System Mastery – System Mastery: Recent Episodes
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System Mastery 304 – Runequest (1984)
This is one of the venerable old giants of the fantasy gaming industry. Avalon Hill producing Chaosium’s Runequest. Couldn’t be more classic. But how does it read 40 years later? Let’s all find out together.
Neon City Outlaws!
Go support an awesome game, you’ve got like two days and a late pledge window if you’re lucky! Jef’s been reading it and it’s so good!
System Mastery 302 – Capers
By all account, this is the first ever superhero RPG, but don’t let that fool you, it contains virtually nothing you’d recognize as a superhero game. In fact, it’s wild what it contains. You’ll see.
Mutants From the Archives: Pet Shop Blues Kickstarter! Go support this at once, you!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arbco/mutants-from-the-archives-pet-shop-bluesjk! Games site:
j-k.games
System Mastery 302 – Capers
Okay the rumors that we like every supers game are scurrilous, devious, and increasingly accurate. This is Capers, and it’s a supers game set in a slightly less socially shitty 1920s, which is a neat thing.
System Mastery 301 – The Arcanum
Hi folks, let’s start up another 300 of these, what do you say? This one is about The Arcanum, an early 80s game that sure seems similar for some reasons (the same reasons they always do? Probably!
System Mastery 300 – Palladium Fantasy
Well that certainly was 300 times we did a thing, I tell you what! Let’s take a little victory lap by cracking open a cask we’ve been saving for a special occasion, a feisty little 1983 vintage called Palladium Fantasy that definitely isn’t just dust and vinegar by this point, right? Right?
Announcement Mastery!
Check out Gamer Mom: The Mom Who Games right now on Kickstarter!
System Mastery 299 – Bleeding Heart
We’re hard at work on our giant pile of weird old box sets, and that means it’s time for Bleeding Heart, a game that Jon assures me is loosely based on something called the Corman Poe film era of the mid-sixties, and he’s a total horror nerd so I gotta go with him on this one.
Announcement Mastery!
Obelisk is launching on Kickstarter April 7th.
Visit obeliskttrpg.com/kickstarter to get notified when it launches!
Help listener Alex Shaw and his family recover from a devastating home fire! https://gofund.me/92b44dd2
System Mastery 298 – Wild West
I really hope you’re enjoying this string of very old games, we’re doing our best to get back into them quickly (ever since I found one of my old box sets fully eaten by bugs and had to fumigate). In this case, it’s a game about real old timey cowboys! Like Boot Hill but not TSR!
System Mastery 297 – Star Trek the Roleplaying Game
Can we review an 80s Star Trek game without our pacemakers exploding? What if FASA made it? We’re looking at the Star Trek RPG from roughly 1983, which means (if you’re counting) that it’s based on the original series, the animated series, and the first three films. Is it okay or does it have to go home and copy 10 pages out of the K section of the dictionary? Let’s find out!
Go forth and support Celestial Bodies on Kickstarter! It’s a game about harvesting the remnants of dead gods in cool upgradeable mechs out in space, which is… pretty cool really.
System Mastery 296 – Lewd Dungeon Adventures
Finally someone bought that game that advertises on Facebook, and it was us. It’s a fantasy adventure game with some sex-themed rules, but honestly I don’t want to spoil anything here because it’s a tiny wee little game that could never possibly satisfy any REAL gamer. Damn it, still with the jokes. It’s a sex RPG and we read it. That’s for sure.
Oh and hey, go support Solo But Not Alone 5, okay? Good cause. We’re supporting it. You get a lot of solo games for a small amount of money and contribute to a cause that’s literally never been needed more.
System Mastery 295 – Insurgent
A very quick little modern game designed to be played solo or with a small group but no GM, in which you rebel against something. What do you rebel against? Whattaya got?
System Mastery 294 – OGL Ancients
It’s what it says! Though it’s adding a lot of stuff to the venerable old combat engine of 3.X OGL, it’s an OGL game where you play as primarily Greeks and Egyptians from antiquity (you can get a Scythian or someone from Thessaly in if you want, it’s just not a great plan).
Announcement Mastery
Coffee, Cults, and Empires is a brand new AP launching February 2025 that is a story, within a story, within a festive autumnal squash. Wait, no, it’s within a third story! Hang out with the intern that takes down the story of several professors playing RPGs as the world around them prepares to end!
System Mastery 293 – Alas Vegas
This is a little recent for our usual stuff, but Jon was really interested after the Fastlane review to keep looking at games that utilize classic casino games as RPG randomizers, and this one’s a doozy! Combining Blackjack and Tarot stuff, no less! Right in Jon’s very wheelhouse. The game is neat too! There’s a ton in here, it’s definitely one of those big rocks that rolled down a Kickstarter success story and accumulated content as it went, so we made some calls on what to focus on that we’ll explain within. At the end of the day, this is pretty dang neat.
