System Mastery

Starting the year off the right way, with a shovelware-style OGL game about playing as real cops. Real boring cops.

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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.

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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 at the show. Make a whole adorable village, populate it and plan their year of events and charming happenings. It's cute, basically. Super cute.

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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 be amazed at what people on the forefront are putting into orcs these days), and we're starting this year with Monster Care Squad, a neat game about rescuing wounded monsters in a world that's evolved past some of the worst instincts of humankind.

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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 a witch skin in there so you know, you get what you get. It's the first edition of one of the biggest PBTA games, in which your high school gets all monster-fied and everyone's out to mess with everyone else!

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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 a little bit rock and roll, relatively recent, and we're covering the 1st edition (my understanding is that a second also exists). How powerful are these witches? Let's find out!

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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 know this isn't the third Ween, thank you very much. We're starting our witchy run of RPGs with Witch Hunt, a game about Salem in 1692, so you know it's gonna just be super tasteful, right?

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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 ever again.

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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.

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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. It's still Ken St. Andre, it's still like maybe half a game, and it's still sort of important just because of the era (1977!)

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