Broken Artifacts

[Headless]

Hi all,

Looking to start a new Amber game.  It's going to be in a non-Amber setting, my players haven't read the books and I have a personal aversion to running other people's NPC's (that said I am stealing Mandor, he may not be recognizable to anyone else but I will know he is Mandor.). I can tell you more about it later I have a specific and simple question which my have already been covered if so I apologize please point me at the thread and send me on my way.

What happens if someone's pet or magic sword gets broken or killed?  If someone invests 15 or 20 points (or more) into a psychic, shape shifting, shadow manipulating combat monster body guard, that's going to be a problem for the other players, the other players may try to kill it, and if they are cleaver they should be able too.  Now what?  If the points haven't been spent to make it regenerate who ever invested in the body guard is going to be out a bunch of points.  

I can't just let them find a new one off in shadow or reach into a hollow log that had to be there and pull it out good as new.  That undoes the actions of other players.  I don't see anything in the rules that covers that situation nor have I seen it I any of the online reading I've been doing.  Any suggestions apreaciated, the more play tested the better.

On a related note I have no consern about transferable attributes.  I am going to run them like a couple of magic rings (Tolkien and the spikeard.) Anything with enough control over you to make you better or stronger is going to be able to exert influence on other aspects and is going to have its own agenda or be tied to some power with its win agenda.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Name Not Provided]

If you're running a throne war, I'd just rule it dead, too bad for you. In an actual longer campaign, kick the points back to them for character advancement.

Even the most awesome critter/gadget/magic thingie is no match for any Amberite worthy of the name. But smashing stuff is dull. Far better to use such things for your own gains. Why not recruit/steal it for yourself, make an alliance with the player to further your own ends, talk up how bad it is with your relatives and let them do the dirty work?

Worse comes to worst, you can throw Primal Chaos in it's face if things don't work out. But killing something potentially useful is a last resort.

[Headless]

I've been thinking about your answer.   For the throne war cool, that makes sense.  

I don't like the answer for a longer campaign.  Thank you for answering i just want more. I don't have a better one, but if i just give the points back it seems like i am undoing all the work the destroyers did.  "We finally killed the wonder dog" next session.  Meet the wonder Cat.  

Can artifacts be stolen?  Eric and Julian must have had Grayswindier well secured yet, it matters not to a master of shadow.  I am ok with anything if they work for it ovef time and with alot of good role playing.   If one of my players stealz th wonder kitten then and makes it work against the ower who spent 20 pointz.  Ok cool i dont know how they will do that but maybe they can find a way, give her a fish aint gonna cut it.  That situation would take some balancing.  It would  be a 40 point swing.  If someone has been through that i would love to hear what you did.  If not don't worry about it.   I don't think it will come up.

I am more worried about one player losing 20 points when their guard dog is stabbed so they can be captured.   Or some one throws primal chaos at their invincible armor.

Tiny screen.   If you made it too the end thank you.

[Name Not Provided]

I don't have a better one, but if i just give the points back it seems like i am undoing all the work the destroyers did.  "We finally killed the wonder dog" next session.  Meet the wonder Cat.  

Keep in mind that character advancement is not at all a common thing. It is usually done at the end of some larger, overarching story is dealt with, more or less. So if the the Wonder Dog is axed in session one, you might still be waiting on that point refund for X amount of sessions. In my own experience, players are reluctant to dump points in something that won't serve some utility on a regular basis.

Look back at the stories themselves. Very few of the main players invest in abilities that aren't internal. The problem with spending points on stuff that isn't specifically YOU is that they are able to be destroyed or subverted by your loving relatives/enemies/both. It's great to have a belt that makes you as strong as Gerard, but not so much when psychic cousin strips it off your mindlocked body and you're right back to using your regular strength. Better to just invest in your own abilities, which are much harder to take from you.

I will be the first to admit that point refund is not the ideal answer, but it seems best to give the player a chance to reassess how important this particular item/critter is to their concept, rather than tank the points and tell them better luck next time. I haven't come up with any better answer, at the least.

For what it's worth, very few of the games I've run in Amber have artifacts or critters getting trashed. Most players seem to prefer taking goodies for themselves, by force or trickery. So it may not even come up.

Reminds me, I REALLY need to run an Amber game again. Been a while.

[Croaker]

I'll put it another way.

If a player was seriously wounded, would you reduce her Strength or Warfare forever?
If someone trashed her in psychic combat, would you reduce her to, say, from Amber to Human psyche, without any compensation in point or hope to regain her former level?
Would you allow a PC wipe the knowledge of Sorcery from another player, losing these 15 points forever?

A creature or artifact you've invested points in is far different from one you've conjured or found in shadow. They're part of who you are.
If you allow paid for C&A to be lost forever without refund, why would a player ever bother with paying instead of just using the Logrus to find her a magic sword?

To take an example from comic books, Iron Man may have his armor broken, or lost, but, sooner or later, he'll have a new one. Mjolnir was broken, yet thor managed to get it fixed.
So, someone might break or steal the item, but, sooner or later, the player should get it back, although this may take a little time. Or if she wants to get rid of it, she might get a refund.
I can very well see Frakir being destroyed, and Merlin taking some time to reach through the logrus to summon a memory of it, for exemple.

[JesterRaiin]

Even the most awesome critter/gadget/magic thingie is no match for any Amberite worthy of the name.

I beg your pardon?

Practically every Prince of Amber had his ass handed to him by clearly inferior enemy, who was clever enough to use all possible assets (including the land itself) to his advantage.

What happens if someone's pet or magic sword gets broken or killed?

For all it's worth, I treat Artifacts similarly to PCs. They can't be simply shattered/killed just like that.

Enemies, even if they don't full understand why, shouldn't simply break or slay the Artifact. They should feel the urge to possess them, wield for themselves or make them part of their collection (such a marvelous beast, it'll be great addition to my monster menagerie!), or if it's not applicable, they should chose to kick its butt, leave somewhere half dead, throw it away to a city sewage or mock the player (that was pathetic - now if you wanna prove you're actually worth something, come at my fortress of despair and try to reclaim your treasure).

That's the power of Artifacts. They aren't just nice and handy assets. They are something more.

If there's no other way and the Artifact must be destroyed, it has to be some epic moment: PC decides to sacrifice his Hammer of War to stop Worldbreaking Doomsday Device, battle beast leaps over the body of his wounded master and attacks more powerful enemy, dies in the process but allows his master to get away.

99% of such occurrences are supposed to be conscious choice and therefore it's a trade - you lost your thingie and points that went to its creation, but you gained the second chance, survived, or saved the world. No givebacks.

[Nihilistic Mind]

I usually give the points back, but if the player expects to just get something exactly the same by the next game session, I usually try to convince them to do something else with it. The reasoning of having an object (or creature, or shadow) destroyed over and over is silly, and if something messes with the tone of the game, I usually just rule it out.

The easiest way I've handled things is usually translate the point cost as Good Stuff, then, if the player wishes to quest for a new sword, or new dog or whatever else, I will tend to make that part of the story somehow.

Bringing up how Corwin finds Lorraine (rather than Avalon) and how the little differences and details that differ from the original are what grates at him the most is also a good way to point out that making the same item over and over is futile, and actually should be annoying to the character himself. If that won't convince them, then in-game reminders might be great ("No, your guardian dog did not warn you in the same manner as your previous dog, so you did not react quickly enough to avoid X...")

This is pretty hypothetical stuff since I have not run into this issue very often, but generally I just give the points back and talk to the player about a new artifact being too similar if it's necessary.

tl;dr: Give them the points back as Good Stuff, figure out the rest on a case-by-case basis.

[finarvyn]

I beg your pardon?

Practically every Prince of Amber had his ass handed to him by clearly inferior enemy, who was clever enough to use all possible assets (including the land itself) to his advantage.

Agreed, and I suspect that it all comes down to the degree of awesomeness implied by each step of the ladder. Zelazny tells us that his main characters are better than mere shadow humans but is vague as to exactly how much better. We see Corwin lift half a car, certainly, and fight dozens of soldiers up the stairs of Kolvir, but in many ways Zelazny is vague about the specific power levels and Erick was sort of vauge as well. I think that some folks assume that everyone of Amber level must be orders of magnitude above shadow folk, whereas in many of my campaigns I assume they are better but not mythically so. Bottom line is that each GM's game is different, but I don't like to think of Amberites as superheroes.

Just my two cents, of course.

[finarvyn]

I usually give the points back, but if the player expects to just get something exactly the same by the next game session, I usually try to convince them to do something else with it.

This generates a thought in my brain that might be better served in its own thread, but I'm going to ask it here anyway. When you give points back, just how fast does this happen?

I can see two models here, instant refund and slow regaining. With an instant refund a GM could just say "well, you've got your 20 points back now so how do you want to spend them?"

I'm more on the side of a gradual refund. My thinking here is that I'm pretty stingy with game XP and rather than giving a character a sudden influx I prefer to have them slowly regain character points along the way. I like to have my players supply me with a wish list and sometimes I can just tell them, "hey, you added in another power word" or whatever, and I like to allow them to regain points in much the same way. Of course, this might mean that a broken artifact resurfaces later in a character gaining Sorcery instead, but that's the way the game goes sometimes.

How do others do it?

[JesterRaiin]

Bottom line is that each GM's game is different, but I don't like to think of Amberites as superheroes.

Same here.

Far too often the most powerful Amberites and Chaosites alike find themselves dangerously close to dying and it's not only because of violence - they are starving, sick, exhausted. I think the person they resemble most is Wagner's Kane - he won't succumb to old age, but he can die as easy as any mortal around him. It's the natural cunning, ages worth experience and far too often pure luck that saves his ass on numerous times.

That's how I like my multi-world heroes. Powerful, but still more human than supermen.

[daniel_ream]

I can't just let them find a new one off in shadow or reach into a hollow log that had to be there and pull it out good as new.  That undoes the actions of other players.  I don't see anything in the rules that covers that situation nor have I seen it I any of the online reading I've been doing.

Then you haven't been looking very hard.  That's the default, RAW way of handling artifacts that PCs have paid points for, and in fact the example of pulling Grayswandir out of the hollow tree is explicitly called out in the ADRPG as an example of this.

Once a PC has paid points for an artifact, it is an inextricable part of their character, just as Grayswandir is to Corwin or Morgenstern is to Julian.  The other PCs can nuke it from orbit all they like, the owning PC can find it again in a trifle.

Can artifacts be stolen?  Eric and Julian must have had Grayswindier well secured yet, it matters not to a master of shadow.

It matters not to Corwin, because he paid points for Grayswandir.

Agreed, and I suspect that it all comes down to the degree of awesomeness implied by each step of the ladder. Zelazny tells us that his main characters are better than mere shadow humans but is vague as to exactly how much better. We see Corwin lift half a car, certainly, and fight dozens of soldiers up the stairs of Kolvir, but in many ways Zelazny is vauge about the specific power levels and Erick was sort of vauge as well.

Oh, not this again.  I do wish the mailing list archives still existed so this didn't have to keep getting debunked.  Wujcik said a lot of things about the scions of Amber that are not even remotely attested to in the book.  I don't know why he did so, perhaps he felt it made things more gameable.  The car lifting happens in a Shadow where "there's something funny about the gravity", and the Kolvir thing has more to do with Corwin's First Rank Endurance than anything else.  Cf. also Thermopylae, Battle Of and every Crusader castle ever built.

[JesterRaiin]

The car lifting happens in a Shadow where "there's something funny about the gravity"

Nobody says a thing about how much the local gravity is different, in what way and whether it's what makes Corwin feel dizzy. It might be because the gravity is actually heavier, or because it's lighter, or because the atmosphere is also a bit different - Random mentions it too. And since things and objects are still anchored to the ground pretty well, to the point that a car becomes stuck in a soft soil, it's safe to assume that we're not talking about very big difference.

In Merlin's series, the protagonist recalls that his friend throws a Harley-Davidson motorcycle at a guy and it takes place on Earth, so we may safely assume that Amberites are far stronger than common folk.

[daniel_ream]

Nobody says a thing about how much the local gravity is different, in what way and whether it's what makes Corwin feel dizzy.

Hey, let's argue about what colour Flora's hair is, too.

The scions of Amber are physically more powerful than baseline humanity.  No one has ever disputed that.  Corwin's Mutant Healing Factor alone indicates they're superior to homo sapiens sapiens.  My point is that what Wujcik says about the capabilities of the scions is not even remotely attested to in the book, and in some cases is outright contradicted.  And because Zelazny isn't a pedantic continuity wanker, how much is native ability and how much is the ability to manipulate local Shadow is never specified either.

If you want to play the scions as demigods, go right ahead.  Some of the most dysfunctional Amber games I ever saw started with this premise and I don't think that's a coincidence.

In Merlin's series, the protagonist recalls that his friend throws a Harley-Davidson motorcycle at a guy and it takes place on Earth, so we may safely assume that Amberites are far stronger than common folk.

Both protagonists in the Zelazny chronicles of Amber are not only Unreliable Narrators, but they explicitly tell the reader that they're lying to them at various points.

[JesterRaiin]

Hey, let's argue about what colour Flora's hair is, too.

I don't get you. First you drop by, scold the guy about gravity & shit while rolling eyes, then you refuse to pursue the opportunity to waste endless hours and enormous amounts of energy on a pointless discussion with a guy you won't ever meet, concerning irrelevant aspect of a niche game build upon works of a mildly-popular, long-time dead author.

I can't even begin to guess what's your motivation.

[Nihilistic Mind]

This generates a thought in my brain that might be better served in its own thread, but I'm going to ask it here anyway. When you give points back, just how fast does this happen?

I can see two models here, instant refund and slow regaining. With an instant refund a GM could just say "well, you've got your 20 points back now so how do you want to spend them?"

I'm more on the side of a gradual refund. My thinking here is that I'm pretty stingy with game XP and rather than giving a character a sudden influx I prefer to have them slowly regain character points along the way. I like to have my players supply me with a wish list and sometimes I can just tell them, "hey, you added in another power word" or whatever, and I like to allow them to regain points in much the same way. Of course, this might mean that a broken artifact resurfaces later in a character gaining Sorcery instead, but that's the way the game goes sometimes.

How do others do it?

As usual, I will talk to the player and see what they have in mind. I tend to play with folks who are reasonable and will not break a good game by bringing Item 1.1 the week after Item 1.0 broke or whatever. Besides, I have found that players rarely stay so rigid in their original "character build" that a pool of points made available to them returns to their original purpose. Usually, by the time something important to them is destroyed, there are many reasons why they wouldn't or shouldn't rebuild the exact same thing.

I think the approach of a gradual return of points is rather elegant, but if the player has an idea and the characters actual have time to invest in themselves, then I'd be fine with that too. This is very hypothetical and depends on how many points were first invested, what the circumstances were, etc, so I'm not rigid with it. I just know that somehow the player will see the points returned to him/her.