Amber: All Power to the GM

[alexandro]

I have stopped letting my players write a complete character backstory before play begins. It just leads to cardboard cutouts and takes away RP oportunities. So the only facts that exist about the characters are the ones realised in play. If a new fact is added in play I look if it contradicts any of the previous facts and if not, I let it go.
A written CV of a character is a big pita.

Look at the example: the GM already decided that the lock won't budge, EVEN IF the player has the proper lockpick skills (and if he decided the player doesn't have lockpick skills, because he had a high enough Warfare rank to beat the lock...well thats railroading pure and simple). So the character wouldn't gain any advantage from being able to pick locks.
On the other hand, IF I let the character have his lockpick skills with the right explanation, that opens up a whole new set of possibilities: where did he learn them? what did his teachers ask from him in return? did he use them for personal gain? is it possible that even now he has a stolen object in his possesion, which he never considered, but that is very important to someone else? Great RP oportunities wasted by a stupid "no game" decisions.

[alexandro]

"Oh yea, btw, I know I never mentioned it to you before but I'm actually lord master of the 192 Armies of Yul K'tchaun. So I'll just blow the Horn of Namak, which I also never mentioned I had to you (silly me) and summon up my hordes to deal with this here ork. Geez, you know, you're a boring GM,

This is a bad example, because it crosses into something else: ignoring the rules.
What you describe are allies, artifacts, personalized Shadows...all of which you have to pay POINTS to have.

On the other hand you can have an gazillion of skills in Amber, because those don't cost you any points.
So I see no difference between writing a 5000+ pages backstory detailing every skill you are ever going to need and deciding on a spur of the moment if you have a certain skill or not (I also allow my players to save some of their creation points to add things like the above later, but if they spend all of them, they forfeit the right to posess anything that costs points besides the things they already described).

you really should have taken my abilities I never mentioned to you before into account when you designed this encounter"

If your vision of how the encounter could turn out is that limited, that you can't handle the fact that the PCs might succeed in ways you have not anticipated, ...well than you are indeed a boring GM.

[alexandro]

Oh and this is no "forgy" idea.
D&D already did something like that, long before Ron moved into his haunt.

[RPGPundit]

This is a bad example, because it crosses into something else: ignoring the rules.
What you describe are allies, artifacts, personalized Shadows...all of which you have to pay POINTS to have.

On the other hand you can have an gazillion of skills in Amber, because those don't cost you any points.

That doesn't mean that the skills aren't also part of the rules.  There's a lot of free stuff in Amber; it doesn't mean that free equals "unimportant".

So I see no difference between writing a 5000+ pages backstory detailing every skill you are ever going to need and deciding on a spur of the moment if you have a certain skill or not (I also allow my players to save some of their creation points to add things like the above later, but if they spend all of them, they forfeit the right to posess anything that costs points besides the things they already described).

I don't think you have to write a 5000+ page backstory; you do, however have to have a general accounting of what your character has done.  If the player in said example had, say, "10 years as a thief in an early modern shadow" as one of his skill-sets, it would make sense that he'd have some lockpicking skills.  As it is, he was trying to desperately shoehorn it because it was convenient for him at the time

Note also that the example you're taking all this from is an example about how to adjudicate failure; its not a DM advice section on "how to thwart your players"; so you're pretty well taking things out of context... the point of the example more or less depends on explaining different ways that players can fail at what they do.

If your vision of how the encounter could turn out is that limited, that you can't handle the fact that the PCs might succeed in ways you have not anticipated, ...well than you are indeed a boring GM.

My players usually succeed at a lot of things in ways I hadn't anticipated, by actually finding creative ways IN THE GAME of getting things done; not by sneaking in retroactive revisions to their personal histories.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

Oh and this is no "forgy" idea.
D&D already did something like that, long before Ron moved into his haunt.

Last time I checked, Order of the Stick was not a D&D rulebook.

RPGPundit

[Otha]

Last time I checked, Order of the Stick was not a D&D rulebook.

No, but that's how it works for a lot of people.  I suppose you could have a game where the DM was an ass, and says, "No, you can't have a level of wizard, because you haven't been studying all along."

[alexandro]

Exactly. Burlew has great meta-knowledge of how the game works.

As it is, he was trying to desperately shoehorn it because it was convenient for him at the time.

And writing that 5000+ pages backstory is not shoehorning every skill into the character backstory (and I have to write the whole 9 yards, because otherwise the GM is going to say "Well, you were a thief in a modern day shadow, so you know about lockpicking alright. But you never mentioned in your backstory if you were ever caught or even interrogated by the local authorities, so I'm assuming you weren't, meaning you have no skills in dealing with the authorities. And you never mentioned in your backstory how you sold your loot; sorry but no black market skills for you...etc.pp.").

That doesn't mean that the skills aren't also part of the rules. There's a lot of free stuff in Amber; it doesn't mean that free equals "unimportant".

How is what I said making the skills unimportant? Quite the contrary: the skills are to important to be decided up front, because they define who the character is.

[Blackleaf]

Hmm.  Alexandro and Burlew make very good points.  :hmm:

[Arref]

How is what I said making the skills unimportant? Quite the contrary: the skills are to important to be decided up front, because they define who the character is.

So how many points do you have PCs set aside for acquired allies in-game?
How many points for items stolen from gods?
How many points for medical technology shadows that can heal serious injuries?

And how do you explain away opportunities in-game for such things not to happen because the PCs have run out of set-aside points?

The rules suggest Julian pays for his horse and hawks and stormhounds. Why then does Benedict not pay for every army he builds? Or does he?

