Amber Heartbreaker

[jibbajibba]

In answer to the in all but name thread. I thought i woudl kick off one on what an Amber 2.0 might look like. I will start off with what I woudl like to see in order of importance.

i) Partial Powers - I use power trees it gives a lot more flexibility aids xp and growth. It also lets you replicate stuff in the novels like Caine's trump spying. You can drive your skills to a high level down a narrow path if that is what you fancy.

ii) Skills - I use a skill system. Its diceless and simple although the actual skills and obtainign them is a time consuing process. I think skills are key to amber because I hate the whole 'lock-picking is Warfare' thing and having to fiat horseraces, and all the rest.

iii) Define the devide between Strength and warfare in martial arts. I keep it simple grappling is Strength. But I stress that Strength is your Hit Points. The ammount of damage you can take is Strength. You ability to continue after taking damage is endurance.

I have other opinions on the magic system, items, the concept of ranks versus points etc etc but someone elses turn

[finarvyn]

i) Partial Powers - I use power trees it gives a lot more flexibility aids xp and growth. It also lets you replicate stuff in the novels like Caine's trump spying. You can drive your skills to a high level down a narrow path if that is what you fancy.

Agreed. I think that Partial Powers are a natural evolution of the game and they don't disrupt the system already in place.

1) The powers as written are designed to be bought in huge chunks. This really means that a player who doesn't have a power really shouldn't ever gain one. (How can a person really "earn" 50 XP if they start with 100. That's a huge change in the game scale.)

2) The powers as written don't allow for much customization. Partial Powers allow a person to have a little of this and a little of that, as opposed to having to specialize in one thing.

3) Partial Powers allow characters to spend more on attributes, which should make the auction more entertaining. After all, if you really want Pattern suddenly you only have 50 points rather than 100 to play with, and most of the characters in games I've experienced really want Pattern. The GM's solution is usually to boost the number of points the characters get at the onset, but use of Partial Powers makes that tweak less critical.

[finarvyn]

ii) Skills - I use a skill system. Its diceless and simple although the actual skills and obtainign them is a time consuing process. I think skills are key to amber because I hate the whole 'lock-picking is Warfare' thing and having to fiat horseraces, and all the rest.

I like a skill-tree kind of like is done in FATE. You might have 1 good skill, 2 fair skills, 3 average skills, 4 poor skills. That kind of thing.

Actually, if you take the tree and allow for things other than skills, it might make the game more interesting. For example, perhaps one might allow players to put a military rank or social status (e.g. first born or something like that) in the tree. So if one person puts it as good and another puts it as average, and a third doesn't list it at all, then you have some sort of ranking built within the character creation process.

You might be able to put in allies or stuff or other things as well, so that players would have to make some choices. Hmm. Have to generate a list of fun things to put into a tree......

[finarvyn]

iii) Define the devide between Strength and warfare in martial arts. I keep it simple grappling is Strength. But I stress that Strength is your Hit Points. The ammount of damage you can take is Strength. You ability to continue after taking damage is endurance.

Here we differ somewhat.

I prefer to allow Strength to represent "Athletics" such as climbing, swimming, running, gymnastics, martial arts, and so on. I don't associate it with "hit points" at all.

The amount of damage you can take is your Endurance. Endurance is also how long you can last when you are trying a confllict in Strength, Warfare, or Psyche. I see those two applications as really being the same thing, since the "hit point" represents not just actual damage as much as how long you can continue in a combat. This is part of what makes Endurance the most important stat in my game.

[weilide]

With apologies to all concerned I'm going to repost (with some modification) a comment I did from way back because it seems relevant here and I'd just as soon not recreate it from scratch.

At one point early in the second series Merlin and Bill Roth are talking and the conversation gets to the subject of trump:

"Those sorcerers you spoke of—from the adjacent kingdoms...Could any of them do up a set of Trumps?"

