System Mastery

We couldn’t get enough theme months! Welcome to a brand new thing here at System Mastery, Sweater Weather! Reviewing the games that make you feel as cozy and comfortable as a good bowl of stew and a blazing fireplace. Today, we’re discussing Golden Sky Stories, a game with a nearly microscopic focus on small, simple slice of life interactions, where you play as little animal children with whimsica...

As we draw this festive Ween to a close, we continue the project of a brief examination of newer space horror (Yes, that last game was a heist thing, but c’mon, you were working for the literal Devil, right? That counts!), this time with the most recent offering in the Alien franchise, a comprehensive and enormous RPG with a lot of modern design sensibilities and a commitment to getting every bit...

The customary three great blessings of Ween to each and every one of you! Okay, so this game isn’t especially scary. By now you should have recognized that we may or may not give a fuck about tradition from one day to the next. In this case, we’ve decided to harness the power of ween to focus on a few newer games for the season. Any chance to dodge another OSR retroclone or D20 shovelware, am I ri...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/system-mastery-235-ray-winningers-underground.mp3 Hurray, one of those edgy 90s games where people have superpowers but aren’t superheroes! You know, like the other ones? This one at least has an interesting angle of entry by being more about society failing veterans, but is that enough to help it shine beyond it’s fairly timeworn genre? Well, let’...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/system-mastery-234-apocalypse-world-2.mp3 Wait, from Psi World to Apocalypse World? Two worlds? One network family? Oh right, I should probably mention that because we both have been down for a bit with the old Covid-19, James stepped in to help record this one, which turned out useful because Jef was just plain too sick all the past couple weeks t...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/08/system-mastery-233-psi-world.mp3 Back to the old psionic grind! This game has almost exactly two whole paragraphs of story. Everything else we’ve had to glean from the margins and unusually informative rules. Wanna… I guess be a psychic refugee in the near future of 198X? That’s pretty much what’s going on here.     Learn more about your ad choices...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/08/system-mastery-232-leaked-6th-ed-dd.mp3 Hell yeah, we got some leaked documents up in here! Shame we gotta do it to them. But such is the rule of law here on the wild internet frontier.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/system-mastery-231-kevin-kell-rpg.mp3 A rare occasion where the “How the hell did this even happen” question seems fairly obvious (some company wanted a furry game in their line and this was close enough) but hot damn is this ever the weirdest thing we’ve seen in a long, long while. Strap in folks, this episode is extremely long, and not all that m...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/system-mastery-230-white-box.mp3 Let’s GOSR! This here is one a them retro-type clones where the goal was extremely straightforward: The author liked Sword & Sorcery White Box and wanted another edition, so here it is. Wanna play as a Dwarf? That can be up to level 6 as a thief(optional)? Well you an probably buy about three million other games. Or...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/system-mastery-229-underworld.mp3 Ever had dreams about the world deep below the world you know? A world where magic and madness swirl, where animals may just speak aloud, a world where the ancient myths of the surface are terrifyingly true? Did you recently read Neverwhere? Okay okay, I kid. This isn’t exactly like Neverwhere. It’s set in New York...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/system-mastery-228-star-wars-age-of-rebellion.mp3 Well, FFG was sort of driven off this project (it’s a really sad story) so the most recent line of Star Wars games is now in our wheelhouse, I guess. And who better to help us tell the story of the strangely high on narrative AND crunch FFG Star Wars engine that network owner and our good friend Jam...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/system-mastery-227-wizards-gunslingers.mp3Ooh, it’s one of those cowboys and also a different thing games! You know, like cowboys and ninjas, or cowboys and dinosaurs, or cowboys and the slow crushing onset of modernity… this one is wizards though. It’s mostly percentile, it’s written very strangely, and more details can be yours if the PRICE IS RI...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/05/system-mastery-226-star-munchkin.mp3 Uh oh, someone better stop us before we get to level 10.  It’s Star Munchkin, the RPG!  Did you know there were RPGs of these games?  You should have guessed.  Munchkin has the same marketing team as KISS.  It’s obviously a comedy game, secretly (seriously, it’s amazing how hard they work to hide it) an OGL game...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/05/system-mastery-225-marvel-multiverse-rpg.mp3 Reviewing a playtest?  That doesn’t seem right!  Well, it certainly isn’t in our usual bag of tricks, but hey, this is a rare situation where someone writing a modern game ASKED for our opinion (sort of, they asked for opinions in general) and we can be constructive and nice!  Will we?  Maybe!  Also this...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/system-mastery-224-fiasco-classic.mp3 Mea culpa time (Jef version):  This is one of those games where I knew exactly what it was and have been recommending it for years for any RP session that needs to be about spiraling into failure… but I’ve never read it til now.  So hey, were all my recommendations justified?  Let’s find out, shall we?     Lear...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/system-mastery-223-tephra.mp3 Ooh, a steampunk one!  You can tell because of the brown and the gear and the goggles and all.  Oh, I guess it also says steampunk on there, in retrospect I suppose that was a dead giveaway.  Anyhow Tephra is definitely drifting in the fantasy direction on the old -punk continuum, with neat races and a whole fantastica...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/system-mastery-222-umlaut.mp3 Uh oh, every once in a while a time comes in which we are commanded to rock, and that time has come again.  We’re discussing a game in which every play takes the reins of an entire metal band, and seeks fortune, glory, and thrown up horns from loyal fans.  Is this Sabbath?  Or is it Winger?  Listen along and let’s find...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/system-mastery-221-santas-soldiers.mp3 Happy Christmas in July in March!  It’s time for some holiday cheer, because we were looking for a different game but ended up with this one (it’s explained in the show).  Suit up as an agent in Santa’s elf army and go forth to do battle with a bunch of holiday monsters.  Or at least hear us talk about it!    ...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/system-mastery-220-the-secret-fire.mp3 This is a pretty bog-standard “Recapture the D&D I remember when I was 11” moonshot game, where the lessons learned about what D&D used to be like seem to be that it was awful but we loved it.  Does it promise to be all about player empowerment and then immediately strip almost any tools they might have used a...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/system-mastery-219-the-lawnmower-man-rpg.mp3 How often do we get to do theme weeks?  This is great!  We have the Lawnmower Man RPG, which is set immediately after the events of the movie, as the Southern Gothic horror gives way to … troop team simulation as described by the company that made Phoenix Command.  What?  Why?  How?  Anyway, here’s a who...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/system-mastery-218-silver-age-sentinels.mp3 Oh boy another supers game!  You know how we love those!  SIlver Age Sentinels is from the Big Eyes, Small Mouth folks, so you better believe it shares the insane customizability, tri-stat system, and more with that anime simulator.  But how does it do as a superhero engine?  Well, let’s all find out toge...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/system-mastery-217-conspiracy-x.mp3 What if everything you thought you knew was actually all evidence of a secret conspiracy?  Deja Vu?  Real psychic powers.  Men in Black?  Lizard people in black.  That’s the premise of Conpiracy X, a late 90s secret agents vs. everything game with a surprisingly complex combat engine.  Oh man.  Surprisingly compl...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/system-mastery-216-psychosis-ship-of-fools-1.mp3 Post-Show PS:  Turns out there is at least one more of these, Jef’s on-air googling failed to turn up Psychosis: Solitary Confinement.  Cool?  Cool. Well, when the name of the mental disorder is right there in the title you know you’re in for something at least a little iffy.  Luckily this is so far...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/system-mastery-215-blue-rose-2.mp3 Let’s dispense with the obvious question first.  This is the OGL version.  Now before that gets too depressing, note that this is one of the most modified OGL games we’ve come across, going so far as to do that one thing everyone always says you should do with D&D stats (not get rid of them, the other thing).  It’...

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/11/system-mastery-214-mystic-forces.mp3 Heck yeah, one of those weird games so little known I couldn’t GIS the cover and had to take a picture of our copy!  Mystic Forces is a 2000 RPG about light vs. darkness featuring some very unique ideas (though Jon has some ideas as to where a lot of them are coming from), and a world that doesn’t have elves, dw...