Synnibarr: Kickstarter Nearing Completion!?

 A while ago, I talked briefly about Synnibarr.  I found the game to be nearly incomprehensible (and, honestly, I still do).  I even used the word "bad" to describe it. 

But, despite my experience with the game, I backed the Kickstarter because I was super-curious what three decades had done to Raven's design sense. Maybe he'd absorbed some of the lessons of newer story-focused games like Apocalypse World.

I mean ... it's not like his game could get any crunchier, right?

Realistically, I didn't expect to get anything from the Kickstarter. I honestly expected to just be throwing my money away. But, at the time, $80 was laughing fun money for me (oh to be there again). And there was always a chance I might get the game out of it. And, if I didn't, it was probable I'd get a good story or two out of it.

And then, two years post-funding, I got some PDFs from DTRPG. This was 2015, after just over a year of radio silence from the project. I figured that was all I was going to get from the project, and - I'll be honest - I've been too busy (yes, for seven years) to actually look at the PDFs.

Last month, nine years post-funding, there was an update letting us know that the game was live on DTRPG and we should e-mail them for fulfillment.

And it's true.  The game is live on DTRPG. In all honesty, I think their pricing is too high. But they have been listening to feedback - even indirect feedback.  For example, when it launched, The Ultimate Adventurers' Guide I had print and PDF available, but there were no bundles.  Now there is a print + PDF bundle available that saves a chunk of change.

So I e-mailed them for fulfillment, thinking I was going to get three DTRPG coupon codes.

I did not.  

Instead, I got two PDFs direct by e-mail and a note that the third was too large to e-mail and they were going to figure out how to get it to backers.  I e-mailed back asking about coupon codes, and ... the next day I had a coupon code for that third book.

Again: They are listening and learning and improving.

I say "they," because I don't know how many folks are involved with this.  It might be just Raven, chasing his passion, or he may have a team backing him up.  No clue. And I don't really have a way to find out (I mean ... I could ask Raven, but I kinda like the ambiguity that comes with not knowing).

So I have, in fact, now started to look at the PDFs, and ... maybe I'm just too sleep-deprived for this, because I'm still bouncing off of it.  The setting is as gonzo as ever it was, but the system is still not something I can wrap my head around. Even having read the quick-start and watched a couple of the videos Raven has shared on the World of Synnibarr Facebook page.

One of my goals for 2022 is to wrap my head around enough of the game that I can run a one-shot for some of my regular group. So that thumping you hear? It's me, beating my head on a wall as I try to understand what Raven wants me to do with his game.

The Doctrine of Appropriate Food

My wife and I went out to dinner the other night at a place she had previously disliked but was willing to give it another shot. When I asked her why, she explained to me her relatively new Doctrine of Appropriate Food, and it makes a lot of sense.

In short, what you order at a restaurant - regardless of what is on the menu - should depend on what that restaurant is and where it is located. For example, you wouldn't want to order pasta at a Mexican restaurant; have a fajita or a burrito instead. Swordfish in Montana should raise eyebrows, but the steak and burgers are bound to be pretty good. And, even if they start making one, don't order the filet mignon at McDonald's.

So what does this have to do with gaming?

A lot, actually.

You see, I get occasional e-mails from people asking why I like Dungeons & Dragons, because they just don't understand what I see in the game. These are people who would walk into McDonald's and ask for the filet mignon.

The primary comments I get from these people are:

How can you like such a bad game?

Is it a bad game? Sorry, I was too busy killing things and taking all their stuff while laughing with friends to notice.

D&D is the big kid on the block, so it's cool to hate it and uncool to actually enjoy it. And sneering at the new edition? Definately cool, because "it was better in the old days." But, as a roleplayer, I have no problem being uncool.

And yet, 4E is more approachable than any earlier edition was. I occasionally miss THAC0, it's true, but the new system makes more sense.

Yes, they reduced classes to lists of powers - but (and let's be totally honest here): It was boring to play a fighter in 2E, especially compared to Wizards and Rogues who had actual choices to make every level.

This was one of the huge changes 3E made: Suddenly, fighters were more interesting to play because of the Feat selection and customization it provided.

And now, with 4E, every class is equally interesting. Only instead of a "Leaping Spin-Kick" Feat, you gain the ability to choose the "Leaping Spin-Kick" power.

Is there an optimal way to create characters for 4E? Probably, but you'll lose some of the fun if you just munckin.

But you can't roleplay in D&D! It's all Hack & Slash play! There are no rules to support actual roleplaying!

Dungeon Master's Guide 2 has a paragraph that you may have missed. It says that you should award players XP for every fifteen minutes of RP as though they had overcome a challenge of the appropriate level. Meaning that the higher the level you are, the more XP you received for RP.

And 4E supports roleplaying better (to my mind) than 2E did. Seriously. Read through a few of the 2E books some time. They're filled with arcane formulas to figure out what you can hit and how hard.

Also: Take a look at some of the other games on the market. Look at how much time they devote to combat rules vs. roleplaying rules. You'll find that even some of your favorites are probably disproportionately in favor of combat, rules-wise..

My friends would never play D&D.

Even by e-mail I can hear the pretentious sneer in this one. My wife often accuses me of being a game snob, and she's right. I am a snob. But I have a section of my shelf set aside for SPOG.

SPOG meaning "Steaming Pile of Game." Most of the time, it's games that had potential to be great and then ... weren't. Or games that didn't even have a chance for greatness because the designer was completely insane. Some of them are games with great settings and bad systems. Some of them are bad settings married to ... less bad systems. And some of them are transparent ripoffs of other games.

D&D doesn't live on this shelf. World of Synnibarr lives on this shelf. Deadlands d20 lives on this shelf. The Everlasting lives on this shelf.

But D&D ignores the story-driven mechanisms developed by other games over the last 25 years!

So?

Seriously. At this point, you're asking for a Filet McMignon. You need to understand that D&D is what it is. It doesn't pretend to be more than that or less than that. It's a game that is honest with itself - and I appreciate that.

Do I like story-driven games? Yes, absolutely. I very much like the trend towards including tools which give players more and more control over the story. At the same time, I don't tend to like the GM-less model of play. I should talk about both of these some time.

I also need to talk some time about Your Game vs. Literature, and RPG Books vs. Genre Lit. But that's a rant that'll take some time to spin out fully. For now, realize this: Your game? It's not literature. And the more you think it is, the more likely it is that you're wrong.

Maybe I should go work on that rant now ...