Alternate Sorcery System (inspired by Promised Sands)

[Croaker]

Yup, pretty interesting, and it helps to see how Amber could face so well vs Chaos despite the common lack of magical powers.

It also explains the Amber rank superiority (They're magically-boosted), or the rejuvenation effect Amber seemed to have on Bill Roth (he's being suffused by magic, which increases his attributes and all).

Too bad I can't play anymore, but this definitely merits further thoughts!

[RPGPundit]

Those are some very interesting thoughts indeed. It would seem a natural fit that sorcery would be the less stable magic of chaos while conjuration would be the much more fixed magic of amber.

RPGPundit

[Malleus Aforethought]

Those are some very interesting thoughts indeed. It would seem a natural fit that sorcery would be the less stable magic of chaos while conjuration would be the much more fixed magic of amber.

RPGPundit

Happy to hear that some folks found it interesting. One interesting corollary of Amber=Conjuration is that it actually fits with one of the ideas that I believe Erick threw out in one of the DRPG source books: that the pattern is actually a feat of Conjuration.

Since this thread is actually about alternate Sorcery systems, I worked out a system that builds spells using the same discrete blocks that artifacts use. I've actually reworked Powers into arrays of micro-powers by deconstructing the various powers as far as I could. Even created some new ones, such as the Power of Glamorye, which represents the power of the Fae world. Some would probably find the system too anal or...gamist? (is that the the right branch of Forge theory?)*, but I thought it would be one way to allow players to develop characters with completely different suites of powers based on the same Power source. I haven't been able to test the Sorcery system since none of the players invested in magic abilities and I want to tighten up a few things. But I can post links of anyone want to see it. Too much material to post.

* Sorry, Pundit.

[AshenHaze]

I'd like to see them.  I'm always interested in Sorcery Systems for Amber.  Can never seem to find one that I like for more than one campaign.

[Croaker]

Seconded

[Malleus Aforethought]

Sent you guys links. Let me know if you think.

[RPGPundit]

Why not just post the links here?

RPGPundit

[Malleus Aforethought]

Because I don't know what your bot rules are for the site, and don't like to advertise too much due to ill-behaved crawlers, trawlers, and evil bots?

[AshenHaze]

I liked your sorcery system quite a bit, the piece meal approach allows for sorcerer's of greatly varying methodology.  I recently rewrote the sorcery system for my current Amber game and yours was one of the systems I kept open as I wrote it.

(Realize it took a long time to comment on this)

I also in general found your powers interesting.  I am currently using a "flow chart" for powers so you can buy them in pieces, but I think the large amount of ranks might be fun.  In the first Amber game I added a third rank, so there was a basic, intermediate and advanced but I don't think that allowed enough control by the players for the level of abilities they desired.

[RPGPundit]

Because I don't know what your bot rules are for the site, and don't like to advertise too much due to ill-behaved crawlers, trawlers, and evil bots?

Well, hmm. I don't know about that.   Brett is our tech mod and I know he runs a pretty tight ship, but I don't want to make you any promises I can't back up.  You should ask him what he thinks, if you're at all inclined.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

I liked your sorcery system quite a bit, the piece meal approach allows for sorcerer's of greatly varying methodology.  I recently rewrote the sorcery system for my current Amber game and yours was one of the systems I kept open as I wrote it.

(Realize it took a long time to comment on this)

I also in general found your powers interesting.  I am currently using a "flow chart" for powers so you can buy them in pieces, but I think the large amount of ranks might be fun.  In the first Amber game I added a third rank, so there was a basic, intermediate and advanced but I don't think that allowed enough control by the players for the level of abilities they desired.

Yes, it basically did work quite well in my campaign; though ironically I don't know if I'll end up using it again.  In the way I worked out the powers in Lords of Olympus, I specifically chose not to end up using this system; ultimately I think the thing was I found it too complicated.

RPGPundit

[Bird_of_Ill_Omen]

I finally put together an alternate sorcery system of my own that I will hopefully get a chance to playtest soon with a bunch of experienced roleplayers who have never heard of Amber before (neither the game nor the books).  I'm posting it here to see if anyone can spot any egregious design failings, potential pitfalls, or suggestions for improvement big or small.