"Yes, but theirs would be less than perfect. It is my understanding that you have to be an initiate of either the Pattern or the Logrus to do them properly. Some of them could do a sort of half-assed set, though, one you'd be taking your chances on using—maybe winding up dead or in some limbo, sometimes getting where you were headed."

I really love this little exchange, and not just because it involves the use of the term "half-assed" in a serious fantasy context. It also says about lot about how Trump work in Zelazny's universe.

I've been thinking that the next time I run Amber I would like to include "Half-Assed Trump Artistry" as a power, something a little akin to Broken Pattern. The idea is that Pattern or Logrus would be prerequisite for proper Trump Artistry and that anyone lacking these who bought Trump Artistry would get the lesser version instead. I would probably want to lower the price to something like 30 points in order to recognize that A) the lesser version is more problematic than the standard one in the sourcebook and B) the proper version requires a considerable point investment elsewhere.

In fact, depending on how one sees these things, one might stipulate that even half-assed Trump Artistry would have a prerequisite of either Broken Pattern or the Logrus equivalent, however that might work. (Zelazny seems to imply this is the case. Regarding the "sorcerers from adjacent kingdoms" in the quote above, Merlin says: "And then there are the inhabitants of the various Shadow kingdoms nearest to Amber and to Chaos. Those at both ends breed mighty sorcerers, just because of their proximity to the two power centers. Some of the good ones can become fairly adept at it—but their images of the Pattern or the Logrus are imperfect, so they're never quite as good as the real thing." I suppose whether or not "imperfect Pattern" equals "Broken Pattern" is an open question at this point. For my purposes it does.)

However the mechanics work out, this could be a really fun opportunity from a GM standpoint. Just think of all the things that could go wrong with half-assed Trump (although it's probably not cricket to actually kill your players): limbo, static and other interference, trump that suck you in as soon as you look at them, repeated dropped connections like a cellphone in the boondocks, trump that are suddenly so cold that they burn the holder's fingers, trump that occasionally contact a shadow of the target instead of the genuine article, random snippets of conversation or music wafting through the contact for no reason, and so on.

[Lawbag]

I think any attempt at a rewrite / updated 2nd edition would require a full re-read of the books to fully appreciate all the nuances, innuendos and between the lines comments, whether they are deliberate or not.

And to include any element only if it enhances the game rather than making Amber a book-keeping exercise.

[finarvyn]

I've been thinking that the next time I run Amber I would like to include "Half-Assed Trump Artistry" as a power, something a little akin to Broken Pattern.

I missed this comment the first time around, so am grateful in this case for the re-post of it. I think the idea of "Half-Assed Trump Artistry" is awesome and sounds a lot better than "Trump Sketch" even if it might serve a similar purpose.

The analogy to Broken Pattern is really neat!

[jibbajibba]

With apologies to all concerned I'm going to repost (with some modification) a comment I did from way back because it seems relevant here and I'd just as soon not recreate it from scratch.

At one point early in the second series Merlin and Bill Roth are talking and the conversation gets to the subject of trump:

"Those sorcerers you spoke of—from the adjacent kingdoms...Could any of them do up a set of Trumps?"

"Yes, but theirs would be less than perfect. It is my understanding that you have to be an initiate of either the Pattern or the Logrus to do them properly. Some of them could do a sort of half-assed set, though, one you'd be taking your chances on using—maybe winding up dead or in some limbo, sometimes getting where you were headed."

I really love this little exchange, and not just because it involves the use of the term "half-assed" in a serious fantasy context. It also says about lot about how Trump work in Zelazny's universe.

I've been thinking that the next time I run Amber I would like to include "Half-Assed Trump Artistry" as a power, something a little akin to Broken Pattern. The idea is that Pattern or Logrus would be prerequisite for proper Trump Artistry and that anyone lacking these who bought Trump Artistry would get the lesser version instead. I would probably want to lower the price to something like 30 points in order to recognize that A) the lesser version is more problematic than the standard one in the sourcebook and B) the proper version requires a considerable point investment elsewhere.

