System Mastery

Is it too late to call this a theme month? Because it turned out to be a theme month. Cool minimalist projects by designers we like. Weird! The Skeletons is a thoughtful game about playing as skeletons guarding a tomb, by Jason Morningstar.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who says we can't do cool modern design reviews? Or interview the cool working designers of today that make them? Whoever said that, lemme at 'em! Today we're discussing For The Queen, a game we both enjoy enough to also want get Alex Roberts (already our expert dog correspondent if you're in the Patreon) to join us to talk about her awesome game and the new edition of it that will be out the same day as this episode! (that's synergy)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who would have thought this weird little collaborative storytelling shared narrative exercise game could be so divisive? We discuss Muse, a game that uses cards and tokens and lots of paper to help you and your group tell a story and definitely not make everyone hate each other, at all.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, we couldn't be assed to make Aria characters. They suck. So we made characters in the game LIFTS instead, which doesn't suck. This is your update on that topic.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 really want you to know about beach lifeguards and how important and cool and... military they are.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 down, thank you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 is just an old playtest doc. We talk about why and what and all the rest today!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 line up. But hey, who knows, right?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 yet. Saga edition, with the card deck and one of the two diceless systems. Is it cool? Will it Marvel? Do we have to start tracking down DC games now?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 tactical grid combat of a 4e D&D style game, and for the most part, it works. Let's talk about how!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices