System Mastery

By System Mastery Entertainment

Games & Hobbies Other Games

What's System Mastery about?

Jef and Jon review roleplaying games, Star Wars novels and anything else that crosses their paths.

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System Mastery 226 – Star M...

05.18.2022

Uh oh, someone better stop us before we get to level 10. It’s Star Munchkin, the RPG! Did you know there were RPGs of these games? You should have guessed. […]

System Mastery episodes:

05.18.2022 System Mastery 226 – Star Munchkin Uh oh, someone better stop us before we get to level 10. It’s Star Munchkin, the RPG! Did you know there were RPGs of these games? You should have guessed. […]
05.06.2022 System Mastery 225 – Marvel Multiverse RPG Playtest Reviewing a playtest? That doesn’t seem right! Well, it certainly isn’t in our usual bag of tricks, but hey, this is a rare situation where someone writing a modern game […]
04.20.2022 System Mastery 224 – Fiasco Classic Mea culpa time (Jef version): This is one of those games where I knew exactly what it was and have been recommending it for years for any RP session that […]
04.07.2022 System Mastery 223 – Tephra Ooh, a steampunk one! You can tell because of the brown and the gear and the goggles and all. Oh, I guess it also says steampunk on there, in retrospect […]
03.23.2022 System Mastery 222 – Umlaut: Game of Metal Uh oh, every once in a while a time comes in which we are commanded to rock, and that time has come again. We’re discussing a game in which every […]
03.09.2022 System Mastery 221 – Santa’s Soldiers Happy Christmas in July in March! It’s time for some holiday cheer, because we were looking for a different game but ended up with this one (it’s explained in the […]
02.23.2022 System Mastery 220 – The Secret Fire This is a pretty bog-standard “Recapture the D&D I remember when I was 11” moonshot game, where the lessons learned about what D&D used to be like seem to be […]
02.09.2022 System Mastery 219 – The Lawnmower Man RPG How often do we get to do theme weeks? This is great! We have the Lawnmower Man RPG, which is set immediately after the events of the movie, as the […]
01.25.2022 System Mastery 218 – Silver Age Sentinels Oh boy another supers game! You know how we love those! SIlver Age Sentinels is from the Big Eyes, Small Mouth folks, so you better believe it shares the insane […]
01.12.2022 System Mastery 217 – Conspiracy X What if everything you thought you knew was actually all evidence of a secret conspiracy? Deja Vu? Real psychic powers. Men in Black? Lizard people in black. That’s the premise […]
12.29.2021 System Mastery 216 – Psychosis: Ship of Fools Post-Show PS: Turns out there is at least one more of these, Jef’s on-air googling failed to turn up Psychosis: Solitary Confinement. Cool? Cool. Well, when the name of the […]
12.15.2021 System Mastery 215 – Blue Rose Let’s dispense with the obvious question first. This is the OGL version. Now before that gets too depressing, note that this is one of the most modified OGL games we’ve […]
11.30.2021 System Mastery 214 – Mystic Forces Heck yeah, one of those weird games so little known I couldn’t GIS the cover and had to take a picture of our copy! Mystic Forces is a 2000 RPG […]
11.17.2021 System Mastery 213 – The Book of Vile Darkness (3.x) Just because Ween is over doesn’t mean we can’t stay spooky! Or at least one would hope. This is more evil by way of edge than anything else. Jef sought […]
11.03.2021 System Mastery 212 – Outbreak: Undead Okay so maybe it’s November, and maybe we forgot when October started this year, but that won’t stop us from delivering our yearly load of horror ween stuff! Here’s Outbreak […]
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 […]

Older episodes

System Mastery

What's System Mastery about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

System Mastery episodes:

System Mastery 226 – Star Munchkin

System Mastery 225 – Marvel Multiverse RPG Playtest

System Mastery 224 – Fiasco Classic

System Mastery 223 – Tephra

System Mastery 222 – Umlaut: Game of Metal

System Mastery 221 – Santa’s Soldiers

System Mastery 220 – The Secret Fire

System Mastery 219 – The Lawnmower Man RPG

System Mastery 218 – Silver Age Sentinels

System Mastery 217 – Conspiracy X

System Mastery 216 – Psychosis: Ship of Fools

System Mastery 215 – Blue Rose

System Mastery 214 – Mystic Forces

System Mastery 213 – The Book of Vile Darkness (3.x)

System Mastery 212 – Outbreak: Undead

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