In fact, depending on how one sees these things, one might stipulate that even half-assed Trump Artistry would have a prerequisite of either Broken Pattern or the Logrus equivalent, however that might work. (Zelazny seems to imply this is the case. Regarding the "sorcerers from adjacent kingdoms" in the quote above, Merlin says: "And then there are the inhabitants of the various Shadow kingdoms nearest to Amber and to Chaos. Those at both ends breed mighty sorcerers, just because of their proximity to the two power centers. Some of the good ones can become fairly adept at it—but their images of the Pattern or the Logrus are imperfect, so they're never quite as good as the real thing." I suppose whether or not "imperfect Pattern" equals "Broken Pattern" is an open question at this point. For my purposes it does.)

However the mechanics work out, this could be a really fun opportunity from a GM standpoint. Just think of all the things that could go wrong with half-assed Trump (although it's probably not cricket to actually kill your players): limbo, static and other interference, trump that suck you in as soon as you look at them, repeated dropped connections like a cellphone in the boondocks, trump that are suddenly so cold that they burn the holder's fingers, trump that occasionally contact a shadow of the target instead of the genuine article, random snippets of conversation or music wafting through the contact for no reason, and so on.

There is a problem with this.
Merlin also says there are lots of trump artists in the Courts but that only a limited subset of the Lords of Chaos assail the Logrus. So you have a conflicted position (not unusual in the Amberverse).
Also in actual game play that rule would play out as too great a restiction.
If you needed to be a pattern master to do trumps then few few PCs would have trump and the ones that did woudl be very poor stat wise. Chasoe trump masters, of which there are more not less would be even worse off. shapeshift required for Logrus, logrus required for trump.... even with partial powers you would probably need to spend 40 or 50 points on powers before you were able to get any trump power.
On a tree basis you could have trump tricks fairly low I guess and then separate trump out totally and stick it as an advanced pattern or Logrus power ... but its a bit out there as an option.

[weilide]

There is a problem with this.
Merlin also says there are lots of trump artists in the Courts but that only a limited subset of the Lords of Chaos assail the Logrus.

But does he actually say that there are trump artist in the courts who have not taken the Logrus? Or is it just the case that the Logrus masters (and therefore potential trump artists) are relatively much more numerous than the very small number of people who have walked the Pattern but still only a small percentage of the very large pool of total Lords of Chaos? I vaguely recall this comment in the books but I can't quite recall where it shows up in particular.

While I agree this is somewhat more demanding in terms of stats, I'm more inclined to deal with the problem by playing around with point costs -- in other words, perhaps give starting PCs more than one hundred points to work with, reducing power costs further, or offering discounted package deals for certain combinations of powers (e.g., shape shifting and Logrus, etc).

[jibbajibba]

But does he actually say that there are trump artist in the courts who have not taken the Logrus? Or is it just the case that the Logrus masters (and therefore potential trump artists) are relatively much more numerous than the very small number of people who have walked the Pattern but still only a small percentage of the very large pool of total Lords of Chaos? I vaguely recall this comment in the books but I can't quite recall where it shows up in particular.

While I agree this is somewhat more demanding in terms of stats, I'm more inclined to deal with the problem by playing around with point costs -- in other words, perhaps give starting PCs more than one hundred points to work with, reducing power costs further, or offering discounted package deals for certain combinations of powers (e.g., shape shifting and Logrus, etc).

I can't recall the exact phrasing but we are definitely led to beleive that there are more trump artists than logrus masters. Logrus is the 'royal' power if you will.