Announcement Mastery
Ravenswool.com! Check them out, they make awesome yarn colorways, and they’re even maybe making some based on our very jokes, it’s super cool.
System Mastery 292 – Unbidden
Back to basics, some game you probably never heard of that we didn’t like. That’s the basic essence of the show, right? It has to come up sometimes. I’m talking about the show here because honestly I can’t think of much to say about this sort of generic “There are secrets in the world that you can’t learn about without going crazy” type game that isn’t already in the episode.
System Mastery 291 – Fastlane
Oh buddy you better believe we love it when the game has a weird alternative randomizing mechanic, and this thing is all about roulette. Yes, it straight up tells you at the start that you can use a digital one or even a dice based approximation, but for max results, you should get a roulette wheel. What else? Well, it’s a generic system besides the ruleset, so we go all in on that.
System Mastery 290 – Icarus
As we bring Sweater Weather to a close we are faced with the realization that we accidentally double-themed this month, since both of these games are explorations of civilizations over time, and in fact would make a pretty good double feature game night played together. Weird! Anyway, this is a little box set where you make a dice tower.
System Mastery 289 – The Quiet Year
Hey folks, welcome to Sweater Weather. We’re going to keep things light and distracting here for the next few months, sweater weather or not, so don’t worry about heavy topics. If you’re looking for a getaway, we got you. Also, this book is about impending change and possible doom. So. You know, we’ll figure it out.
System Mastery 288 – Rats!
So these aren’t really furries, but hey, I think this was just called Hairy Ween, right? Like that sounds more like a dick joke anyway. Anyhow, this book is all about playing as vile, disgusting, brilliant little rats trying to retake the world from the foul humans that don’t deserve it. It’s a mixed bag!
System Mastery 287 – Orkworld (Crunch)
Blessed Ween everyone! This year we’re focusing on animal inside of us all with a Furry Ween! Or a Hairy Ween! I dunno, whatever, we just wanted to read Mutants in the Now.
System Mastery 286 – Orkworld (Crunch)
Oh, oh no. We thought all the worst stuff was going to be in the fluff and descriptive section. We were wrong. If you’re a fan of angry Jef and Jon, well, you probably already noticed the 84 minute runtime of the episode and got your hopes up, correctly.
System Mastery 285 – Orkworld (Fluff)
Well, this might be divisive, if we hadn’t spent years discussing how we feel about ol’ John Wick and his famously terrible advice. But what about his games? Well, let’s look at Orkworld, a game about Orcs.
System Mastery 284 – Time Master
Travel through time at the behest of a futuristic society at the end of time? Sounds familiar! But before you break out the Wyld Stallyns shirt, let me burst your bubble by saying this actually has a weird war game at its weird core.
System Mastery 283 – Eden
Hi everyone! You’ll never guess that now the other one of us has COVID. This stupid planet and country. Anyway, this game is about people learning lessons in a primordial garden from the animals that live there. Cool, right?
System Mastery 282 – Spectaculars
Part of wallowing in weird old stuff unfortunately is that it’s hard to keep abreast of what’s going on in the last decade or so of gaming, but Jef still pretty much orders any superhero thing if he sees it on sale, and that’s what happened here! This time it paid off even, as Spectaculars turned out to be in a form factor neither of us expected but both of us enjoyed, so let us tell you all about it.
Announcement Mastery!
Develop both company as well as your character as you navigate the downtime phase, prospects of mutiny and the ever-closer reaching hand of old age, as you try to survive in a time of terror, violence and terrifying wickedness. SOUDARD!
The Core Rulebook is available on itch.io/soudard-crb as well as DriveThruRPG and will soonish be joined by the campaign which will take you on the journey through the first war and allow you and your friends to experience the late middle ages as never before. SOUDARD!”
System Mastery 281 – Modern Knights
Pssst, hey buddy, wanna buy a superhero game from 2002 that was pretty clearly written prior to 1999? How? Oh, let us explain. It’s Modern Knights! At least we know that much.
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
System Mastery 270 – Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game
I think… I think this is all of them? If you count the review of the Multiverse pre-test (we’ve skimmed the final version, it’s pretty close), then yeah, this is the last of the Marvel licensed RPGs we hadn’t covered yet. Saga edition, with the card deck and one of the two diceless systems. Is it cool? Will it Marvel? Do we have to start tracking down DC games now?
System Mastery 269 – Strike!
This one is a little near and dear to us, we’ve used it to run Blimpleggers content in the past! Strike! is an RPG that sort of combines the very abstracted narrative structure of a FATE style game with the tactical grid combat of a 4e D&D style game, and for the most part, it works. Let’s talk about how!
Announcement Mastery Links
Support Solo But Not Alone 4 on itch.io here: https://itch.io/b/2256/solo-but-not-alone-4
System Mastery 268 – Crime Scene Police Investigation
Starting the year off the right way, with a shovelware-style OGL game about playing as real cops. Real boring cops.