My reason for creating an alternate system is simple: I don't really "get" Erick's sorcery system (no offense to Erick's fine work, many players get along with his sorcery system just fine!  This is just something I needed to do for me.).  I can't seem to reverse engineer how he figures his casting times, and I never learned to appreciate his choice of those 4 microspells as the building blocks of spellcraft.  And while I understand his concept of lynchpins filling in the missing variables of spells, and can see why he went that way as a game mechanic, it doesn't match my reading of the Merlin Chronicles.

My criteria was the following:

• Maintain the flavor of sorcery in the original source material (i.e. the novels).
• Going with the old adage that boundaries inspire creativity, I wanted to create a spell-building formula with concrete enough boundaries to give the player a clear framework within which to work, but that wasn't overwrought with complexity.  I would like the player to share the experience of building spells that his or her character would have, while at the same time keeping the math fairly minimal and simple.
• Provide players with enough cues as to the expected effectiveness of their spells.  Outside influences and villainous manipulation aside, I don't want the player to think they've got a really strong spell while the GM is thinking that they have a mediocre spell at best.
• Come up with an entirely new way to interpret and implement the lynchpin component of sorcery.

So here's what I came up with [pdf file attached].  I appreciate the time anyone takes to look this over, and doubly appreciate the time anyone takes to offer feedback.  For brevity, only the masculine pronoun is used in the text.

[Panjumanju]

I think you understand Erick Wujcik's spell system better than you realise. Unless I'm missing something - which I may well be - you seem to have independantly come to many of the same conclusions, even if yours is more persnickety.

I think your spell categories are too rooted in Dungeons & Dragons thinking. I suppose that's fine for your players, if that's their roleplaying background. (Although I did like the size description of the creation class spells "as big as a bread box".)

Your write-up on lynchpins I thought was a good one for streamlining book-keeping. I've been resistant to alternate spell systems for Amber in the past, mostly because they would add to the book-keeping of the game, not streamline it. Your approach is good for helping manage player expectations, however.

Thank you for all the effort. It was a good read, and got me thinking about the possibilities of magic in Amber again.

//Panjumanju

[Bird_of_Ill_Omen]

I think your spell categories are too rooted in Dungeons & Dragons thinking. I suppose that's fine for your players, if that's their roleplaying background.

You're absolutely right about my choosing the D&D magic categories for their familiarity, especially with my group of players.  I figure the first thing they'll want to do is cast spells they've used before in other games to get a comparison for how Amber gameplay works with a known quantity before attempting to create all new spells.  That reminds me that I want to take a look at White Wolf's Mage: the Ascension to see if I can get any ideas for a different approach to what might constitute the "building blocks" of spellcraft.  There's any number of concepts for what these building blocks might be; from Erick's 4 micro-spells, to RPGPundit's Promised Sands variant with its structure and effect words -- I'm sure software engineers could offer ideas inspired from programming architecture based on the fundamental types of commands they give computers.

One thing I wanted the system to do was to allow for a wide variance in the number of building blocks -- a simple spell would only require 1 piece (Merlin casts the majority of his spells with only a single word), while a complex casting could have a hundred pieces that would take days to cast.  The number of building blocks doesn't necessarily mean that they have to be all different kinds of blocks either.  If I made a spell that erected a campsite for me, I might combine several uses of the "creation" category for the tent, firewood and fire, plus a few uses of the "transportation" category to have the magic put all the pieces in the right place.  Such a spell could require 12 lynchpins to hold together if I want it available in every shadow, or 3 if I know exactly which shadow I need it for.

Thanks for taking a look at it!

[Artifacts of Amber]

Sound sinteresting. I would probably steal it from you if I hadn't done something similiar. I struck for something more in the middle between the books and the Series. Merlin books being the only one to break magic down any in a way we as GM's could write rules for. Would post my treatise but don't want to step on your thread. It deals more with handling players expectations. I still think it is weird one of the weaker powers requires so mouch more explaination then the other powers, may be the D&D influence over the years and so many other game systems.

Thanks for the ideas