Chaos-Based Campaign?

[gabriel_ss4u]

Greetings, 1st off let me say thank you for the honor of being involved w/those I've read and 'borrowed' from so often - (Wujcik & Arref)
I find so much of your effort & passion in this game/fantasy world of Amber as a validation to the time & effort I put in w/ my campaign.
Kudos!
Now, onto the matter at hand - (or at least last in hand a year ago).
EVERYONE makes some very good points here. I believe until you play a Chaos based campaign, even a play-tested one, it is hard to do ANY accurate comparrissons to power types and play methods.
As we've all heard so often, if it doesn't work, throw it out.
I wanted to run a Chaos based campaign for so long and am currently looking for an ADRP group / players around Chicago, but in the play tests I've done, I found it incredibly helpful to 1st populate your Chaos realm with the background, characters, and settings that are needed in any campaign. I've devised some ideas on Chaos and it eventually turned into the makings of a sourcebook for the Courts, populated w/ Houses and NPCs as so many of the websites have. (Which by the way, Arref - you the man!, love your ideas!)
I've found it to be extremly helpful in stating out everyone (on excel - cross-referencing by House, pts. value, generation, factions, and so on.) And letting the story-line flow from an abundantly rich background. PCs will do the rest provided a good GM can spin a worthy multi-faceted story-line.

Once someone plays Amber, or ANY system long enough, there will be those that will dominate by grasping the abilities/powers and their POSSIBLE uses faster than the others. I'm in favor of restarting campaigns every so-often as it is more fun to go through the growing process than to 'lord it over the masses'.
I've noticed that many on-line posted stories are finite.
I am extremly pleased with the structure and detail I've placed into my Chaos 'soucebook' and thank all those great ideas of others that unwittingly contributed - ie; Geiger's Alien Queen as a Chaos form to one of the Heads of a Chaos House, Dune, Dragonlance, comics, on-line ideas, and all the fantasy that helps to populate an INFINITE world campaign.

I believe it is a worthy goal to play ANY ADRP campaign and contribute that most magical part of us all... our imagination.

I'm new to this, so please be gentle.

Gabriel

[RPGPundit]

Welcome, Gabriel!

RPGPundit

[Trevelyan]

Since the vile art of thread necromancy has already been practiced by hands other than mine I feel no shame in contributing.

I entirely agree with the common view that Logrus users are fairly limited in number. Merlin mentions that Logrus (or Pattern) is considered a prerequisite for propoer Trump creation and further observes that the number of Trump artists are limited to the extent that he is at least passingly familier with all extant masters and their personal styles. This strongly suggests that even among the elite, where training is available and understanding of powers is relatively widespread, some are more elite than others

We meet some relatively senior Chaosites (Gilva, the Hendrake "kidnap" squad) who exhibit no Logrus ability, and in the case of the kidnappers are obliged to use a Black Road to travel through shadow.

Merlin notes that Logrus users are considered honourary members of the shadow crafting (I forget the correct name) guild - indicative of some sort of senior status and hardly a significant comment if everyone and his dog is a Logrus user.

On the other point, the relative power of Amberites vs. Chaosites, I agree that nothing in the books ever indicates that the lords of Chaos are in any way individually weaker than those of Amber. It's purely a conceit of the ADRPG that they somehow be made so.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Why Thank you RPGPundit.

I wish I had gotten into the on-line or country-wide Amber scene long ago.
I was spoiled, (I like to admit) by a couple of great GMs and a series of high-caliber players.
I strive to find people like this in the near future.

Seriously, if I had a shot to game w/the pillars of the Amber community, I would have myself & my 1 GM/ co-GM/ player / best-friend/ Ranger-buddy join me and I'm sure it would be an awesome time.

perhaps when the Tao allows.

feel free to e-mail me, just personal msg me, and I'll send it to you.

[Syzygy]

Even among the "royal families" (which are more numerous than Amber's) I don't think most Chaosians risk the Logrus, just the best, brightest, and boldest.

That's very logical...except that Jurt succeeded.

I gather he got the opportunity due to high family connections, but still...here's a guy who almost can't take a step forward without losing another part of his body!

So when you bring your Chaosian PC to the Cave of the Logrus, and Suhuy starts going on about how only the best and the brightest survive, just ask him how Jurt managed it!

More seriously, a Chaosian campaign strikes me as a hellofva lot of work.  More NPCs all around, and the GM has to make most of them up.

[Nihilistic Mind]

When I ran a Chaos campaign, I gave the PCs shapeshifting for free... That's about it, but the Courts of Chaos have only been the focus of one of my past campaigns.

Oh, and making long lists of character names helps a lot. There's a lot of important people there

[Trevelyan]

That's very logical...except that Jurt succeeded.

I gather he got the opportunity due to high family connections, but still...here's a guy who almost can't take a step forward without losing another part of his body!

So when you bring your Chaosian PC to the Cave of the Logrus, and Suhuy starts going on about how only the best and the brightest survive, just ask him how Jurt managed it!

Jurt was young and impulsive, but if you look over his catalogue of injuries, none of those were really the result of personal ineptitude in spite of Merlin's less than charitable remarks.

Jurt lost an eye on a thorn bush while fighting with Merlin, and an ear to a ranged cutting weapon in a duel. He was burnt when Merlin rolled him into a fire, and he lost a finger when one of his zombies collapsed as Merlin evicted the possessing spirit.

In retrospect, none of those were self inflicted injuries, and even if they were the result of poor physical dexterity, they have no bearing on Jurt's mental or spiritual suitability to negotiate the Logrus.

It's also worth remembering that Jurt waited a long time before trying the Logrus, perhaps long enough to surpass many of his earlier difficulties. And both Merlin and Jurt were considered young to try the Logrus, Suhuy even commented that he deemed Merlin too young and ill prepared to try it.

[Ivanhoe]

My feeling is that the Courts of Chaos and the Black Circle are linked by a dense network of cross-shadow roads. In Amber, we only know of Gerard's navigation routes but in Chaos, several millenniums of shadow-shifting and road building have made the ability to travel through shadow unnecessary. It is reserved to this guild of shadow-shifters and to shadow explorers but the majority of the Court acknowledge that the most interesting places are close to the Black Circle and if they are in need of a specific work, they will hire a Logrus-specialist.

[RPGPundit]

Yes, I always assume that there are actually a lot of shadow paths in shadow; though mostly at the two "edges" of shadow, near the GC and the BZ.  In the middle, including where our earth is, there are very few shadow paths, essential "highways" but actually very lonely places of sort.  
In my latest campaign, a chaos cult/terrorist group who wishes to remove the influence of the pattern from the universe has been cutting off the "trade routes" by destroying entire shadows that fall along these few vital pathways between chaos and amber.

Also, someday I will get around to running a chaos themed campaign.  Wasn`t to be this time, though.

RPGpundit

[Ivanhoe]

I am a bit partial about using Chaos as a campaign setting. In my humble opinion, one of the main edges of Amber is that we have a 5 books series describing it in a way that allows the players to have a consensual vision about it. Chaos is described a bit more in Merlin's series, but even in this one, a lot of thing happens in Amber and in shadows. As a GM, I feel like Zelazny has done a big description work to my players in describing Amber, that I would have to replicate if I want to use chaos as a setting. Not only that, but he also gave a lot of hints that Chaos was more complex, bigger, more populated and, in a word, more chaotic than Amber. I simply don't feel the courage to do this and I am not sure that my players would appreciate it. I generally manage to make them consider Chaos as something remote, frightening, and largely unknown from which about anything could spawn.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Yes, but there is so much to be gained! (wasn't it Brand that use to say that?)
You are correct, or at the very least I share our opinion on the point that Chaos should be a densly populated with a wealth of soure material and Zelazny-based ambiance. But that is why I went about putting my OWN Chaos sourcebook together. something for my players & I to see and understand, then fear it less. It is a labor of love, and far from finished. But Wow, it;s detailed. And there are so many good ideas out there, many of which we had shared or adapted or played through.
All us GMs that are tired of hearing NO news from DbyD should just create our own individual Chaos source books.
That would b an awesome site to see, a bunch of us w/ our individual books of Chaos, tombs of knowledge, lore, and power, walking around a con.Hell, I'm half way done w/mine!
imagine;
Source material for their individual Choas campaigns.
Anyone else in?

[Ivanhoe]

Do you plan on putting online the material you already have ?
I must say that I once stumbled upon a .pdf file made by a GM that describes 12 or 13 Chaosian families with their coats of arms, some names, succession orders and responsabilities in the Courts, and this PDF is very precious to me, it helps me to quickly make characters that my players meet and immediately give them context.

I would very much like to see more materials like this, and would gladly collaborate, but I fear that my contributions will be slim.

Another question, would you consider Merlin's series as canon for this work ?

[Nihilistic Mind]

I'd say Merlin's series would be canon, for at least the parts that touch those general areas of knowledge about the Courts of Chaos. Then it's a GM preference, whether or not the events in Merlin's series themselves are canon.

Information about the courts are practically non-existent in Corwin's series, so to stay close to Zelazny's material, parts of what Merlin tells us has to be taken into account.

Gabriel, if you start a site or something with your info, I'm sure lots of other GMs will be happy to share their ideas and findings etc... Same thing if someone wanted a Rebma sourcebook to happen.

[SunBoy]

Shit, man!!! This bloody thread is like two years old! Ok, I'm fine now. I mean, I'm thinking on putting togheter a Chaos campaing myself, and I stumble on this. I hadn't read it the first time. Yes, this is pure and simple thread-jacking, because I've got nothing to add, but I just want it known.

Sorry, people. Lack of sleep.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Well, I am saddened to hear the "Black Road" convention was canceled, last year was their last, now I move out here to partake, and...
I'm currently under a large goo of bad stuff IRL, so I haven't had any time for anything, but Amber is one of my passions, I wish I could move about more freely and find groups or players, but the economy is killing me now.
I will go back to work on my excel file of Chaos houses and info, and maybe this summer I'll get it posted somewhere and leave a link here.
Hey, where did my avatar go?
no animated avatars anymore?
waaaaaa!