Announcement Mastery Links
Check our Knight: Remastered, now on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/armouredgames/knight-remastered
Support Solo But Not Alone 4 on itch.io here: https://itch.io/b/2256/solo-but-not-alone-4
System Mastery 267 – Mörk Borg
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.
System Mastery 266 – Cozy Town
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.
System Mastery 265 – Monster Care Squad
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 “put sword into orc” model (you’d be amazed at what people on the internet 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.
System Mastery 264 – Monsterhearts
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!
System Mastery 263 – Witch: Fated Souls
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!
System Mastery 262 – Witch Hunt
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?
System Mastery 261 – octaNe
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.
System Mastery 260 – Star Wars Saga Edition
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.
System Mastery 259 – Starfaring 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 […]
System Mastery 257 – Mythic Roleplaying Allow us to introducing our game… It’s finally here, the box set that sat on my shelf for four years while we waiting for […]
System Mastery 257 – Mythic Roleplaying Apparently what we have here is often considered to be the first stab at a DM-less RPG system! It’s from 2003, and boy is […]
System Mastery 256 – Silvervine This one is interesting! It seems to be a compilation of two books, but is largely a single game about steampunk furry anime fantasy guys […]
System Mastery 255 – Horror Rules It’s rules, for horror. From the DTRPG files, we’ve read a 2003 horror game with some neat ideas, some snarky stuff, and a slow […]
System Mastery 254 – Savage Worlds Rifts So we might be a bit off schedule but that’s okay, because we spent the time stuck in various airports and cities reading […]
System Mastery 253 – Savage Worlds
So we might be a bit off schedule but that’s okay, because we spent the time stuck in various airports and cities reading Savage Worlds so we could talk about it with you! A somewhat new game, Savage Worlds is a toolbox system similar to GURPS or the like, except it has an eye towards fast heroic play instead of accurate simulation stuff. Does it hit the mark? Well let’s talk about it.
System Mastery 252 – Valley of the Pharaohs
Well well well, if it isn’t a Palladium game. And one of those weird ones where Simbieda didn’t write it or pretend to have written it! Valley of the Pharaohs came out in 1983, making it the first ever Palladium game published, and boy does that age show!
System Mastery 251 – Heroic Visions
Jon’s special blend of DrivethruRPG search criteria has kicked us up a truly interesting and unusual blend of superheroes, afrofuturism, strong Christian undertones, and Poser art that is definitely connected to a webcomic.
System Mastery 250 – GURPS
Happy April Fools! Well, sort of. We were busy. We actually were hosting a quiz show thing on April 1st proper. So this early April episode will have to serve.Well I suppose it was about time. Let’s dive into the world of world creation by taking a hard look at GURPS, one of the earliest examples of the “Do anything at all” RPG model, from Steve Jackson Games. If I can post this right. My tech level is pretty low.
System Mastery 249 – Rifter 9 1/2
Happy April Fools! Well, sort of. We were busy. We actually were hosting a quiz show thing on April 1st proper. So this early April episode will have to serve.
System Mastery 248 – Infinite Domains
What is this, some sort of generic universal role playing system? Some sort of master book to rule them all? It’s Infinite Domains and it arrived on the scene in 1996 to throw a new hat into the ring of “do anything” RPG systems, starting with a fantasy set of trappings.
System Mastery 246 – Dallas
You know you read about this in some message board or listicle article years ago. And you know you’ve always wondered what the heck it actually is. Well wonder no longer, friends! Answers await you!
System Mastery 244 – Teenagers from Outer Space
Night falls on Darkest Vancouver. Will you be ready to draw your coolest anime sword and battle the eternal dancefight against the other forever-walkers like yourself? Today’s episode is a comedy game that sort of uses Highlander rules to make fun of White Wolf. It’s neat!
Announcement Mastery!
Solo But Not Alone 3 – The awesome charity project by Peach Garden Games in support of Jasper’s Game Day is returning bigger and better than ever, offering a bundle of 148 brand new solo RPGs for you to play all for the low donation floor of only $10 (but you can and should give more!) Help prevent suicide in the games community and get yourself some amazing games in the process? What an amazing deal!
System Mastery 244 – Teenagers from Outer Space
A lightweight anime-inspired comedy game from… 1987? Damn, Mike Pondsmith must have been one of those guys that bought unlabeled anime VHS tapes from trenchcoat weirdos at comic cons when they still had walking room in them. Whatever the case may be, this is a fun, weird read. But a good game? Well let’s find out.
System Mastery 243 – Star Wars D20
No no, not Saga Edition, the other one. This is OGL shovel-ware Star Wars. It’s got a real prominent author all right, but these “Just change the names on D&D stuff” versions of OGL content are so hard to fit to anything, let alone something as demanding and iconic as Star Wars. Did they do it? Well, check it out!
System Mastery 242 – Like a Rogue, One-Page Apocalypse Vol 1, Christmas Fallout
To close out our year we’ve decided to take a little look at a couple of very little games, because we just had a lot of family business going on around this time. We discuss a solo game about surviving a zombie apocalypse in the dead of winter, and another one about being word wizards exploring a lexicon library. Merry festive times to all!
