There has been some talk that GMs who run Amber are more mature in their gaming skills as a result. I think the main evidence to support this would be the notion that there is simply a lack of support in the Amber Diceless roleplaying system for anything else. The game gets run well, or it is a terrible game.
For some GMs this is not an issue, but many see the lack of 'safety net' in the rules as a gaping flaw in the system. At best I think it's a double-edged sword.
Thoughts?
//Panjumanju
Quote from: Panjumanju;824043There has been some talk that GMs who run Amber are more mature in their gaming skills as a result.
lol. I think anyone who claimed that is lacking in maturity.
That said, I agree that GMing a freeform RPG of any kind is a different experience from GMing standard game systems and one could potentially identify or develope techniques that would be universally helpful. But it depends on the individual and has absolutely nothing to do with Amber specifically.
Labels can be good because they express a lot of ideas in a few words, but labels can also be bad because not everyone associates the same ideas with those words. I think that the hang-up here is the use of the word "mature" because the opposite of this becomes "immature" and has negative connotations. (E.g. "if you don't like ADRP you are immature.")
* Running ADRP requires a certain style of GM-ing that isn't required for most RPGs because in ADRP you can't just stall with random encounters.
* Running ADRP requires a certain level of trust between GM and players because so much of the rules is adjudicated on the fly by the GM and the players have to believe that they will be treated fairly and consistently.
* Running ADRP requires development of a storytelling skill-set at a level that most RPGs do not require. A GM can't resort to some of the usual tricks, but instead must continue to advance a storyline.
I don't know if that makes an ADRP GM more "mature" or not, but it does require mastery of certain skills at a more in-depth level than many other RPGs require.
Does that make sense?
I think it would be better said a good Amber GM has more maturity.
I am using the word maturity in the sense of a wine maturing to be the best it can not as much in the adult versus child sense of the scale. I think if someone runs Amber well they will run other games better than if they did not have that experience.
What It takes to go from an OK D&D Gm to a great one is a different path then the same route from OK to Great in Amber.
I think the person who did it in Amber has a much gibber and useful skill set then the same skill set gained in D&D or other comparable games.
I also think it is not a path made for everyone. Not that Amber GM's are somehow special or magical just different. Percentage wise from my own personal experience I haven't had a Bad Amber GM. I have had one home town GM beside myself but went to Ambercon for 5 years so have played with a few others. This is all based of course on personal experience.
I think it does boil down to the incredibly loose framework Amber is hung on forces you to become better or just plain suck.
Quote from: Artifacts of Amber;824171I also think it is not a path made for everyone. Not that Amber GM's are somehow special or magical just different. Percentage wise from my own personal experience I haven't had a Bad Amber GM. I have had one home town GM beside myself but went to Ambercon for 5 years so have played with a few others. This is all based of course on personal experience.
This is an interesting subject, but to answer it without debating terms is difficult.
I have had bad GMs or lackluster GMs run Amber Diceless games. This has even been at conventions where enthusiasts spend time and the general play is superior. There are more places in the Amber Diceless game where a GM might 'trip' or 'fall down' and lose the flow of the game. I've tripped up while running myself.
The acquired skill sets for Amber diceless are some of the skills you might expect in older GMs, especially if they have other game systems 'under their belt'. These GMs come to understand that each system requires a slightly different style of play, or timing, or planning for an adventure. Improvisation is critical even if the Players stay on plot. Making educated guesses as to how a 'superior attribute' might play in narrative is essential. For instance, if you cannot explain fairly to a PC how they just got out-maneuvered by an elder, you will lose the Player trust.
In this way, a seasoned GM has advantage over a novice GM, and an Amber game often requires a lot of GM 'center stage' time.
In a sense, I agree with Pundit: refining your skills as a GM with Amber Diceless pushes you to be a better GM. In many RPGs, the universe does not require you deliver its narrative with verve or style or justice.
I believe the better Amber games require these things.
If you don't like "mature", you could say "highly skilled".
A good Amber GM is by necessity a pretty good GM because they have to be to sink or swim in a system that doesn't hold their hand.
It's like if you had somebody become good at playing an instrument when nobody ever taught them anything about it before and they just self-taught. The only way you'd get good or overcome the lack of instruction is by being so great that it overcomes the handicap.
Or if you had a bike without training wheels.
Good Amber GMs are Good Amber GMs.
