Pattern Takes You Anywhere, Logrus ... makes a Pizza?

[daniel_ream]

It's not something that players should be doing for a one-shot benefit. And certainly not something that they keep doing again and again because "I get something really good at the end." My first Amber GM made sure that Chaos players were really glad that they never had to go through it again.

This is actually a technique I was never able to master as an Amber GM - making walking the Pattern or essaying the Logrus dangerous in and of itself, as it's portrayed in the books.  I know the book advises throwing all manner of distractions and challenges at players while they're doing it, but that gets old very quickly, and "magic teleporter to the McGuffin in the basement?  Let's go!" seems to pop up all the time in my Amber games.

About the only answer I could come up with was using the only currency that exists in a game of Amber: play time.  I just made it take all session for the player in question.  If you really want to walk the Pattern, great, but you're not doing anything else this session so it had better be important.

[Xanador]

Well taking up a whole session is certainly one way of cutting down on Pattern walking. The approach I used was to make it completely draining. Corwin, king of endurance, was drained pretty heavily every time he did it. So I have no problem telling players the only thing they want to do after walking it is to go to sleep!

[RPGPundit]

Yeah, I think having it take up a whole session is somewhat extreme, particularly since days can go by in one of my sessions, and I don't think walking the pattern takes days.

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[ultralogan]

Keeping a journal is a thing worth points in game; So writing=value. I think I would require a player to write a description of what the walk was like. Almost every other book has one all alike yet unique. Make it short but personal and truly evocative of the experience in the books. Give them as much time as they need but withhold all points until it's done.  The more they walk it the more I would require from them. I have never used this, it just came to me but seems simple, elegant even. Make walking it seem a task yet one that advances their character and the game.

[ultralogan]

They do mention several times that the Logrus makes you crazy for a while. It also seems like Logrus vision is something that the pattern does not offer, or Merlin just never uses it. Logrus overall seems to be Merlin's go to and it seems like he actually gained nothing from traversing the pattern, nothing he used anyway. I would make summing Logrus sight, easier if not better than the same for pattern users. Also yes the total cost for pattern vs logrus seems a bit off, Pattern 50+0 (amber rank endurance) Logrus 45+35-10 (shape shift, chaos rank endurance) I would actually give a psyche bonus to logrus users when fighting pattern users, as sorcery really seems to be a Logrus thing. There's also the fact that the prerequisites are assets in themselves. If you, or your players, feel they are unbalanced there's some counter arguments. As for braving the Logrus to get something special? DARE YOU MAKE DEMANDS OF THE LOGRUS! An intact mind seems good enough...unless you have some points you want to spend.

[Panjumanju]

I think probably the best consensus to come out of this thread was the sentiment: "Logrus don't owe you nothin'!"  Logrus is crazy like that.

//Panjumanju

[RPGPundit]

They do mention several times that the Logrus makes you crazy for a while. It also seems like Logrus vision is something that the pattern does not offer, or Merlin just never uses it. Logrus overall seems to be Merlin's go to and it seems like he actually gained nothing from traversing the pattern, nothing he used anyway. I would make summing Logrus sight, easier if not better than the same for pattern users. Also yes the total cost for pattern vs logrus seems a bit off, Pattern 50+0 (amber rank endurance) Logrus 45+35-10 (shape shift, chaos rank endurance) I would actually give a psyche bonus to logrus users when fighting pattern users, as sorcery really seems to be a Logrus thing. \

I would disagree; I think the balance created by the Amber DRPG system is particularly clever regarding logrus users: the powers they get are very versatile, they can generally do more cool stuff with their Psyche than an Amberite; but the cost of those powers means that their Rank in Psyche (their actual raw power) is going to be less.

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