Epic Fail campaigns

[scottishstorm]

Anyone want to list examples of Amber campaign bombs?  Stuff that utterly failed, and why.

Here's one of mine that comes to mind:  The campaign was titled : Hard time on Shadow Earth, and the premise was that Earth became a an effective 'prison' for those who were exiled from Amber and were to be punished for some reason.  There were advanced blocks in placed so Pattern could not be used to 'walk' out of the shadow.  The idea was motivated by Highlander to an extent.  I think trump also could be used within the shadow like a bubble (read, within the shadow, but it didn't penetrate the blocks)

I discounted Pattern to 20 or 25 points, explaining that probability control and most everything else worked as it should.  Even a certain (very limited) 'walk' ability could be implemented (ie: if one was in Hong Kong, they could 'walk' to New York by effectively using Pattern to bend the edges of Earth to slightly different shadow, walk around the rim, then phase back in).

We ran the auction.  That went well.  I have five or six players.  After the auction, another person wanted to play and was more than willing to buy things up to the existing ranks, as per DRPG rules.  He also wanted to play a Logrus-based character.  Erm.  I like Logrus.  I like Chaos.  I said "Sure," but explained Logrus was full cost, which may put him at a disadvantage over the other PCs, stats-wise, though his character could use Logrus to shadow-walk anywhere, unlike the other player characters.  He was fine with this.

Long story short is the Logrus Master ended up ferrying the others off Earth.  Everything sort of got away from me.  I see now several points where I could have disallowed X or reeled things in, but I was new to being a GM and wanted to appear "fair".  Not only were the PCs freed from Earth, where all my ideas were set, but I frankly had no idea what was  going on in shadow and (poorly) made things up on the fly that were soon picked apart and exploited.

Ah, newbie GMs.

[RPGPundit]

You really didn't see it coming that the one guy who could leave Earth would end up just moving everyone around?

RPGPundit

[scottishstorm]

You really didn't see it coming that the one guy who could leave Earth would end up just moving everyone around?

RPGPundit

Yeah, I know.  One of the reasons for the title of this thread.

Not one of my better moments.

[downeymb]

Hell, if I were playing Amber and I was the only one not handicapped by my power choice, you damn well better believe I would use every advantage I could for my own gains and motives.  If that involved screwing over every other player, good!  If that involved helping every other player out of their situation, good!  

Personally I'd prefer the former, because it's, well, Amber.  Just think how much fun you could have telling the other players you could get them out, but only one at a time, and deposit each player in a nightmarish trap of your own making.  

If a player is going to go out of his way to mess up the GM's plot, he might as well have fun with it.  If the other players complain, I'd point out that we're playing, you guessed it, Amber!

I'm more shocked that the other players willingly went along with another player offering to solve all of their problems than that player doing it and meaning it.  Were the players new to Amber?

[boulet]

Long story short is the Logrus Master ended up ferrying the others off Earth.

Personally I'd prefer the former, because it's, well, Amber.

I'd have called a bunch of buddies from the Courts, tell them to bring a few dozen murderous demon pets and we would have watched the Amberites fight for their lives while eating pop corn from a nearby shadow... Amber battle royale, how's that?

[gabriel_ss4u]

I'd have called a bunch of buddies from the Courts, tell them to bring a few dozen murderous demon pets and we would have watched the Amberites fight for their lives while eating pop corn from a nearby shadow... Amber battle royale, how's that?

yup yup yup.
I would have been the super villain in that one.
matter of fact, i may have thought i was their just deserts as a way of Karma.
My own shadow filled with trapt Ambeites?
like shooting fish in a bowl.