System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/system-mastery-119-the-xro-dinn-chronicles.mp3 The Xro Dinn Chronicles is, for lack of a better description, the unholy combination of Ninjas & Superspies, Babylon 5, and the sort of mindset that led to the Winchester mansion.  Loopy rules that terminate nowhere, downright crazy stories, and so much more await you.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/system-mastery-118-wild-skies-europa-tempest.mp3 Sail the skies in heavily armored airships and nimble fighter planes as a variety of sexy little animals.  It’s the early 1930s and Europe is embroiled in really weird battles all over the place.  Look, there’s a chance this game might still be in print.  But we didn’t hate it and besides, what are you gonna do, tell on us?  Our manager is just Jef with a fake mustache on over his real one.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/system-mastery-117-rpg-13-b-movie-game-system-scared-stiff.mp3 Today, we’re reviewing an earnest attempt to capture the very specific magic of the B-Movie.  You know, so there’s gonna be like a ray gun that changes the frame so the victim is just a classroom skeleton, or close-up footage of a happy lobster terrorizes a small town.  At least that’s the plan.  Before too long it’s rules for what happens if you’re “tricked” by a drag queen, and explanations on the difference between gender and sex.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/system-mastery-116-wegs-old-skool.mp3 OSR, or Old Sam Raimi, is a concept in gaming that the most fun game stuff already happened and was mostly done by the early 80s, and that games resembling or utilizing the tools of that era are preferable to modern RPG stuff.  WEGS Old Skool is our first game that is marketed as an OSR design.  Will we like it?

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/system-mastery-115-brave-new-world.mp3 So this is Brave New World.  What’s in the core book?  Enough superhero stuff to sort of play, if you call this playing.  A wizard class with no spells, a gadget class with no gadgets, and four or five superheroes mostly relegated to “slightly stronger than a normal guy.”  Buy more books for actual content! Okay, so on research it turns out Houdini died in 1926?  Whoops.  Please be sure to excoriate Jef in the comments for that gaffe!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/system-mastery-114-promised-sands.mp3 It’s impossible to predict when we’ll hit a real speedbump on the show, a real Synnibarr or Haven… and here we are!  Promised Sands ascends the steps of the pantheon and announces intent to contend for the role of System Mastery’s Least Favorite Read.  If you’re looking for us at our angriest, here we are.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/system-mastery-113-witch-hunter-the-invisible-world.mp3 Put on your buckliest hat and prepare to engage in battle with monsters most biblical!  We examine a game that truly tests the boundaries of how much White Wolf you’re allowed to put in a book that isn’t by White Wolf (Or by OPP, or whatever the hell is going on over there these days) in Witch Hunter.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/gamma-crawl-x-the-final-chapter1.mp3 Happy winter everyone!  The gang takes on the last battle in the truck truck arena!  Sorry this took so long.  More AP will come soon, and we’ll have such things as editors and so on to actually move the process along.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/system-mastery-112-tomorrow-knights.mp3 Interesting note that we missed because we didn’t do any research:  Tomorrow Knights here is a Marvel property.  Which makes this a Marvel RPG.  We had no idea.  Thrill to the workings of an author that also wrote, for Marvel, FIVE issues of a weekly fanzine about Return of the Jedi in 1984… and also, this comic!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/system-mastery-111-extreme-vengeance.mp3 On today’s episode we discuss Extreme Vengeance, an RPG dedicated almost entirely to recreating the feel of gung-ho action movies (there is a sliver reserved for unrelentingly dragging Hulk Hogan).  Big guns, big biceps, and actually well-thought out rules to follow.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/system-mastery-110-paranoia-xp.mp3 A madcap dystopia that has more accompanying memes per square centimeter than anything short of Dungeon and Dragons itself.  Is Paranoia worth braving the swamp of people at the store endless parroting stuff about friend computer?  Actually yeah, kind of!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/system-mastery-109-mermaid-adventures.mp3 Let’s talk about RPGs for kids.  Or more accurately, one RPG that is basically for kids.  