System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/system-mastery-117-rpg-13-b-movie-game-system-scared-stiff.mp3 Today, we’re reviewing an earnest attempt to capture the very specific magic of the B-Movie.  You know, so there’s gonna be like a ray gun that changes the frame so the victim is just a classroom skeleton, or close-up footage of a happy lobster terrorizes a small town.  At least that’s...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/system-mastery-116-wegs-old-skool.mp3 OSR, or Old Sam Raimi, is a concept in gaming that the most fun game stuff already happened and was mostly done by the early 80s, and that games resembling or utilizing the tools of that era are preferable to modern RPG stuff.  WEGS Old Skool is our first game that is marketed as an OSR design.  Will we like it...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/system-mastery-115-brave-new-world.mp3 So this is Brave New World.  What’s in the core book?  Enough superhero stuff to sort of play, if you call this playing.  A wizard class with no spells, a gadget class with no gadgets, and four or five superheroes mostly relegated to “slightly stronger than a normal guy.”  Buy more books for actual content! Ok...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/system-mastery-114-promised-sands.mp3 It’s impossible to predict when we’ll hit a real speedbump on the show, a real Synnibarr or Haven… and here we are!  Promised Sands ascends the steps of the pantheon and announces intent to contend for the role of System Mastery’s Least Favorite Read.  If you’re looking for us at our angriest, here we are. Lear...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/system-mastery-113-witch-hunter-the-invisible-world.mp3 Put on your buckliest hat and prepare to engage in battle with monsters most biblical!  We examine a game that truly tests the boundaries of how much White Wolf you’re allowed to put in a book that isn’t by White Wolf (Or by OPP, or whatever the hell is going on over there these days) in Witch...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/gamma-crawl-x-the-final-chapter1.mp3 Happy winter everyone!  The gang takes on the last battle in the truck truck arena!  Sorry this took so long.  More AP will come soon, and we’ll have such things as editors and so on to actually move the process along. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/system-mastery-112-tomorrow-knights.mp3 Interesting note that we missed because we didn’t do any research:  Tomorrow Knights here is a Marvel property.  Which makes this a Marvel RPG.  We had no idea.  Thrill to the workings of an author that also wrote, for Marvel, FIVE issues of a weekly fanzine about Return of the Jedi in 1984… and also, this co...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/system-mastery-111-extreme-vengeance.mp3 On today’s episode we discuss Extreme Vengeance, an RPG dedicated almost entirely to recreating the feel of gung-ho action movies (there is a sliver reserved for unrelentingly dragging Hulk Hogan).  Big guns, big biceps, and actually well-thought out rules to follow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/system-mastery-110-paranoia-xp.mp3 A madcap dystopia that has more accompanying memes per square centimeter than anything short of Dungeon and Dragons itself.  Is Paranoia worth braving the swamp of people at the store endless parroting stuff about friend computer?  Actually yeah, kind of! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/system-mastery-109-mermaid-adventures.mp3 Let’s talk about RPGs for kids.  Or more accurately, one RPG that is basically for kids.  It might be a little heavy on Ariels and light on editing, but Mermaid Adventures manages to remain a charming and accessible game for kids, without somehow shoehorning in transformation fetishes or weird political vie...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/system-mastery-108-dark-continent.mp3 Dark Continent is the RPG of … well venturing into Africa and killing a bunch of people.  I mean that’s vaguely frowned upon (unless you are playing a Belgian), but it’s still pretty much expected.  Also, it stars the biggest package that they could afford for cover art.  Look at that thing.  It’s like there’s...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/system-mastery-107-werewolf-the-apocalypse.mp3 Awoooooo White Ween continues!  Awoooooooo!  Today on System Mastery we introduce you to the colon-free world of Werewolf the Apocalypse.  I mean, there’s some colons. Werewolves probably have colons.  I bet they poop constantly on the lawns of corporate criminals and polluters and so on.  What I meant...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/episode-105-minds-eye-theatre-requiem.mp3 Ah, truly the most joyous of holiday seasons is upon us!  Happy White Ween!  Today, we cover a game that turned out (well after we started reading it) to be a sourcebook.  Whoops!  We are bit in the butt by our lack of research yet again!  Oh well, we bravely soldier on in true Ween spirit to cover Mind’s E...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/system-mastery-104-living-steel.mp3 Brought to you by rocket scientists hellbent on pure unadulterated realism, Living Steel is basically Heinlein by way of Games Workshop, with probably a few too many tables (which is a nice way of saying for sure definitely too many tables by a lot).  Gird your mega loins to battle Vissers and Spectrals along wit...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/system-mastery-103-gear-krieg.mp3 Are you looking for a game of two-fisted derring-do and rousing pulp adventure?  You’ll be sure to find it in some other book.  Gear Krieg is an RPG companion to a similarly titled tabletop wargame, based on the functional Silhouette rule system and featuring … well, World War 2 for the most part.  Also Edison and...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/gamma-crawl-x-4.mp3 Oh my goodness after a long hiatus the adventure continues.  I mean, sort of.  We recorded this a long time ago. In a measurement system I call “Broken Computers,” we recorded this episode two broken computers ago.  As always, we are joined by our GM Quinn (of Swallows of the South and various other podcasts) and friend of the s...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/system-mastery-102-king-arthur-pendragon.mp3 Yay, a game we didn’t hate!  This is a very specific sort of RPG, in which you play as a knightly dynasty during the Morte D’Arthur romantic tales.  Will you be a good Cymric Christian soldier (yes, probably) who spends their time collecting taxes, having kids, and very, very occasionally fighting a bear...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/system-mastery-101-a-state.mp3 This book is a grim, unrelenting slog.  Punctuated by the kind of art that would be impressive if this book was a collection of screenshots from the first Fallout game, filled to the brim with grimy short stories where nameless murderers murder murderers for the joy of murderin’, and with about 14 of its dismal 200 or...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/system-mastery-100-dungeons-dragons-3rd-edition1.mp3 Well, it’s been four years.  Honestly when we started the gimmick of doing D&D every 25 episodes we never thought we’d actually get as far as third edition.   Here we are though!  3rd Edition D&D and all it’s accompanying rules-as-physics and expansive OGL accoutrements, laid bare for your amusem...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/gamma-crawl-x-3.mp3 This time on the continuing adventures of Occulus Vive, Teddy Rustbin, and Yu-go the Nyarlathotank we find our heroes faced with a fiendish trap and pitted against the fiendish Bird Brothers in a fight to the…death? Listen and find out on the newest episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/system-mastery-99-sailor-moon.mp3 Moon Prism Power!  Right?  Right?  That’s what she says sometimes?  Look this is weird for us.  Not our usual thing.  So we brought in a ringer!  A guy that’s watched all this and even played this game, and also I guess he’s our boss sort of, James D’Amato of the One Shot Podcast Network.  He’ll help us tease out t...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/gamma-crawl-x-2a.mp3 On today’s episode of Gamma Crawl X, our heroes encounter a slimy surprise, followed shortly thereafter by Deadstone the Gatekeeper.  Enjoy!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/system-mastery-98-legendary-lives.mp3 The countdown to episode 100 begins!  This week, Legendary Lives.  Just another heartbreaker you’ve never heard of?  Maybe.  Does it commit several of the weird sins of old game design?  Oh absolutely?  Can you play as rad snake dudes?  YES! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/system-mastery-97-exquisite-replicas.mp3 You know what we forgot to do in this one? Make fun of that Anonymous motto about how they’re legion or whatever.  I guess we just forgot.  Oh well.  This is a game that reimagines the internet hacker collaborative or whatever as a bunch of insane homeless people fighting invisible extradimensional invaders....

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/mad-max-x-crawl-1.mp3 As demanded by the public (and the Patreon) we have begun our first ever Actual Play series, Gamma Crawl X.  In this show, we are joined by our GM Quinn (of Swallows of the South and various other podcasts) and friend of the show Brad, to adventure in the far-flung mutant madness that is the arenas of Gamma World.  In this epi...