Re points I think there are issues with just upping the points and with 'power-bundles'  Rolling the whole stack into a partial power tree with trump coming after some base pattern/logrus power I think is hte best deal but i still prefer Trump as an independent third power although I know this contradicts the novels (remember Rebuilding the pattern causes the trump to stop working)

[weilide]

That certainly reasonable enough. I guess there are two issues at play here. One is the introduction of a "broken trump" power and the other is the prerequisites and their attendant cost issues. I really like the inclusion of some version of broken pattern because I think it makes the creation of viable shadow PCs with powers (i.e., people from the Golden Circle and the like) easier to justify in some ways. As for the prerequisite business, it's part of my set of unofficial house rules because I think it hews to the novels a bit better than the ADRPG version does (albeit still somewhat problematically, as you observe) but I can certainly concede that other approaches also have a lot to recommend them as well.

[jibbajibba]

Here we differ somewhat.

I prefer to allow Strength to represent "Athletics" such as climbing, swimming, running, gymnastics, martial arts, and so on. I don't associate it with "hit points" at all.

The amount of damage you can take is your Endurance. Endurance is also how long you can last when you are trying a confllict in Strength, Warfare, or Psyche. I see those two applications as really being the same thing, since the "hit point" represents not just actual damage as much as how long you can continue in a combat. This is part of what makes Endurance the most important stat in my game.

I see Strength  as the muscle / body mass and this relates to the amount of physical damage you can take. The 250lb Bodybuilder is less likely to fall over if you hit him with a baseball bat than the 150lb Marathon runner, even though the latter probably has greater endurance.
Endurance is the engine that drives everything though. and how long you can keep going with a crossbow bolt sticking out of you is definitley about endurance not strength.

[Bird_of_Ill_Omen]

There is a problem with this.
Merlin also says there are lots of trump artists in the Courts but that only a limited subset of the Lords of Chaos assail the Logrus. So you have a conflicted position (not unusual in the Amberverse).

Well, Merlin doesn't necessarily say that those "lots of trump artists" are any GOOD.

If sorcerers from shadows adjacent to Amber can draw "half-assed" trumps without walking the Pattern, then I'm sure a flock of non-Logrus-walking Choasites can draw "half-assed" trumps, too.

Still, point taken that Merlin's assertion that you need either Pattern or Logrus to draw effective trump puts a wrinkle in the ADRP rules for player power selection.

[Bird_of_Ill_Omen]

I see Strength  as the muscle / body mass and this relates to the amount of physical damage you can take. The 250lb Bodybuilder is less likely to fall over if you hit him with a baseball bat than the 150lb Marathon runner, even though the latter probably has greater endurance.
Endurance is the engine that drives everything though. and how long you can keep going with a crossbow bolt sticking out of you is definitley about endurance not strength.

In an effort to get my own head around this, I always figured that (if you'll pardon the analogy to another roleplaying system) Strength is your Armor Class, and Endurance is your Hit Points.

So the guy with the higher endurance will get damaged more often, but he'll stay on his feet longer (that wirey, rubbery guy who keeps taking a beating, black eye, split lip, but keeps getting up for more).  The guy with the high strength but low endurance won't get damaged very often, but when he does get damaged (if his endurance is low enough), he'll go down quicker (like a "glass jaw" boxer).

[jibbajibba]

In an effort to get my own head around this, I always figured that (if you'll pardon the analogy to another roleplaying system) Strength is your Armor Class, and Endurance is your Hit Points.

So the guy with the higher endurance will get damaged more often, but he'll stay on his feet longer (that wirey, rubbery guy who keeps taking a beating, black eye, split lip, but keeps getting up for more).  The guy with the high strength but low endurance won't get damaged very often, but when he does get damaged (if his endurance is low enough), he'll go down quicker (like a "glass jaw" boxer).

I get that. A better analogy woudl be Strength is your armour. So you subtract Strength from each blow you take and what gets past is the damage that affects your endurance. This si kind of how I run it but you have to sell Strength as it realy is the weakest of all the stats although A skill system helps reduce that as it takes stuff away from Warfare (like spycraft, lock and trap disablement, pick pockets and the host of toher stuff that somehow gets lumped in there because there is almost no where else to put it.