Erick: What can you tell us about the New Guys?

[RPGPundit]

So I've seen your announcement, about Diceless By Design becoming the new publisher for Amber.

Are they actually going to publish a second edition? Have they got all the rights problems squared up with the Zelazny estates? What's the background on these guys as far as game design experience and loyalty to Amber?

Also I notice they were talking about Forums... could you please extend an invitation to the guys, that if they wanted to they could make THIS forum, since it is already the Official Amber RPG forum, into the Forum for their game design process, and would be welcome to link to it from their site?

I mean, it would guarantee them a potential pool of a few thousand readers/commentators/playtesters, and means they wouldn't have to worry about taking up their valuable time administrating the forum themselves (if they accepted, they could always be given "moderator" status on this particular subforum, just like you have).
I mean, on the other side of the coin, of course, they'd have to abide by the free speech values of this site, which means they'd have to be willing to see criticisms of them on the forum without being able to ban or censor those who did so. But I think any good designer would be OK with that, and at least they'd know that the Administration of this place is a HUGE Amber fan.

RPGPundit

Edited to add: or please, tell them to contact me if they have any other ideas or suggestions of how I or theRPGsite could help them out. And of course if they need a playtester!!

[Erick Wujcik]

So I've seen your announcement, about Diceless By Design becoming the new publisher for Amber.

The new website is DicelessbyDesign.com -- a place-holder -- but it will be much more active by this time in July, 2007.

Are they actually going to publish a second edition?

That is the plan. To publish a 2nd edition of Amber Diceless, as well as to put out other publications... and to revitalize the Amber Diceless community, both off-line and on-line.

Have they got all the rights problems squared up with the Zelazny estates?

What's happening is still confidential, but things are proceeding according to plan.

What's the background on these guys as far as game design experience and loyalty to Amber?

Edwin Voskamp has his own website, voskamp.com, and there's even a page specifically about his relationship with Amber Diceless: voskamp.com/hobbies/rpg/amber/

Edwin first played Amber with me back in 1993 (when I was play-testing Shadow Knight), and he's been at it ever since. Since then he's been to just about every Ambercon around (certainly in Detroit, Portland, Toronto and London, plus others), and he's Game Mastered extensively, as well as played with most of the prominent Amber Diceless Game Masters.

On the publishing end, Edwin did a lot of the heavy lifting involved in getting the latest Tekumel RPG out from Guardians of Order (see http://www.tekumel.com/). Edwin has also created other role-playing systems and worlds, most notably his recent Shadowworld Campaign (see http://www.shadowworld.org/). Plus, he's a successful high-tech business guy.

Eric Todd works in the electronic game biz, as Senior Development Director for Maxis, where he is currently the guy in charge of engineering for the upcoming Will Wright game, Spore (yes, Sims/SimCity Will Wright, yes, the infamous Spore)

Eric has been attending Ambercon in Detroit since before Amber Diceless was published, back when he was going to University of Michigan. Since then he's been to Ambercons and conventions with Amber Diceless all over the place, both as player and expert Game Master. A few years back he even did an Amber Diceless romp thought Europe, running games in England, France, Germany and The Netherlands.

The two of them are some of my very favorite role-players, and they've experienced most of the experimental role-playing that I've done in the last 15 years, including the really far-out stuff like Camp Messiah and Black Math. Each is capable of creating an entirely new (fun!) role-playing system+universe at the drop of a hat.

Frankly I was stunned that two such high-powered guys, both of whom have major full-time careers, approached me about publishing Amber. To put it mildly, they're not in it for the money. They're doing it purely out of love of Zelazny's Amber, Amber Diceless, and the Amber Diceless community.

I think you will be pleasantly surprised with what they have in mind.

Also I notice they were talking about Forums... could you please extend an invitation to the guys, that if they wanted to they could make THIS forum, since it is already the Official Amber RPG forum, into the Forum for their game design process, and would be welcome to link to it from their site?

I'll pass along the invitation.

Erick

[Otha]

If these guys are swine I'm going to laugh and laugh and laugh.

[SaintAndSinner]

The new website is DicelessbyDemand.com -- a place-holder -- but it will be much more active by this time in July, 2007.

