System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/system-mastery-86-xcrawl.mp3 Man, I hadn’t even seen the regular cover of this til I was putting this together.  That’s uhh… well I guess Luke Cage found some chain mail made by Stussy or Jnco?  Also someone give Katana back the rest of her outfit, she looks like a member of 90’s X-Force.  This is XCrawl.  The game of professional modern-day dungeon crawling in a Rome-themed American dystopia.  You read it right.  The premise is actually pretty great!  Plus they seem to be making this still on kickstarters and in upscale nerdstropubs, so good for them!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/system-mastery-85-the-babylon-project.mp3 Get ready to recreate the dramatic adventures of Captain John Sheridan, psychic lady Ivanova, kindly space vampire Londo Mollari, and – did the doctor guy get a name?  I forget – but you know, be sure not to do it on the actual space station the show was on, and that you don’t set it in any time period after season 2, and that you don’t let too many Narn be on your team, with The Babylon Project, a stuffy game about that space show you only vaguely remember.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/system-mastery-84-nightlife.mp3 Looking for a game where you can play a vampire, werewolf, ghost, frankenstein, demon, or …Native American nature spirit?  And you you say you want it to predate 90% of White Wolf? Perhaps it’s ridiculous 1991 mullets you crave?  Well look no further because we bring you Nightlife!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/system-mastery-83-champions.mp3 Time for the HERO system, one of the big dogs of generic systems, in what is arguably it’s most popular incarnation, the very, very modular Champions.  Build a hero absolutely any way you want.  Literally any idea you have for a crazy hero, you get right on it and make that hero.  Just, you know, bring some graph paper, and a calculator, and a mechanical pencil, and some .7 lead, and some Jolt Cola (it’s 1989 in this paragraph).

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/system-mastery-82-cyberworld.mp3] In today’s episode we gather to pass judgement down upon Cyberworld,  the story of a distant future where an emperor that bizarrely shares the first AND last name of the book’s author (what a coincidence!) rules both North and South America with an iron fist that probably has a snap bracelet on it and an Alice in Chains CD clutched in it (1992 jokes people).  Join us won’t you, as we dive in to a dystopian cyber-future LARP.  That’s right, this is also a LARP.  With the rock paper scissors and everything.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/system-mastery-81-over-the-edge.mp3 Well lookie here!  Written by Jonathan Tweet (author of 3rd Edition D&D).  Designed by Tweet and Robin D. Laws (Author of Feng Shui).  There’s basically no way this won’t be crazy and interesting.  It’s Over the Edge, almost definitely the only tabletop roleplaying game that purports to be based on the writings of William Burroughs.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/system-mastery-80-vampire-the-masquerade.mp3 We’re drawing ever closer to the terrifying end of White Ween, and we figured why not tackle an 800 pound gorilla a week before every sad internet friend you hate puts on their makeshift Harambe costumes.  It’s Vampire: The Masquerade!  The seminal White Wolf classic which is dripping with blood, gore, and pretension!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/system-mastery-79-promethean.mp3 Happy October, dear listeners!  You didn’t think we’d skip it, did you?  Halloween is so easy to play around in it’s basically the podcaster Christmas.  So it’s all White Wolf, all month long at System Mastery, and we’re getting started with Promethean, the game that hoovers up the leftover mythology after all the other White Wolf monster titles and somehow adroitly bakes it into a man.. with blonde hair and a tan, and he’s good for relieving our…. tension.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/system-mastery-78-batman-roleplaying-game1.mp3 Da na na na na na na na na na na na na na na TABLES.  TABLES.  It’s Batman, all right.  Man is it ever Batman.  As a spinoff of a larger game, this game really knew how to focus.  But can the tone overcome the mechanics?  Nope!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/system-mastery-77-blue-planet.mp3 Cyborg orcas, mutant cat super scientists, “squids” and more await you on the distant water planet ingeniously named “Poseidon.”  You can make all sorts of amazing characters that certainly could have all sorts of amazing adventures, though I don’t think we ever figured one out.  It’s Blue Planet!  You’re going to tolerate it!  Note that the cover art we used from the poster is way cooler than the book, we just got lucky and found that on the internet.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/system-mastery-76-macho-women-with-guns1.mp3 Aw yeah, we got your boobsplosions, your vagcapitations, and your brutal wombsaws all up in this one.  It’s Macho Women with Guns, a parody game that uses generous margins and a lot of art to lightly spread a surprisingly complicated game over about 60 exploitative pages.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/system-mastery-75-add-2nd-edition.mp3 It’s our three year anniversary here at System Mastery!  Jon and Jef entered the bonds of holy podcastimony in August of 2013 and it’s been wonderful ever since, except for those times we’ve cheated with One Shot.  As per tradition, every 25 episodes it’s D&D time, and episode 75 is no exception as we take a long hard look at the classic 2nd edition of AD&D.  You know the one, it’s got all that bad blue art of nothing in particular and that weird picture of a giant fat guy looking at a tiny lady in his palm?  That one!  Enjoy!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/system-mastery-74-testament-d20.mp3 Okay, we were getting a little too friendly about games and movies around here, it was high time we picked something to straight up laugh at.  This is Testament, the best idea for a D20 supplement with more than one feat for farmers ever.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/system-mastery-73-feng-shui.mp3 This game was about as good as everyone told us it would be.  “Don’t cover it” they said.  “It’s not even for you guys.”  Well we showed them, those guys I just made up.  Feng Shui is an action movie RPG where you’re basically supposed to constantly do the most badass thing you can all the time until you die or win.  It’s very neat.  Please enjoy.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/system-mastery-actual-play-love-dread.mp3 Vacations can’t stop us, and neither can federal holidays.  Step right up and listen to our first full-length Actual Play episode, featuring the doomy tale of the Valentine’s Day killer assaulting… well I’m not actually sure what city this ended up being after all the arguing.  We combine amazing RPG Dread (not to be reviewed by the likes of us) and ridiculous Jenga ripoff Love Jenga (LOVE COMMUNICATION) to form one terrifying night of high school romance gone horribly wrong.  Special guests include Arian, Devin, and Sydney.  Thanks team!

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 gem  that was too weird to evolve any further in the gaming world, and we got a copy.

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 train.

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!  We can’t even begin to cram everything crazy about this book into one episode, so watch this space in two weeks for Part 2.

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 powered by GURPS, and also there’s some music with rocks in.

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 1976 is what we’d call “not punching your kid for falling off the bike” now.  This game may only be 39 pages long, but 39 is also the number of minutes you can expect your rabbit to live.  It’s Bunnies & Burrows, and nature is red in tooth and saving throw.