System Mastery 241 – Kill Puppies for Satan
No more Sweater Weather? Guess it’s time for edgy fucked up December. Who wants to be nice to people and solve teddy bear ouchies when you can cram a firecracker in a frog or whatever as a member of Satan’s grimiest little volunteer militia.
System Mastery 240 – Threadbare
If you haven’t played as a bear with a clothes hangar for one arm that has to help solve the mystery of where Starscream’s left wing went, have you really lived? Threadbare is a PBTA game in the stitchpunk genre (more on that within) all about survival, adaptation, and purpose, and it can be played with absolutely no combat so hey, it’s perfect, because Sweater Weather isn’t over yet!
System Mastery 239 – The Play’s The Thing
Sweater Weather just will not let up as we take a tour through the non-combative games that are just so hard to find in RPGs. Today we discuss The Play’s The Thing, a Shakespeare altering game where you play as actors changing the story as the story goes along. So will the game be twice blest? Or is Hell empty and all the devils are here? Also, just up front, we don’t know the first goddamn thing about Shakespeare. Be warned.
We couldn’t get enough theme months! Welcome to a brand new thing here at System Mastery, Sweater Weather! Reviewing the games that make you feel as cozy and comfortable as […]
As we draw this festive Ween to a close, we continue the project of a brief examination of newer space horror (Yes, that last game was a heist thing, but […]
The customary three great blessings of Ween to each and every one of you! Okay, so this game isn’t especially scary. By now you should have recognized that we may […]
Hurray, one of those edgy 90s games where people have superpowers but aren’t superheroes! You know, like the other ones? This one at least has an interesting angle of entry […]
Wait, from Psi World to Apocalypse World? Two worlds? One network family? Oh right, I should probably mention that because we both have been down for a bit with the […]
Back to the old psionic grind! This game has almost exactly two whole paragraphs of story. Everything else we’ve had to glean from the margins and unusually informative rules. Wanna… […]
Hell yeah, we got some leaked documents up in here! Shame we gotta do it to them. But such is the rule of law here on the wild internet frontier. […]
A rare occasion where the “How the hell did this even happen” question seems fairly obvious (some company wanted a furry game in their line and this was close enough) […]
Let’s GOSR! This here is one a them retro-type clones where the goal was extremely straightforward: The author liked Sword & Sorcery White Box and wanted another edition, so here […]
Ever had dreams about the world deep below the world you know? A world where magic and madness swirl, where animals may just speak aloud, a world where the ancient […]
Well, FFG was sort of driven off this project (it’s a really sad story) so the most recent line of Star Wars games is now in our wheelhouse, I guess. […]
Ooh, it’s one of those cowboys and also a different thing games! You know, like cowboys and ninjas, or cowboys and dinosaurs, or cowboys and the slow crushing onset of […]
Uh oh, someone better stop us before we get to level 10. It’s Star Munchkin, the RPG! Did you know there were RPGs of these games? You should have guessed. […]
Reviewing a playtest? That doesn’t seem right! Well, it certainly isn’t in our usual bag of tricks, but hey, this is a rare situation where someone writing a modern game […]
Mea culpa time (Jef version): This is one of those games where I knew exactly what it was and have been recommending it for years for any RP session that […]
Ooh, a steampunk one! You can tell because of the brown and the gear and the goggles and all. Oh, I guess it also says steampunk on there, in retrospect […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
How often do we get to do theme weeks? This is great! We have the Lawnmower Man RPG, which is set immediately after the events of the movie, as the […]
Oh boy another supers game! You know how we love those! SIlver Age Sentinels is from the Big Eyes, Small Mouth folks, so you better believe it shares the insane […]
What if everything you thought you knew was actually all evidence of a secret conspiracy? Deja Vu? Real psychic powers. Men in Black? Lizard people in black. That’s the premise […]
Post-Show PS: Turns out there is at least one more of these, Jef’s on-air googling failed to turn up Psychosis: Solitary Confinement. Cool? Cool. Well, when the name of the […]
Let’s dispense with the obvious question first. This is the OGL version. Now before that gets too depressing, note that this is one of the most modified OGL games we’ve […]
Heck yeah, one of those weird games so little known I couldn’t GIS the cover and had to take a picture of our copy! Mystic Forces is a 2000 RPG […]
Just because Ween is over doesn’t mean we can’t stay spooky! Or at least one would hope. This is more evil by way of edge than anything else. Jef sought […]
Okay so maybe it’s November, and maybe we forgot when October started this year, but that won’t stop us from delivering our yearly load of horror ween stuff! Here’s Outbreak […]
Behold our triumph, the ZombieWeen! It’s alive! Well, sort of alive. This ‘Ween around we’ll be focusing on zombie RPGs, investigating games about surviving short infestations and full-blown apocalypses. This […]
Oh geez, this one is gonna get us some letters. Lemme just warn you in advance if you’re as hot on this property as everyone on the internet seems to […]
Well how about one of these? It’s only the third one in 209 episodes, so I hope they sort of feel special by now! It’s Supplement Spectacular, where we dig […]
This takes a while, but on the bright side we really find out some new fun and not so fun stuff about the game in the process. Good on ya […]