There are a set of skills that Good Amber GMs have that are transferable but there is a set of useful GM skills that an Amber GM doesn't require.
A GM that is great at Amber might suck at a game that requires the ability to run a highly complex situationally dependent combat system like say M&M 2e or D&D 3.5.
Amber GMs are good at
i) NPC realisation - the game is 90% about how the NPCs are played and interact
ii) Trust - the Amber GM needs to engender trust from their players because so much of the game comes down to the GM's interpretation of the rules in any one context
iii) Adlib - as the PCs can go anywhere the GM has to be able to Adlib anything
However Amber GMs do not need to
i) Memorize a complex rule set
ii) Handle "concrete" complex combats where numbers matter and there are multiple specific options etc
iii) Understand the interaction of complex specific spells/tech effects etc
iv) deal with bad players :)
Quote from: jibbajibba;824628iv) deal with bad players :)
Why not?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;824656Why not?
Bad players don't play Amber obviously :)
Quote from: jibbajibba;824874Bad players don't play Amber obviously :)
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight
In my experience, bad players do play Amber, but not for long. They either figure out how to become good players, or they quit.
Bad in what sense? I have had similar experiences with bad players so I agree.
Bad probably in the sense of all the things you need to be a good player in Amber, Trusting, let the rules fall to the background, decent role playing etc.
I wouldn't say it was good or bad players so much as good or bad Amber players. It might be just me but a Good Amber Player is usually a Good everything player. That is from personal experience and may not be universally true.
Think of it in these terms
If you are an excellent Runner then chances you will be at least decent in many sports compared to someone who is an average athlete would not be as decent. So being an Amber player does not make you perfect or great at all games it is a leg up on the average player. Just my opinion as always :)
Actually I was just aping the OP in a kind of circular way they claim no bad GMs so I claimed no bad players as a reason why a GM might appear good....
In reality the things that let you succeed as an Amber player are
i) Good Role playing - because Amber GMs tend to favour players that play PCs that "fit"
ii) Creative understanding of the rules system and ability to construct an argument as to why the interpretation you proffer is so eminently reasonable.
iii) A reasonably photographic memory of the novels. This will help you immeasurably in points i and ii above. If your PC does things that have an echo of characters in the books they fit better and the GM lets you get away with more.
iv) The ability to abuse the fuck out of the item generation system is incredibly useful, especially if you can do it in a way that seems so eminently reasonable. A 16 point primal chaos Axe is a chump move but a sword with Amber rank tactics, able to speak and Sing in Songs and Voices and mold shadow reality will cost you 12 points and be able to set all sorts of stuff for you by manipulating he shadow environment to give you advantage, turn ground to quicksand, vegetation into tangle vines, staircases to paper, even if the opponent doesn't have a magical blade turning that into something that will easily shatter or bend my personal favorite though was the spell cards.... each hard can rack a single spell cost 1 horde quantity .... cost 3. :) sweet and so very Amber.... I had to let the guy get away with it.
v) (oh and if you do use sorcery take note of all the stuff Mandor and Merlin do as they use it to replicate just about every other power :) )
JIbba
one and two may be true for my games.
Three much less so because I go off book pretty quickly. I don't negate cannon so much as expand on it.
Four and Five I wouldn't allow in any game much less Amber. Rules abuse is a player issue not game. So I deal with it as such.
I'm hoping that was mostly tongue in cheek :)
The Artifacts and Sorcery is the primary reason Amber could use a second edition. I know everyone does their own thing with it now and while my house rules are easily recognizable as Amber it is slightly different.
Quote from: Artifacts of Amber;827102JIbba
one and two may be true for my games.
Three much less so because I go off book pretty quickly. I don't negate cannon so much as expand on it.
Four and Five I wouldn't allow in any game much less Amber. Rules abuse is a player issue not game. So I deal with it as such.
I'm hoping that was mostly tongue in cheek :)
The Artifacts and Sorcery is the primary reason Amber could use a second edition. I know everyone does their own thing with it now and while my house rules are easily recognizable as Amber it is slightly different.
I don't think I was clear with point 3. I don't mean echoes in terms of plot or background I mean echoes in terms of texture and character.
