An Amber-in-all-but-name Game?

[SunBoy]

Well, I certainly don't like the card-mechanics idea, but I might tolerate optional rules on them just for the Trumps...

[Nihilistic Mind]

Well, I certainly don't like the card-mechanics idea, but I might tolerate optional rules on them just for the Trumps...

I was just thinking that! I'd love to see some "official trumps". That alone would be a great way to 're-launch' the game.

And depending on how the card mechanics work, I don't have an issue with trying something new.

[Xenon]

i could see using cards as an 'extra' that you can earn. you save your cards, and 'spend' them when you feel the need. sort of like fate points, or hero points, ect.

the only card-mechanic game i can think of offhand is TORG. and while torg did have rules to support playing in multiple universes with different physics... its not Amber. its a good place to look for ideas sometimes though.

perhaps cards could be used in a way similar to 'Clue', or 'Risk'. gain information from having them, then 'spend' them to gain an advantage... but spending them means letting the information be shared, and thus reduce its value. and we all know how much teamwork there is in Amber.

[Lawbag]

Im a sucker for any game that uses extra features such as a Tarot deck as part of the gaming experience.

[jibbajibba]

If you did you trumps you could try to work in some real meanings of the Trumps. I built an online set of trumps for my PBEM games and used scrys completed by the players to drive sub-plot items based on actual trump readings (I used to be a bit of a tarot card buff). You could take that and simplify it to have types of events that each major arcana could influence. It wouldn;t be too hard to do and you could even allow you to play them on your opponents and add in reversed meanings

[finarvyn]

I agree. Roger was a huge fan of Tarot cards, as can be noted in his use of the Trumps. It would be wonderful to have a new Amber Trump Deck to launch a new game line, and at the same time to have some sort of "alternate card rules" to go along with the traditional diceless system. It would help to keep the game more unique.

[Qwilion]

Greetings,

I have an idea for a Diceless game, based on revised game mechanics (game mechanics are not subject to copy write), my codename/working title for this idea has been "The New Pattern" inspired by what Corwin created with the Jewel of Judgement, but first let me give you my background

My name is Steven D. Russell I have been running Rite Publishing for the last year and a half, we do licenced Rpg products for a "dead" game called Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved (the main book is out of print and is only sold as a pdf). We also recently started working with the Pathfinder Rpg compatibility licence.

We use the patronage business model (following in the footsteps of Wolfgang Baur's Open Design) to create user-generated custom designed niche rpg products. I wont' lie to you, this is a premium service that creates Professional high quality content that would never be successful as a retail product.

To make it simple what a collective group of patrons does with my help is directly commision writers, artists, editors, proofreaders, cartographers, graphic designers, etc. to create the pdf book they want with acccess to the print on demand version at cost (buy as many as you want).  We set up levels of contribution and access which you pay for and a threshold goal that must be met within 60 days of launch or all money is refunded.    Its a bit more detailed that this if you want to know alot about patronage I recommend our FAQ

What's the catch you say? Its not an exclusive product, Rite Publishing will sell the product as a retail product, but we will never sell it for less than what a standard patronage cost.

Why would I do this? Because both myself and one of my editors Perry Grosshans are huge Amber and Amber DRPG fans.

If your interested in this idea, let me know. Let me know who you would want as the Lead Designer, the artists, how big of a word count/pagecount it will need to be. (I am assuming it will be at least 48,000 words/96 pages ).

Steve Russell
Rite Publishing

steve (at) ritepublishing (dot) com

[SunBoy]

If someone wants to see their site, he might want to try the corrected adress.

Right. First time I hear about this business model, but I've just read your FAQ. I've got a question. For all I understand, unless one of your patrons is/has permission from the copyright holder, it is still a violation to use said material, right? (This is not an attack, I just want to be sure what we're talking about). Would you be willing and able to work on this still, side-stepping copyrighted material? I assume you would, given the thread you chose to post in.

