Limits to shadowshifting

[RTrimmer]

I'd completely forgotten about this, Random to Corwin in NPiA:

"I am loath to relinquish Amber's sky," said Random, whatever that meant, and I grunted back at him.
"I'm afraid to try it all at once, though," he continued. "We might be torn to bits."
 
Also, Corwin to Vialle, NPiA:

"Personality is the one thing we cannot control in our manipulations of Shadow. In fact, it is the means by which we can tell one another from shadows of ourselves. This is why Flora could not decide about me for so long, back on the shadow Earth: my new personality was sufficiently different."

[jibbajibba]

When I first started playing in Amber, before ADRPG was released we used our own system and it used a Traveller like code for shadows made up of 10 digits. each digit represented a feature of the world flora, fauna, geography , atmospherics, physics, technology, magic etc etc . As you travelled through shadow you could change these numbers based on your shadow walking power. Hellridng meant you kept one number and randomly rolled the rest.

When I talk through shadow walking now with PCs I always use language much like the books and so a shadow walk is definitely a conversation.

[warp9]

I'd completely forgotten about this, Random to Corwin in NPiA:

"I am loath to relinquish Amber's sky," said Random, whatever that meant, and I grunted back at him.
"I'm afraid to try it all at once, though," he continued. "We might be torn to bits."

Part of that might have been an effect of the fact that Eric was actually trying to block their progress.

But there is another similar example where Corwin is heading back from getting his uncut diamonds in Guns of Avalon:

". . . I used Grayswandir three times on the way back, on less mundane things than brothers.

But this was to be expected as I had accelerated the pace considerably."

In terms of the other part of your post:

Also, Corwin to Vialle, NPiA:

"Personality is the one thing we cannot control in our manipulations of Shadow. In fact, it is the means by which we can tell one another from shadows of ourselves. This is why Flora could not decide about me for so long, back on the shadow Earth: my new personality was sufficiently different."

I don't really know what to think of this one. It seems to me that some of the uses of looking through shadow would tend to dictate personality to some extent.

[Panjumanju]

I don't really know what to think of this one. It seems to me that some of the uses of looking through shadow would tend to dictate personality to some extent.

I have also, always not known what to make of that one.

//Panjumanju

[Artifacts of Amber]

I always treated personality as something you could seek or find, Ie people friendly to me etc. But once in a shadow you couldn't shift the same way. So Flora never being sure if it was him she couldn't change shadow earth to know without making it not shadow earth anymore or if she could it would have been an "Assault" on Corwin trying to change him. So if he was Corwin she didn't want to slap him across the Id, so to speak, and start a fight with her brother, so she was never sure.

There is only so much you can alter in a shadow before it isn't that shadow anymore. I don't see most elders as able to fine tune the universe' maybe from lack of skill or the ease in finding a shadow that fits their needs versus one that they alter to fit their needs.

Just my thoughts

[RTrimmer]

In the books changes made while shadowshifting are all discrete, sensory-based things. Change this color, add this smell, edit out these people (image), etc. Changing someone's personality is different. "He's friendly now," -- why? How? Did you swap him out for some other guy? Create him on the fly?  Either way unless you know the guy really, really well you are just substituting someone else you know near nothing about, who knows jack about the original's life or any of the people in it, but who is acting friendly. You lack the information to do anything better. Unless, of course,  there's an Omniscient Pattern Godmother holding your hand and doing all the work.

I always treated personality as something you could seek or find, Ie people friendly to me etc. But once in a shadow you couldn't shift the same way. So Flora never being sure if it was him she couldn't change shadow earth to know without making it not shadow earth anymore or if she could it would have been an "Assault" on Corwin trying to change him. So if he was Corwin she didn't want to slap him across the Id, so to speak, and start a fight with her brother, so she was never sure.

There is only so much you can alter in a shadow before it isn't that shadow anymore. I don't see most elders as able to fine tune the universe' maybe from lack of skill or the ease in finding a shadow that fits their needs versus one that they alter to fit their needs.

Just my thoughts

[Artifacts of Amber]

RTrimmer

In the books changes made while shadowshifting are all discrete, sensory-based things. Change this color, add this smell, edit out these people (image), etc. Changing someone's personality is different. "He's friendly now," -- why? How? Did you swap him out for some other guy? Create him on the fly? Either way unless you know the guy really, really well you are just substituting someone else you know near nothing about, who knows jack about the original's life or any of the people in it, but who is acting friendly. You lack the information to do anything better. Unless, of course, there's an Omniscient Pattern Godmother holding your hand and doing all the work.