So if I create a character called Serge who background is that he has taken a deep cover role fro Oberon in shadow tracking down agents of Chaos. If I make him cynical and wary, knowing that Oberon is obviously manipulating him but playing along because the opposite of being a pawn of Oberon is to be an enemy of Oberon. If his interests are classical art particularly sculpture and his perfered fighting style is a mix of Savate and his weapon of choice is a quarterstaff. I am make that character feel so like a book character you as Gm will peer far less closely at my actions :) If on occasion I explain that sequence and order are all important in this matter, or note in passing to my opponents that I am not playing fair because this is not the Olympics... well...
iv) is so very ADRPG (or a wide section of it), so very un-Zelazny, so very WOW or anime-esque, and why a lot of people jettison or nerf the A&C system.
Quote from: jibbajibba;827095Actually I was just aping the OP in a kind of circular way they claim no bad GMs so I claimed no bad players as a reason why a GM might appear good....
In reality the things that let you succeed as an Amber player are
i) Good Role playing - because Amber GMs tend to favour players that play PCs that "fit"
ii) Creative understanding of the rules system and ability to construct an argument as to why the interpretation you proffer is so eminently reasonable.
iii) A reasonably photographic memory of the novels. This will help you immeasurably in points i and ii above. If your PC does things that have an echo of characters in the books they fit better and the GM lets you get away with more.
iv) The ability to abuse the fuck out of the item generation system is incredibly useful, especially if you can do it in a way that seems so eminently reasonable. A 16 point primal chaos Axe is a chump move but a sword with Amber rank tactics, able to speak and Sing in Songs and Voices and mold shadow reality will cost you 12 points and be able to set all sorts of stuff for you by manipulating he shadow environment to give you advantage, turn ground to quicksand, vegetation into tangle vines, staircases to paper, even if the opponent doesn't have a magical blade turning that into something that will easily shatter or bend my personal favorite though was the spell cards.... each hard can rack a single spell cost 1 horde quantity .... cost 3. :) sweet and so very Amber.... I had to let the guy get away with it.
v) (oh and if you do use sorcery take note of all the stuff Mandor and Merlin do as they use it to replicate just about every other power :) )
Quote from: RTrimmer;835626iv) is so very ADRPG (or a wide section of it), so very un-Zelazny, so very WOW or anime-esque, and why a lot of people jettison or nerf the A&C system.
Actually rampently ridiculous items are pretty Zelazny to be fair especially fromt eh second series of books.
Look at the various items we see in play
Frakir - simple and cheap but could be very exploitable in an actual game
Mandor's Balls - A very ADRPG item this. Basically enables you to use the gamut of Sorcery powers at instant speed removing the tedious prep
The Spikards - as above but with an additional Power source
Greyswandir - moves from being a blade that can destroy chaos critters because its inscribed with the Pattern to an item that can disable socreries, defend against various attacks etc
In the second series Zelazny has the time to reflect on what you could actually do with an infinite amount of time so you get characters like Merlin who have all the powers. Sorcery becomes the everything power out of which everything else looks like a subset. Etc etc
So I think the item creation rules are fine and I don't tweak them much at all though I cap them typically with a 4 point (3 ranks) in any one thing.
I have never had a PC who's item has tipped the balance in their favour overly much and I have seen some incredibly clever items
All examples from the second series, which moved from the fairly gritty, stab you in the face fantasy noir of the Corwin series to the Chosen One waving his spikard or aiming his uber-daemon at problems.
Even in the Merlin books, until he gets a spikard Merlin is strictly limited by the up-to-a-dozen (less, really) spells rule. And this from a Logrus sorcerer, with spells hung on and explicitly powered by the Logrus. Which, btw, makes sorcery a power worth one hell of a lot more than 15 points.
Frakir demonstrates better than 4 point aggression, 2 and then 4 point Int, 2 then 4 point psychic sensitivity, 2 or 4 point damage resistance, 2 point Stamina, better than 4 point Vitality, 2 point psychic resistance, 1 point movement ... 27 points or more. Arguably more powerful, in game terms, than the Jewel of Judgment. But then Merlin is decent in all his Atts, is an initiate of Pattern and Logrus (at least partially Advanced), a Shapeshifter, a Logrus Sorcerer, at the least. Upwards of 277 points without a spikard, a 32 point damage item to start. Merl is the pawn of Dworkin, Dara, Suhuy and the Logrus Itself.