Desperately trying to hit a book deadline, we found ourselves in need of something fairly small, so we finally broke the tiny sheet of glass in front of the smaller […]
Comedy roleplaying game anyone? Maybe one that’s got a bunch of jokes about how dumb orks are and how they have special blood that keeps them from ever being smart […]
My friends, in the interest of transparency, I am only just now realized this game has a subtitle! So don’t look for that in the episode, we didn’t notice. It’s […]
Well hey, surprise OGL! Nothing on the cover, and so when Jon selected this old Sword & Sorcery product to take home and started reading, he was suddenly (after 190 […]
So what we have here is a rarity, in that it is an early (1993-1995) LARP game that is also a universal generic system. So there’s not really a story […]
My friends, this is a weird one. The vast majority of this book is difficult to explain rules, and then there’s a chunk of fascinating story hidden away towards the […]
I think we bought this one on the cover alone (and especially the back cover, which is bullet points and a photo of the Twin Towers mid-fall). I mean, look […]
Hey, we made it to 200 episodes! I’m sure that’s some sort of milestone! And while the choice of game to cover this time may feel kind of arbitary, I […]
Heck yeah, comedy superhero parody game from 1997 coming in hot. You know it’s gonna make us mad, it’s just got to! Anyway, this game is designed to be LARP-ready, […]
We’ve had a great track record with games set in high schools, right? So obviously one set in a secondary school should be at least as good as Alma Mater […]
So many people have requested this that we finally thought we’d throw you all a bone. Ironclaw is an anthro medieval RPG, so you’ll be playing a lot of foxes, […]
Wanna hunt ghosts but not necessarily dedicate your whole life to it? Consider just getting a daytime job hunting ghosts, goblins, nilbogs, and Son of Kong with InSpectres, a game […]
Who wants to take over the multiverse? Okay, great! Let’s start you out as a nobody with nothing and you can grind XP in… I don’t care, let’s say mythological […]
From an old hero game to a new one, it’s time to talk about Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game. Sentinels is an expansive setting with a vast cast of characters […]
As go the tides, so come the times we’re both dealing with something and need a nice easy Palladium game. Skraypers is both a Rifts and a Heroes Unlimited setting, […]
It’s Shadowrun! But… faster? Is that the point here? It’s honestly sort of hard to tell the exact point of this Shadowrun 5e adjacent game, but damn if we aren’t […]
Boot Hill is a colloquial term from the cowboy days for a cemetery. You might think there’s some sort of metaphor their for our opinions pertaining to the game, but […]
Have you not gotten your fill of Kingdom Hearts yet? Of course not, no one has. Not until someone bursts Nomura like a pinata and eats all the ideas that […]
Now here’s some good old fashioned back to basics shit. Got to be, right? Name like that? Shirtless axe dude on the cover? Well, color us surprised because this thing […]
Oh my, a game about the uncertain moments at the precipice of romance or disaster? Neat! Star Crossed is a 2018 game by Alex Roberts that creates tension and titillation […]
Out of the four Marvel RPGs that have happened over the years, this is one of them. Specifically, the 2003 diceless one made, inexplicably, by Marvel Comics themselves? Anyhow, it’s […]
There’s nothing quite so exciting to find as a unique blend RPG. Here we see a blend of comedy, furry stuff, light breast expansion and pregnancy fetishes, and superheroes. I […]
Ween or Treatween! Wait, what? This game is new! How the heck did that happen? Well, Jef’s supply of alien books isn’t low, but neither of us wanted to read […]
Oh no, are your pumpkins ablaze? Have you written out your list of mischief targets exclusively for the eyes of Ol’ Weeny? Well, get ready, because this October, it’s all […]
Ooh look, a supplement! People love it when we do the supplements, right? We sort of needed a break for a bit while Jef navigates some medical shenanigans, so we […]
[/audio] Check out this wild game! No, literally, go check it out! This is a wild read of improv-driven story focused diceless gaming set in a surrealism-infused Norwegian dream city […]
Small but vicious dog, right? You remember that? It’s that joke that’s in here? Anyhow hi there, how ya doin’? Wanna talk about a 1989 game that seems like it […]
Hey whoops this was only ever free on our Patreon. Should be here too. Now it is. Hooray! The balance is complete and finally I can diminish, and go into […]
Yeah, we needed a break again. Jesus, Wraeththu. So for now, let’s dive into dependable old Palladium. Two scoops of whoops in every book! Robotech is one of the early […]
Okay, guess break time’s over! This book is enormous, weird, and in a lot of ways, misguided. The world has collapsed, humanity has fallen, and the Wraeththu have risen in […]
We needed a break to finish our second book, and when you live in a gig economy that just means doing a smaller job that week! The Land of Ogg […]
No really, they’re the worst. Play another game. Also while we’ve got that picture of Radcliffe up there, our opinion is that JK Rowling is a TERF piece of shit, […]
With 26 races, nearly 40 classes, giant complex martial arts systems and a battle world that has run amok for aeons aesthetic, where could SenZar possibly go wrong? It’s an […]
Grab your amps and start planning setlists, as we take a look at a game that eschews the classics of dungeon diving in favor of trying to make it big […]
Yes, it’s not a D&D game. Don’t worry. It’s going to be okay. We still found a classic, the Chaosium flagship and the biggest name in leaning heavily on public […]
