Is Sci-fi "bad" for Amber?

[gabriel_ss4u]

Yes... very good point.
We all think of Conan as fantasy, and StarWars as SciFi
but what of the blend?
We usually call it that... a blend.
So I propose we use our own term..
Sci-Fant
works fer me.

[MoonHunter]

Your blend has occured in too many books to count. That is why science fiction and fantasy are both under the bigger header "Speculative Fiction".  Thus things that don't fit nicely into one sub category or the other are still in the same spectrum of Speculative Fiction.


This is an intersting thread.  I am reminded of a (paraphrased) quote from Ostrander's Grimjack

"In Cynosure, Guns work here. Spells work there. Swords work everywhere."

I think you can spend wayyy to much time in the sci-fi cool places in shadow.  However, the moment you move out of those cool places, the cool toys you would bring with you would have to be shifted to come along.  

Thus the blaster becomes a gun becomes a local gun becomes a paperweight.  
(aside: Has anyone thought about using the Italian Air Bladder Guns in Amber?)

The Clone of you becomes a person who is not you or disolves as you try to bring them towards reality.  

Yes you can spend a lot of time out in The Reaches (where sci-fi and fantasy works in a way not consistant with Amber). Yet the action, the important things going on, all happens between Amber and Courts. So you tend to stick to places and things that you can use in Amber and the Courts.

Aside, and if you want to comment make a new thread...  
There is a modern version patented  
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5373833/description.html

The Italians were supposed to have an airbladder gun in the 1500s
[/i]

[gabriel_ss4u]

Your blend has occured in too many books to count. That is why science fiction and fantasy are both under the bigger header "Speculative Fiction".  Thus things that don't fit nicely into one sub category or the other are still in the same spectrum of Speculative Fiction.


Yes you can spend a lot of time out in The Reaches (where sci-fi and fantasy works in a way not consistant with Amber). Yet the action, the important things going on, all happens between Amber and Courts. So you tend to stick to places and things that you can use in Amber and the Courts.

Well, The DaVinci Code is Speculative Fiction too. I think Sci-Fant works much better.
Also, I disagree, not all important 'things going on' are between Amber & Chaos, I believe... at least IMC, that the real important things going on are happening in the Courts, Black Zone, Amber or Golden Ring.
But yes... swords work everywhere... which is why they use them.

[RPGPundit]

IMCC one of the PC's is a "Golden Age" superhero.We use Power Words and Sorcery to give him "Super Powers".
It's working out pretty well.

One thing I've always assumed is that the "Power of shadow" can mean that people can have all kinds of special superpowers, even cosmic-level powers, in a specific shadow or certain specific shadows.

That's how many constructs gain all that massive psychic force.

This means that you could easily have Superman or The Flash or Green Lantern in a specific shadow (The DC Shadow); and their powers might even work in a few other shadows; without having to explain it in terms of the major shadows (ie. Superman doesn't have to have a spell that mimics heat vision, he just has heat vision; Green Lantern's ring need not be a spikard, it could just be the GL ring).  The thing is, if these guys are sent to a different shadow, or if someone uses a "real" power like Pattern or Logrus to change the "rules" of that shadow, they become powerless.  Superman might be stronger than Gerard in the DC shadow, but move him to Avalon or Amber or our Shadow Earth, and he has none of his abilities and human-level strength, because he can no longer draw from the power of shadow of the DC shadow.

RPGPundit

[JongWK]

Superman might be stronger than Gerard in the DC shadow, but move him to Avalon or Amber or our Shadow Earth, and he has none of his abilities and human-level strength, because he can no longer draw from the power of shadow of the DC shadow.

:huhsign:

I get what you're saying, but that bit in bold seems to me like a major change to the system.

[weilide]

I have always had a slightly different interpretation of the system. My understanding is that things such as magic may or may not work on a case by case basis varying by shadow but attributes such as strength that are Amber or above are basically defined as being better than the best in shadow because the shadow is never as good as the original. Thus Gerard is stronger than the strongest people but not necessarily stronger than a shadow bull, for example, because that shadow bull is not a reflection of Amber people but rather of Amber bovines which may in turn be stronger than Amber humans, if that makes any sense. (I feel I did not explain that clearly). Anyhow, that's just my take. Partly it has to do with the nature of shadow.

My version of the shadow possibility space is that shadow may be infinite but at the same time there may be things that cannot be found in shadow. Abstract math example: Shadow may be defined as between zero and one whereas Amber is defined as greater than one. There is an infinite set between zero and one (.1, .01, .001, …) but that shadow set will never reach or exceed the Amber set, which is always greater. Thus, in this example there is an infinite set of shadow strongmen but they would never outstrong Gerard, all other things being equal. I don't know if that's the "right way" to do it but it's the one that has always made the most sense to me.

[Croaker]

Well, I've always considered that superpowered shadow would give superpowers to PCs.

Like, in the DC universe, normal humans are Human in strength, Batman is Chaosian, Superman is ranked. So, any ranked PC might be able to do feats of super-strength, because there, amber and better strength is superhuman (and it is, actually)

[boulet]

I have no issue with a shadow dweller being stronger than Gerard or a better sorcerer than Fiona. In the immensity of Shadow, with a little nudge from a family member, formidable foes can be found. The thing is, those shadow champions, as good as they are in their excellency domain, won't be able to hold their ground to a prince of Amber if you change terrain and rules. Gerard might meet a giant metallic worm that's stronger than he is, but he'll be able to outsmart the beast with his tactical experience, or he'll play the atttrition game helped by his super human endurance... Only the royal family of Amber have those characters who not only are amazing in their field but are way above the average in general.

[jibbajibba]

I have no issue with a shadow dweller being stronger than Gerard or a better sorcerer than Fiona. In the immensity of Shadow, with a little nudge from a family member, formidable foes can be found. The thing is, those shadow champions, as good as they are in their excellency domain, won't be able to hold their ground to a prince of Amber if you change terrain and rules. Gerard might meet a giant metallic worm that's stronger than he is, but he'll be able to outsmart the beast with his tactical experience, or he'll play the atttrition game helped by his super human endurance... Only the royal family of Amber have those characters who not only are amazing in their field but are way above the average in general.

I am not so sure about that.
I love the Amberites , fantastic fellows all but I suspect that if I went out and recruited the right sort of guys I could put together a set of guys that could give them a real run for their money.
The guiding powers for Most Amberites is not their attrributes or their powers it's their cunning. Yes Gerrard is immensely strong, Benedict is the ultimate warrior and Fiona a great sorceror but their edge is none of these things it's their ability to put it all together. This however, is not unique.
the isuse is that Zelazny's Amber universe is not infinite. It is limited by the conventions of his world, interests and plot. It's like Pundit said in another thread somewhere about Superhero games, becuase the PCs in a game are not limited by the conventions of hte plot/genre superhero games rarely work well. Superman is fine in the comics but give a PC his powers and the game is all but over. The same is true of real infitinty in the Amberverse.

So if we take fiction as a starting point I suspect we could recruit our own League of extraordinary gentlefolk from shadow. We accept that any powers magical, technological or other would be limited in range to the characters local shadow or some cluster of similar shadows.

My team therefore might be ...

Sherlock Holmes - insight intelligence and reasoning
Locke Lamora - cunning, deception and planning
Bat Man - physical skill, combat excellent and reasoning
Elecktra - Combat excellence, physical skill and an egde of ruthlessness
Buckaroo Banzai - polymath, physical excellence and he can play guitar
Lucifer (the Vertigo version) - cunning, ruthlessness and decpetion
John Constantine - cunning, innate understanding of magical process and blind luck
Silk - cunning, deception and acting

You could drag these guys from Shadow and dump them in Amber city and give them a task to bring down the kingdom. In fact that would be quite a lot of fun I suspect.

I don't like the Superhuman Amberite. Yes they are tough and strong and smart but you don;t get the impression you are dealling with superheroes. Ramdon and Corwin carry a Merc. Superman can pick up a merc in one hand and use it to knock a satelite out of orbit. Corwin can fence for 24 hours without stopping but Atlas can hold a mountain on his back for 1000 years and doesn't even need toilet breaks.
What realy gets me though is this idea that Amberites are smarter than anyone else. All the characters listed above as smart as any Amberite and smarter than most. Corwin actually talks to and values the opinion of Freud and Bill Roth.

If as a GM you introduce too much 'infinity' into your Amber games, be it Sci-fi, Superheroes or magic the PCs will do the same thing and you will get situations which are logical but way out of genre. The guy with best warfare accepts a trump passage from the guy standing in an oxygen free spaceship who is surrounded by an invisible force field round him and an oxygen generator on his belt, or a PC uses a death star to blow up the world the bad guys are standing on, or the whole time travel schtick where the PC finds the infinite world where these events have all happened before and his shadow self wrote them all down in a handy A4 binder.

[RPGPundit]

:huhsign:

I get what you're saying, but that bit in bold seems to me like a major change to the system.

It isn't hard to imagine a creature or monster that would be at least as strong as Gerard in shadow, a Last Son of Krypton might be one of them.
But this is a boost provided by "magic of shadow", its unreal, and Gerard or others could remove this difference by use of the pattern (or Logrus).

Its the same argument as that of a Construct having more raw psyche than Fiona. It doesn't mean the construct would BEAT Fiona, or that Superman would beat Gerard.

RPGPundit

[RPGPundit]

I have no issue with a shadow dweller being stronger than Gerard or a better sorcerer than Fiona. In the immensity of Shadow, with a little nudge from a family member, formidable foes can be found. The thing is, those shadow champions, as good as they are in their excellency domain, won't be able to hold their ground to a prince of Amber if you change terrain and rules. Gerard might meet a giant metallic worm that's stronger than he is, but he'll be able to outsmart the beast with his tactical experience, or he'll play the atttrition game helped by his super human endurance... Only the royal family of Amber have those characters who not only are amazing in their field but are way above the average in general.

Generally speaking, yes.

RPGPundit

[gabriel_ss4u]

I don't like the Superhuman Amberite. Yes they are tough and strong and smart but you don;t get the impression you are dealling with superheroes. Ramdon and Corwin carry a Merc. Superman can pick up a merc in one hand and use it to knock a satelite out of orbit. Corwin can fence for 24 hours without stopping but Atlas can hold a mountain on his back for 1000 years and doesn't even need toilet breaks.
What realy gets me though is this idea that Amberites are smarter than anyone else. All the characters listed above as smart as any Amberite and smarter than most. Corwin actually talks to and values the opinion of Freud and Bill Roth.

Let's not forget that Corwin & Random picked up that Mercedes and were not on a super-powered shadow.
That is one point that can't be ignored. The ability to do what they can... just about anywhere. Superman may have that strength as was stated, in his shadow or a group of relatively similar reality-ruled shadows. The Amberites have their abilities and powers everywhere. (provided the reality allows) but still, far more places than the 'supers'.
Also, your team, though interesting, has not the eons of experience that the Amberites do. They may have a shot at the mission, but their lack of understanding of the multiverse in whole will cause a severe deficit.

And I agree w/ Pundit, Superman MAY be stronger in the DC universe, but take him out of that shadow, and it's ALL Gerard.
BTW, that shadow Bull would have to be ONE HELLOVA BULL!
When you talk about a shadow that has something/someone that may rank even or above the best that an Amberite has, it is not as primal as an Amberite. If it is, then you have one heavy hitting contender.
I recall the early idea Wujick put forth about Loki walking the Pattern, (or atleast attempting it), that opened alot of thoughts up to me. Is Loki a shadow being? a Chaosian? a primal being?
Is Superman?
Is he from a primal shadow?
I have a primal shadow that is basically our Champions universe, and some of the beings in it are primal, though they can't maintain their abitities in all shadow as Amberites, they only can in similar shadows, making them overall still less than Amber.
I believe there should be more challenges to Amberites than just Amber or Chaos, though said beings are not challenges everywhere.

[weilide]

I'm all about Amberites and Chaosians facing challenges in shadow but I think they should be different kinds of challenges than they face from their peers. That is to say, I think most any Amberite should be able to best most any shadow dweller in a mano-a-mano arm wrestling match but it's a different kettle of fish when fending off five hundred ticked off shadow peasants with torches and pitchforks, or when the Shadow Earth SWAT team floods the building with tear gas, etc.

[gabriel_ss4u]

I'm all about Amberites and Chaosians facing challenges in shadow but I think they should be different kinds of challenges than they face from their peers. That is to say, I think most any Amberite should be able to best most any shadow dweller in a mano-a-mano arm wrestling match but it's a different kettle of fish when fending off five hundred ticked off shadow peasants with torches and pitchforks, or when the Shadow Earth SWAT team floods the building with tear gas, etc.

hmmm.... well, I believe their superior tactics would allow them to find the best way out of such multiple attacker situations, (ie; the best escape route, the best mass-attack weapon for the situation, diplomacy or fast talking, disguse, or just plain 'ol Steven Segeal ass kickin'.
And I think as you say, most shadow dwellers. I mean, Amber level (zero) is better than shadow earth's best. But not DC universe's best. right?
truly it's up to each GM and their shadow-verse, as anything is possible in shadow.

[jibbajibba]

Let's not forget that Corwin & Random picked up that Mercedes and were not on a super-powered shadow.
That is one point that can't be ignored. The ability to do what they can... just about anywhere. Superman may have that strength as was stated, in his shadow or a group of relatively similar reality-ruled shadows. The Amberites have their abilities and powers everywhere. (provided the reality allows) but still, far more places than the 'supers'.
Also, your team, though interesting, has not the eons of experience that the Amberites do. They may have a shot at the mission, but their lack of understanding of the multiverse in whole will cause a severe deficit.

And I agree w/ Pundit, Superman MAY be stronger in the DC universe, but take him out of that shadow, and it's ALL Gerard.
BTW, that shadow Bull would have to be ONE HELLOVA BULL!
When you talk about a shadow that has something/someone that may rank even or above the best that an Amberite has, it is not as primal as an Amberite. If it is, then you have one heavy hitting contender.
I recall the early idea Wujick put forth about Loki walking the Pattern, (or atleast attempting it), that opened alot of thoughts up to me. Is Loki a shadow being? a Chaosian? a primal being?
Is Superman?
Is he from a primal shadow?
I have a primal shadow that is basically our Champions universe, and some of the beings in it are primal, though they can't maintain their abitities in all shadow as Amberites, they only can in similar shadows, making them overall still less than Amber.
I believe there should be more challenges to Amberites than just Amber or Chaos, though said beings are not challenges everywhere.

I totally agree that 'super powered' folk are limited to a small shadow. That is why my team has no super powered folk in it. Training, smarts, cunning and chtzpah. My point was not that hte Amberites have a huge advantage in being Primal as you say. This is true but I do dispair when they are portrayed as super heroes. Thye strength of the Amber stories is the grounded nautre of the characters as Pundit says its about that family. On the plane of Asgard then Frey, Thor and Magni woudl give then a run for their money but yes they could shift two shadows to the left and boff these guys are just hairy Swedes with a superiority complex (Loki is a diffferent proposition mind). The point for me is that Amberites are about the politics and the cunning but they don't have a lock on theses things. Shadow beings can be just as smart. So when I say be careful with how much infinity you put in your games I mean just that. Allowing too much Sci-fi or Classical mythology for that can have issues if your players choose to exploit it to its full potential.

getting back to the original post there is a real problem with hi tech weapons in Amber. The Warfare stat is sooo open that if you push it to its limit it can put players off.
Player - I take a bead with my PMP13 Fusion cannon on the cotttage where Benedict has been living and blow the crap out of. The PMP13 will leave a crater 30 feet deep and 60 feet across.
GM - yeah um this morning Benedict decided to sleep in the barn 200 yards away.
Player - but I have been living as his guest for 2 months and he always sleeps in the same place and has breakfast ont eh porch.
Gm - not today though
Player - okay I trigger the min thermo nuke I placed in the hollowed out tree stump. It will vaporise everything in a 1 mile radius.
GM - Yeah you trigger it but it doesn't work, you reckon its been disabled.
Player - but its the size of a nickle, and has its own cloaking mechanism making it all but invisible
Gm - Yeah , still...

There is a reason why Oberon limited the tech in Amber to swords and bows...