systemmastery – System Mastery

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The cavalcade of guest stars visiting Fantasy Planet continues, as we are now getting a chance to meet Han (again, remember!?) and Leia, along with the Solo twins, make brief appearances to deal with the Luke being in a coma situation.  Also, we finally meet Exar Kun!  Gotta admit, it is sorta funny watching a straightforward evil tempting ghost deal with our pedantic overexplainer lead.  But hey, you’ll see!

Uh oh, every once in a while a time comes in which we are commanded to rock, and that time has come again.  We’re discussing a game in which every play takes the reins of an entire metal band, and seeks fortune, glory, and thrown up horns from loyal fans.  Is this Sabbath?  Or is it Winger?  Listen along and let’s find out.

Thrill as a very large but not kaiju-sized crocodile harmlessly wanders around the Chinese countryside causing some mild panic and light property damage.

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I can’t help but wonder just exactly how much of this book is Jedi school.  It became increasingly weird to deal with a book about a missing wife, clearly in some form of mortal danger, where the answer was “Take a few college classes and then go look for her.”  Anyway here I am, looking at Kyp and Mara Jade stories just being retold from this puffed-up ex-cop’s overly pedantic perspective.

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I looked at how the book was and realized this first person gimmick was going to wear out its welcome sooner rather than later, even if the book makes it work a little.  I just don’t have that tendency to self-narrate, and also there aren’t any sexy people in my editing space for me to describe at length every time I see them.  For now, we’ll soldier on, as the Exar Kun investigation begins and a round of guests and new students begin to arrive.

Happy Christmas in July in March!  It’s time for some holiday cheer, because we were looking for a different game but ended up with this one (it’s explained in the show).  Suit up as an agent in Santa’s elf army and go forth to do battle with a bunch of holiday monsters.  Or at least hear us talk about it!

An earnestly fun, low budget comedy with high gore and nudity content that would honestly have aged pretty well if it weren’t for all the racial slurs and homophobia.

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Over and over I’m exposed to characters I’ve heard of, stories I faintly remember, but at each turn I’m confronted with the nagging fact that someone has been inserted into each scene.  It’s Corran Horn, obviously, and as each story from Luke’s temple unfolds, he’s usually nearby, being slightly superior.  How do I go on?  How long til this book gets to the missing wife stuff?  This is a weird plan, I remind myself.

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After a little too much time noodling around on Coruscant, I found myself excited to finally get to the Jedi Factory.  Am I finally going to get connected to the few new recruits we met all the way back in Jedi Search?  Before that, I reminded myself, it’s time to watch Corran Horn just fail again and again to read the room.

This is a pretty bog-standard “Recapture the D&D I remember when I was 11” moonshot game, where the lessons learned about what D&D used to be like seem to be that it was awful but we loved it.  Does it promise to be all about player empowerment and then immediately strip almost any tools they might have used away from them?  You’ll have to listen to find out, but it’d be weird if I asked that question and the answer was no, wouldn’t it.