...

No more Sweater Weather? Guess it's time for edgy fucked up December. Who wants to be nice to people and solve teddy bear ouchies when you can cram a firecracker in a frog or whatever as a member of Satan's grimiest little volunteer militia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you haven't played as a bear with a clothes hangar for one arm that has to help solve the mystery of where Starscream's left wing went, have you really lived? Threadbare is a PBTA game in the stitchpunk genre (more on that within) all about survival, adaptation, and purpose, and it can be played with absolutely no combat so hey, it's perfect, because Sweater Weather isn't over yet! Learn more a...

Sweater Weather just will not let up as we take a tour through the non-combative games that are just so hard to find in RPGs. Today we discuss The Play's The Thing, a Shakespeare altering game where you play as actors changing the story as the story goes along. So will the game be twice blest? Or is Hell empty and all the devils are here? Also, just up front, we don't know the first goddamn thing...