System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/system-mastery-158-chill.mp3 It’s a nice day for something!  Welcome back to our October content.  This year the theme is a little looser since we’ve reviewed enough White Wolf games for two lifetimes and Jef’s Palladium stock is running low.  But that’s okay!  Here’s the first edition of Mayfair Games’ Chill, a horror game… in theory.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/system-mastery-157-space-master.mp3 Well, we had to take a look at a Role Master game eventually, and this one chose us.  This 1985 RPG is deeply, deeply mathy, and features a fantastic story with … oh no wait it’s Space Rome and a corrupt mega-Catholic star church again.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/system-mastery-156-eoris-essence-part-2.mp3 Well, after last week with Jef failing to figure out what the heck any of this is using just the rule book, can Jon save the day?  Will his comprehensive notes about the story book explain everything?  Spoiler alert, no.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/system-mastery-155-eoris-essence-part-1.mp3 A lavish box set full of tomes of full color wonder!  A comprehensive vision of an exciting and vast universe!  But System Mastery!  Could it be… completely impossible to read?  We dive into the madness of Eoris Essence, in a weird way that we’ll just have to explain in the show.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/system-mastery-154-wwe-know-your-role.mp3 Live from GenCon 2019, it’s System Mastery!  We’re covering the greatest entertainment to come out of the squared circle in 2005, actual wrestling!  Wait… no, probably some video game!  Or a CCG?  Oh god it was an actual OGL licensed RPG based on wrestling in that exact year?  Oh, oh no.  No no no.  We are joined by special guests Jim McClure(Aaron Cross, future owner of battleship) and James D’Amato (TVs, twice-published, the Latino Heat) on stage to discuss this bizarre relic of the DevOGLnian period of RPG history!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/system-mastery-153-amethyst-foundations.mp3 Did you know there were licensed RPGs using the 4th edition D&D engine?  Well here’s one now!  It has lots of fancy elves, a bunch of tech-based classes, and so much worldbuilding!  Enjoy!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/system-mastery-152-snarfquest-d20.mp3 Sometimes we get a book and we aren’t sure the exact percentage of RPG that’s going to be in there, so we end up reviewing like, a show synopsis or a treatise on life, and this is one of those times.  Snarfquest is a comic strip that ran in Dragon Magazine in the early 80s, and here is a D20 version of it for you to hear about.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/system-mastery-151-ddizzle.mp3 In retrospect we probably should have saved this for episode 175.  Anyhow this is a short comedy game mixing Dungeons and Dragons with hip-hop flavor pulled from the 80s and 90s.  We review it!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/system-mastery-150-dd-5th-edition.mp3 Happy episode 150!  Still can’t believe it’s gone on this long.  Here’s D&D 5e.  It’s a game.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/system-mastery-149-kobolds-ate-my-baby.mp3 Every once in a while we’ve both got so much else going on that we have to rely on what we call “The Emergency Stack”, a collection of books short enough that we can read them quick and get everything else done that week too.  Well, right now we’re swamped, so we grabbed KAMB off the stack.  It’s got everything you’d want, packed into a tiny package.  Jokes, Kovalic art, stats that spell out beer, you name it!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/system-mastery-148-recon.mp3 Well, so we can probably do a whole hour of laughy laughs on the … wait, Vietnam War?  Is that right?  Okay then.  Recon is from 1982, and it is about playing soldiers murdering each other in a jungle.  Have fun with it!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/system-mastery-147-fading-suns.mp3 Sorta 40k, sorta Vampire, maybe a little Dune in there?  Anyway it’s a space RPG where there’s a church that’s basically Catholicism through a greasy mirror and a bunch of surprisingly recognizable races.  Apparently there was a good 4X video game set in this world once?  Cool.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/system-mastery-146-of-gods-and-men.mp3 Hey who wants an old-fashioned case of the Heartbreakers?  Because that’s what we’ve got right here.  And it’s a doozy!  In that it’s one of those small-batch ones that you never did hear of and it’s got almost no web presence.  Check out this high-res picture I found of the cover!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/system-mastery-145-bliss-stage.mp3 Straight from one bleak future to the next, only this time it’s kids.  Why it’s almost as dystopic as the movie Kids!  Basically the future is dream robots that put all the adults to sleep and it’s up to plucky young rebels to battle it out in dream-logic robosuits.  All that and some squick too!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/system-mastery-143-cyborg-commando.mp3 So a decade or so after D&D, Gary Gygax had a brand new idea.  What if cyborgs with dustbuster crotches defended the world from giant bugs made of erectile tissue?  Also what if there were a spectacular amount of boring graphs in there?  The result… was history.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/system-mastery-143-cadillacs-and-dinosaurs.mp3 With Jef still recovering in the hospital, Jon turns to fan-favorite guest Claire to join in and help review this RPG based on a comic book. It promises two things up front and delivers on none of it. Booo.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/system-mastery-142-unknown-armies.mp3 You want true power and to really know the truth?  You have to really really want it in Greg Stolze’s Unknown Armies, a game of obsession, power, and the power of themes.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/system-mastery-141-tenchi-muyo-resource-book-and-rpg.mp3 It’s a Tri-Stat game!  We’ve done a few of these already so you already know the basics. Weird combat system where the attacker and the defender have very little to do with each other?  Check.  A million point buy options?  Check?  Balance basically a fig leaf?  Check.  So what are we left to do but dissect the 70% of this book that isn’t RPG.  Let’s learn about harem animes!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/system-mastery-140-leystorm-the-dominion.mp3 In a grim future where everyone is lopsided and has dreads, can a few awful chumps win a mighty rebellion against Darth Emperor of Mankind?  This mid-90s science fantasy game answers your questions and more!  Questions like “What the hell is this?”  and “Ainsley?”

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/system-mastery-139-maelstrom-storytelling.mp3 1997, a dark year indeed.  Bad Batman movies and stuff.  Seriously, it was not a good scene, unless you were crazy for middling swing music.  But hey, this book came out, and it wasn’t terrible!  It’s Maelstrom Storytelling, and while it’s a little funky and the art is not art, it’s at least a neat concept!