Your "sword with Amber rank tactics, able to speak and Sing in Songs and Voices and mold shadow reality will cost you 12 points and be able to set all sorts of stuff for you by manipulating he shadow environment to give you advantage, turn ground to quicksand, vegetation into tangle vines, staircases to paper" does things you can maybe do with 75 points of Pattern and in combat time, which AP can't. At 12 points everybody can afford one.
Mandor's balls: 16 point damage to start -- plows through dozens at a time -- and, really, with some items like that plus the literally squad-sweeping Logrus use Merlin demonstrates in the same fight, Chaos could not have lost the battle in
The Courts of Chaos without trying really hard. And combat is reduced to directing drones and waving your arms.
Spikards: above. OK with authorial handwavium driving the plot, not so much in a game.
Greyswandir never does more damage than what Corwin's Warfare and Strength can account for. Lords of Chaos bleed fire; mixed blood Merlin does so when in Chaos. Bleed out and burn up. Disabling sorceries isn't that big a trick until the Merlin series jacks sorcery up to a major power.
Quote from: jibbajibba;835630Actually rampently ridiculous items are pretty Zelazny to be fair especially fromt eh second series of books.
Look at the various items we see in play
Frakir - simple and cheap but could be very exploitable in an actual game
Mandor's Balls - A very ADRPG item this. Basically enables you to use the gamut of Sorcery powers at instant speed removing the tedious prep
The Spikards - as above but with an additional Power source
Greyswandir - moves from being a blade that can destroy chaos critters because its inscribed with the Pattern to an item that can disable socreries, defend against various attacks etc
In the second series Zelazny has the time to reflect on what you could actually do with an infinite amount of time so you get characters like Merlin who have all the powers. Sorcery becomes the everything power out of which everything else looks like a subset. Etc etc
So I think the item creation rules are fine and I don't tweak them much at all though I cap them typically with a 4 point (3 ranks) in any one thing.
I have never had a PC who's item has tipped the balance in their favour overly much and I have seen some incredibly clever items
The way I see it, Chaos lost because ultimately the pattern trumps everything else. Chaos creatures can't survive in areas of high-order, they needed the black road to even reach Amber. Whereas Pattern gets easier and easier the less structure there is to a place. Pattern in the Courts themselves should be a super-weapon.
And human soldiers could survive in highly Chaotic places?
In the Merlin series Mandor uses the Logrus in Amber castle itself.
There's no on-page use of super-weapons in The Courts of Chaos. RZ probably hadn't even invented the Logrus yet.
The Merlin books are not viably sequels to the Corwin books. If the Courts had Trump Artists, shapeshifting spies, significant numbers of Logrus Masters, a few Advanced LMs and a decent strategist or three, they win. They don't even need Black Roads. They don't even need troops from Chaos, they can recruit/shanghai in the realm of Order.
Quote from: RTrimmer;835655All examples from the second series, which moved from the fairly gritty, stab you in the face fantasy noir of the Corwin series to the Chosen One waving his spikard or aiming his uber-daemon at problems.
Even in the Merlin books, until he gets a spikard Merlin is strictly limited by the up-to-a-dozen (less, really) spells rule. And this from a Logrus sorcerer, with spells hung on and explicitly powered by the Logrus. Which, btw, makes sorcery a power worth one hell of a lot more than 15 points.
Frakir demonstrates better than 4 point aggression, 2 and then 4 point Int, 2 then 4 point psychic sensitivity, 2 or 4 point damage resistance, 2 point Stamina, better than 4 point Vitality, 2 point psychic resistance, 1 point movement ... 27 points or more. Arguably more powerful, in game terms, than the Jewel of Judgment. But then Merlin is decent in all his Atts, is an initiate of Pattern and Logrus (at least partially Advanced), a Shapeshifter, a Logrus Sorcerer, at the least. Upwards of 277 points without a spikard, a 32 point damage item to start. Merl is the pawn of Dworkin, Dara, Suhuy and the Logrus Itself.
Your "sword with Amber rank tactics, able to speak and Sing in Songs and Voices and mold shadow reality will cost you 12 points and be able to set all sorts of stuff for you by manipulating he shadow environment to give you advantage, turn ground to quicksand, vegetation into tangle vines, staircases to paper" does things you can maybe do with 75 points of Pattern and in combat time, which AP can't. At 12 points everybody can afford one.
Mandor's balls: 16 point damage to start -- plows through dozens at a time -- and, really, with some items like that plus the literally squad-sweeping Logrus use Merlin demonstrates in the same fight, Chaos could not have lost the battle in The Courts of Chaos without trying really hard. And combat is reduced to directing drones and waving your arms.