I think Erick's fingers slipped the website should be DicelessbyDesign.com

[Erick Wujcik]

I think Erick's fingers slipped the website should be DicelessbyDesign.com

Caught me! Oops!

Erick

[olivier legrand]

That is the plan. To publish a 2nd edition of Amber Diceless, as well as to put out other publications...

An Amber Renaissance ?  Wonderful news !!!

[finarvyn]

I hope that this time the Amber franchise gets jump-started as it should. Seems like every time we think Amber is getting underway again, something happens. (Phasge Press grows stagnant, rumor of NPiA movie goes nowhere, rumor of Amber CCG goes nowhere, Roger dies, GoO has problems, Betancourt books flop 4/5 of the way through the series, and so on.) Rumors of "on again, off again" are frustrating.

I'm certainly not looking to blame anyone, but I really hope that it's "for real" this time. Amber is one of my favorite series of all time, and I really want to see it succeed!

(Also, I need more Amber t-shirts.)

[Simon W]

I just came back from Ambercon UK. As usual, great fun but this year it was really noticeable how far the number of atrtendees has dwindled.

I really hope that a new edition will spark renewed interest and help boost the numbers back up again.

Keep us informed of developments!

[finarvyn]

The new website is DicelessbyDesign.com -- a place-holder -- but it will be much more active by this time in July, 2007.

Erick's post was on June 22, and it's now July 25.  Not to be too impatient, but ... well, I'm impatient.  The Diceless By Design webpage looks pretty much unchanged from a month ago and I'm kind of hoping to see some updates. Anyone hear anything yet?

[Erick Wujcik]

Erick's post was on June 22, and it's now July 25.  Not to be too impatient, but ... well, I'm impatient.  The Diceless By Design webpage looks pretty much unchanged from a month ago and I'm kind of hoping to see some updates. Anyone hear anything yet?

There are some things happening, but behind the scenes.

I'm expecting that we'll have a summit meeting in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks!

Erick

[SaintAndSinner]

There are some things happening, but behind the scenes.

I'm expecting that we'll have a summit meeting in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks!

Erick

A summit...cool :cool:   Will you bring back a report or will Edwin et al be available soon?

[Erick Wujcik]

A summit...cool :cool:   Will you bring back a report or will Edwin et al be available soon?

We've finally nailed down our meeting time and place. The weekend of August 11th, here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Look for some news in the following week.

Erick

[RPGPundit]

We've finally nailed down our meeting time and place. The weekend of August 11th, here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Look for some news in the following week.

Erick

Awesome. Please feel free to mention to them that I'm very interested in working with them in any way they might wish in helping them develop the game or promote it, both in my private personal capacity and on behalf of theRPGsite.

RPGPundit

[Erick Wujcik]

We've finally nailed down our meeting time and place. The weekend of August 11th, here in the San Francisco Bay Area...

The 'Amber Diceless Summit' turned out quite nicely, with most of our business discussion taking place late into the night on Friday, August 10th. Edwin and Eric now have to analyze a small mountain of paperwork (pretty much all the previous agreements, contracts and other legal documents previously generated by me and Phage Press), and we've all got tasks to complete.

Happily, we spent the rest of the weekend role-playing, in three parts:

1. After the business meeting was concluded, far after midnight, Edwin and Eric created characters for my on-going Quantum Time campaign, and I role-played them until after four in the morning.

2. The third of the Quantum Time mini-campaign sessions started a bit late on Saturday, August 11th (we didn't really get rolling until 3:00 pm), but ended at right around 8:00 pm... although the campaign itself wasn't really over, so we decided that I'll run a fourth session.

3. Since Edwin had an early morning flight on Sunday, I ran a late night pick-up game for Edwin, Eric, and Eric's girlfriend. It turned into a very nicely wrapped up session, where Eric's girlfriend played the mother of two terribly non-filial sons in a Mystic China scenario (the boys were 23-year-old twins; Edwin's character being a gambler obsessed with perfecting his 'system,' and Eric's character being a self-proclaimed Taoist Monk with a weakness for alcohol).

Erick

[Trevelyan]

So, nothing really substantial to report about Amber, then.

But on the plus side much gaming fun was had by all.