System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/system-mastery-197-ironclaw.mp3 So many people have requested this that we finally thought we’d throw you all a bone.  Ironclaw is an anthro medieval RPG, so you’ll be playing a lot of foxes, bats, foxbats, Batmans, Manbats, and Sons of Kong.  Is it fun?  Let’s find out!    

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/system-mastery-196-inspectres.mp3 Wanna hunt ghosts but not necessarily dedicate your whole life to it?  Consider just getting a daytime job hunting ghosts, goblins, nilbogs, and Son of Kong with InSpectres, a game from the early 2000s that’s actually kinda funny for once.    

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/03/system-mastery-195-lords-of-creation.mp3 Who wants to take over the multiverse?  Okay, great!  Let’s start you out as a nobody with nothing and you can grind XP in… I don’t care, let’s say mythological Ancient Greece for a thousand sessions.  It’s one of those 80s games!  Just like old times.  Literally old times. Announcement Mastery: Comics, Games, and Things: Comics, Games, and Things is an online hobby store that carries model kits, paints, miniatures games, and rpg books, and a large variety of 3d printable files.  Find them online at ComicsGamesAndThings.comThey’re probably doing another giveaway!?  Check https://www.comicsgamesandthings.com/giveaways/ and we’ll probably be giving away a 3d printed army for use in Miniatures Agnostic Sci-fi Games. Or the other one. You know the one. That one.  One entry per person, no purchase necessary, valid in the US for persons 18 years of age or older. Maybe buy something too? Please?  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/system-mastery-194-sentinels-the-roleplaying-game.mp3 From an old hero game to a new one, it’s time to talk about Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game.  Sentinels is an expansive setting with a vast cast of characters old and new, but we barely have time to even mention that as we go into detail over the Cortex-reminiscent and innovation ruleset.  Maybe we can talk story stuff next time. Announcement Mastery: Comics, Games, and Things: Comics, Games, and Things is an online hobby store that carries model kits, paints, miniatures games, and rpg books, and a large variety of 3d printable files.  Find them online at ComicsGamesAndThings.comSpecial Contest event!!!!  Comics, Games, and Things is giving away a copy of the new Sentinels RPG and two copies of the starter pack to a few lucky winners, but time is extremely tight!  Visit this website and sign in to enter to win!  https://www.comicsgamesandthings.com/giveaways/.  Entries will only be accepted through

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/system-mastery-193-skraypers.mp3 As go the tides, so come the times we’re both dealing with something and need a nice easy Palladium game.  Skraypers is both a Rifts and a Heroes Unlimited setting, so this is like a double supplement spectacular!  Heck yeah!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/system-mastery-192-shadowrun-anarchy-1.mp3 It’s Shadowrun!  But… faster?  Is that the point here?  It’s honestly sort of hard to tell the exact point of this Shadowrun 5e adjacent game, but damn if we aren’t at least going to try and figure out.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/system-mastery-191-boot-hill.mp3 Boot Hill is a colloquial term from the cowboy days for a cemetery.  You might think there’s some sort of metaphor their for our opinions pertaining to the game, but really I just wanted to say it before anyone on twitter felt like telling us.  Boom, shut down!  This is a 1990 cowboy game from TSR.  It is exactly that.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/system-mastery-190-interstitial-our-hearts-intertwined.mp3 Have you not gotten your fill of Kingdom Hearts yet?  Of course not, no one has.  Not until someone bursts Nomura like a pinata and eats all the ideas that come spilling forth will anyone be satiated.  But in the meantime, why not check out this game definitely not modeled after it at all (for legal purposes).  It’s also our first foray into talking about PBTA (now you know why the episode is almost two hours long)! This week’s Announcement Masteries Would you like to learn all about musical artists that have and still are making strong statements in politics and the LGBT community?  Check out This Review Kills Fascists, a youtube show conveniently located at youtube.com/thisreviewkillsfascists! 

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/system-mastery-189-new-gods-of-mankind.mp3 Now here’s some good old fashioned back to basics shit.  Got to be, right?  Name like that?  Shirtless axe dude on the cover?  Well, color us surprised because this thing is basically the top down part of Actraiser as an RPG.  Neat ideas abound, but can it get to the desired double “would play?” This week’s Announcement Masteries Julian Kay (Alien Rope Burn): Blogs, columns, and roleplaying games par excellence!  Check out their excellent work and especially support that Patreon! Check ARBco’s work out over at https://linktr.ee/juliankay UnPlaytested Podcast and Stream:  Unplaytested is the show about games that have never been played before… because they never EXISTED before! On every episode of the Unplaytested podcast, Alex and Lara will roll a random result off a big list of your ludicrous suggestions for RPGs, and spend an hour figuring out how to actually turn that into a playable game.  They stream th

