Farwell to Amber (archived post)

[RPGPundit]

Farewell to Amber

I hadn't gotten around to posting it yet, but about two weeks ago my Amber campaign came to an end. It was a good last session, but not the most glorious of endings and not the most glorious campaign.
It suffered from a lot of problems, mistakes I hope to learn from for the next time I run Amber.  It suffered from too much turnover; something that's bad in most campaigns, but that in Amber can be damn near fatal if you have one or two central people suddenly dropping out of the game. And we did; one player died and chose not to make another character, and four players left over the course of the game; of which I'd say two (Starton and Drake) were already in very central positions of importance to the plot.
There's not too much you can do about that sort of thing; but I'm starting to consider that for the next time, I'm going to focus as much as I can on having trusted players who'll commit long-term rather than just having as many Amber players as possible.

Second, the game suffered from slow patches, partly because of gaps left by leaving players, but at the same time maybe because I was not giving players enough room and time to develop their personal projects in the game.
There was also a feeling among some players that the game had too much stuff happening off-scene in private communications between GM and player. I believe in notes and private talks, and like some of what this fosters; but I think next time I'll be more careful to reign in how much of it happens.

Third, several of the players felt there was a "fairness deficit", that certain players had advantages of knowledge over others. Certainly, new players can feel overwhelmed with Amber.  I plan in my next Amber campaign to fix this by having more care to explain in detail what powers and abilities are and can do and how to get them. Also, next time I plan (at least, as of now) to make all powers point-buy, no freebies.

Finally, some of my players were dissatisfied with the advancement system. This seems a little odd to me, since its not something that affected them in play as such; I guess ignorance is bliss. But I gave points mainly for conflict resolution, as per the default system in the Amber book. I think next time, I might try something different.
One of my players, Alejo, had a very fine idea I hope I remember next time I run a game, and I think its worth sharing: have each player write a Wish List, not of points and powers (he'll do that too, but that's later), but of GOALS. Things he wants to accomplish, things that are important to him. The GM will review with the player in a general sense whether a goal would not be worth points, would be worth a few points, or would be worth a lot of points, and exactly what the player might have to do to accomplish these things. Each time there was a new advancement session, the player could change his goals as things stopped being important to him.  I'm going to keep fleshing this seed-idea of Alejo's out, and will strongly consider using it in my next game.

Anyways, my next game of Amber shouldn't likely be for two or three years, barring any unexpected surprises. But hey, who knows what could pop up between now and then?

RPGPundit

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(february 18, 2010)

[Croaker]

Thanks for sharing this with us.

I'm sorry to hear your campain ended, and not as well as one could have hoped, but you seem to have learned from it so, hopefully, the next will fare better

[jibbajibba]

I use the goal based model pundy and it works. Found most successful if the goals were short to medium term rather than long term theat way you have a rolling set of 3 goals worth 1 - 5 XP each depending on the challenge.

[RPGPundit]

Well, don't be sorry that the campaign ended, the campaign was set up to end when it had run its course, it was never meant to be an "unlimited time" campaign.  It was about the menace of the Shroudlings, ultimately speaking (as well as a fight for the Throne of Chaos), and when that issue (or those issues) resolved one way or another, the campaign was going to end.
What there is to be sorry about were the logistical and human errors that led to the campaign being less than what it could have been.

RPGPundit