System Mastery – System Mastery

System Mastery 280 – Thirsty Sword Lesbians

Hey who likes lesbians what have swords and powerful yearnings related to the other sword-bearing lesbians they encounter on their wild adventures? You I bet! Let’s review this game for the end of Pride Month, because we were in a hurry and this one has a big old gay word right there in the title. Nothing’s gayer than swords!

Announcement Mastery!
Collapse of the State of Iron is a weird book (definitely read the preview) about the end of a collapsing state, and is available on Amazon right here!

System Mastery 279 – Iron Kingdoms

This one is close to home, we both sorta like this game, used to play the wargame, and wish it all was still good. But times change. But hey, what do we think of this game now?

Announcement Mastery!
Branch Riders (which funded in eight hours already) is currently on Kickstarter!

System Mastery 278 – The Skeletons

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.

System Mastery 277 – For The Queen

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)

Announcement Mastery
Find Amerarcana on Kickstarter between May 14th and June 14th. Search for Amerarcana, spelled A-M-E-R-A-R-C-A-N-A or find it here: https://tinyurl.com/Amerarcanaprelaunch

System Mastery 276 – Muse

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.

System Mastery 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, 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.

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

Announcement Mastery:
Seriously, go help out Owen KC Stephens already, get yourself a bundle of goodies and help out a positive force in this industry!
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/473197/owen-kc-stephens-is-rad-bundle

System Mastery 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 down, thank you.

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

Today’s Announcement Mastery was brought to you by LET’S QUEST, a non-profit helping to provide fun and learning for kids after school via supplying RPGs and accompanying tools to schools across the US. Learn more, especially about how to assist and contribute, at www.letsquestafterschool.org.

System Mastery 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 line up. But hey, who knows, right?

Today’s Announcement Mastery was brought to you by Perfect Draw!, a tabletop roleplaying game based on the PBTA engine that combines collaborative storytelling with trading card game mechanics in the realms of shows about those games, drawing inspiration from shows such as Duel Masters, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Cardfight! Vanguard. Back it today while there’s still time at Backerkit using the following link: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/double-summon-games/perfect-draw-a-ttrpg-about-people-who-play-card-games