System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/system-mastery-72-everway.mp3 What’s in this box?  Who drew a big circle on the cover?  What’s up with the grey swirly mist situation in the background?  In Everway, players make characters by telling each other stories about little picture cards with questions on the back.  A faux tarot deck is also involved.  It’s a bizarre, beautiful, isolated g...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/system-mastery-71-rifts-part-2.mp3 Well, here we are.  We put Rifts in the rearview.  We still love this dumb game.  In today’s episode, we finish our discussion of the core book.  RCCs, OCCs, psionics, magic, and the crazy world of Rifts Earth.  Don’t forget to check out the bonus content over on our Patreon if you haven’t already joined that trai...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/system-mastery-70-rifts-part-1.mp3 We hope you’re as ready for this as we are.  After 70 episodes, it’s time to review the game that somehow started both of us down the path that ultimately led to System Mastery existing at all.  Rifts was the first game for both teenage Jef and teenage Jon, and somehow we grew into almost functional adults anyway!...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/system-mastery-69-gurps-discworld.mp3 Today is good day for somebody else to die!  We almost like Discworld TOO much, so we start by trying our hardest to review GURPS Lite.  After that, it’s a visit to the back of the Great Turtle in this licensed game that was actually written in part by the source that’s being licensed!  It’s Discworld, it’s pow...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/system-mastery-68-bunnies-burrows.mp3 This game has achieved a sort of fame because the name implies that it might be sort of friendly and cuddly.  It’s been referenced in other games as the RPG you should seek out if you’re looking for an easy time.  Like the training wheels of games.  Well let me tell you now, what they called training wheels in...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/system-mastery-67-seventh-sea.mp3 No really, it’s genuine this time!  An actual review of the first edition of the famous swashbuckling RPG 7th Sea.  An interesting blend of very familiar mechanics, curious ideas for character creation, and not-Europe world building created by famous RPG advice dingus John Wick.  This game has a hell of a following...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/system-mastery-66-7th-sea.mp3 April Fools!  This is really more about an hour of digressions.  People keep asking what the point is, so here’s the point of that.  Actually have you ever seen the movie “The Point?”  That was weird, right?  Just that wobbly 70s line-art cartoon style you see in stuff like Pink Panther and occasional sex-ed cartoons,...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/system-mastery-65-the-great-war-of-magellan.mp3 So… this one didn’t really have any art assets large enough to use for the rotating display thing.  Please enjoy a fine Magellanic Penguin.  It’s as relevant as anything else would have been.  This game is about a big war in space between the evilloids and the goodites.  It was written by a fellow who...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/system-mastery-64-dragonball-z.mp3 It took us a long time to get to this book because we were gathering power.  This week we present our in-depth analysis of this RPG about gathering balls.  It’s Dragonball Z, the Anime Adventure Game, also available as a wall scroll or plastic maquette! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoice...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/system-mastery-63-synnibarr-3rd.mp3 We stop by the realms of Raven “Combat Spanking” McCracken once more to see if there’s still the fires of mad genius behind his eyes.  Will we find more incredible insanity?  Or did he, like Icarus, sail too close to the sun?  Join us on a journey of discovery, won’t you? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/dinosaur-planet-broncosaurus-rex-system-mastery-62.mp3 It’s become apparent over time that there are a few archetypes of bad games.  You’ve got Vision of a Madman, as seen in Synnibarr or Skyrealms of Jorune.  Fun-Hating Deathslog, as seen in any number of heartbreakers and serious business games.  Then there’s Boring Trifle, a catch-all category t...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/system-mastery-61-ralph-bakshis-wizards.mp3 Someone must have really liked our review of the movie, because the demand for this was pretty high.  Today we present Wizards: the RPG.  The game that finally tells us the name of the movie’s famous horseballs (which we reject because they are called horseballs). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/system-mastery-60-gamma-world.mp3 Today we’re thrilled to bring you a game where you can play as a swarm of tiny yetis hanging around with a robot hawk and have an amazing, basically balanced game.  