Quote from: jibbajibba;259284I woudl allow an advanced pattern user to focus on an object and move the shadow round it.

IIRC, that's how hellriding works.

As per pattern, what is possible can be made probable, and what is probable can be made sure. With time.

So, while it is still possible (quantum fluctuations, magic...) that a meteor will appear our of nowhere to smash someone, it is usually way too much time-consuming to be of any utility.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402When do we say that something has probability zero?

Never.
Even in the "real" universe, IIRC, some "impossible" things have just insanely low probabilities.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402We say that a given box is empty because someone checked it right? can this person be a shadow dweller?

Nope. These are Shadows, irreal and easily manipulated.
What's more probable? That an item appear in the box, or that the shadow dweller lied to you and an item was in fact in it?
Thus, he lied, and there was indeed an item in the box all along.

Pretty easy, IMO.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402I say this because there are a couple of implications. For example, making something appear (example: car) in a city could be very hard since people around could be watching that empty spot where you are trying to make the object appear.

So long as no real person watches it, this is a moot point. If you don't open the box, can you tell if the cat is alive, dead or both?

Shadow dwellers are shadow, easily manipulated. Forget them.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402I say this because there are a couple of implications. For example, making something appear (example: car) in a city could be very hard since people around could be watching that empty spot where you are trying to make the object appear.

The box could be a "magic box", like a bag of holding, in that it always weight the same weight, regardless of its contents.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402Someone wants a storm to form but you have weathermen on the scene that is sure it's impossible, lets say, too low pressure, barely any humidity, etc.

And we all know how the weathermen are never, never wrong. And that weatherman would never lie to you, nope. What's the probability of that?

Quote from: Abrojo;259402Player A has a gun with an anti-jamming system that corrects instantly any jamming that can occur. Player B doesn't know and uses pattern to "make the gun jam". Does the gun jam but then corrects itself or does the term jam apply to everything?

No system is foollproof.

Thus, the anti-jamming system could fail, and the gun jam. It is possible.
Thus, Player B will be able to make the gun jam, but this'll be harder than making a "normal" gun fail, and will take him more time, although he on't know exactly why.


In my system, pattern just suspend the observer's effect in quantum probabilities, locally returning things to a state of non-ordered Shadow (ie suppressing the Pattern effect on shadow), allowing one to shift through the miriad of possibilities that exist. Thus, anything is possible via pattern, but the less common occurences take time to find, for lack of a better vocabulary. Once you've found it, you reassert Order over Shadow, with the selected possiility as the only reality.

Abrojo,

Here you hit some issues and we see that there are differences between all of us. So the rule is pick a position and stick to it for the games you run and so log as it's logical and consistent you are fine.

For my part ...

Hellriding
Yes that is how Hellriding works but I would allow an Advanced pattern user to do it with no movement ie standing dead still.

Shadow dwellers.
I do not think that shadow dwellers are all that trivial. Frst of all I would not take the 'so he lied' approach at any point its very poor and just doesn't fit in my mind. So if a guy says the box is empty it is empty until it isn't so again the guy shakes the boxes turns it upside down blah blah closes it again puts it down and then you go open it and take out a gun (I still prefer a cuban cigar).

You can't make a car appear on the street but you can walk into an alleyway and find a car. Tree, forest, no one to hear it, sound?

Weather is a tricky one both in the books and the rules. In theory you can just create weather as it's a feature of shadow and manipulating it is simple. Compare the probability of a weather front showing up compared to a cuban cigar appearing randomly in a box. Yes the weatherman would be saying but that's impossible however there are degrees of impossibility. Now the problem is that in the book manipulating the weather is actually not so very easy. It's one of the Jewel of Jugdement's main external powers and when Corwin's fleet gets hit with storms he is unable to defeat them. What's more he doesn't even try so it's not like a he tried but the jewel was too powerful. It doesn't even occur to him to try and manipulate the weather with pattern. So that leaves us with a problem.. one I can't solve however, In my games you can manipulate the weather with pattern but if it's a magical or pattern induced storm there is a strong chance it will come down to a level of pattern or Psyche. Actually it hadn't occured to me before but I would probably use a partial Pattern power focused on just manipulating the weather.

Now the spell.... if you used Pattern to jam a gun (and my players would be unlikely to do that because I tend to make Pattern slower but also cos its a bit naff. Why take a physical action so obvious when you can just pursuade the guy to put his gun down of his own accord.) and there is a spell to unjam it then I would say it unjams it. If the pattern user created a bubble of reality in which gunpower did not work (requires Advanced Pattern) then the gun just doesn't work, which all in all a much nicer way to do it.

I would say Probability 0 is not the issue. It gets to the point that with a low enough probability, it just takes too much time and effort to make it happen with pattern. You'd need a ton of Psyche, a ton of Endurance, and a lot of time to do it.

RPGPundit

Wow great answers and discussion, i feel enlightened
The only 2 small issues i will take as homework to think about are how relevant are shadow dwellers (interesting take i never thought about) and weather manipulation.

Thanks a lot folks!

I thought weather control was a privilege of those who are attuned to the judgement jewel...

Easy, fast weather control is. You could theoretically use regular old pattern to manipulate weather patterns (pardon the pun), and a lot of Abrojo's questions stem from one player in our current Amber game that seems determined to use pattern regularly in combat to do just that.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jibbajibba;259447I would not take the 'so he lied' approach at any point its very poor and just doesn't fit in my mind.

