Amber Campaign-sequels

[RPGPundit]

You know, Jong recently asked me if the next amber campaign after I run this one would be a sequel of this campaign, ie. picking up where it left off, where the things that happened in this campaign affect the next, etc.

And I certainly did not plan for it to be that. Beyond that, I think I've NEVER made one of my Amber campaigns a sequel to one I ran earlier.

My previous Amber campaign here in Uruguay was the 1st books era; this one is the 2nd books, it could easily have been a sequel, but I didn't even consider making it so.

I don't know exactly why this is, but I get the strong feeling that making a new Amber game a sequel of the old Amber game is a really bad idea.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

RPGPundit

[Klaus]

It might depend on how well the players could cope with the idea of their old PCs becoming NPCs.

While I don't have any experience doing that myself, I am familiar with an extended example: Through a Mirror Darkly is an online Amber campaign that is itself a sequel to a Throne War. It has two sequels, Unicorn no Seishi and Forth the Nine Riders, with the PCs in each game being the children of the previous generation.

As far as I know, it worked rather well; the massive logs from Through a Mirror Darkly and Unicorn no Seishi were actually my introduction to ADRPG.

[kingtheseus]

It can work fine.  It's important to  have extensive notes from the previous campaign.  I've been running a campaign for 14 years (with a 3 year break) based around four segments of time.  After first reading the Amber rulebook, I had the idea of starting with PCs that were young 18-21, and over a period of many years, see them progress into each new stage of an immortal lifespan.

First campaign: 18-21 still coming into their heritage, at 100 points.

Second campaign: 200 years old, now competent young Amberites, at 200-350 points.

Third campaign: 1000 years old, 350-450 points, seasoned Amberites.

Fourth campaign: 9000 years, legendary Amberites, 400-800 points

The most important thing in running a sequel, is to allow some significant event or time to pass, so that although the universe is recognisable, it is also different enough to provide new and interesting material and ideas. This includes who rules Amber, and who the main bad guys are.

[JongWK]

You know, Jong recently asked me if the next amber campaign after I run this one would be a sequel of this campaign, ie. picking up where it left off, where the things that happened in this campaign affect the next, etc.

And I certainly did not plan for it to be that. Beyond that, I think I've NEVER made one of my Amber campaigns a sequel to one I ran earlier.

My previous Amber campaign here in Uruguay was the 1st books era; this one is the 2nd books, it could easily have been a sequel, but I didn't even consider making it so.

I don't know exactly why this is, but I get the strong feeling that making a new Amber game a sequel of the old Amber game is a really bad idea.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Erick Wujcik ran games with kids of previous characters, so there is a precedent of sorts.

Perhaps the challenge is the group of players itself rather than the characters: Is the group of players exactly the same as the previous campaign? Will players accept to be the children of a PC they completely hated? Will they be able to handle secrets from their previous characters?

I'm not seeing the "really bad" angle, but maybe you want to expand.

[RPGPundit]

Well, I'm not sure what the bad thing about it would be, aside from a sentiment on my part.

One thing that might make it "bad" is that in any Amber campaign a lot of shit goes down, that leads to some major changes in the basic setting (elder amberites get whacked, changes of rulership in Amber, etc etc.). Some of these might lead to the next game being very different from the Amber-standard; which could be bad if it means that some of the potential for conflict are removed from play right off the bat (ie. if a lot of the old grudges or fights inherent in the Amber setting have already been "resolved").

A second way it could be bad is touched on by your post: if you are a playing with a totally different group, there's not much point in having a sequel game. On the other hand, if you are playing with a mixed group, where half or less of the new players were in the original campaign, you will end up with a very uneven situation; where the condition of "sequel" is only really meaningful to some of the players, and they might end up having either an undue advantage (due to having played out the previous game) or the game might end up having less appeal to the new players who are not really connected to what came before.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

I think if it was the exact same group of players, or a very high percentage of them; and if there was still enough to do in a sequel game and enough of what makes it recognizably Amber, then it would probably be ok. Otherwise, it would be very tricky.

RPGPundit