We’ve posted so many episodes at this point that the only reason this one’s description isn’t just “Fuck this game” is that I’m not sure I didn’t do that for […]
So hey, remember when we wrote that book? Jef apparently didn’t because this special content powered by pre-orders has been sitting unedited on an external HD for months. The only […]
It was about time we discussed the Cortex engine, and what better way to have a discussion than driving 45 minutes to a Kansas farm so I can say one […]
It’s post-apocalypse OGL gaming here so it may seem like something we’ve done before, but is it? I hope not, but honestly 171 is a lot of episodes to go […]
The year is 1975. The hair is stupid. The clothes are stupid. The music? Mostly stupid. The movie scene was okay (Rocky Horror? Jaws? Come on now). And the RPG […]
Someone tweeted about this, someone else linked it to us, and now we’ve reviewed it. The DragonRaid Adventure Learning System: A Roleplaying Game for Courageous Christians. It’s probably safest to […]
Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt! Lightning b… you get the idea. It’s a LARP game! And for us, a weird one, since we’ve never actually encountered one before that just looks […]
Timelord! Would you like to play an RPG as yourself and then, you know, get rewarded for showing up to the table with weapons and German soldier uniforms and stuff? […]
A fun side effect of doing what we do is that listeners send us stuff. All the time. We have just tons of books. Jef’s room is basically two used […]
This has been on Jon’s to-get list for most of the time we’ve made the show, and who should suddenly show up with a copy of the thing but our […]
Time to tackle some more Steve Jackson stuff. No GURPS still (somehow we still don’t have a copy) but I do have Toon so here we go! Play as a […]
This thing is huge and bizarre and we have come back to finish it because you are not prepared… for more Glyphs.
Let’s finish off the year with something wild, what do you say? How about a game that uses a flicked token carom style mechanic for all random resolution? This thing […]
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? […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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? […]
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 […]
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 […]
Sometimes we get a book and we aren’t sure the exact percentage of RPG that’s going to be in there, so we end up reviewing like, a show synopsis or […]
In retrospect we probably should have saved this for episode 175. Anyhow this is a short comedy game mixing Dungeons and Dragons with hip-hop flavor pulled from the 80s and […]
Happy episode 150! Still can’t believe it’s gone on this long. Here’s D&D 5e. It’s a game.
Every once in a while we’ve both got so much else going on that we have to rely on what we call “The Emergency Stack”, a collection of books short […]
Well, so we can probably do a whole hour of laughy laughs on the … wait, Vietnam War? Is that right? Okay then. Recon is from 1982, and it is […]
Sorta 40k, sorta Vampire, maybe a little Dune in there? Anyway it’s a space RPG where there’s a church that’s basically Catholicism through a greasy mirror and a bunch of […]
Hey who wants an old-fashioned case of the Heartbreakers? Because that’s what we’ve got right here. And it’s a doozy! In that it’s one of those small-batch ones that you […]
Straight from one bleak future to the next, only this time it’s kids. Why it’s almost as dystopic as the movie Kids! Basically the future is dream robots that put […]
So a decade or so after D&D, Gary Gygax had a brand new idea. What if cyborgs with dustbuster crotches defended the world from giant bugs made of erectile tissue? […]
With Jef still recovering in the hospital, Jon turns to fan-favorite guest Claire to join in and help review this RPG based on a comic book. It promises two things […]
You want true power and to really know the truth? You have to really really want it in Greg Stolze’s Unknown Armies, a game of obsession, power, and the power […]
It’s a Tri-Stat game! We’ve done a few of these already so you already know the basics. Weird combat system where the attacker and the defender have very little to […]
In a grim future where everyone is lopsided and has dreads, can a few awful chumps win a mighty rebellion against Darth Emperor of Mankind? This mid-90s science fantasy game […]
1997, a dark year indeed. Bad Batman movies and stuff. Seriously, it was not a good scene, unless you were crazy for middling swing music. But hey, this book came […]
We’re back from our very needed rest and relaxation, and working harder than ever to fill your ears with reviews of roleplaying games. This time we’re talking the Y2K bug […]
We’ve seen a lot of requests for this game, and now we understand why. Come along, won’t you, on the game preachers in the 80s wished actually existed so they […]
The World of Species! Finally an RPG with a glossy photo of a young Alfred Molina in it! This Masterbook licensed setting is rife with information about the sex-sci-fi thriller […]
1990 seems to be a downer year for RPGs as far as we can tell, but just you wait, someone’s gonna pop in any second and say that’s the year […]
It’s Romans. In. Spaaaaaaace on today’s episode of System Mastery. Thrill at the game designed to be compatible with a bunch of other games! Marvel at page after page of […]
OLD WEEN to you all! We’re covering the very weird Palladium title Nightbane this ween’s eve, so ready yourself for one piece of beautiful Brom art and 200 pages of […]
It’s Ween again, my friends! Joyous Ween to you all! But sadly this year White Ween was simply out of the question. So we searched far and wide for a […]
Join us and our new friends the Bay City Informanauts on a tour through With Great Power, a game of superheroic discussions, mostly.