Of course, that was just an exemple.

Quote from: RPGPundit;259451I would say Probability 0 is not the issue. It gets to the point that with a low enough probability, it just takes too much time and effort to make it happen with pattern. You'd need a ton of Psyche, a ton of Endurance, and a lot of time to do it.

Exactly. IMHO.

Quote from: RPGPundit;259546Easy, fast weather control is. You could theoretically use regular old pattern to manipulate weather patterns (pardon the pun)

Agreed too :lol:

Quote from: RPGPundit;259546Easy, fast weather control is. You could theoretically use regular old pattern to manipulate weather patterns (pardon the pun), and a lot of Abrojo's questions stem from one player in our current Amber game that seems determined to use pattern regularly in combat to do just that.

RPGPundit

Just want to make clear my questions are not in detriment of the other player. After all, considering my character doesnt have other real powers, i would too benefit from similar kind of pattern use.
It's more like witnessing several uses of the pattern sparked my curiosity and showed me that my conception of pattern wasnt proper and that better understanding would allow me to use it better. Also not all my questions where about limits and more also about methodology and understanding, since i have been trying to make my character a heavy technology user and wanted to know more about interaction in that area too.

Sorry, Abrojo, I didn't mean to accuse you of something, just wanted to clarify what had historically set off the whole question in our recent group's minds.

Of course, if you aren't trying to find ways to fuck up the other player, it begs the question of WHY the fuck NOT?  That's part of what Amber is all about!

RPGPundit

Fucking the other characters, not the other players, IMO

Quote from: Abrojo;259402ah cool thanks, i get it a bit more.
Please bear with me a bit longer, got a couple of questions then
 
When do we say that something has probability zero?

Probability zero means "impossible." Since even Random can fill empty pockets with cash, I wouldn't say that filling an empty thing is impossible unless it's actualy impossible for the thing to be filled. E.g. Clogging up the abyss is  impossible. It is a zero probability event.
 

QuoteWe say that a given box is empty because someone checked it right? can this person be a shadow dweller?[quote/] No, I'd say the box is empty is because there is nothing in it. It is the emptyness of the box that causes everyone who investigates to conclude that it is empty.
 

QuoteI say this because there are a couple of implications. For example, making something appear (example: car) in a city could be very hard since people around could be watching that empty spot where you are trying to make the object appear.

I think it's easier to find a car because in infinite shadow, there are a lot of cars. It's much harder by far to find the car that appears out of thin air because comparatively there are very very few cars that spontaniously exist. Probably so few that if you want such a car you should just pay to buy a car that shapeshifts into a mote of dust and back.
 

QuoteHowever i assume that you can affect some dice thrown in front of a bunch of people because they dont have any knowledge that limits you.

I see the probability of a pair of dice landing to give a a beneficial result as very probable. Although there are an infinite variations on how the dice bounce, where they land, how they're oriented etc... all of those infinite probabilities can be seperated into one of 36 outcomes (37 if you count bad throws). One in 37 is WAY better odds than say, having a black bird land on your shoulder with a message from your brother in shadow. I've never had ANY bird land on my shoulder with a note from my brother, and he lives in the same city as me!
 

Quote(i) I dont see inside the box but i lift it and find it extremely light. That imposes a limit of what can be popped inside the box regarding weight?
(Basically if deduction & rational do apply)

I'd allow a player to do a bit of shadowshifting to get something heavy out.
 

Quote(ii) Someone wants a storm to form but you have weathermen on the scene that is sure it's impossible, lets say, too low pressure, barely any humidity, etc.
(a slighter extended case of d&r from the previous example)

Page 42 ADRPG says that "With enough time it's possible to shift just about anything in shadow. However, there are two important limitations." Which are "you must move" and "shifting shadow is fairly slow." So, my ruling would be, yes but since you're limited by not moving out of shadow, you have to make up for it by taking a very long time. Observers would just see a storm sloooowly take form.
 

QuoteOk this one is slightly complicated
(iii) Player A has a gun with an anti-jamming system that corrects instantly any jamming that can occur. Player B doesn't know and uses pattern to "make the gun jam". Does the gun jam but then corrects itself or does the term jam apply to everything? This is relevant in the sense that being as vague as possible gives higher chance of success? Knowledge of the item in question makes no change on succeeding (if person attempting the change) or defense (if witness to the event).
Similar examples can be done with things with backups or countermeasures. or something with like 9999 failsafes that makes the probability almost nil or add a recovery mechanism in case of failure. Something that a scientist/whatever would find it as unlikely as something popping in the empty box.
(Final extended version of the case for d&r)

Vague can be an easy way to weasle out of things but also a blank canvas for a GM's details. A good rule of thumb is to be as detailed as possible if you have bad stuff and as vague as possible if you have good stuff.
 

QuoteOr perhaps this is all simplified into making the probability lower and therefore just a more difficult task? (takes more time?) Making something with 9999 failsafes to fail through pattern is considerably more difficult than changing a normal version. With counters and vagueness are discarded as factors.

I agree with the lower probability thing, but remember that failsafes have to be designed intellegently. It does no good to have 9999 failsafe locks on your front door if someone comes through the back door. Likewise it doesn't matter if someone has 9999 failsafes if they can be sidestepped.