I think the point comes down to "having something" (which is pretty much transitory and story driven) and then embedding a quality, item or ally that is "entwined with your legend".

I don't make PCs pay points for things that are easily added or taken away within the game.

[RPGPundit]

Exactly. Burlew has great meta-knowledge of how the game works.

Only if "the game" is being run by a retard or someone who hates D&D.

And writing that 5000+ pages backstory is not shoehorning every skill into the character backstory (and I have to write the whole 9 yards, because otherwise the GM is going to say "Well, you were a thief in a modern day shadow, so you know about lockpicking alright. But you never mentioned in your backstory if you were ever caught or even interrogated by the local authorities, so I'm assuming you weren't, meaning you have no skills in dealing with the authorities. And you never mentioned in your backstory how you sold your loot; sorry but no black market skills for you...etc.pp.").

Show us where the bad GM touched you, Alex... if you can just come forward about the day the strange GM in the park had a present in his pants for you, then maybe we can drop this stupid fucking discussion.

You don't trust GMs. We got that. Amber might not be the game for you, then, since Amber is a game where the GM's power is absolute. That's unfortunate. You see, Amber is a game that depends on having GMs mature enough that they will be responsible with their powers, and Players who are mature and emotionally balanced enough that they can actually allow the GM to do his job without making a bunch of petulant primma donna demands or want to castrate the GM.

Anyone who fails on that level of maturity is obviously going to have a hard time, and will probably want to go play Vampire if they want to be a gloryhound GM, or Nobilis if they want to go and be mentally regressed toddler-players who need a mollycoddling mommy GM, or some Forge game if they want to "Take Back The Night" from the tyranny of the GM and burn some poor mock-up of a GM put up for the rest of the players to take their frustrations out on.

How is what I said making the skills unimportant? Quite the contrary: the skills are to important to be decided up front, because they define who the character is.

Great, then it'd be nice if the players wouldn't use them to cheat.

RPGPundit

[alexandro]

Only if "the game" is being run by a retard or someone who hates D&D.

Huh? Have you even read OotS? The story of the OotS would great game and I would love to play in a campaign like that.
The humour comes from the fact, that the characters are commenting things from a player PoV, not from the background and story.

You see, Amber is a game that depends on having GMs mature enough that they will be responsible with their powers, blah, blah, blah...

I already know about this. And I run it like that.
But at the point where:
- the GM is twisting the words of the players to justify his decisions
- the GM ignores being truthfull in what the characters see and makes a false or incomplete description of something, so the players will react in a certain way (but of course he only uses this "technique" on Monter Bashers and Rules Lawyers, who are Bad Roleplayers(TM) and don't deserve a good GM anyway...)
- the GM decides what makes sense for a PC to do

you are leaving the area of sensible use of GM-authority and are already subribibing to what I call elitist White Wolf-think.

Great, then it'd be nice if the players wouldn't use them to cheat.

If the GM authority is absolute, the players can't cheat.
The player only made a suggestion to the GM and the GM was an ass about it, because he is operating under the premise that the players are the enemy and if you give them an inch, they will take a mile. Its as simple as that.

[Blackleaf]

Show us where the bad GM touched you, Alex... if you can just come forward about the day the strange GM in the park had a present in his pants for you, then maybe we can drop this stupid fucking discussion.

You use this argument a lot.

I think you intend the "Bad GM touching you" concept to be ridiculous, and thus make the argument of the person you're debating with seem ridiculous as well.

Go watch The D&D Experience or at least read the comments about "the old GM" in that thread.

After seeing that interview, this rhettorical device doesn't make me think "ridiculous" anymore... it brings that guy to mind -- and that guy makes me think limiting the GMs absolute control over a game isn't such a bad idea.

I think this particular rhettorical weapon should be retired.

Pundit: If you want to open this specific point up for further dicussion, I suggest Splitting the thread and starting a new one to avoid a derail.

[RPGPundit]

- the GM ignores being truthfull in what the characters see and makes a false or incomplete description of something, so the players will react in a certain way (but of course he only uses this "technique" on Monter Bashers and Rules Lawyers, who are Bad Roleplayers(TM) and don't deserve a good GM anyway...)

I don't see that in either of the two cases.  In the first, "Monster Bashers", the GM tells the player something is coming quickly at him: This would only be deceptive if the character is supposed to be very high ranked in Warfare; the whole point of the example is that the player in question is "attacking first, perceiving later", you can almost sense the player being one of those guys who interrupts the GM in mid-description to say "I stab it in the groin!!".

In the second example, it has nothing to do with perception at all. The GM clearly tells the player an object flies through the window, he doesn't lie about this or misinterpret it at all; the player then goes on to ignore what the GM has just told him is happening to try to argue that, because of something on his character sheet, something else "ought to" have happened. Its the player who's trying to alter the reality of the scene!

RPGPundit

[alexandro]

the GM tells the player something is coming quickly at him

Zeppo, the amazing NPC, that moves faster than the eye can see, yet leaves you plenty of time to draw your weapon. :rolleyes:

If the player is really problematic he would attack the NPC anyway, no matter how the GM describes him.

GMs that alter their description to "goad" their players into making certain decisions are :fu2:

Its the player who's trying to alter the reality of the scene!

Where? It is obvious the player is confused as to what is actually happening. The GM could have said: "I didn't make a mistake. The object flying through a window didn't constitute a danger, but NOW your cat is sensing a danger. What are you doing?" instead of using a needlessly byzantine sentence construction to further confuse the player.

The whole examples reek of a GM, who isn't treating his players like adults capable of making informed decisions, but like children, who must be taught what "true roleplaying" is like.

[Otha]

Hallelujah, Stuart.