A game that dares to ask the question “What if Bubblegum Crisis?” Seriously, that’s the question. The answer, surprisingly, is “No one gets the mech suits, everyone is a dirty […]
We felt a little dirty doing a “new” book last episode, so here’s our course correction. The 1975 version of Tekumel: Empire of the Petal Throne, with all acute accents […]
We went to GenCon and we made this show and now we hope you enjoy this show we made at GenCon. Next time we talk about Shadowrun we’ll try to […]
Have you ever wanted to explore space but it’s just ever so slightly too difficult for you? Exactly the range of too difficult where it’d suddenly be possible if you […]
Often considered in the top ten worst RPGs ever made, there’s a lot of weird choices in here. A lot of bad, weird choices. Thrill at the majesty of a […]
It’s high time that someone on the internet had an opinion about this edition of this game, and you know what, it might as well be us. Please enjoy this […]
Ugh we ate Oreos so nasty that we had to tell someone about it, and guess what, you’re someone. Enjoy.
Behold a galaxy of unchecked exploration and progress, as made by very fussy little animals that don’t like to be touched. It’s sort of like if the Wind in the […]
Longtime friend of the show and fan-favorite guest Claire comes by to discuss Mekton Zeta with Jon, who knows nothing whatsoever about your precious animes. This episode sadly concludes Jef’s […]
It’s another week of special guests with friend of the show, Quinn, stopping by to help discuss this inscrutable book with an unhealthy obsession with the numbers 7 and 13. […]
While Jef is too occupied with baby to do the time consuming prep on the show, we are kicking off the first of our guest appearance series. Joining me to […]
It’s the Supplement Spectacular again! Or, it was going to be before a child was born into this world who ate all of Jef’s time. Luckily (for you, not for […]
The Xro Dinn Chronicles is, for lack of a better description, the unholy combination of Ninjas & Superspies, Babylon 5, and the sort of mindset that led to the Winchester […]
Sail the skies in heavily armored airships and nimble fighter planes as a variety of sexy little animals. It’s the early 1930s and Europe is embroiled in really weird battles […]
Today, we’re reviewing an earnest attempt to capture the very specific magic of the B-Movie. You know, so there’s gonna be like a ray gun that changes the frame so […]
OSR, or Old Sam Raimi, is a concept in gaming that the most fun game stuff already happened and was mostly done by the early 80s, and that games resembling […]
So this is Brave New World. What’s in the core book? Enough superhero stuff to sort of play, if you call this playing. A wizard class with no spells, a […]
It’s impossible to predict when we’ll hit a real speedbump on the show, a real Synnibarr or Haven… and here we are! Promised Sands ascends the steps of the pantheon […]
Put on your buckliest hat and prepare to engage in battle with monsters most biblical! We examine a game that truly tests the boundaries of how much White Wolf you’re […]
Happy winter everyone! The gang takes on the last battle in the truck truck arena! Sorry this took so long. More AP will come soon, and we’ll have such things […]
Interesting note that we missed because we didn’t do any research: Tomorrow Knights here is a Marvel property. Which makes this a Marvel RPG. We had no idea. Thrill to […]
On today’s episode we discuss Extreme Vengeance, an RPG dedicated almost entirely to recreating the feel of gung-ho action movies (there is a sliver reserved for unrelentingly dragging Hulk Hogan). […]
A madcap dystopia that has more accompanying memes per square centimeter than anything short of Dungeon and Dragons itself. Is Paranoia worth braving the swamp of people at the store […]
Let’s talk about RPGs for kids. Or more accurately, one RPG that is basically for kids. It might be a little heavy on Ariels and light on editing, but Mermaid […]
Dark Continent is the RPG of … well venturing into Africa and killing a bunch of people. I mean that’s vaguely frowned upon (unless you are playing a Belgian), but […]
Awoooooo White Ween continues! Awoooooooo! Today on System Mastery we introduce you to the colon-free world of Werewolf the Apocalypse. I mean, there’s some colons. Werewolves probably have colons. I […]
Ah, truly the most joyous of holiday seasons is upon us! Happy White Ween! Today, we cover a game that turned out (well after we started reading it) to be […]
Brought to you by rocket scientists hellbent on pure unadulterated realism, Living Steel is basically Heinlein by way of Games Workshop, with probably a few too many tables (which is […]
Are you looking for a game of two-fisted derring-do and rousing pulp adventure? You’ll be sure to find it in some other book. Gear Krieg is an RPG companion to […]
