System Mastery

By System Mastery Entertainment

Games & Hobbies Other Games

What's System Mastery about?

Beating dead horses, 1d6 damage at a time

5.0

118 ratings

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

System Mastery 211 – All Fl...

10.20.2021

Behold our triumph, the ZombieWeen! It’s alive! Well, sort of alive. This ‘Ween around we’ll be focusing on zombie RPGs, investigating games about surviving short infestations and full-blown apocalypses. This […]

System Mastery episodes:

10.20.2021 System Mastery 211 – All Flesh Must Be Eaten Behold our triumph, the ZombieWeen! It’s alive! Well, sort of alive. This ‘Ween around we’ll be focusing on zombie RPGs, investigating games about surviving short infestations and full-blown apocalypses. This […]
10.06.2021 System Mastery 210 – Amber Diceless Oh geez, this one is gonna get us some letters. Lemme just warn you in advance if you’re as hot on this property as everyone on the internet seems to […]
09.22.2021 System Mastery 209 – Supplement Spectacular 3 Well how about one of these? It’s only the third one in 209 episodes, so I hope they sort of feel special by now! It’s Supplement Spectacular, where we dig […]
09.10.2021 System Mastery 208 – Mutant Chronicles This takes a while, but on the bright side we really find out some new fun and not so fun stuff about the game in the process. Good on ya […]
08.26.2021 System Mastery 207 – Pokemon Jr. Desperately trying to hit a book deadline, we found ourselves in need of something fairly small, so we finally broke the tiny sheet of glass in front of the smaller […]
08.11.2021 System Mastery 206 – Ork! The Roleplaying Game Comedy roleplaying game anyone? Maybe one that’s got a bunch of jokes about how dumb orks are and how they have special blood that keeps them from ever being smart […]
07.27.2021 System Mastery 205 -Delta Force My friends, in the interest of transparency, I am only just now realized this game has a subtitle! So don’t look for that in the episode, we didn’t notice. It’s […]
07.14.2021 System Mastery 204 – Engel Well hey, surprise OGL! Nothing on the cover, and so when Jon selected this old Sword & Sorcery product to take home and started reading, he was suddenly (after 190 […]
06.29.2021 System Mastery 203 – Theatrix So what we have here is a rarity, in that it is an early (1993-1995) LARP game that is also a universal generic system. So there’s not really a story […]
06.15.2021 System Mastery 202 – Providence My friends, this is a weird one. The vast majority of this book is difficult to explain rules, and then there’s a chunk of fascinating story hidden away towards the […]
06.01.2021 System Mastery 201 – Terror Network I think we bought this one on the cover alone (and especially the back cover, which is bullet points and a photo of the Twin Towers mid-fall). I mean, look […]
05.18.2021 System Mastery 200 – Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying Game Hey, we made it to 200 episodes! I’m sure that’s some sort of milestone! And while the choice of game to cover this time may feel kind of arbitary, I […]
05.04.2021 System Mastery 199 – Stuperpowers Heck yeah, comedy superhero parody game from 1997 coming in hot. You know it’s gonna make us mad, it’s just got to! Anyway, this game is designed to be LARP-ready, […]
04.23.2021 System Mastery 198 – Hellcats & Hockeysticks We’ve had a great track record with games set in high schools, right? So obviously one set in a secondary school should be at least as good as Alma Mater […]
04.07.2021 System Mastery 197 – Ironclaw So many people have requested this that we finally thought we’d throw you all a bone. Ironclaw is an anthro medieval RPG, so you’ll be playing a lot of foxes, […]
03.24.2021 System Mastery 196 – InSpectres Wanna hunt ghosts but not necessarily dedicate your whole life to it? Consider just getting a daytime job hunting ghosts, goblins, nilbogs, and Son of Kong with InSpectres, a game […]
03.10.2021 System Mastery 195 – Lords of Creation Who wants to take over the multiverse? Okay, great! Let’s start you out as a nobody with nothing and you can grind XP in… I don’t care, let’s say mythological […]
02.24.2021 System Mastery 194 – Sentinel Comics: The RPG From an old hero game to a new one, it’s time to talk about Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game. Sentinels is an expansive setting with a vast cast of characters […]
02.10.2021 System Mastery 193 – Skraypers As go the tides, so come the times we’re both dealing with something and need a nice easy Palladium game. Skraypers is both a Rifts and a Heroes Unlimited setting, […]
01.27.2021 System Mastery 192 – Shadowrun Anarchy It’s Shadowrun! But… faster? Is that the point here? It’s honestly sort of hard to tell the exact point of this Shadowrun 5e adjacent game, but damn if we aren’t […]
01.13.2021 System Mastery 191 – Boot Hill Boot Hill is a colloquial term from the cowboy days for a cemetery. You might think there’s some sort of metaphor their for our opinions pertaining to the game, but […]
12.30.2020 System Mastery 190 – Interstitial – Our Hearts Intertwined Have you not gotten your fill of Kingdom Hearts yet? Of course not, no one has. Not until someone bursts Nomura like a pinata and eats all the ideas that […]
12.16.2020 System Mastery 189 – New Gods of Mankind 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 […]
12.02.2020 System Mastery 188 – Star Crossed 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 […]
11.18.2020 System Mastery 187 – Marvel Universe Roleplaying 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 […]
11.03.2020 System Mastery 186 – Supermegatopia 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 […]
10.21.2020 System Mastery 185 – Teens In Space 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 […]
10.07.2020 System Mastery 184 – Men In Black 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 […]
09.23.2020 Rifts World Book 3: England – System Mastery 183 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 […]
09.09.2020 Itras By – System Mastery 182 [/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 […]
08.25.2020 Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 1st Edition – System Mastery 181 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 […]
08.13.2020 System Mastery Special – Things We Hate About D&D – Part 2 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 […]
08.12.2020 Robotech – System Mastery 180 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 […]
07.29.2020 Wraeththu: From Enchantment to Fulfillment – System Mastery 179 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 […]
07.14.2020 The Land of Ogg – System Mastery 178 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 […]
07.04.2020 System Mastery Special – Things We Hate About D&D – Part 3 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, […]
06.30.2020 SenZar – System Mastery 177 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 […]
06.17.2020 High Strung – System Mastery 176 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 […]
06.03.2020 Call of Cthulhu (5.6) – System Mastery 175 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 […]
05.20.2020 Alma Mater – System Mastery 174 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 […]
05.11.2020 System Mastery Special – Things We Hate About D&D – Part 1 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 […]
05.05.2020 Smallville – System Mastery 173 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 […]
04.21.2020 Darwin’s World – System Mastery 172 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 […]
04.07.2020 Tunnels & Trolls – System Mastery 171 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 […]
03.25.2020 DragonRaid – System Mastery 170 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 […]
03.11.2020 Rampant: Live Action Roleplaying – System Mastery 169 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 […]
02.26.2020 Timeship – System Mastery 168 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? […]
02.11.2020 Supplement Spectacular 2! – System Mastery 167 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 […]
01.29.2020 Dream Park – System Mastery 166 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 […]
01.15.2020 Toon – System Mastery 165 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 […]

