System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/aberrant-d20-system-mastery-54.mp3 Let’s discuss the early aughts and their explosion of rapid-release D20 adaptations of older games!  Here’s a White Wolf one that turns everything about superheroes in every way into a series of ever-more-complicated feats.  Also Jef is super sick the whole time, sorry about that.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/fireborn-episode-53.mp3 Have you ever felt like you weren’t just this shell you are now?  That perhaps within you lurks something ancient, something fierce and fiery?  Well, it’s true!  Also, you should stop eating at Chipotle.  This week we cover Fireborn, the famous FFG outing in which various self-absorbed London dorks discover that they are dragons on the inside and then start doing some sort of loosely defined thing in a mad dash to become dragons on the outside too!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/fantasy-wargaming-the-highest-level-of-all-system-mastery-52.mp3 Two weeks ago, the phrase “British Nerd” was relatively pleasant to me.  I’d picture David Tennant, or Richard Ayoade, or even Hermione Granger, and everything was fine.  “Oh,” I’d think, “Perhaps they’d like to discuss Neil Gaiman for a while!”  Not now though.  Now I picture a guy sitting alone at a restaurant, his waiter sending out every available physical signal of “I’m busy” as this lone man asks for the third time if she’s sure they don’t have mead, much as they did 700 years ago when this very building was the most prolific mead-hall in all of Pevensey.  This book is called Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All.  It’s got a game in there if you hate games and fun.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/micro-rpgs-episode-51.mp3 This episode was so very refreshing.  Five tiny, lovely RPGs made recently by designers that had fun in mind.  It’s really not our wheelhouse to cover good stuff, but we wanted to throw out some love, even if it’s just every now and then.  In this episode we cover All Outta Bubblegum, Everyone is John, Lasers & Feelings, Doctor Magnethands, and Gangland.  These games are all cheap to free and can be found on the internet, so go forth and play them.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/system-mastery-50.mp3 Fifty episodes in and it’s time to be confused by the grand pasture where every weird sacred cow in this industry was calved.  We go looking for answers to the great mysteries of gaming?  Will we find them?  Or will be be stymied by clumsy vocabulary and bizarre decision making?

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/system-mastery-49.mp3 Today we introduce you to a light and relatively witty GI Joe parody from around 1992.  A.C.E. Agents manages a very unusual balancing act of both satirizing and explaining the workings of a JOE-style secret agency, while still remaining at least a somewhat playable game.  Sadly no rules in there for what happens when you take your little fight man and wind him up via the rubber band in his torso to create a little punchcopter.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/system-mastery-48.mp3 Here’s a game of sorts.  It’s handwritten, it’s irritating, and it’s about goofball prisoners sort of murdering each other on a garbage planet.  Also it’s handwritten.  It’s Human Occupied Landfill, and we hope you enjoy almost as much as we did (because we hate you).

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/system-mastery-472.mp3 Who likes their fantasy with a shot of heartbreaker and a dirt-farming sidecar?  Maybe with a splash of podcast host bitters?  This week we cover Fifth Cycle, a thoroughly confusing game about wizard archaeologists where you hope like crazy to play as a wizard archaeologist and not a farmer. Let us know what you thought of Fifth Cycle in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/system-mastery-46.mp3 Hey, remember the 90s?  Do you look back fondly on Rob Liefeld, X-Force, Reboot-style 3D art, and references to monofilament technology?  Then hoo boy do we have the game for you!  Raven Star is more or less a textbook space heartbreaker, with dwarves, elves … bear men… you get the idea.  Settle in to get all cybed up! Let us know what you thought of Raven Star in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/system-mastery-451.mp3 In this installment we discuss the best soul coffin in the shape of a giant bug that solves fundamental metaphysics mysteries in an impossible mansion simulator we’ve ever read.  We cover Noumenon, and the Sarcophoguys that wander the halls of the Silhouette Rouge, which I’m pretty sure is french for “Community College Psychology Class.”

