System Mastery

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/system-mastery-451.mp3 In this installment we discuss the best soul coffin in the shape of a giant bug that solves fundamental metaphysics mysteries in an impossible mansion simulator we’ve ever read.  We cover Noumenon, and the Sarcophoguys that wander the halls of the Silhouette Rouge, which I’m pretty sure is french for “Community College Psychology Class.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/system-mastery-44.mp3 System Mastery 44 – Supplement Special We’ve received a number of requests since the inception of System Mastery to cover supplementary RPG material and not just core books.  While we love supplements, it’s never really clicked for us exactly which ones to cover and how to do it.  Well, now we’ve got it figured out.  We went back and found a couple supplements to some of the best of our worst.  Haven: City of Violence, and Prime Directive, and we tackle both volumes in a single episode! Let us know what you thought of these books in the comments!  Have a supplement book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too. Editor’s note:  Indeed, a copy of Skyrealms of Jorune: Gire of Sillipus is already on it’s way to our door. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/system-mastery-43.mp3 System Mastery 43- Top Secret There’s a story around the internet about how this game is so realistic that it summoned the FBI around to investigate the TSR offices to see if they had some sort of secret intel or intent to kill the president or some such.  Having read it now, we can only assume it’s because the FBI literally couldn’t figure out what was in the book at all, and decided to just cover their bases for the purposes of due diligence.  It’s a spy RPG that is 100% charts on this week’s System Mastery. Let us know what you thought of Top Secret in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too. Editor’s note:  It’s true, I deleted the first recording in my mad dash to play a videogame.  Never again! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/system-mastery-42.mp3 System Mastery 42- Space 1889 Craving high adventure in an age of zeppelins, Victoriana, and space fantasy?  Keep looking then, because what we have here is boring.  This week Jef and Jon take a tour of the Earth if the sun also never set on the British Empire on Venus and Mars.  Is the art horrifying?  Of course.  Is the whole thing vaguely racist?  Naturally! Editor’s note:  Proof of horrifying art included.  Check out that cartilaginous Robert Smith in a ripped bodice.  That’s basically the only female face in this thing.  Seriously, every lady in the book is drawn like she forgot to close her eyes when the Arc of the Covenant popped open.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/system-mastery-41.mp3 System Mastery 41 – Heaven & Earth The apocalypse!  Oh, it’s a comin’, just you wait, you sinner you.  In the meantime why don’t you hang around in small town America, solving vaguely creepy mysteries and interacting with character-heavy locals.  You know, like maybe one of them has a log all the time?  That kind of thing.  This week we discuss Heaven & Earth, an RPG about atmosphere, angels, and the coming end of days. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/system-mastery-40.mp3 System Mastery 40 – Duckman He’s just one more duck detective, that works with a pig, lives with the twin sister of his dead wife, three sons on two bodies, and a mother-in-law with so much gas, she’s a fire hazard.  This week System Mastery is overjoyed to present The Official Duckman RPG, a mixed bag of failure, liquor, nymphos, 90s topical humor, failure again, the American dream, and hijinks.  We hope this doesn’t sound grandiose, but tonight we begin our pre-ordained ascent towards the global adulation we so richly deserve. Let us know what you thought of Duckman in the comments!  Have a book you’d us to cover?  Let us know about that too. Editor’s note:  April Fools!  There was no Duckman RPG as of this podcast, and there still shouldn’t be.  However, despite all common sense and advice from our friends, family, and legal counsel, there is a Duckman RPG now.  Here, it’s free, take it:  Duckman RPG Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices