AMBER: creating better Roleplayers since 1986?

[Croaker]

A great GM is one who can tailor his game to the mood and desires of the players so that everyone loves the game and has a great time. A great player is probably someone who participates fully in the game and engenders enjoyment in the other players. On this basic I am a mediocre GM and can vary from a great player to an ass depending on circumstance.

Agreed.

I'd had that I'm currently playing Ars magica, and, well, it's all about roleplay (Oh, and magic, too)

[Schattensturm]

Bollocks. You are lookiong for the egg when you need to find the chicken.

Amber attacts a certain sort of player or GM. Ones that put emphasis on character and interaction. You all play Amber and so you are the type of GM or player that thinks that is enjoyable and so you meet kindred spirits and you rate them as great GMs or Roleplayers.

...

Saying Amber makes great roleplayers is saying buying a ferrari must make you rich because all these guys driving round in ferraris have loads of cash.

I guess you are both wrong and right here, jibbajibba. Of course Amber attracts a certain kind of players and GMs. And yes, an Amber player ain't automatically a better roleplayer than, let's say someone playing D&D 4E, Shadowrun, World of Darkness, or whatever.
Still I believe to have learned a lot about roleplaying thanks to the ADRPG. So I guess it made me a better roleplayer. And I have learned more from it about roleplaying than from any other system with the possible exception of DSA, which was my first system ever played.
E.g. D&D 4E creates good tabletop strategy players. Combat is an fun part of many roleplaying games, it even is what roleplaying systems developed from, but it is not primarily about "role"playing.
Furthermore I know quite a lot of roleplayers who don't like diceless roleplaying at all. I gave some of them the ADRPG rulebook as a lecture on good storytelling and they all agreed that it is excellent work and improved their roleplaying and storytelling. Thus even people who wouldn't want to play diceless, agree on the quality of Erick's effort.

[moritheil]

Amber attacts a certain sort of player or GM. Ones that put emphasis on character and interaction.

Absolutely.

You all play Amber and so you are the type of GM or player that thinks that is enjoyable and so you meet kindred spirits and you rate them as great GMs or Roleplayers.

Not necessarily.  I can see how there's bias, but I wouldn't even consider it wrong: there is a difference between a munchkin who only knows how to crunch numbers and a powergamer who abuses numeric systems but also knows how to roleplay well.

The latter might not gain anything new from playing Amber, but the former would be forced to think in new ways.  Of course, RPGs are rarely things that people are forced to do; AMBER is self-selecting to begin with.  So changing preexisting players isn't really where I'd look at the "merits" of AMBER in shaping roleplaying habits.

Saying Amber makes great roleplayers is saying buying a ferrari must make you rich because all these guys driving round in ferraris have loads of cash.

On the whole, yes.  But consider also that new players need to pick their skills up from somewhere, and inasmuch as they learn from other players, the existence of AMBER as a game causes some new players to learn from roleplayers and storytellers rather than gameists and munchkins (not to imply that one is the other.)