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/system-mastery-44.mp3 System Mastery 44 – Supplement Special We’ve received a number of requests since the inception of System Mastery to cover supplementary RPG material and not just core books.  While we love supplements, it’s never really clicked for us exactly which ones to cover and how to do it.  Well, now we’ve got it figured out.  We went back and found a couple supplements to some of the best of our worst.  Haven: City of Violence, and Prime Directive, and we tackle both volumes in a single episode! Let us know what you thought of these books in the comments!  Have a supplement book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too. Editor’s note:  Indeed, a copy of Skyrealms of Jorune: Gire of Sillipus is already on it’s way to our door.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/system-mastery-43.mp3 System Mastery 43- Top Secret There’s a story around the internet about how this game is so realistic that it summoned the FBI around to investigate the TSR offices to see if they had some sort of secret intel or intent to kill the president or some such.  Having read it now, we can only assume it’s because the FBI literally couldn’t figure out what was in the book at all, and decided to just cover their bases for the purposes of due diligence.  It’s a spy RPG that is 100% charts on this week’s System Mastery. Let us know what you thought of Top Secret in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too. Editor’s note:  It’s true, I deleted the first recording in my mad dash to play a videogame.  Never again!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/system-mastery-42.mp3 System Mastery 42- Space 1889 Craving high adventure in an age of zeppelins, Victoriana, and space fantasy?  Keep looking then, because what we have here is boring.  This week Jef and Jon take a tour of the Earth if the sun also never set on the British Empire on Venus and Mars.  Is the art horrifying?  Of course.  Is the whole thing vaguely racist?  Naturally! Editor’s note:  Proof of horrifying art included.  Check out that cartilaginous Robert Smith in a ripped bodice.  That’s basically the only female face in this thing.  Seriously, every lady in the book is drawn like she forgot to close her eyes when the Arc of the Covenant popped open.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/system-mastery-41.mp3 System Mastery 41 – Heaven & Earth The apocalypse!  Oh, it’s a comin’, just you wait, you sinner you.  In the meantime why don’t you hang around in small town America, solving vaguely creepy mysteries and interacting with character-heavy locals.  You know, like maybe one of them has a log all the time?  That kind of thing.  This week we discuss Heaven & Earth, an RPG about atmosphere, angels, and the coming end of days.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/system-mastery-40.mp3 System Mastery 40 – Duckman He’s just one more duck detective, that works with a pig, lives with the twin sister of his dead wife, three sons on two bodies, and a mother-in-law with so much gas, she’s a fire hazard.  This week System Mastery is overjoyed to present The Official Duckman RPG, a mixed bag of failure, liquor, nymphos, 90s topical humor, failure again, the American dream, and hijinks.  We hope this doesn’t sound grandiose, but tonight we begin our pre-ordained ascent towards the global adulation we so richly deserve. Let us know what you thought of Duckman in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too. Editor’s note:  April Fools!  There was no Duckman RPG as of this podcast, and there still shouldn’t be.  However, despite all common sense and advice from our friends, family, and legal counsel, there is a Duckman RPG now.  Here, it’s free, take it:  Duckman RPG

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/system-mastery-39.mp3 System Mastery 39 – Witch Girls Adventures Witches!  Rustics!  Technomancers!  The Ugly One!  It’s Witch Girls Adventures, and it’s your chance to step into the stylish shoes of a 13-year old witch and go on way cool adventures, maybe even at the mall.  Shopping!  This game is aimed a little young, so we try to puzzle out what makes a good game for kids while we’re at it. Editor’s note:  Don’t forget to send in questions for the new show, Afterthought.  Let us know anything you want us to talk about at systemmastery@gmail.com!  Also, is this actually a fetish game?  Have we been fooled?  A lot of the internet seems to think so.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/episode-38-stormbringer.mp3 Episode 38 – Stormbringer ELRIC!  Thy book is a thousand times more execrable than thou!  Though I have to admit I had this iconic piece of nerd power fantasy confused for the early part of my young life with the other one, Raistlin, this guy is apparently quite pedigreed.  The doomed albino of deficient blood and his evil runesword more or less dominate this book, much to our chagrin.  Can you save the ancient world of Melniboné and the young kingdoms?  Spoiler alert:  no. Let us know what you thought of Stormbringer in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/episode-37-deliria.mp3 System Mastery 37 – Deliria During the 90s, a lot of the small-market games were about trying to fix one issue that the author had with basement-ready games from the 70s.  By 2002 a renaissance was required!  No longer were games just for mega-nerds programming Scorched Earth into their graphing calculators!  Now the games were for normal people, like baristas, ravers, hackers, and burners.  Nothing encapsulates this era of special-snowflake appreciation better than the fairy tale LARP enabler, Deliria.  Do you ever get the feeling that you’re special?  That there’s magic in the world?  That your eyes would really be grey flecked through with shards of gemlike amethyst if you had your way?  This is the game for you! Let us know what you thought of Deliria in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too.  If you really love us, show your support over on our Patreon page and help us keep the mics hot! Edito

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/system-mastery-36.mp3 System Mastery  36 – Dungeons & Dragons We take a much needed break from endless reading of defunct gaming manuals, but that doesn’t mean we don’t seek to entertain!  This week, System Mastery brings you fresh coverage of the 2001 hit film, Dungeons & Dragons.  It has a Wayans, and a Riff-Raff, and more!  This film might be extremely terrible written, but at least it also has horrible visuals and unappealing acting! Let us know what you thought of Dungeons & Dragons in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover, or some gaming film we should watch?  Let us know about that too. Special thanks to our new friend Grant at Saving the Game, for sending us our next big project.  Check out his podcast when you’re all done here.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/system-mastery-35.mp3 System Mastery 35 – Vanishing Point If you’ve read any Neil Gaiman or just been stuck in line at a convention behind steampunk people, you’re all set for Vanishing Point.  It’s a neat little RPG about visiting a planet shaped like a brain, populated by weirdos classified by insanities, and choked full of more British flavor than a steak and kidney pie. Let us know what you thought of Vanishing Point in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too. Editor’s note:  Jon was basically dying of plague through this whole thing, you’ll just have to excuse the chair creaks and coughing.