Ahem... Erick's Forge Adventure?

[The Yann Waters]

The fact that the game scale is independent of the ranks-scale means that you can tailor your game to any level you want. You could thus use Amber mechanics for a mortal, human, non-amberite game, or you could use Amber rules to play the Olympian gods if you wanted to.

Yes, because the ranks are unrelated to actual competence in any absolute terms. They will tell you that Tom is stronger than Dick, who in turn is stronger than Harry... but how strong is Harry? The system doesn't deal with that: it's only concerned with solving particular conflicts between a limited number of characters. You could rename Strength "Superiority #3" without changing anything mechanically, since it's not strictly speaking connected to anything in the setting beyond the small cast in the middle of the stage.

[droog]

That sounds suspiciously Forgey.

[boulet]

Whats is your security clearance citizen ? You seem aware of some very sensitive data...

Computer I think we've got a traitor here !

[RPGPundit]

There's nothing Forgey about the GM having choices. Its just the opposite; the Forge failed to learn that crucial lesson from Erick Wujcik, and have instead dedicated themselves to creating games where the GMs are choiceless; and of course attacking the games that are far better and more interesting than their own.  Hence the concerted attack on Amber by the three of you in this forum.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

There's nothing Forgey about the GM having choices. Its just the opposite; the Forge failed to learn that crucial lesson from Erick Wujcik, and have instead dedicated themselves to creating games where the GMs are choiceless; and of course attacking the games that are far better and more interesting than their own.  Hence the concerted attack on Amber by the three of you in this forum.

RPGPundit

[The Yann Waters]

There's nothing Forgey about the GM having choices. Its just the opposite; the Forge failed to learn that crucial lesson from Erick Wujcik, and have instead dedicated themselves to creating games where the GMs are choiceless; and of course attacking the games that are far better and more interesting than their own.

Personally, if I were to run Amber, I'd in all likelihood discard the ranks entirely after the auction and instead use only the invested points as an objective scale from the human norm upwards. Of course, that would result in the players themselves setting the power level for each attribute during the initial bidding.

[RPGPundit]

Its kind of assumed that the players do contribute to setting the power levels; in that an attribute that had a lot of bids in the attribute auction should be assumed to be more significant for a campaign than an attribute that was mostly ignored.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

Its kind of assumed that the players do contribute to setting the power levels; in that an attribute that had a lot of bids in the attribute auction should be assumed to be more significant for a campaign than an attribute that was mostly ignored.

RPGPundit

[droog]

Its just the opposite; the Forge failed to learn that crucial lesson from Erick Wujcik, and have instead dedicated themselves to creating games where the GMs are choiceless

There are no Forgenik games with a GM in which the GM doesn't have choices. You're such a drama queen.

[RPGPundit]

There are no Forgenik games with a GM in which the GM doesn't have choices. You're such a drama queen.

We were talking about choices in how to apply the rules and choices in how to determine the campaign's power level. And the Forge's central philosophy, GNS, claims that the rules should always be played AS WRITTEN (that "houserules" are just the sign of a broken game) and that it should be the GAME DESIGNER and not the game master, who decides what any given game is about. If your group decides to play a game, they must play it the way the designer wrote it, and with the designer choosing all important details about the way the game is handled (like power levels).

So go tell another lie.

RPGPundit

[Malleus Arianorum]

Yes, because the ranks are unrelated to actual competence in any absolute terms. They will tell you that Tom is stronger than Dick, who in turn is stronger than Harry... but how strong is Harry? The system doesn't deal with that: it's only concerned with solving particular conflicts between a limited number of characters. You could rename Strength "Superiority #3" without changing anything mechanically, since it's not strictly speaking connected to anything in the setting beyond the small cast in the middle of the stage.

Ahem.
 
The weight you can lift in real life is not absolute. It changes when you travel from the Earth to the Moon. Likewise, the weight an Amberite can lift is not absolute. It changes when they travel through shadow.
 
Relationships remain constant. For this reason a comparative system is the smart choice.

[The Yann Waters]

The weight you can lift in real life is not absolute. It changes when you travel from the Earth to the Moon. Likewise, the weight an Amberite can lift is not absolute. It changes when they travel through shadow.

Nevertheless, from the mechanical point of view there's rather little point in, say, describing a world with such crushing gravity that an ordinary car would weigh as much as a mountain if you have no yardstick for measuring the difficulty of lifting that car or a mountain on Earth (or in Amber, for that matter). In a game with an objective scale for determining the required effort, that's simply a matter of adjusting the difficulty level to suit the situation. Without the scale, you need to ask for a GM call on the matter before even considering any plans that might involve heavy lifting, since the attribute system in itself isn't designed to cover environmental factors like that: you can never tell for certain what your PC should be capable of at the moment.

