System Mastery

System Mastery episodes:

• 04.17.2024

  275 - Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth (Part 2)

  Fine, we finished it. This was truly just an awful thing to keep reading through, I think it's been a while since we've both been this angry. Anyway, if you come support us on Patreon to hear the bonus content,...

  
• 04.01.2024

  274 - Tower 22

  Yeah yeah, we hit pause on Aria, we just couldn't deal with that noise anymore. Instead, it's time to dive into the ever-generous well of dumb OGL titles, with this bizarre 2002 Fantasy Strike classic, in which the authors really...

  
• 03.23.2024

  273 - Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth

  Show update first, everything's been a bit late because of travel and the deadly scary norovirus, which isn't pretty. Sorry about that. Show news on this episode? The sound a shudder that indicates a man has seen too much, written...

  
• 03.07.2024

  272 - City of Heroes Playtest

  Gather up, all you various tankers, scrapper, controllers, uhhh... that healer one... I'm just kidding I loved this game. It's City of Heroes, sort of! Insofar as it's a Unisystem take on the popular superhero MMO. Some of one. This...

  
• 02.22.2024

  271 - Active Exploits

  This was a tough read. Active Exploits is more of a toolkit than a game, but despite basically having every possible tool any kit could ever have, especially for a diceless engine, we still just aren't seeing how the numbers...

  
• 02.08.2024

  270 - Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game

  I think... I think this is all of them? If you count the review of the Multiverse pre-test (we've skimmed the final version, it's pretty close), then yeah, this is the last of the Marvel licensed RPGs we hadn't covered...

  
• 01.25.2024

  269 - Strike!

  This one is a little near and dear to us, we've used it to run Blimpleggers content in the past! Strike! is an RPG that sort of combines the very abstracted narrative structure of a FATE style game with the...

  
• 01.12.2024

  268 - Crime Scene Police Investigation

  Starting the year off the right way, with a shovelware-style OGL game about playing as real cops. Real boring cops. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  
• 12.13.2023

  267 - Mörk Borg

  Whoa, the art and layout in this thing is cool! What about the rest of it? Is it also cool? Can love bloom on the retroclone-style battlefield? Well, let's read it and find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

  
• 11.29.2023

  266 - Cozy Town

  Welcome to a charming little community where the townsfolk are all made up and the real world doesn't matter. It's Cozy Town, a game that we figured could not have a better title to fit the Sweater Weather time here...

  
• 11.15.2023

  265 - Monster Care Squad

  Oh boy it's time for Sweater Weather! You know, our now two year running thing where we review specifically non or low-combat games, helping folks learn that there's more out there than the traditional "sword goes into orc" model (you'd...

  
• 10.31.2023

  264 - Monsterhearts

  Okay, I do have a few more books with Witch in the title, and yes the urge to do Strike Witches was fairly strong, but we've been wanting a good excuse to talk Monsterhearts for a while anyway and there's...

  
• 10.18.2023

  263 - Witch: Fated Souls

  It's witches aplenty this ween, and that means more than just crooked triangle hats, as we see here in a multicultural witch festival including witchy types from all over the world. The game is a little bit White Wolf and...

  
• 10.05.2023

  262 - Witch Hunt

  What's that upon the roof I hear? Could it be the pitter-patter of seasonally appropriate witch feet 'pon my shingles? Why, 'tis! Blessed Ween to each and every! This year, it's Ween 3: Season of the Witch, and yes I...

  
• 09.19.2023

  261 - octaNe

  Let's examine a post-apocalyptic game with a penchant for low-budget outre 90s cinema styles, and a fairly simple core mechanic to boot. It's octaNe, and it's pretty interesting, even if I personally never wanna read about Six String Samurai...

  
• 09.08.2023

  260 - Star Wars Saga Edition

  And I said GO! If you're wondering if we liked this game, We liked this game, It's mostly fine, But it could use some work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  
• 08.22.2023

  259 - Starfaring

  Sold to us as the first ever sci-fi RPG (a claim we have learned is dubious), Starfaring is basically Tunnels & Trolls, but with some Star Trek jokes and moving the racism largely from the spell titles to the art....

  
• 08.08.2023

  258 = Bullwinkle & Rocky Party RPG

  Allow us to introducing our game... It's finally here, the box set that sat on my shelf for four years while we waiting for GenCon to be a thing we were willing to do again, and it's still not a...