But then (If I remember correctly) They also searched in shadow for an army that worshiped "god" brothers. So it seems they can look for things beyond just normal senses and Amber senses (mentally) would seem to be something more. I would think they have a little something mind wise that us mere mortals don't especially since I have never been in mental contact with someone else like they have even if via trumps

Of course I ignore canon especially on the things shifting with you in shadow like the car and clothes did for random and corwin. but that just fits my Canon better.

Just my thoughts

[RTrimmer]

So Corwin shifts towards an image of a lot of vaguely-detailed humanoids worshiping statues of himself and Bleys. After a few tries (pacifists, not actually worship, too smelly, way too affectionate...) he finds a keeper.

RTrimmer

In the books changes made while shadowshifting are all discrete, sensory-based things. Change this color, add this smell, edit out these people (image), etc. Changing someone's personality is different. "He's friendly now," -- why? How? Did you swap him out for some other guy? Create him on the fly? Either way unless you know the guy really, really well you are just substituting someone else you know near nothing about, who knows jack about the original's life or any of the people in it, but who is acting friendly. You lack the information to do anything better. Unless, of course, there's an Omniscient Pattern Godmother holding your hand and doing all the work.

But then (If I remember correctly) They also searched in shadow for an army that worshiped "god" brothers. So it seems they can look for things beyond just normal senses and Amber senses (mentally) would seem to be something more. I would think they have a little something mind wise that us mere mortals don't especially since I have never been in mental contact with someone else like they have even if via trumps

Of course I ignore canon especially on the things shifting with you in shadow like the car and clothes did for random and corwin. but that just fits my Canon better.

Just my thoughts

[Artifacts of Amber]

Ok I see there is a way to get to that point. I just like doing it otherwise then

Cool

[RTrimmer]

Cool.

I prefer the 'you can shift to what you can imagine' model. The higher your Psyche the more more sensory detail or backstory you can add in. 'They're speaking a language I speak' is a normal detail unless I've gone with Pattern Makes You Omnilingual thing.

Probability control in this model is shifting towards an imagined future.

I do Control of Contents the same way. Change a mountain range and you either have imported a range from somewhere else or you have to reposition and alter to fit the towns and such in it . If you kept the inhabitants the same, they have no idea what just happened and have to adapt. If you altered the people to fit, they have, at best, memories of one of your shadows, not you. If you change your palace while keeping your staff then their relatives and friends get dragged along only to the extent of your knowledge and interest. (frex: the less contact you've had with your majordomo's third daughter, the likelier it is that she's been replaced by a shadow, or is simply gone.) If you didn't have enough contact to drag them along your odds of finding them again are close to nil without considerable effort.

Yeah, I'm not fond of the Wujickian version of Advanced Pattern either. Canonically we have:
-Shortcuts to anywhere, including the Primal Pattern. (Fi)
-Shifting (travel) within Amber. (Oberon)
-Shifting very fast and without physical movement. (Corwin with the Jewel, and probably Brand's fadeaway trick -- there's no Trumpy rainbow shimmer)
-The thing with Benedict's mechanical arm. (Oberon)
-Suppressing another's powers at range. (Fi vs Brand)
-Finding an Amberite in shadow who does not want to be found. (implied: Fi & Bleys vs Brand)
-Blessings (Oberon, or so his image said)

[jibbajibba]

The most gameable way to handle these things is to say that is you change a person in Shadow, say make Lorraine fall in love with you or make the cop really friendly what you are actually doing is moving to a shadow where that is true. Now doing that might have lots of other repurcussions that you don't want to happen. So once you are in a shadow and your "plan" is in motion moving to a new shadow to make Lorraine less stroppy or less wanting to kill you for sleeping with her sister actually moves you to a new place where your plans may be slightly different where maybe the jewellers rouge won't burn in Amber etc etc ....

This also means you can't get rid of people following you because they can well follow you, you don'alter a person you basically delete them by shifting your location to a variant. It basically means whatever you change moves you to a new place.

Now this conflicts with some of the rules but it works with the books and it prevents players using pattern as a get out of jail card all teh time and it makes Logrus more useful as if you allow a guy to open a box and remove a bottle of wine that wasn't previously there with patttern teh ability of Logrus to send a tendril out into shadow to find a bottle is redundant.

Basically its much more playable.