System Mastery – System Mastery

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This game has achieved a sort of fame because the name implies that it might be sort of friendly and cuddly.  It’s been referenced in other games as the RPG you should seek out if you’re looking for an easy time.  Like the training wheels of games.  Well let me tell you now, what they called training wheels in 1976 is what we’d call “not punching your kid for falling off the bike” now.  This game may only be 39 pages long, but 39 is also the number of minutes you can expect your rabbit to live.  It’s Bunnies & Burrows, and nature is red in tooth and saving throw.

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No really, it’s genuine this time!  An actual review of the first edition of the famous swashbuckling RPG 7th Sea.  An interesting blend of very familiar mechanics, curious ideas for character creation, and not-Europe world building created by famous RPG advice dingus John Wick.  This game has a hell of a following.  The 2nd edition was recently the most well-funded RPG kickstarter to date!  But before we dig into the new, let’s take apart the old in today’s (real, actual) review of 7th Sea.

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April Fools!  This is really more about an hour of digressions.  People keep asking what the point is, so here’s the point of that.  Actually have you ever seen the movie “The Point?”  That was weird, right?  Just that wobbly 70s line-art cartoon style you see in stuff like Pink Panther and occasional sex-ed cartoons, and a bunch of stuff designed to encourage you to think for yourself.  Sorta boring, honestly.  So yeah, the basic concept behind the April Fools joke was… y’know what I’ve noticed over the past few years is more people complaining about April Fools then people actually doing any April Fool’s thing.  I assume that’s more about the rise of meme-language.  Not that many people actually legitimately hate April Fool’s but anyone will share any image that has a minion in it.  That seems reasonable.  Hey, look at this clip.  Okay, I think that about wraps it up.

While there’s certainly reams of dirt to dish on the author of 7th Sea, there’s no getting around his raw talent for game design.  Jon Wick’s 7th Sea is a swashbuckling adventure game that more or less hits all the notes we want to see in a game.  Heck, even the entry for the seduction knack leaves “the opposite sex” out of there.  But are there cracks in the polish?  With the recent amazing success of the new 7th Sea Kickstarter, we find the original edition right in our crosshairs.  Enjoy!

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So… this one didn’t really have any art assets large enough to use for the rotating display thing.  Please enjoy a fine Magellanic Penguin.  It’s as relevant as anything else would have been.  This game is about a big war in space between the evilloids and the goodites.  It was written by a fellow who starred in the 70s Battlestar Galactica.  There’s a surprising amount of information about agriculture.  Have a good time!

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It took us a long time to get to this book because we were gathering power.  This week we present our in-depth analysis of this RPG about gathering balls.  It’s Dragonball Z, the Anime Adventure Game, also available as a wall scroll or plastic maquette!

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We stop by the realms of Raven “Combat Spanking” McCracken once more to see if there’s still the fires of mad genius behind his eyes.  Will we find more incredible insanity?  Or did he, like Icarus, sail too close to the sun?  Join us on a journey of discovery, won’t you?

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It’s become apparent over time that there are a few archetypes of bad games.  You’ve got Vision of a Madman, as seen in Synnibarr or Skyrealms of Jorune.  Fun-Hating Deathslog, as seen in any number of heartbreakers and serious business games.  Then there’s Boring Trifle, a catch-all category that covers any game that is too boring or derivative to hold the imagination.  Today’s game is a category we think of as the One Weird Thing, which is a game that would be perfectly serviceable, except the author has this one weird thing.  What’s the one weird thing about Broncosaurus Rex, a game that sounds like it’s probably about cowboys riding space dinosaurs?  Well if you guessed a ludicrous amount of Confederacy apologia, give yourself a prize and then ask yourself why that was your first guess.

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Someone must have really liked our review of the movie, because the demand for this was pretty high.  Today we present Wizards: the RPG.  The game that finally tells us the name of the movie’s famous horseballs (which we reject because they are called horseballs).

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Today we’re thrilled to bring you a game where you can play as a swarm of tiny yetis hanging around with a robot hawk and have an amazing, basically balanced game.  Gamma World 7th edition is a favorite here, and we’re starting 2016 with a breath of radioactive post-apocalyptic fresh air.  Don’t worry, in two weeks we’ll be down in the filth showing off the filthiest bits of filth to each other, like two Gollums.  For now though, enjoy this legitimately awesome game.

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We discussed the rules, now let’s talk about the fluff in the second episode of Immortal: The Invisible War.  Just what is a Darkle, and what Femmes it?  And shouldn’t the Tautha really be the Tuatha?  Probably!