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/system-mastery-188-star-crossed.mp3 Oh my, a game about the uncertain moments at the precipice of romance or disaster?  Neat!  Star Crossed is a 2018 game by Alex Roberts that creates tension and titillation through the use of some sort of well-recognized wooden brick tower.  It’s not out of print or anything!  We’re trying something relatively new here. This week’s Announcement Masteries Sail!: SAIL! is a new roleplaying game by Cas Swanson. SAIL! let’s players take on the role of dashing swashbucklers as they sail the high seas and fight an evil Empire. Check SAIL! out over at https://calevmir.itch.io/sail-rpg SuperIdols! RPG:  Welcome to the world of SuperIdols! RPG, where superpowers exist but only among the musically-inclined — especially those with dreams of pop star fame and glory. Join GM ErynCerise and a table of queer, gender-diverse players as they play teen idols aiming to master their powers, find their identities as artists, and make a

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/system-mastery-187-marvel-universe-roleplaying.mp3 Out of the four Marvel RPGs that have happened over the years, this is one of them.  Specifically, the 2003 diceless one made, inexplicably, by Marvel Comics themselves?  Anyhow, it’s certainly got us talking a great deal, so you know that’s always good. This week’s Announcement Masteries Inspiration Point: A fun and friendly podcast about RPG design and gameplay, table attitudes, friendship, and more.  Check out their show today or their brand new Patreon! BOLT RPG:  BOLT is a fast and tense action RPG built for hacking!  Check it out now, it’s available for pre-order on Metal Weave Games for 35 USD or 10 USD!  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/system-mastery-186-supermegatopia.mp3 There’s nothing quite so exciting to find as a unique blend RPG.  Here we see a blend of comedy, furry stuff, light breast expansion and pregnancy fetishes, and superheroes.  I bet you didn’t know you were missing that unique swirl of content!  Well, anyway, you shouldn’t. This week’s Announcement Masteries “Dinoplex: Cataclysm” is available now for $3.00 on DriveThruRPG and Itch.io. Take your players on a dinosaur vacation in space they’ll never forget! Einar Másson:  Instagram @emassonart, Twitter @einarmasson, E-mail  emassonart@gmail.com. Prices range from about $50.00USD for a simple avatar to $150.00 USD for a full-figure full-color portrait to about $300.00 USD for more complicated stuff.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/system-mastery-185-teens-in-space.mp3 Ween or Treatween!  Wait, what? This game is new!  How the heck did that happen?  Well, Jef’s supply of alien books isn’t low, but neither of us wanted to read something in Phoenix Command style rules and end the season mad, so we called an audible.  Ever wonder what we think about much more modern game design?  Well, this teen-focused sci-fi adventure is a great place to come find out!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/system-mastery-184-mib.mp3 Oh no, are your pumpkins ablaze?  Have you written out your list of mischief targets exclusively for the eyes of Ol’ Weeny?  Well, get ready, because this October, it’s all new, all different IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU WEEEEEEEEEEN adventures.  We’re doing alien games.  Pretty simple.  And we’re starting with this one.  This licensed one from the 90s.  You know what’s about to happen.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/system-mastery-183-rifts-world-book-3-england-1.mp3 Ooh look, a supplement!  People love it when we do the supplements, right?  We sort of needed a break for a bit while Jef navigates some medical shenanigans, so we tried to keep it light.  And failed, this episode is huge.  Oh well!  More millennium trees for the rest of you!  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/system-mastery-182-itras-by.mp3[/audio] Check out this wild game!  No, literally, go check it out!  This is a wild read of improv-driven story focused diceless gaming set in a surrealism-infused Norwegian dream city in the 1920s.  It’s neat!  Come on by for a rare System Mastery win.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/system-mastery-181-warhammer-fantasy-roleplaying-1st-edition.mp3 Small but vicious dog, right?  You remember that?  It’s that joke that’s in here?  Anyhow hi there, how ya doin’?  Wanna talk about a 1989 game that seems like it mysteriously sat unread on a shelf since 1977?  WHFRP 1st edition can do that!  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/things-we-hate-about-dd-part-2.mp3 Hey whoops this was only ever free on our Patreon.  Should be here too.  Now it is.  Hooray!  The balance is complete and finally I can diminish, and go into the West.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/system-mastery-180-robotech.mp3 Yeah, we needed a break again.  Jesus, Wraeththu.  So for now, let’s dive into dependable old Palladium.  Two scoops of whoops in every book!  Robotech is one of the early Palladium license titles, which is always a source of hilarious conflict and tone problems in every try, and here we find it, surprisingly fast.  For an 80 page book.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/system-mastery-179-wraeththu-from-enchantment-to-fulfillment.mp3 Okay, guess break time’s over!  This book is enormous, weird, and in a lot of ways, misguided.  The world has collapsed, humanity has fallen, and the Wraeththu have risen in their place.  And what are the Wraeththu?  Androgynous hermaphroditic semi-vampiric aruna-having yaoi people, duh.