And of course, the whole issue of the multiverse raises the question of whether it's possible to find a world where your rivals would be much weaker than you, if only because that's how the local laws of physics operate...

[Malleus Arianorum]

Nevertheless, from the mechanical point of view there's rather little point in, say, describing a world with such crushing gravity that an ordinary car would weigh as much as a mountain if you have no yardstick for measuring the difficulty of lifting that car or a mountain on Earth (or in Amber, for that matter). In a game with an objective scale for determining the required effort, that's simply a matter of adjusting the difficulty level to suit the situation. Without the scale, you need to ask for a GM call on the matter before even considering any plans that might involve heavy lifting, since the attribute system in itself isn't designed to cover environmental factors like that: you can never tell for certain what your PC should be capable of at the moment.

Yes, I can see how confusing it is for you. Sometimes my PCs weigh things (just last night, one of the characters weighed ingredients for a potion) but usualy they just intereact with the gameworld.
 

And of course, the whole issue of the multiverse raises the question of whether it's possible to find a world where your rivals would be much weaker than you, if only because that's how the local laws of physics operate...

It's called a mountain. Stand on top and throw stuff down. Suddenly your strength is uber. :emot-raise:

[The Yann Waters]

Sometimes my PCs weigh things (just last night, one of the characters weighed ingredients for a potion) but usualy they just intereact with the gameworld.

Ah, but it's that interaction that I'm talking about, too: hurling a table at approaching soldiers in the heat of a brawl, for instance, or (to use an example from an older thread) kicking in a wooden door. When you take into account that in the setting someone could well be capable of lifting cars or mountains, knowing just how your character can reasonably interact with their surroundings becomes somewhat more difficult to discern without guidance from the system. That's the disconnect I get from the attribute ranking: a PC's description might include the details that "he holds the third rank in Strength" and "he can effortlessly juggle heavy tables", but the two are not necessarily related in any way. Unless another ranked character is the target of the thrown table or trying to keep the door from opening, the GM is required to make completely on the fly and on his own the decision about whether those attempts succeed or not. And I've never much cared for the notion that an RPG session is the GM's private little story hour.
 

It's called a mountain. Stand on top and throw stuff down. Suddenly your strength is uber. :emot-raise:

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a world where fire doesn't burn redheads or where weapons weigh ten times as much in the hands of men than in those of women: situations where the universe itself functions differently from what you might expect, that is. (Wouldn't tactical positioning with thrown missiles fall under Warfare, anyway?)

[Malleus Arianorum]

Ah, but it's that interaction that I'm talking about, too: hurling a table at approaching soldiers in the heat of a brawl, for instance, or (to use an example from an older thread) kicking in a wooden door. When you take into account that in the setting someone could well be capable of lifting cars or mountains, knowing just how your character can reasonably interact with their surroundings becomes somewhat more difficult to discern without guidance from the system. That's the disconnect I get from the attribute ranking: a PC's description might include the details that "he holds the third rank in Strength" and "he can effortlessly juggle heavy tables", but the two are not necessarily related in any way. Unless another ranked character is the target of the thrown table or trying to keep the door from opening, the GM is required to make completely on the fly and on his own the decision about whether those attempts succeed or not.

But roleplaying isn't a problem to be avoided, roleplaying is what a roleplaying game is for -- to roleplay. If you're tossing tables and whatnot, then you roleplay picking up the table. That means that you make a good faith estimate of how well your character can do something and roleplay it. If the GM disagrees, then he says something like "Actualy, these tables aren't that heavy." And if you disagree with the GM then you say something like "Yeah, but after trying to lift that damn car I want to go easy on my back." and so on.
 

And I've never much cared for the notion that an RPG session is the GM's private little story hour.

So? Roleplay. TALK TO THE GM.
 

Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a world where fire doesn't burn redheads or where weapons weigh ten times as much in the hands of men than in those of women: situations where the universe itself functions differently from what you might expect, that is.

That accounts for your dislike for ADRPG. Common sense doesn't apply to nonsensical shadows or shadows where there are a thousand incoherent* exceptions. The game slows to a drag as the GM has to explain what happens to (for example) strawberry blonds, bald redheads, non-redheads that dye their hair red, shapeshifters and all the other corner cases.
 

(Wouldn't tactical positioning with thrown missiles fall under Warfare, anyway?)

No, deciding to go to the top of a mountain is something that the player does.
 
*by "incoherent" intend the non-swine meaning.