  
• 07.28.2023

  257 - Mythic Roleplaying

  Apparently what we have here is often considered to be the first stab at a DM-less RPG system! It's from 2003, and boy is it unusual. How does it handle GM-less play, or many of the other things it's stated...

  
• 07.11.2023

  256 - Silvervine

  This one is interesting! It seems to be a compilation of two books, but is largely a single game about steampunk furry anime fantasy guys that also have airships and cool guns. The character builds can actually be pretty dang...

  
• 06.28.2023

  255 - Horror Rules

  It's rules, for horror. From the DTRPG files, we've read a 2003 horror game with some neat ideas, some snarky stuff, and a slow burning lingering sense that there's a lot of Christianity stuff in here (in retrospect, the fact...

  
• 06.13.2023

  254 - Savage Worlds Rifts

  And now to take a look at Savage Worlds with a game world overlay. We love Rifts anyway around here, and want to see it in all the formats. What do you think of the model for reviewing sandbox games...

  
• 06.01.2023

  253 - Savage Worlds

  So we might be a bit off schedule but that's okay, because we spent the time stuck in various airports and cities reading Savage Worlds so we could talk about it with you! A somewhat new game, Savage Worlds is...

  
• 05.16.2023

  252 - Valley of the Pharaohs

  Well well well, if it isn't a Palladium game. And one of those weird ones where Simbieda didn't write it or pretend to have written it! Valley of the Pharaohs came out in 1983, making it the first ever Palladium...

  
• 05.04.2023

  251 - Heroic Visions

  Jon's special blend of DrivethruRPG search criteria has kicked us up a truly interesting and unusual blend of superheroes, afrofuturism, strong Christian undertones, and Poser art that is definitely connected to a webcomic.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  
• 04.18.2023

  250 - GURPS

  Well I suppose it was about time. Let's dive into the world of world creation by taking a hard look at GURPS, one of the earliest examples of the "Do anything at all" RPG model, from Steve Jackson Games. If...

  
• 04.05.2023

  249 - Rifter 9 and One Half

  Happy April Fools! Well, sort of. We were busy. We actually were hosting a quiz show thing on April 1st proper. So this early April episode will have to serve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  
• 03.22.2023

  248 - Infinite Domains

  What is this, some sort of generic universal role playing system? Some sort of master book to rule them all? It's Infinite Domains and it arrived on the scene in 1996 to throw a new hat into the...

  
• 03.08.2023

  247 - Fractured Kingdom

  Set in the far future on the other side of a brutal and deadly war on Earth, Fractured Kingdom is concerned with folks rendered extraordinary by exposure to a world of dreams and power beyond and suffusing our own. It's...

  
• 02.21.2023

  246 - Dallas The Television RPG

  You know you read about this in some message board or listicle article years ago. And you know you've always wondered what the heck it actually is. Well wonder no longer, friends! Answers await you! Learn more about your ad choices....

  
• 02.08.2023

  245 - Katanas & Trenchcoats

  Night falls on Darkest Vancouver. Will you be ready to draw your coolest anime sword and battle the eternal dancefight against the other forever-walkers like yourself? Today's episode is a comedy game that sort of uses Highlander rules...

  
• 01.24.2023

  244 - Teenagers From Outer Space

  A lightweight anime-inspired comedy game from... 1987? Damn, Mike Pondsmith must have been one of those guys that bought unlabeled anime VHS tapes from trenchcoat weirdos at comic cons when they still had walking room in them. Whatever the case...

  
• 01.10.2023

  Episode 243 - Star Wars D20

  No no, not Saga Edition, the other one. This is OGL shovel-ware Star Wars. It's got a real prominent author all right, but these "Just change the names on D&D stuff" versions of OGL content are so hard to fit...

  
• 12.28.2022

  Episode 242 - Like a Rogue, One-Page Apocalypse Vol 1, Christmas Fallout

  To close out our year we've decided to take a little look at a couple of very little games, because we just had a lot of family business going on around this time. We discuss a solo game about...

  
• 12.14.2022

  241 - Kill Puppies For Satan

  No more Sweater Weather? Guess it's time for edgy fucked up December. Who wants to be nice to people and solve teddy bear ouchies when you can cram a firecracker in a frog or whatever as a member of Satan's...