Spikards: above. OK with authorial handwavium driving the plot, not so much in a game.
Greyswandir never does more damage than what Corwin's Warfare and Strength can account for. Lords of Chaos bleed fire; mixed blood Merlin does so when in Chaos. Bleed out and burn up. Disabling sorceries isn't that big a trick until the Merlin series jacks sorcery up to a major power.
I agree with all of that but ... I think it just proves that uber items are entirely somethign that Zelazny is prepared to use.
The fact that they come largely fromt eh second chronicle doesn't void the fact that they are still written by the same guy.
And don't let me get started on Ghost....
True, but the really awful things, the spikard and Ghostwheel, are in the hands of one guy, the Chosen One of the series about whom much of the multiverse does indeed revolve. How many Chosen Ones can you viably have in a game?
But it's the wide-spectrum combat-time Mold Shadow Reality for 4 points that boggles me the most. It's not twice (8p), not 4x (16p), not 8x (32p) as fast as API, but more; 64 points? = 52 points of Bad Stuff pretending to be a sword. Stormbringer and the One Ring dream of being that badass.
Quote from: jibbajibba;835766I agree with all of that but ... I think it just proves that uber items are entirely somethign that Zelazny is prepared to use.
The fact that they come largely fromt eh second chronicle doesn't void the fact that they are still written by the same guy.
And don't let me get started on Ghost....
Quote from: RTrimmer;835788True, but the really awful things, the spikard and Ghostwheel, are in the hands of one guy, the Chosen One of the series about whom much of the multiverse does indeed revolve. How many Chosen Ones can you viably have in a game?
But it's the wide-spectrum combat-time Mold Shadow Reality for 4 points that boggles me the most. It's not twice (8p), not 4x (16p), not 8x (32p) as fast as API, but more; 64 points? = 52 points of Bad Stuff pretending to be a sword. Stormbringer and the One Ring dream of being that badass.
The trouble with Amber though is that everybody
is The Chosen One :)
Mandor's Balls are insanely powerful (ooh err misses...) so long as Sorcery is insanely powerful.
Now I love powerful items. I hope the PCs remembered to build some cos my NPCs will have bucket loads of them :)
But powerful isn't as much fun as clever or flavourful. So I have a great Sword called Solace that has
Extra Hard (1)
Detect Magical forces (2)
Implanted Power Word - Magical Disrupt (1)
Speak and Sing in Tongues and Voices (4)
Unrack Name and Numbered spells (4)
So Solace's purpose is to destroy magic and magical creatures. It will disrupt the first spell cast at the user and has the ability to dissipate hung spells. Though it can't do that if they are hung in the Logrus or Pattern (that would be an 8 point ability)
Quote from: RTrimmer;835755And human soldiers could survive in highly Chaotic places?
They can when Amberites are using the pattern.
In the chaos invasion of Amber, the Chaosians had to use an Insanely Complicated Plot to create the black road, to alter Amber's environment to make it survivable to chaos demons. But the Amberites' 'black road' (or golden road, or whatever) is something they can create just by willing it.
QuoteIn the Merlin series Mandor uses the Logrus in Amber castle itself.
Yeah, but he's Mandor; logrus master and sorcerer supreme.
QuoteThe Merlin books are not viably sequels to the Corwin books. If the Courts had Trump Artists, shapeshifting spies, significant numbers of Logrus Masters, a few Advanced LMs and a decent strategist or three, they win. They don't even need Black Roads. They don't even need troops from Chaos, they can recruit/shanghai in the realm of Order.
And yet both series are Canon. The Chaosians DID need the black road, even though they had all of those things. That's what Amber's canon says. So it's up to us to figure out why that would be.
Quote from: RPGPundit;836177They can when Amberites are using the pattern.
In the chaos invasion of Amber, the Chaosians had to use an Insanely Complicated Plot to create the black road, to alter Amber's environment to make it survivable to chaos demons. But the Amberites' 'black road' (or golden road, or whatever) is something they can create just by willing it.
Yeah, but he's Mandor; logrus master and sorcerer supreme.
And yet both series are Canon. The Chaosians DID need the black road, even though they had all of those things. That's what Amber's canon says. So it's up to us to figure out why that would be.
