System Mastery

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/system-mastery-189-new-gods-of-mankind.mp3 Now here’s some good old fashioned back to basics shit.  Got to be, right?  Name like that?  Shirtless axe dude on the cover?  Well, color us surprised because this thing is basically the top down part of Actraiser as an RPG.  Neat ideas abound, but can it get to the desired double “would play?” This week’s Announcement Masteries Julian Kay (Alien Rope Burn): Blogs, columns, and roleplaying games par excellence!  Check out their excellent work and especially support that Patreon! Check ARBco’s work out over at https://linktr.ee/juliankay UnPlaytested Podcast and Stream:  Unplaytested is the show about games that have never been played before… because they never EXISTED before! On every episode of the Unplaytested podcast, Alex and Lara will roll a random result off a big list of your ludicrous suggestions for RPGs, and spend an hour figuring out how to actually turn that into a playable game.  They stream th

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/system-mastery-188-star-crossed.mp3 Oh my, a game about the uncertain moments at the precipice of romance or disaster?  Neat!  Star Crossed is a 2018 game by Alex Roberts that creates tension and titillation through the use of some sort of well-recognized wooden brick tower.  It’s not out of print or anything!  We’re trying something relatively new here. This week’s Announcement Masteries Sail!: SAIL! is a new roleplaying game by Cas Swanson. SAIL! let’s players take on the role of dashing swashbucklers as they sail the high seas and fight an evil Empire. Check SAIL! out over at https://calevmir.itch.io/sail-rpg SuperIdols! RPG:  Welcome to the world of SuperIdols! RPG, where superpowers exist but only among the musically-inclined — especially those with dreams of pop star fame and glory. Join GM ErynCerise and a table of queer, gender-diverse players as they play teen idols aiming to master their powers, find their identities as artists, and make a

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/system-mastery-187-marvel-universe-roleplaying.mp3 Out of the four Marvel RPGs that have happened over the years, this is one of them.  Specifically, the 2003 diceless one made, inexplicably, by Marvel Comics themselves?  Anyhow, it’s certainly got us talking a great deal, so you know that’s always good. This week’s Announcement Masteries Inspiration Point: A fun and friendly podcast about RPG design and gameplay, table attitudes, friendship, and more.  Check out their show today or their brand new Patreon! BOLT RPG:  BOLT is a fast and tense action RPG built for hacking!  Check it out now, it’s available for pre-order on Metal Weave Games for 35 USD or 10 USD!  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/system-mastery-186-supermegatopia.mp3 There’s nothing quite so exciting to find as a unique blend RPG.  Here we see a blend of comedy, furry stuff, light breast expansion and pregnancy fetishes, and superheroes.  I bet you didn’t know you were missing that unique swirl of content!  Well, anyway, you shouldn’t. This week’s Announcement Masteries “Dinoplex: Cataclysm” is available now for $3.00 on DriveThruRPG and Itch.io. Take your players on a dinosaur vacation in space they’ll never forget! Einar Másson:  Instagram @emassonart, Twitter @einarmasson, E-mail  emassonart@gmail.com. Prices range from about $50.00USD for a simple avatar to $150.00 USD for a full-figure full-color portrait to about $300.00 USD for more complicated stuff.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/system-mastery-185-teens-in-space.mp3 Ween or Treatween!  Wait, what? This game is new!  How the heck did that happen?  Well, Jef’s supply of alien books isn’t low, but neither of us wanted to read something in Phoenix Command style rules and end the season mad, so we called an audible.  Ever wonder what we think about much more modern game design?  Well, this teen-focused sci-fi adventure is a great place to come find out!

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/system-mastery-184-mib.mp3 Oh no, are your pumpkins ablaze?  Have you written out your list of mischief targets exclusively for the eyes of Ol’ Weeny?  Well, get ready, because this October, it’s all new, all different IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU WEEEEEEEEEEN adventures.  We’re doing alien games.  Pretty simple.  And we’re starting with this one.  This licensed one from the 90s.  You know what’s about to happen.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/system-mastery-183-rifts-world-book-3-england-1.mp3 Ooh look, a supplement!  People love it when we do the supplements, right?  We sort of needed a break for a bit while Jef navigates some medical shenanigans, so we tried to keep it light.  And failed, this episode is huge.  Oh well!  More millennium trees for the rest of you!  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/system-mastery-182-itras-by.mp3[/audio] Check out this wild game!  No, literally, go check it out!  This is a wild read of improv-driven story focused diceless gaming set in a surrealism-infused Norwegian dream city in the 1920s.  It’s neat!  Come on by for a rare System Mastery win.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/system-mastery-181-warhammer-fantasy-roleplaying-1st-edition.mp3 Small but vicious dog, right?  You remember that?  It’s that joke that’s in here?  Anyhow hi there, how ya doin’?  Wanna talk about a 1989 game that seems like it mysteriously sat unread on a shelf since 1977?  WHFRP 1st edition can do that!  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/things-we-hate-about-dd-part-2.mp3 Hey whoops this was only ever free on our Patreon.  Should be here too.  Now it is.  Hooray!  The balance is complete and finally I can diminish, and go into the West.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/system-mastery-180-robotech.mp3 Yeah, we needed a break again.  Jesus, Wraeththu.  So for now, let’s dive into dependable old Palladium.  Two scoops of whoops in every book!  Robotech is one of the early Palladium license titles, which is always a source of hilarious conflict and tone problems in every try, and here we find it, surprisingly fast.  For an 80 page book.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/system-mastery-179-wraeththu-from-enchantment-to-fulfillment.mp3 Okay, guess break time’s over!  This book is enormous, weird, and in a lot of ways, misguided.  The world has collapsed, humanity has fallen, and the Wraeththu have risen in their place.  And what are the Wraeththu?  Androgynous hermaphroditic semi-vampiric aruna-having yaoi people, duh.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/system-mastery-178-the-land-of-ogg.mp3 We needed a break to finish our second book, and when you live in a gig economy that just means doing a smaller job that week!  The Land of Ogg started around 1993 and is a game about dumb cavemen failing at everything.  Here is an obligatory joke about the current federal government.  Please enjoy.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/things-we-hate-about-dd-part-3.mp3 No really, they’re the worst.  Play another game.  Also while we’ve got that picture of Radcliffe up there, our opinion is that JK Rowling is a TERF piece of shit, so.  Everyone sucks.  Just sucks.  Sorry about it.

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/system-mastery-177-senzar.mp3 With 26 races, nearly 40 classes, giant complex martial arts systems and a battle world that has run amok for aeons aesthetic, where could SenZar possibly go wrong?  It’s an excess of boring riches on today’s System Mastery.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/system-mastery-176-high-strung.mp3 Grab your amps and start planning setlists, as we take a look at a game that eschews the classics of dungeon diving in favor of trying to make it big in the music world.  Does it deliver hot licks?  Or… I am bad at music, I guess cold licks?  Yes, does it deliver cold licks?  Well, come find out!  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/system-mastery-175-call-of-cthulhu.mp3 Yes, it’s not a D&D game. Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. We still found a classic, the Chaosium flagship and the biggest name in leaning heavily on public domain stuff Call of Cthulhu.  And hey, you might just be in need right now of people dumping on the febrile racism of a cowardly germophobe (Lovecraft.  I meant Lovecraft.) so here’s that, just for you all.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/system-mastery-174-alma-mater.mp3 We’ve posted so many episodes at this point that the only reason this one’s description isn’t just “Fuck this game” is that I’m not sure I didn’t do that for a previous odious heap.  This game was banned from GenCon in the 80s because it’s got a bunch of teen sex in it.  That’s one of the reasons it’s bad.  Sure.  Here’s an hour of other ones.  

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/system-mastery-special-things-we-hate-about-dd-part-1.mp3 So hey, remember when we wrote that book?  Jef apparently didn’t because this special content powered by pre-orders has been sitting unedited on an external HD for months.  The only thing that could force him to remember was the diligent reminders from listeners couple with the completion of our second book (details coming soon!).  For now, please enjoy this fine list of things that we don’t like about D&D (or D&D Culture, we may have had some crossed wires in there).  You earned it!

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.