I played Synnibarr in Raven’s group in Seattle in 1992 & 1993. It was indeed the center of this threefold model. Synnibarr is in some ways an awesome demonstration of what you can get if you take the basic D&D form, and let an idiosyncratic adventurer of a DM just homebrew and build on top of it for YEARS, adding in new rules for all the stuff and every genre he wants to play with, under the occasional influence of illicit substances. It is to some extent the idea behind Blackmoor (fantasy + superscience) and Judges Guild (no limits on your imagination) taken to the extreme, with superhero stuff added in. Rave's pretension was in many ways a natural extension of EGG's comments about AD&D in the books and in Dragon.
Raven’s game was awesome fun to play in, BTW. The game system is a mess, and he embarrassed himself online trying to defend it, but he was a very talented and charismatic GM. One of the most fun I’ve ever played with.
The emphasis is mine on this newly minted comment to my threefold model. Thanks for taking time to comment, shimrod!
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I saw a used copy of Synnibar on the shelf at my FLGS a while back, and passed it over without even thinking about it. I recognized the title from somewhere, but gave it no further thought. I now really regret that.
ReplyDeleteOne of these days I have gotta try running this (or Senzar...one of them anyways.) Gotta throw serious right out the window though ;-)
ReplyDeleteHe have played with Raven!? Damn, that sounds like so fun I can barely contain myself!
ReplyDeleteIf he can come up with all that weird shit, he must be imaginative like hell and that sounds like a funny GM!
My brother and I are listed in the 2nd edition as playtesters. We met Raven at Dragonflight, a local gaming con that was (at the time) held on the campus of one of the Seattle universities. He was running sessions of Synnibarr 1st edition. Then again at Norwescon, and he invited us to join a weekly group.
ReplyDeleteHe was extremely fun. He had been a street performer and rock singer and GM for Synnibarr for a godd number of years by the time I met him and played with him. I tried running the game for friends after moving back to the East coast in 1993, but I hadn’t the talent to make it work.