System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/system-mastery-173-smallville.mp3 It was about time we discussed the Cortex engine, and what better way to have a discussion than driving 45 minutes to a Kansas farm so I can say one sentence about how I’m upset and then drive away again to reset before I do it two more times next episode?  Smallville is a game all about building out a whole season of genre soap television, and also keeping Clark from flying.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/system-mastery-172-darwins-world-1.mp3 It’s post-apocalypse OGL gaming here so it may seem like something we’ve done before, but is it?  I hope not, but honestly 171 is a lot of episodes to go back through and I think we’re all a little tired right now.  It’s mutants, running around an irradiated post-war Earth, and they call women “furniture” in it, so you know.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/system-mastery-171-tunnels-trolls-1.mp3 The year is 1975.  The hair is stupid.  The clothes are stupid.  The music?  Mostly stupid.  The movie scene was okay (Rocky Horror?  Jaws?  Come on now).  And the RPG scene was… heartbreakers already!  Tunnels and Trolls sure was an attempt to fix D&D by doing things differently for once.  Let’s look back, shall we.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/system-mastery-170-dragonraid.mp3 Someone tweeted about this, someone else linked it to us, and now we’ve reviewed it.  The DragonRaid Adventure Learning System:  A Roleplaying Game for Courageous Christians.  It’s probably safest to just link to the review now.  Happy quarantine!  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/system-mastery-169-rampant-live-action-roleplaying-1.mp3 Lightning bolt!  Lightning bolt!  Lightning b… you get the idea.  It’s a LARP game!  And for us, a weird one, since we’ve never actually encountered one before that just looks like local park dress up goodtimes with boffer weapons, and yet here we are!  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/system-mastery-168-timeship.mp3 Timelord!  Would you like to play an RPG as yourself and then, you know, get rewarded for showing up to the table with weapons and German soldier uniforms and stuff?  Well here you go!  Timeship is a mad game from the early 80s where yeah, there’s not much in the way of stats, because you’re playing as yourself!  What do you do as yourself?  Well, you head to the end of time to solve the murder of Count Dracula, then… wander around Gomorrah, just, you know, gettin’ involved.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/system-mastery-167-supplement-spectacular-2.mp3 A fun side effect of doing what we do is that listeners send us stuff.  All the time.  We have just tons of books.  Jef’s room is basically two used RPG bookstores with a hidden bed in it.  And we don’t just get core books.  Heaps of fascinating supplements arrive from time to time as well, like so many Garfield phones washing up on the beaches of England.  We occasionally (very occasionally) do pileup reviews of these things, and here’s one of those times.  Books covered:  Giant Psychic Insects from Outer Space, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook, various After the Bomb supplements.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/system-mastery-166-dream-park.mp3 This has been on Jon’s to-get list for most of the time we’ve made the show, and who should suddenly show up with a copy of the thing but our network head?  He always gets us the best stuff.  Dream Park has a PEDIGREE.  Based on a Larry Niven/Steven Barnes sci-fi novel series and written by Mike Pondsmith for Talsorian, there’s a lot of promise here.  Does it stick the landing?  Well, come on it, won’t you?

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/system-mastery-165-toon.mp3 Time to tackle some more Steve Jackson stuff.  No GURPS still (somehow we still don’t have a copy) but I do have Toon so here we go!  Play as a cartoon character, do cartoon stuff, and honestly it’s not half bad!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/system-mastery-164-glyphs-part-2.mp3 This thing is huge and bizarre and we have come back to finish it because you are not prepared… for more Glyphs.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/system-mastery-163-glyphs-part-1.mp3 Let’s finish off the year with something wild, what do you say?  How about a game that uses a flicked token carom style mechanic for all random resolution?  This thing is huge and bizarre and we will have to come back and finish it later because you are not prepared… for Glyphs.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/system-mastery-162-star-thugs.mp3 Time for some sci-fi!  This game takes all the futuristic space convention you love and just DUMPS on it, haha yeah rad, fuck Star Trek!  Anyhow come along won’t you?  On a journey that starts as a surprisingly innovative CCG-inspired spaceship combat simulator and somehow ends on some deeply misinformed understandings of cross-dressing and gender play?  That doesn’t sound right!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/system-mastery-161-quest-of-the-ancients.mp3 Have you missed the good old fashioned heartbreaker game paradigm?  Well fret no longer friend, because this one has it all!  Elves! Dwarves!  Saracens for some reason!  This reprint of a game published in 1982 might just be the best sword and sorcery product of the 90s (according to the back cover) but we’ll find out, won’t we.  (the cover image is a cow from the island that this game’s sole continent shares a name with, Islay).

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/system-mastery-160-godlike.mp3 Superheroes!  World War 2!  Greg Stolze?  What’s not to like?  Well, there’s plenty to like, such as the fascinating superpower design system and the fairly fun dice mechanics.  But could be there be more stuff coming we’re not fans of?  Well, the episode is huge, so you take a guess!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/system-mastery-159-dark-realms.mp3 We didn’t know it when we started, but there’s a theme to this year’s Ween episodes beyond just leftover horror games floating around the library.  And that theme is “Oops we thought these were horror games, sorry!”  Dark Realms is a horror to people that like comprehensible mechanics, anyway.

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!