Getting over the "Diceless" barrier

[The Yann Waters]

Many of the other games seem to be constructed specifically for a specific campaign world, which I might not want to run.

That's hardly limited to diceless games, however. Personally, I'm not too fond of generic RPGs in general, and prefer mechanics which are more firmly connected to the setting itself. Again, tastes vary.

[finarvyn]

That's hardly limited to diceless games, however. Personally, I'm not too fond of generic RPGs in general, and prefer mechanics which are more firmly connected to the setting itself. Again, tastes vary.

Well, I can see your point and in general I tend to agree with you -- generic games often lack any sense of purpose and often lack that spark that makes me want to play them.

However, having learned about RPGs from OD&D in the 1970's, I can say the early RPGs were designed without a specific setting in mind and they worked just fine. (I would cite OD&D, Tunnels & Trolls, Traveller, and many others of the time period.) What was different then is that these games gave players some general guidelines and turned them loose to play, whereas many modern games are designed to tie into a specific setting mostly because they are built around rules which are really specific instead of general.

Amber Diceless has this potenial flaw, since powers like "Trump" or "Pattern" or "Logrus" are clearly setting specific, but other aspects of ADRP rise above this. Shape Shifting, Power Words, Sorcery and Conjuration can be applied to any one of dozens of settings. The basic attribute-compare method of conflict resolution is not setting specific. Amber Diceless manages to keep aspects of the setting but also enough that is universal so that one can use the basic rules set in many different settings, just like OD&D. That is one of its greatest strengths as a game system.

And it's so darned simple. Or, at least it can be played as a simple or complex game depending upon the intended audience. Erick gave examples of using the system with great detail in terms of the type of injuries sustained and the like, but I could also use his basic ideas to run games for my children when they were 6. I've seen dozens of different settings online that may vary in some details but are clearly ADRP-inspired.

So I see Amber Diceless as being both setting specific and potentially generic, if that makes any sense.

[RPGPundit]

Yes, it does make sense, and that's a big part of what makes Amber so brilliant.

RPGPundit