[Qwilion]

Sorry about that for some reason it left off the "ml" from the address, I have fixed it. Teach me to always test those before, I go off to do something else.

I would NOT be making Amber the DRPG game, and I would NOT be using any of Roger Zelazney's IP.  I would love to, but as I understand it, that's all tied up with Diceless by Design and Roger Zelazny's estate and you can't even so much as email Diceless by Design as they don't even have a functioning website.

We would be creating a customized Diceless design based on patron input,

We can use all the tropes of The Multiverse, Disfunctional Families, A God Am I, Magitek, Mirror Worlds, Etc. to create a work with a similar feel but this would be something new.  You can use Amber and the Amber DRPG as Inspiration but we are not going to steal from anyone.

We can also look at the  1946 novel The Dark World by Henry Kuttner  for inspiration,  as Zelazny has been quoted as saying it influenced his work as well as Philip José Farmer's World of Tiers,

You can however use all the Shakespeare you like along with the Wheeler-Everret interpretation of quantum-mechanics.

As The Rpgpundit put it create a better game with all the style, none of the baggage, with all new IP so as not to violate copyright.   In a similar way that Midnight Rpg was inspired by Lord of the Rings except that in thier version Sauron wins and all the names are changed so as not to violate copy write, I think that with the multiverse trope you can easily duplicate this.

To put it simply i won't use some else's IP, and I won't slap a "compatible with Game X" on the cover or in the advertising without the game owner's permission because it violates their IP, but again game mechanics cannot be trademarked.

[Ivanhoe]

Using the diceless rules (probably heavily modified through everyone's experience) and having a setting somehow similar to Amber wouldn't pose any problem I think. I wouldn't even be sure that making an Amber RPG for free would be a legal probem as long as no one earns money through it and as long as no official Amber RPG are edited. (Overwatchers of the Zelazny foundation, please tell me if I am wrong ?). Anyway, trying to keep an Amber RPG community alive is in the interest of anyone, including the Zelazny foundation, who don't manange to have a line of products in this field. And ADRPG is the only RPG I know where reading (hence buying) the original books are so heavily recommended.

A long time ago I set up a wiki for people to make an encyclopedia of Amber. At the time I thought I would have spare time to fill it but, well, I changed job a week later... It is still at amberpedia.free.fr and fairly spared by the Chinese spamming bots. It doesn't have a lot of content. I wouldn't mind if people wanted to wipe it out to make a fresh project on it. I won't have much time to follow it, but this site will stay there. I can be reached at yvanhoe@free.fr but you'll have to put a [FromWebsite] in your message body to get past my spam filters.

[boulet]

I continue to pine after the rights to the Amber RPG for Evil Hat. There. I said it.

Fred Hicks seems to think about his own version of Amber RPG.

[Hairfoot]

I'd definitely check out an Amber clone.  From what I've read of it, it seems like a compelling game system, but I have no interest in Zelazny's universe.

[RPGPundit]

Its not really Amber as such, but there is a completely satirical scenario in my newly-released Gnomemurdered 2e game that's called "Nine Gnomemurders in Aembar". Amber fans may wish to check it out.

RPGPundit

[Drascus]

This could probably work, but it would need to retain the core elements that make Amber fun, which are not always obvious.

For instance:

The diceless system is fine, but not actually the core of the game.  Different attributes would also make a game that worked just fine.  For some games, having a 'top attribute' person from the auction is what makes it, and for some, that doesn't work.

There are some really important things about Amber that contribute to the 'magic' of the experience that the rule system supports and helps thrive.

* Characters in Amber are Special:  It's not that you have infinite resources, it's that your character is literally someone better and awesome in an undeniable way.  It helps a lot with feeling like a hero/protagonist.

* Your Antagonists are Family: You have to be creative in Amber when solving problems.  You cannot just murder everyone who's causing something bad, like you can in most role playing games, because that person is your uncle.  Which means you have to talk to him, which means more and better role playing.

