

System Mastery
Jef Aldrich and Jon Taylor
Jef and Jon review old roleplaying games
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 27, 2018 • 1h 25min
Wild Skies: Europa Tempest – System Mastery 118
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/system-mastery-118-wild-skies-europa-tempest.mp3
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 all over the place. Look, there’s a chance this game might still be in print. But we didn’t hate it and besides, what are you gonna do, tell on us? Our manager is just Jef with a fake mustache on over his real one.
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Mar 12, 2018 • 1h 10min
Scared Stiff – System Mastery 117
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/system-mastery-117-rpg-13-b-movie-game-system-scared-stiff.mp3
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 the victim is just a classroom skeleton, or close-up footage of a happy lobster terrorizes a small town. At least that’s the plan. Before too long it’s rules for what happens if you’re “tricked” by a drag queen, and explanations on the difference between gender and sex.
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Feb 27, 2018 • 1h 27min
WEGS Old Skool – System Mastery 116
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/system-mastery-116-wegs-old-skool.mp3
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 or utilizing the tools of that era are preferable to modern RPG stuff. WEGS Old Skool is our first game that is marketed as an OSR design. Will we like it?
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Feb 13, 2018 • 1h 30min
Brave New World – System Mastery 115
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/system-mastery-115-brave-new-world.mp3
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 gadget class with no gadgets, and four or five superheroes mostly relegated to “slightly stronger than a normal guy.” Buy more books for actual content!
Okay, so on research it turns out Houdini died in 1926? Whoops. Please be sure to excoriate Jef in the comments for that gaffe!
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Jan 30, 2018 • 1h 15min
Promised Sands – System Mastery 114
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/system-mastery-114-promised-sands.mp3
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 and announces intent to contend for the role of System Mastery’s Least Favorite Read. If you’re looking for us at our angriest, here we are.
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Jan 15, 2018 • 1h 18min
Witch Hunter: The Invisible World – System Mastery 113
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/system-mastery-113-witch-hunter-the-invisible-world.mp3
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 allowed to put in a book that isn’t by White Wolf (Or by OPP, or whatever the hell is going on over there these days) in Witch Hunter.
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Jan 14, 2018 • 3h 44min
Gamma Crawl X – The Final Chapter
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/gamma-crawl-x-the-final-chapter1.mp3
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 as editors and so on to actually move the process along.
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Jan 2, 2018 • 1h 16min
Tomorrow Knights – System Mastery 112
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/system-mastery-112-tomorrow-knights.mp3
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 the workings of an author that also wrote, for Marvel, FIVE issues of a weekly fanzine about Return of the Jedi in 1984… and also, this comic!
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Dec 20, 2017 • 1h 12min
Extreme Vengeance – System Mastery 111
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/system-mastery-111-extreme-vengeance.mp3
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). Big guns, big biceps, and actually well-thought out rules to follow.
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Dec 5, 2017 • 1h 5min
Paranoia XP – System Mastery 110
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/system-mastery-110-paranoia-xp.mp3
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 endless parroting stuff about friend computer? Actually yeah, kind of!
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