System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/system-mastery-93-talislanta.mp3 It’s not too late to go support the new Kickstarter for the next edition of this weird but fairly charming game if you want.  It will be very soon, which just means I have to remember to edit this post later.  Don’t worry, future historians, I didn’t.  This game has a lot of races.  Like… fifteen thousand?  More?  I forget.  Oh, and the specific edition we have was hard to find a photo of, so I stuck our copy with ol’ Xizor to prove its legitimacy and just used that picture.  Enjoy!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/system-mastery-92-cthuhlu-live.mp3 It’s a game for only the dapperest of beardsmen on today’s System Mastery.  We’re talking Cthulhu Live, a game of rapidly going insane while extras cavort about in the background.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/system-mastery-91-the-whispering-vault.mp3 If you listen real close you can actually hear the vault whispering.  It’s not worth it though, he’s just reading the Humor in Uniform section out of old Reader’s Digests.  It’s The Whispering Vault!  Were you expecting a Cenobite simulator?  Because you got one!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/system-mastery-90-the-secret-of-ziran.mp3 The Secret of Zir’an is probably that deep under the challenging layout and heaped on layers of confusing story, accessible only to people who are really willing to roll up their sleeves and dig for it, is more confusing story.  Please enjoy.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/system-mastery-89-fatal.mp3 Well folks, you made it happen.  Grats to all!  There’s no way this is worth any more of our time or yours than the extra-long episode we’ve thrown on here for you today (and the bonus content that’ll be over on the Patreon) so enjoy this pointless dimwitted horror show while it lasts.  Keep in mind there are a few exciting announcements at the end of today’s episode, so stay with us through the miasma.  If you want.  I mean, they’re going on twitter and facebook and stuff too any minute now.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/system-mastery-88-star-frontiers1.mp3 It’s the space 80s!  Feather your hair and ready your giant wrap-around bubble glasses for some interstellar adventure where the computers are so advanced that Oregon Trail has four colors!  This game is, in a shocking surprise to us, imaginative, relatively simple, and fun!  Join us for Star Frontiers: Alpha Dawn.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/system-mastery-87-nephilim.mp3 The early 90s seem positively ripe with games that are more character creation tool than game, and Nephilim is no exception.  Join the ranks of weird energy spirits that have a collection of past lives, possession capability and spells, and honestly, really seem like the bad guys.

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.