Engines of Bright

RPGPundit · July 18, 2009, 05:19:07 PM

Does anyone here have any solid info on what actual material was going to go into this never-produced sourcebook?

RPGPundit

Croaker · July 19, 2009, 04:35:54 PM

Sadly, no

It pains me to think of all these great supplements that were supposed to come out but never did.

Jason D · July 19, 2009, 07:48:30 PM

It was Erick's version of Corwin's Pattern-world.

Erick really dug the notion of a Pattern based on Corwin's recollection of Paris, with motorcars and such, so it had elements of steam/pattern technology in it.

I know very little about it, though it was referenced from time to time in the various character campaign journals published in Amberzine. If I recall correctly, Carol Dodd's 'Bronwen's Journal' mentioned someone pulling out a little Mother Box-like Pattern Engine as a source of quasi-magic Pattern energy.

RPGPundit · July 20, 2009, 12:42:08 AM

Hmm, wish there were more details about it.

RPGPundit

weilide · July 21, 2009, 01:30:15 AM

It's a pity that most of the Amberzine content is to all intents and purposes lost to all but a small number of fans. I imagine if they were made available for digital purchase as the ADRPG sourcebook was (judging for how much they go for on eBay) there would be a healthy response. I know I'd be all over that stuff.

weilide · July 21, 2009, 05:12:08 AM

Also, just let me mention that "Engines of Bright" sounds like something that would be big on the college music circuit. Just saying is all.

finarvyn · July 24, 2009, 03:30:04 PM

Erick at one point had a huge list of sourcebooks that he had planned on writing. Problem is that Erick was more of a thinker and less of a "do-er" and so things never quite got finished.

I'm one of those "suckers" who pre-paid for the Rebma book that never happened. I pre-paid for an English translation of the French Ambre Trump Deck. I had several issues of Amberzine left in my subscription and ended up buying the last one at GenCon because I knew that Erick would never get around to sending me one (which he never did). But you know, I never really felt any resentment toward Erick about this stuff. The few times I got to sit around and talk about gaming and system design were well worth any money I might have pre-paid for products I never got.

I resent a lot more the fact that the "new guys" took over ADRP and sank it.

So ... Engines of Bright, Rebma, Courts of Chaos, Trump Artistry, and maybe others would have made a great addition to my RPG library.

gabriel_ss4u · July 27, 2009, 02:09:26 PM

I still think we few GMs that love the system & story so could make our own sourcebooks which can be shared on-line for no-cost.
I know when I ever finish my Chaos stuff and put it together with publisher of something, I'll be putting it on-line for free.
:::raspberrys to Diceless by Design:::
Do they know how much they let us fans down???

Jason D · July 27, 2009, 04:27:33 PM

Quote from: finarvyn;315860I pre-paid for an English translation of the French Ambre Trump Deck.

You too?

Erick eventually sent me a bunch of those "From the desk of the Lord of Chaos" note pads and a few t-shirts as repayment for the money I put down on that.

Quote from: finarvyn;315860I'm one of those "suckers" who pre-paid for the Rebma book that never happened.

Send me an email and I'll send you the files I wrote, at least. Not as good as a published book, obviously, but it's the least I can do.

JongWK · July 28, 2009, 10:37:48 PM

Quote from: jdurall;316244Send me an email and I'll send you the files I wrote, at least. Not as good as a published book, obviously, but it's the least I can do.

Can you make these files publicly available?

Jason D · July 29, 2009, 10:34:18 AM

Quote from: JongWK;316527Can you make these files publicly available?

When Diceless by Design announced they were taking over the license, I offered Rebma to them as a potential project.

I don't know when/if they'll ever get a new edition of Amber up and running, so I'm contemplating options of my own.

If those don't pan out, I'll check with the initial artists* and see if I can get permission to use their work for a free downloadable product on my own not-live-yet personal website.

The trouble with just dumping them out onto the net as a bunch of Word files is that I'm not entirely happy with the state it was in, mostly based on things that Erick wanted to see. Erick was schizophrenic on the project, going back and forth from "I want this to be your Rebma" to "My players would do X, so you've got to address that" and back again.

In the 12 years since I last worked on it, I've done a lot of writing, game design, and editing, and I would want to tinker with what's there to make sure it was something I could be proud of, or at least didn't make me embarrassed.

* I have a huge folder of 60-80 pieces of Rebma artwork by Michael Kucharski, Matt Howarth, Ken Alves, and one other guy whose name I cannot recall. Plus the unbelievably gorgeous cover by Stephen Hickman.

Seanchai · July 29, 2009, 02:28:47 PM

Quote from: jdurall;316639If those don't pan out, I'll check with the initial artists* and see if I can get permission to use their work for a free downloadable product on my own not-live-yet personal website

This is what I'm interested in. I've seen some of the Remba stuff and I'm sure it's cool, but you keep saying awesome things about the art.

Seanchai

gabriel_ss4u · July 29, 2009, 02:32:47 PM

Perhaps you could put a pic or several on the trumps post jdurall?

Jason D · July 29, 2009, 04:16:24 PM

Quote from: Seanchai;316707I've seen some of the Remba stuff and I'm sure it's cool, but you keep saying awesome things about the art.

Quote from: gabriel_ss4u;316708Perhaps you could put a pic or several on the trumps post jdurall?

I'll see what I can do.

RPGPundit · July 30, 2009, 01:27:39 AM

Well now, there's an interesting idea: I wonder if we could get some other publisher to make a play for Amber? Or barring that if there was some other way to release material for the Amber RPG?

RPGPundit