  
• 11.29.2022

  240 - Threadbare

  If you haven't played as a bear with a clothes hangar for one arm that has to help solve the mystery of where Starscream's left wing went, have you really lived? Threadbare is a PBTA game in the stitchpunk genre...

  
• 11.16.2022

  239 - The Play's The Thing

  Sweater Weather just will not let up as we take a tour through the non-combative games that are just so hard to find in RPGs. Today we discuss The Play's The Thing, a Shakespeare altering game where you play as...

  
• 11.03.2022

  238 – Golden Sky Stories

  We couldn’t get enough theme months! Welcome to a brand new thing here at System Mastery, Sweater Weather! Reviewing the games that make you feel as cozy and comfortable as a good bowl of stew and a blazing fireplace. Today, we’re discussing Golden...

  
• 10.19.2022

  System Mastery 237 – Alien

  As we draw this festive Ween to a close, we continue the project of a brief examination of newer space horror (Yes, that last game was a heist thing, but […]

  
• 10.19.2022

  237 – Alien

  As we draw this festive Ween to a close, we continue the project of a brief examination of newer space horror (Yes, that last game was a heist thing, but c’mon, you were working for the literal Devil, right? That counts!),...

  
• 10.05.2022

  System Mastery 236 – Stealing Stories for the Devil

  The customary three great blessings of Ween to each and every one of you!  Okay, so this game isn’t especially scary.  By now you should have recognized that we may […]

  
• 10.04.2022

  236 – Stealing Stories for the Devil

  The customary three great blessings of Ween to each and every one of you! Okay, so this game isn’t especially scary. By now you should have recognized that we may or may not give a fuck about tradition from one day to...

  
• 09.20.2022

  System Mastery 235 – Ray Winninger’s Underground

  https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/system-mastery-235-ray-winningers-underground.mp3 Hurray, one of those edgy 90s games where people have superpowers but aren’t superheroes! You know, like the other ones? This one at least has an interesting angle of entry by being more about society failing veterans, but is that enough to...

  
• 09.07.2022

  System Mastery 234 – Apocalypse World

  https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/system-mastery-234-apocalypse-world-2.mp3 Wait, from Psi World to Apocalypse World? Two worlds? One network family? Oh right, I should probably mention that because we both have been down for a bit with the old Covid-19, James stepped in to help record this one, which turned out...

  
• 08.25.2022

  System Mastery 233 – Psi World

  https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/08/system-mastery-233-psi-world.mp3 Back to the old psionic grind! This game has almost exactly two whole paragraphs of story. Everything else we’ve had to glean from the margins and unusually informative rules. Wanna… I guess be a psychic refugee in the near future of 198X? That’s pretty...

  
• 08.10.2022

  System Mastery 232 – Leaked 6th Edition Playtest

  https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/08/system-mastery-232-leaked-6th-ed-dd.mp3 Hell yeah, we got some leaked documents up in here! Shame we gotta do it to them. But such is the rule of law here on the wild internet frontier.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  
• 07.27.2022

  System Mastery 231 – Kevin & Kell RPG

  https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/system-mastery-231-kevin-kell-rpg.mp3 A rare occasion where the “How the hell did this even happen” question seems fairly obvious (some company wanted a furry game in their line and this was close enough) but hot damn is this ever the weirdest thing we’ve...

  
• 07.12.2022

  System Mastery 230 – White Box

  https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/07/system-mastery-230-white-box.mp3 Let’s GOSR! This here is one a them retro-type clones where the goal was extremely straightforward: The author liked Sword & Sorcery White Box and wanted another edition, so here it is. Wanna play as a Dwarf? That can be up to level 6...

  
• 06.28.2022

  System Mastery 229 – Underworld

  https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/system-mastery-229-underworld.mp3 Ever had dreams about the world deep below the world you know? A world where magic and madness swirl, where animals may just speak aloud, a world where the ancient myths of the surface are terrifyingly true? Did you recently read Neverwhere? Okay...

  
• 06.16.2022

  System Mastery 228 – Star Wars: Age of Rebellion

  https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2022/06/system-mastery-228-star-wars-age-of-rebellion.mp3 Well, FFG was sort of driven off this project (it’s a really sad story) so the most recent line of Star Wars games is now in our wheelhouse, I guess. And who better to help us tell the story of the...