Gamma World 7th edition is a favorite here, and we’re starting 2016 with a breath of radioactive post-apocalyptic fresh air.  Don’t worry, in two weeks...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/system-mastery-59-immortal-part-2.mp3 We discussed the rules, now let’s talk about the fluff in the second episode of Immortal: The Invisible War.  Just what is a Darkle, and what Femmes it?  And shouldn’t the Tautha really be the Tuatha?  Probably! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/system-mastery-58-immortal-the-invisible-war-part-1.mp3 It’s been a while since we’ve hit such a rich, dense vein of crazy that we had to slow the pace down and take two episodes to really tease out the filaments.  Could Immortal: The Invisible War become the worthy successor to the glorious nonsense of Synnibar?  Well to find out, we’re taking a f...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/system-mastery-57-legacy-war-of-ages.mp3 You ever get the urge to take the Highlander movies and William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy and just artlessly mush them together like Playdough?  This book does exactly that, and then tosses in a little brazenly lifted Ursula K. LeGuin material just for seasoning.  It’s Legacy, the Highlander game without the l...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/system-mastery-56-panty-explosion.mp3 Man, just look at that title.  How terrifying is this going to be?  Well, we don’t want to spoil anything, so here’s Panty Explosion, a game that is verifiably about Japanese schoolgirls, and some of them are psychic sometimes! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/the-world-of-tales-from-the-crypt-system-mastery-55.mp3 After recording two episodes about this book, I’m just out of death-related puns.  Sorry about that.  But hey, there’s a bunch in the episode if that’s what you were hoping for!  It’s the Masterbook licensed-classic, The World of Tales from the Crypt! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit me...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/aberrant-d20-system-mastery-54.mp3 Let’s discuss the early aughts and their explosion of rapid-release D20 adaptations of older games!  Here’s a White Wolf one that turns everything about superheroes in every way into a series of ever-more-complicated feats.  Also Jef is super sick the whole time, sorry about that. Learn more about your ad choices....

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/fireborn-episode-53.mp3 Have you ever felt like you weren’t just this shell you are now?  That perhaps within you lurks something ancient, something fierce and fiery?  Well, it’s true!  Also, you should stop eating at Chipotle.  This week we cover Fireborn, the famous FFG outing in which various self-absorbed London dorks discover that they are dra...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/fantasy-wargaming-the-highest-level-of-all-system-mastery-52.mp3 Two weeks ago, the phrase “British Nerd” was relatively pleasant to me.  I’d picture David Tennant, or Richard Ayoade, or even Hermione Granger, and everything was fine.  “Oh,” I’d think, “Perhaps they’d like to discuss Neil Gaiman for a while!”  Not now though.  Now I picture a guy s...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/micro-rpgs-episode-51.mp3 This episode was so very refreshing.  Five tiny, lovely RPGs made recently by designers that had fun in mind.  It’s really not our wheelhouse to cover good stuff, but we wanted to throw out some love, even if it’s just every now and then.  In this episode we cover All Outta Bubblegum, Everyone is John, Lasers & Feelings, D...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/system-mastery-50.mp3 Fifty episodes in and it’s time to be confused by the grand pasture where every weird sacred cow in this industry was calved.  We go looking for answers to the great mysteries of gaming?  Will we find them?  Or will be be stymied by clumsy vocabulary and bizarre decision making? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphon...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/system-mastery-49.mp3 Today we introduce you to a light and relatively witty GI Joe parody from around 1992.  A.C.E. Agents manages a very unusual balancing act of both satirizing and explaining the workings of a JOE-style secret agency, while still remaining at least a somewhat playable game.  Sadly no rules in there for what happens when you take...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/system-mastery-48.mp3 Here’s a game of sorts.  It’s handwritten, it’s irritating, and it’s about goofball prisoners sort of murdering each other on a garbage planet.  Also it’s handwritten.  It’s Human Occupied Landfill, and we hope you enjoy almost as much as we did (because we hate you). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi...