Campaign Report: Pundy's GMing Amber again [Actual Play]

[SunBoy]

Well, I'll be starting a brand new Amber campaign, as a player, next Saturday, and every other Saturday after that (yes, I do know what bi-weekly means, thank you very much). Our very own RPGPundit will be doing the honours as the GM, and for now there are five confirmed players (and one pending), Mr. Kim Jong Il... ah'mean, JongWK, among them. I've already played along two of the other three boys (two boys and a girl, to be exact), and JWK vouches for the third, so it promises to be fun.
So you may be thinking, "and why exactly should I give a toss about that?"
Because, dear reader, as a part of my player contributions I'll be posting an "Actual Play" thingie, a campaign log, right here in your trusty Official Amber DRPG and Erick Wujcik Fanforum.

What I know of the campaign so far: As you may have read in the owner's blog,

(...)The characters will all be children of the Elder Amberites, 8 years after the end of the Patternfall war (so right around the time the second novels kick off).  By amber time it will have been 18 years since the patternfall war started; and all the characters will have been born sometime prior to that, but likewise all will have been too young to be taken along to march on the Courts of Chaos.  So we'll have characters playing in the range from 18 to about 30 years of age.(...)

Can't start with Logrus, and you need "a very good reason" to be a shapeshifter (and that will surely affect your character -nastily, if I know the man), and it seems that we'll have a few quite interesting ways to start with Pattern (more on that after the character creation).
So, next saturday the auction will take place, and technology allowing (that is, my laptop having a good enough antenna to leech internet from the neighbouring hotel), i'll be running a live update on it and the rest of the process.

There you've got, stay tuned, and anxiously wait for more, dear reader!

Excelsior! (Hehe, couldn't help myself)

[Nihilistic Mind]

Looking forward to it!!!

[SunBoy]

Looking forward to deliver! (And to the 10 CPs delivering will grant me)

[JongWK]

(And to the 10 CPs delivering will grant me)

SunBoy's true intentions are revealed! :haw:


Not that you are the only one thinking about bonus points, of course...

[RPGPundit]

Well, in this particular type of player contribution, Sunboy beat you to the punch, Jong.

And thus, the competition begins... bwah hah hah hahaha!

RPGPundit

[JongWK]

He is free to use his time writing the AP. I'll just spend my time planning for the actual game.

[SunBoy]

I don't need that. You get as mastermindy as you want. Just remember what happens to masterminds. Hint: look at your own avatar.
Me, I trust in the power of the Walrus. And hey, my true intentions go way beyond that. They include a certain throne, a certain glass-bit, and unlimited rice pudding.

[JongWK]

I don't need that. You get as mastermindy as you want. Just remember what happens to masterminds. Hint: look at your own avatar.

You mean that I'll get the Amber equivalent of a nuclear weapon, and nobody will mess with me?

Sounds good...

[SunBoy]

Yup, but you'll have to dress up as Elvis. And try to sing "Hound dog" while faking a norcorean accent.

[SunBoy]

Are you ready?
I can't hear you!

He lives in a pineapple under the sea... no wait, that wasn't it. What I meant was... Today, starting a few minutes from now, we'll be starting the attribute auction, and since I'm obviously leeching bandwidth from some dummy out there, I'll be reporting it live. I'll do it by editing the same post, for ease of reading. Oh, BTW, if you're reading this, please take a minute to let me know, just to be sure I'm not doing this in vain.

[Nihilistic Mind]

Come on already! Give us more! There, I'm listening...

[SunBoy]

Ok, there you go:

We've got 6 players after all, one girl and 5 boys. We've already done the psyche auction, and the girl, Jimena, ended up first with 25 points. I won't post the rest of the numbers, least of all mine, so as not to give anything away to the victims... I mean, my fellow players.

We're doing the strenght one now. Just placing first bets.

Ok, a little more info now. We'll do three little "extra" auctions, winner takes all, for Pattern (that is, starting with Pattern imprint without the normal cost), a court office in Amber (some other title in addition to being a Prince/ss), and a diplomatic office somewhere in the Golden Circle.

While I was typing the above, I just happened to get the first place in strenght, with 35 points. It was a very close call, between me and Cristian, the guy who plays Chameleon Boy in our Legion of Super Heroes campaign, who ended up with 31.

The endurance one's being fiercely disputed, with 35 now and going up.

Ok, so maybe not "going up". It was over for Marcos at 35.

Warfare's next. Placing first bets now.

Surprising abolutely no one, JongWK started high, with 16, and as we speak he's getting it for 30.

We'll start now with the Pattern auction. This is winner takes all. This means that the only one who spends the points s/he bets is the winner. Is in 30 now, for Cristian... and is sold.

Court office in Amber: 7 points for Marcos.

Next up: Amber Ambassador to somewhere in the Golden Circle.

5 for Cristian and going... somewhere...

6 for Alejo... gone.

Ok, while we're in a little impasse now, I'll tell you a little about the players.

Me, I do not need introduction... well, maybe I do. Perhaps, you've been following certain Actual Play posts here, or the owner's blog, or even the old OD&D campaign log at ENworld. I've played Alendalansuinel, the mighty immortal Walrus in OD&D, Ezra in the roman campaign and, obviously, SunBoy in the current Legion campaign.
Alejo plays Colossal Boy in LOSH, and Sir Alan in the Pendragon campaign, (maybe you remember the "enthusiast geek" frequently mentioned as Pundy's intellectual spar in Pundy's blog?). He usually plays the straight guy, though, in his own words "is not that I like to play a serious guy, but it's not my fault that the rest of the characters are so stupid they need a nanny". Of course, that applies  to more cooperative games. Let's see how he likes power-struggles and such.

[SunBoy]

Characters (very brief outline):

Jimena: Lady Diana - daughter of Bleys, 9 points of Good Stuff, 21 yo. She was well liked by daddy, but was raised mostly by Fiona.

JongWK: Lord Morgan, son of Benedict, who of course expected lots of him. He was kept in Avalon, well trained and cared for. 28 yo, 8 points of Good Stuff.

Marcos: Lord Starton - son of Caine, grew in a Shadow Earth until his teenage years, he's Minister for Science and Development of
Amber. He grew in a Shadow Earth, somewhen in the near future, around XXII century. 3 points of Good Stuff.

Alejo: Lord Drake - unknown father, 1 point of Good Stuff. Raised by the royal family of Begma, after being found in Eregnor in a razed manor. He was presented to Eric, shortly before his death, and taken by Gerard.

Cristian: Lord Maximo, also son of Caine but asian in features, travelled a lot in his early years, by sea of course, and grew in a Shadow resembling the China of the three kingdoms era; he was left in the care of Gerard after a few years of that. 25 years old, he's got 5 points of Bad Stuff.

Me, I'm playing Dietmar. He's a son of Benedict too, and grew in Avalon too, but Benedict doesn't like him and never cared for him. He was never hostile, but simply ignored and seemed embarassed of him. He went to Amber on his own, because his father couldn't be bothered. Benedict seems maybe like... embarassed of him, or something like that. Explanation: 13 points of Bad Stuff. He's 32 years old.

Sorry, more later.

Ok. Well, we just finished the character creations. Tomorrow I'll finish a brief outline of the characters and I'll post also the full transcription of the character quiz, but we're calling it a night here.

See you tomorrow, faithful reader.

[RPGPundit]

Good start so far, Sun Boy.

I'll add that the campaign is off to a good start too: there was no totally wacked out spending-fest in the auction (first place in all of them went for between 25-35 points); and all of the attributes are just about equally "weighted".

We have one more "wild card" player possibly due to join the group in our next session (in two weeks).

Some of you here might already have some idea of some of the subplots I'm planning to implement; please try to avoid spoiling!

RPGPundit

[Abrojo]

Some of you here might already have some idea of some of the subplots I'm planning to implement; please try to avoid spoiling!

Yes please!