Oh my goodness after a long hiatus the adventure continues. I mean, sort of. We recorded this a long time ago. In a measurement system I call “Broken Computers,” we […]
Yay, a game we didn’t hate! This is a very specific sort of RPG, in which you play as a knightly dynasty during the Morte D’Arthur romantic tales. Will you […]
This book is a grim, unrelenting slog. Punctuated by the kind of art that would be impressive if this book was a collection of screenshots from the first Fallout game, […]
Well, it’s been four years. Honestly when we started the gimmick of doing D&D every 25 episodes we never thought we’d actually get as far as third edition. Here we […]
This time on the continuing adventures of Occulus Vive, Teddy Rustbin, and Yu-go the Nyarlathotank we find our heroes faced with a fiendish trap and pitted against the fiendish Bird […]
Moon Prism Power! Right? Right? That’s what she says sometimes? Look this is weird for us. Not our usual thing. So we brought in a ringer! A guy that’s watched […]
On today’s episode of Gamma Crawl X, our heroes encounter a slimy surprise, followed shortly thereafter by Deadstone the Gatekeeper. Enjoy!
The countdown to episode 100 begins! This week, Legendary Lives. Just another heartbreaker you’ve never heard of? Maybe. Does it commit several of the weird sins of old game design? […]
You know what we forgot to do in this one? Make fun of that Anonymous motto about how they’re legion or whatever. I guess we just forgot. Oh well. This […]
As demanded by the public (and the Patreon) we have begun our first ever Actual Play series, Gamma Crawl X. In this show, we are joined by our GM Quinn […]
Man this city is so infinite, it’s like you don’t even know. Crazy aliens rub shoulders with alternate humans in this early 90s kitchen sink style game with a great […]
It was a blast to help judge this year’s 200 Word RPG Challenge to assist David Schirduan in his yearly scheme to elicit all kinds of creativity from the online […]
Warning: This episode is for mature gamers only. So if you think the word “Boogers” is still pretty funny, maybe you should wait til we review the RPG adaptation of […]
It’s not too late to go support the new Kickstarter for the next edition of this weird but fairly charming game if you want. It will be very soon, which […]
It’s a game for only the dapperest of beardsmen on today’s System Mastery. We’re talking Cthulhu Live, a game of rapidly going insane while extras cavort about in the background.
If you listen real close you can actually hear the vault whispering. It’s not worth it though, he’s just reading the Humor in Uniform section out of old Reader’s Digests. […]
The Secret of Zir’an is probably that deep under the challenging layout and heaped on layers of confusing story, accessible only to people who are really willing to roll up […]
Well folks, you made it happen. Grats to all! There’s no way this is worth any more of our time or yours than the extra-long episode we’ve thrown on here […]
It’s the space 80s! Feather your hair and ready your giant wrap-around bubble glasses for some interstellar adventure where the computers are so advanced that Oregon Trail has four colors! […]
The early 90s seem positively ripe with games that are more character creation tool than game, and Nephilim is no exception. Join the ranks of weird energy spirits that have […]
Man, I hadn’t even seen the regular cover of this til I was putting this together. That’s uhh… well I guess Luke Cage found some chain mail made by Stussy […]
Get ready to recreate the dramatic adventures of Captain John Sheridan, psychic lady Ivanova, kindly space vampire Londo Mollari, and – did the doctor guy get a name? I forget […]
Looking for a game where you can play a vampire, werewolf, ghost, frankenstein, demon, or …Native American nature spirit? And you you say you want it to predate 90% of […]
Time for the HERO system, one of the big dogs of generic systems, in what is arguably it’s most popular incarnation, the very, very modular Champions. Build a hero absolutely […]
] In today’s episode we gather to pass judgement down upon Cyberworld, the story of a distant future where an emperor that bizarrely shares the first AND last name of […]
Well lookie here! Written by Jonathan Tweet (author of 3rd Edition D&D). Designed by Tweet and Robin D. Laws (Author of Feng Shui). There’s basically no way this won’t be […]
We’re drawing ever closer to the terrifying end of White Ween, and we figured why not tackle an 800 pound gorilla a week before every sad internet friend you hate […]
Happy October, dear listeners! You didn’t think we’d skip it, did you? Halloween is so easy to play around in it’s basically the podcaster Christmas. So it’s all White Wolf, […]
Da na na na na na na na na na na na na na na TABLES. TABLES. It’s Batman, all right. Man is it ever Batman. As a spinoff of […]