I think its fairly obvious that Zelanzy simply hadn't thought of the way Chaos worked.
We see many chaos creatures traverse shadow with no ill effects int eh books.
The Game has no insistance that to travel in Amber you need to have Pattern or Barimen blood or anything.
Now if you wanted to try and reconcile the books with the unfolding Amber universe you have a few options
i) Chaos creatures can not cross shadow as you near the Amber Pole. Those that do manage it due to - Advanced power, Amber Blood or pttern imprint of some kind even if that is not explicitly presented
ii) The Black road is simply a corridor through shadow that anyone can use as a path if they know how. the Chaosites don't need the black road but with it they are able to traverse shadow despite having no innate travel power. To make this work we have to say that Logrus can't move armies through shadow just individuals.
iii) Prior to the inscribing of Corwin's Pattern the Pattern is strong enough to create a barrier of sorts, stronger the closer you get to Amber, that prevents Chaosites from accessing it. Either they are blocked or their routes become diverted and they end off off in shadow somewhere else. The events of hte first Chronicles weaken the barrier and so Amber is now accessible
No 'golden road', Benedict used Dworkin's Trump of Chaos central's doorstep.
No matter how good Mandor is at using the Logrus he can't make it stronger against the Pattern a couple of hundred yards from a Pattern.
The Black Road: no Chaos Lord uses Trumps in the first series, except for Merlin. Who has met with Grandpa Oberon.
Fiona says, "Dworkin had mentioned it primarily as an example of the pervasiveness of the Pattern in everything that gives us power—even the Trumps contain the Pattern, if you look closely, look long enough—and he cited it as an instance of a conservation principle: all of our special powers have their price. The greater the power, the larger the investment. The Trumps are a small matter, but there is still an element of fatigue involved in their employment." -- SOTU
For the LoCs to not employ Trumps to move armies or plant spies in Amber, to not take advantage of shapeshifting spies militarily, to not use the Logrus in any useful way in battle... The advantage needn't be the Pattern's superiority, the idiocy or cultural taboos of the Chaosites are more than enough, though neither idiocy nor taboos make an appearance in the second series.
The 'Corwin's Pattern weakened or eliminated resistance to the Logrus' argument works. The Logrus could only reach Amber via flaws caused by Martin's blood. Logrus Trumps wouldn't work in the realm of Order prior to the CP's creation. Etc. (Though it means that the Pattern would have been weakened for the big battle in
The Courts of Chaos.) But that also means that the LoCs could then curb stomp Amber thereafter, but didn't. Though Mandor knows details like the existence of Bloody Whosit's. So the Patternfall War was a game, a bit of dickery by a faction of bored LoCs. And the Logrus' desires are not congruent with those of the movers and shakers in Chaos; maybe they like things as they are.
Though that makes Dworkin's interest in putting Merlin on the throne of Chaos sensible. A friendly King of Chaos could give him the time to restore the
status quo ante.
But then Amber still exists only at Chaos' pleasure if you use that bit of handwavium.
Quote from: RPGPundit;836177They can when Amberites are using the pattern.
In the chaos invasion of Amber, the Chaosians had to use an Insanely Complicated Plot to create the black road, to alter Amber's environment to make it survivable to chaos demons. But the Amberites' 'black road' (or golden road, or whatever) is something they can create just by willing it.
Yeah, but he's Mandor; logrus master and sorcerer supreme.
And yet both series are Canon. The Chaosians DID need the black road, even though they had all of those things. That's what Amber's canon says. So it's up to us to figure out why that would be.
I tend to run it this way
1) Not all of the courts were part of the Black Road War. a couple major houses and some minor ones. The Courts as I run them wouldn't all get together too much infighting etc.
2) The Black Road was a ton of black threads woven together to make a passage way from chaos to amber. One big enough for an army . This allowed people who could not travel in shadow to make it to Amber.
3) Chaos creatures and Demons (two different things in my games) can move through the thin veils in Chaos and find moving in the sterner shadow barriers more difficult as they got closer to Amber, Hence the black road.
as for the items discussion I rewrote the Artifact rules to clarify them. They are still really close to what the books have so an item designed using the books ports right into my rules. My sorcery is also better written.
As far as Mandor's Balls go they are sometimes artifacts (meaning he has a few as items) other times they are manifestations of his sorcery so a giant ball bashing stuff is no different if he magiced up a battering ram. just part of his personal style.