This week, licensed RPGs! Mostly bad ones! First off, FASA’s Masters of the Universe RPG (1985). Don’t get too excited: it’s irrevocably broken and not really an RPG at all. It’s a board game. I have seen mention that the intent here was to have the board game serve as a sort of basic set to be followed by a more robust RPG system in an advanced set, but that never manifested, so we’re left with this garbage game.

Premise: use your hero (He-Man, Orco, Teela, Man-at-Arms, the ram guy — wait, is his name actually Ram Man? — or Fisto) to go into Snake Mountain and steal back the jewels of Eternia that Skeletor stole. You’ll fight monsters that appear randomly and who, in theory, are programmed opponents with specific strategies depending on who they are fighting, except that isn’t laid out properly in the rules. You’ll note that your characters have abilities that also are not in the rules. You’ll also note that the rules regularly refer to rules that, you guessed it, are not in the rules.

The rulebook is in comic book format, which, sure, He-Man toys came with cool little comics, but making a rule book into a comic is super aggravating, even if all the rules were in there.

What’s awesome? That cover art. Holy crap I love it, and I don’t have much He-Man nostalgia. Uncredited as far as I can tell. The board art is kind of fun too. That’s about it. When I heard this game existed, it shot to the top of my must-have list, but it runs for ridiculous prices online. The only reason I have it is because it was part of a much larger collection I bought. I would have been pissed if I paid big bucks for this trash, lemme tell ya.