Older episodes

System Mastery

What's System Mastery about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

System Mastery episodes:

System Mastery 211 – All Flesh Must Be Eaten

System Mastery 210 – Amber Diceless

System Mastery 209 – Supplement Spectacular 3

System Mastery 208 – Mutant Chronicles

System Mastery 207 – Pokemon Jr.

System Mastery 206 – Ork! The Roleplaying Game

System Mastery 205 -Delta Force

System Mastery 204 – Engel

System Mastery 203 – Theatrix

System Mastery 202 – Providence

System Mastery 201 – Terror Network

System Mastery 200 – Marvel Superheroes Roleplaying Game

System Mastery 199 – Stuperpowers

System Mastery 198 – Hellcats & Hockeysticks

System Mastery 197 – Ironclaw

System Mastery 196 – InSpectres

System Mastery 195 – Lords of Creation

System Mastery 194 – Sentinel Comics: The RPG

System Mastery 193 – Skraypers

System Mastery 192 – Shadowrun Anarchy

System Mastery 191 – Boot Hill

System Mastery 190 – Interstitial – Our Hearts Intertwined

System Mastery 189 – New Gods of Mankind

System Mastery 188 – Star Crossed

System Mastery 187 – Marvel Universe Roleplaying

System Mastery 186 – Supermegatopia

System Mastery 185 – Teens In Space

System Mastery 184 – Men In Black

Rifts World Book 3: England – System Mastery 183

Itras By – System Mastery 182

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 1st Edition – System Mastery 181

System Mastery Special – Things We Hate About D&D – Part 2

Robotech – System Mastery 180

Wraeththu: From Enchantment to Fulfillment – System Mastery 179

The Land of Ogg – System Mastery 178

System Mastery Special – Things We Hate About D&D – Part 3

SenZar – System Mastery 177

High Strung – System Mastery 176

Call of Cthulhu (5.6) – System Mastery 175

Alma Mater – System Mastery 174

System Mastery Special – Things We Hate About D&D – Part 1

Smallville – System Mastery 173

Darwin’s World – System Mastery 172

Tunnels & Trolls – System Mastery 171

DragonRaid – System Mastery 170

Rampant: Live Action Roleplaying – System Mastery 169

Timeship – System Mastery 168

Supplement Spectacular 2! – System Mastery 167

Dream Park – System Mastery 166

Toon – System Mastery 165

Other shows like System Mastery: