
System Mastery
Jef and Jon review old roleplaying games
Latest episodes

Oct 27, 2015 • 1h 9min
The World of Tales from the Crypt – System Mastery 55
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/the-world-of-tales-from-the-crypt-system-mastery-55.mp3
After recording two episodes about this book, I’m just out of death-related puns. Sorry about that. But hey, there’s a bunch in the episode if that’s what you were hoping for! It’s the Masterbook licensed-classic, The World of Tales from the Crypt!
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Oct 14, 2015 • 1h 12min
Aberrant D20 – System Mastery 54
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/aberrant-d20-system-mastery-54.mp3
Let’s discuss the early aughts and their explosion of rapid-release D20 adaptations of older games! Here’s a White Wolf one that turns everything about superheroes in every way into a series of ever-more-complicated feats. Also Jef is super sick the whole time, sorry about that.
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Sep 29, 2015 • 1h 9min
Fireborn – System Mastery 53
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/fireborn-episode-53.mp3
Have you ever felt like you weren’t just this shell you are now? That perhaps within you lurks something ancient, something fierce and fiery? Well, it’s true! Also, you should stop eating at Chipotle. This week we cover Fireborn, the famous FFG outing in which various self-absorbed London dorks discover that they are dragons on the inside and then start doing some sort of loosely defined thing in a mad dash to become dragons on the outside too!
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Sep 15, 2015 • 1h 18min
Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All – System Mastery 52
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/fantasy-wargaming-the-highest-level-of-all-system-mastery-52.mp3
Two weeks ago, the phrase “British Nerd” was relatively pleasant to me. I’d picture David Tennant, or Richard Ayoade, or even Hermione Granger, and everything was fine. “Oh,” I’d think, “Perhaps they’d like to discuss Neil Gaiman for a while!” Not now though. Now I picture a guy sitting alone at a restaurant, his waiter sending out every available physical signal of “I’m busy” as this lone man asks for the third time if she’s sure they don’t have mead, much as they did 700 years ago when this very building was the most prolific mead-hall in all of Pevensey. This book is called Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All. It’s got a game in there if you hate games and fun.
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Sep 1, 2015 • 1h 10min
Micro RPGs – System Mastery 51
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/micro-rpgs-episode-51.mp3
This episode was so very refreshing. Five tiny, lovely RPGs made recently by designers that had fun in mind. It’s really not our wheelhouse to cover good stuff, but we wanted to throw out some love, even if it’s just every now and then. In this episode we cover All Outta Bubblegum, Everyone is John, Lasers & Feelings, Doctor Magnethands, and Gangland. These games are all cheap to free and can be found on the internet, so go forth and play them.
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Aug 18, 2015 • 1h 31min
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons – System Mastery 50
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/system-mastery-50.mp3
Fifty episodes in and it’s time to be confused by the grand pasture where every weird sacred cow in this industry was calved. We go looking for answers to the great mysteries of gaming? Will we find them? Or will be be stymied by clumsy vocabulary and bizarre decision making?
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Aug 4, 2015 • 1h 3min
A.C.E. Agents – System Mastery 49
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/system-mastery-49.mp3
Today we introduce you to a light and relatively witty GI Joe parody from around 1992. A.C.E. Agents manages a very unusual balancing act of both satirizing and explaining the workings of a JOE-style secret agency, while still remaining at least a somewhat playable game. Sadly no rules in there for what happens when you take your little fight man and wind him up via the rubber band in his torso to create a little punchcopter.
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Jul 22, 2015 • 1h 3min
Human Occupied Landfill – System Mastery 48
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/system-mastery-48.mp3
Here’s a game of sorts. It’s handwritten, it’s irritating, and it’s about goofball prisoners sort of murdering each other on a garbage planet. Also it’s handwritten. It’s Human Occupied Landfill, and we hope you enjoy almost as much as we did (because we hate you).
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Jul 7, 2015 • 1h 6min
Fifth Cycle – System Mastery 47
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/system-mastery-472.mp3
Who likes their fantasy with a shot of heartbreaker and a dirt-farming sidecar? Maybe with a splash of podcast host bitters? This week we cover Fifth Cycle, a thoroughly confusing game about wizard archaeologists where you hope like crazy to play as a wizard archaeologist and not a farmer.
Let us know what you thought of Fifth Cycle in the comments! Have a book you’d us to cover? Let us know about that too.
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Jun 23, 2015 • 1h 3min
Raven Star – System Mastery 46
https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/system-mastery-46.mp3
Hey, remember the 90s? Do you look back fondly on Rob Liefeld, X-Force, Reboot-style 3D art, and references to monofilament technology? Then hoo boy do we have the game for you! Raven Star is more or less a textbook space heartbreaker, with dwarves, elves … bear men… you get the idea. Settle in to get all cybed up!
Let us know what you thought of Raven Star in the comments! Have a book you’d us to cover? Let us know about that too.
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