It might be a little heavy on Ariels and light on editing, but Mermaid Adventures manages to remain a charming and accessible game for kids, without somehow shoehorning in transformation fetishes or weird political viewpoints, an apparently difficult trick, at least according to the rest of the industry.  We examine this game within. Don’t forget, if you want to buy any of the games we review (or any games, I’m not picky) use the DriveThru RPG link in our sidebar, we get a cut of those proceeds.  Awww yeah.  Now I know you aren’t seeing the link because you have adblocker installed like everyone else on the internet, but hey, couldn’t hurt to ask.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/system-mastery-108-dark-continent.mp3 Dark Continent is the RPG of … well venturing into Africa and killing a bunch of people.  I mean that’s vaguely frowned upon (unless you are playing a Belgian), but it’s still pretty much expected.  Also, it stars the biggest package that they could afford for cover art.  Look at that thing.  It’s like there’s two Mt. Kilimanjaros in the art.  Oh also the rest of the art is old woodcuts and newspaper cartoons.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/system-mastery-107-werewolf-the-apocalypse.mp3 Awoooooo White Ween continues!  Awoooooooo!  Today on System Mastery we introduce you to the colon-free world of Werewolf the Apocalypse.  I mean, there’s some colons. Werewolves probably have colons.  I bet they poop constantly on the lawns of corporate criminals and polluters and so on.  What I meant was that the title lacks a colon.  So it’s an instruction, and werewolf is just a verb.  Apply werewolves directly to the apocalypse.  Anyway, this book was weird, this post is weird, happy White Ween to all and to all a good night.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/episode-105-minds-eye-theatre-requiem.mp3 Ah, truly the most joyous of holiday seasons is upon us!  Happy White Ween!  Today, we cover a game that turned out (well after we started reading it) to be a sourcebook.  Whoops!  We are bit in the butt by our lack of research yet again!  Oh well, we bravely soldier on in true Ween spirit to cover Mind’s Eye Theatre: Requiem, a LARPing guide for the thoroughly modern vampire.  Too spooky, indeed.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/system-mastery-104-living-steel.mp3 Brought to you by rocket scientists hellbent on pure unadulterated realism, Living Steel is basically Heinlein by way of Games Workshop, with probably a few too many tables (which is a nice way of saying for sure definitely too many tables by a lot).  Gird your mega loins to battle Vissers and Spectrals along with System Mastery with our review of Living Steel.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/system-mastery-103-gear-krieg.mp3 Are you looking for a game of two-fisted derring-do and rousing pulp adventure?  You’ll be sure to find it in some other book.  Gear Krieg is an RPG companion to a similarly titled tabletop wargame, based on the functional Silhouette rule system and featuring … well, World War 2 for the most part.  Also Edison and Tesla.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/gamma-crawl-x-4.mp3 Oh my goodness after a long hiatus the adventure continues.  I mean, sort of.  We recorded this a long time ago. In a measurement system I call “Broken Computers,” we recorded this episode two broken computers ago.  As always, we are joined by our GM Quinn (of Swallows of the South and various other podcasts) and friend of the show Brad, to adventure in the far-flung mutant madness that is the arenas of Gamma World.  In this extra-long episode, we encounter a massive wall, a southern gentleman, and a big room full of slimy trash.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/system-mastery-102-king-arthur-pendragon.mp3 Yay, a game we didn’t hate!  This is a very specific sort of RPG, in which you play as a knightly dynasty during the Morte D’Arthur romantic tales.  Will you be a good Cymric Christian soldier (yes, probably) who spends their time collecting taxes, having kids, and very, very occasionally fighting a bear (again, yes).  A sort of vague magic system and NEW RULES FOR CELTIC KNIGHTS also included.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/system-mastery-101-a-state.mp3 This book is a grim, unrelenting slog.  Punctuated by the kind of art that would be impressive if this book was a collection of screenshots from the first Fallout game, filled to the brim with grimy short stories where nameless murderers murder murderers for the joy of murderin’, and with about 14 of its dismal 200 or so pages given over to the rules.  We hope you enjoy the review, as someone somewhere should have a bit of happiness, since we apparently cannot.