System Mastery – System Mastery

Time for some sci-fi!  This game takes all the futuristic space convention you love and just DUMPS on it, haha yeah rad, fuck Star Trek!  Anyhow come along won’t you?  On a journey that starts as a surprisingly innovative CCG-inspired spaceship combat simulator and somehow ends on some deeply misinformed understandings of cross-dressing and gender play?  That doesn’t sound right!

Have you missed the good old fashioned heartbreaker game paradigm?  Well fret no longer friend, because this one has it all!  Elves! Dwarves!  Saracens for some reason!  This reprint of a game published in 1982 might just be the best sword and sorcery product of the 90s (according to the back cover) but we’ll find out, won’t we.  (the cover image is a cow from the island that this game’s sole continent shares a name with, Islay).

Superheroes!  World War 2!  Greg Stolze?  What’s not to like?  Well, there’s plenty to like, such as the fascinating superpower design system and the fairly fun dice mechanics.  But could be there be more stuff coming we’re not fans of?  Well, the episode is huge, so you take a guess!

We didn’t know it when we started, but there’s a theme to this year’s Ween episodes beyond just leftover horror games floating around the library.  And that theme is “Oops we thought these were horror games, sorry!”  Dark Realms is a horror to people that like comprehensible mechanics, anyway.

It’s a nice day for something!  Welcome back to our October content.  This year the theme is a little looser since we’ve reviewed enough White Wolf games for two lifetimes and Jef’s Palladium stock is running low.  But that’s okay!  Here’s the first edition of Mayfair Games’ Chill, a horror game… in theory.

Well, we had to take a look at a Role Master game eventually, and this one chose us.  This 1985 RPG is deeply, deeply mathy, and features a fantastic story with … oh no wait it’s Space Rome and a corrupt mega-Catholic star church again.

Well, after last week with Jef failing to figure out what the heck any of this is using just the rule book, can Jon save the day?  Will his comprehensive notes about the story book explain everything?  Spoiler alert, no.

A lavish box set full of tomes of full color wonder!  A comprehensive vision of an exciting and vast universe!  But System Mastery!  Could it be… completely impossible to read?  We dive into the madness of Eoris Essence, in a weird way that we’ll just have to explain in the show.

Live from GenCon 2019, it’s System Mastery!  We’re covering the greatest entertainment to come out of the squared circle in 2005, actual wrestling!  Wait… no, probably some video game!  Or a CCG?  Oh god it was an actual OGL licensed RPG based on wrestling in that exact year?  Oh, oh no.  No no no.  We are joined by special guests Jim McClure(Aaron Cross, future owner of battleship) and James D’Amato (TVs, twice-published, the Latino Heat) on stage to discuss this bizarre relic of the DevOGLnian period of RPG history!

Did you know there were licensed RPGs using the 4th edition D&D engine?  Well here’s one now!  It has lots of fancy elves, a bunch of tech-based classes, and so much worldbuilding!  Enjoy!