* PCs are Larger than Life:  Knowing that your PC is supposed to be an iconic person is great for helping people get out there and role-play.  It leads to a lot of scene-chewing moments but that's so much preferred to people just being quiet and rolling dice for combat resolution.  It gets people involved in scenes they would never be involved in during another game.

* There's no break in the action:  This is common to all diceless games but it really helps support the above points.  When you never have to switch from talking to dice-slinging, it helps keep everyone in character.  The fact that you have to say what's happening in combat instead of rolling it just keeps the role playing building through the whole session.



Any setting could work and feel like an Amber game if you had the above points more or less nailed into it.  You could easily change the diceless rules enough that there would be no possible copyright violation and the game would still feel like Amber.  Zelazney's work is great, but the above are the parts of his work that the game really capitalized on and made memorable at the gaming table.

So from there, you could either build a setting that fits the bill, or you could simply create a rule book with the above points as part of the building blocks of the game, and make it a generic system like GURPS that encourages people to create their own appropriate settings.

[jibbajibba]

This could probably work, but it would need to retain the core elements that make Amber fun, which are not always obvious.

For instance:

The diceless system is fine, but not actually the core of the game.  Different attributes would also make a game that worked just fine.  For some games, having a 'top attribute' person from the auction is what makes it, and for some, that doesn't work.

There are some really important things about Amber that contribute to the 'magic' of the experience that the rule system supports and helps thrive.

* Characters in Amber are Special:  It's not that you have infinite resources, it's that your character is literally someone better and awesome in an undeniable way.  It helps a lot with feeling like a hero/protagonist.

* Your Antagonists are Family: You have to be creative in Amber when solving problems.  You cannot just murder everyone who's causing something bad, like you can in most role playing games, because that person is your uncle.  Which means you have to talk to him, which means more and better role playing.

* PCs are Larger than Life:  Knowing that your PC is supposed to be an iconic person is great for helping people get out there and role-play.  It leads to a lot of scene-chewing moments but that's so much preferred to people just being quiet and rolling dice for combat resolution.  It gets people involved in scenes they would never be involved in during another game.

* There's no break in the action:  This is common to all diceless games but it really helps support the above points.  When you never have to switch from talking to dice-slinging, it helps keep everyone in character.  The fact that you have to say what's happening in combat instead of rolling it just keeps the role playing building through the whole session.



Any setting could work and feel like an Amber game if you had the above points more or less nailed into it.  You could easily change the diceless rules enough that there would be no possible copyright violation and the game would still feel like Amber.  Zelazney's work is great, but the above are the parts of his work that the game really capitalized on and made memorable at the gaming table.

So from there, you could either build a setting that fits the bill, or you could simply create a rule book with the above points as part of the building blocks of the game, and make it a generic system like GURPS that encourages people to create their own appropriate settings.

I think the essence of the Amber game is actually far simpler and can be summed up in 2 ideas. You have access to power, and you trust no one.

I have been reading the George RR Martin books The Song of Ice and Fire series and you could easily run an Amber style game there because the same rules apply.

The main things that differentiate the setting are simply that characters start the game with power and they don't act as a party.. You don't start with a 1st level elf who kills a few orcs. You start off powerful. But the main difference is that you are in direct competition with all other players. This is the edge. In other RPGs you are a team. A party of elves, a team of cops, a posse of deputies, a crew of pirates, even a team of clones sent on some dumbfool mission in an odd quadrant of the Alpha complex. In most games there is an expectation that you will act as a party and combine your skills to complete goals. In Amber you rarely act as a party, your own objectives are more important to you. There may be times when your objectives coinside with others but that is the exception rather than the norm (also why it works so well as a PBM).

This extends right into char gen and the auction. It's an adversarial character gen process. You don't sit down and say we need a healer, a pilot, a thief, someone who can lead the line in combat and a guy that can shoot the cahones of a gnat at 200 yards. You say ... I'm better than you... ha.