New at Amber, Suggestions?

[Logos7]

Hey Everyone,

I've recently run across Amber DRPG and I am quite enamoured by it, there is lots and lots of stuff in it, that I just love to bits.

That said, I have Zero experaince with the Amber novel series, or basically anything amber besides the rpg. I am not interested in pounding my way threw (10+?) books for setting stuff. The Rpg covers some of this, but there are a lot of references to the book that more or less are lost on me.

Do you have any suggestions/techniques/ or Ideas for how I should go about running my first game of Amber.

Alternatively do you have any suggestions to lighten the system. I'm not married to the logrus, pattern, trump or magic that I'm sure someone who read the actual novels would be. Does Amber DRPG lend itself to different settings that I may already be more familure with.

Either way, thanks for your help, I appreciate it.

L

[boulet]

The game design is dedicated to bring all the awesome of Zelazny's work into role playing. So your questions trigger a wtf? reaction in me. I have no idea if anyone used the rules to create some kind of generic RPG. Amber DRPG, in spirit, is as far from generic as possible, though I could see how technically it doesn't feel so.

[Logos7]

I'm not looking necessarily for a different setting.

I'm looking for advice/suggestions/etc for how to run amber "the setting" in that "zelanzy is awesome" mode

-or-

I'm looking for advice how to run Amber DRPG with as much or as little "amber" as you feel like suggesting.

[Xenon]

well, have you found a copy of 'Shadow Knight', the second book of the ADRPG? it contains short synopsis of the 10 books which may be helpful, as well as additional rules for constructs, broken pattern and implanted artifacts.

Generally, i think you could take the idea of the ADRPG system, and apply it to a setting such as Norse mythology, with Asgard replacing Amber. you keep travel between multiple worlds, magic, and infighting between sibling gods (Loki vs Thor). there are magic items and strange creatures, and enemies to the realm (Giants). you could do something similar with other mythologies as well.

basically, the characters are gods, children of the king of the gods. they have great powers, but can still be hurt or even killed. one story that is popular is the throne war- dad is either dead or missing, so now the kids fight among themselves to see who will be the new king of the gods. they raise armies of mortals and lead them into battle.

the style is one of epic legends, and personal failings. it is mythology told anew. there are always mysteries beyond the understanding of the characters, and there is intrigue and infighting.

hope that helps. but for amber, i would say the first book 'Nine princes in Amber' is a wonderful work of fiction, which can stand alone quite well, and portrays all you really need to know about the setting.

[Logos7]

The Norse Idea maps pretty well I think,

Maybe I will start scrounging for 9 princes of Amber, One Book is not to bad, but after getting suckered in with Terry Goodkind and Robert jordan I have an aversion to series now

[jibbajibba]

Wikipedia sumarises each novel in a page and does a good job of it. But the books are excellent and far from a pound. Pick up 9 princes and give it a go I reckon you will get through it in 3 hours.

I actually think that the amber system does lend itself to other genres.
Take Star Wars. You could Keep Warfare, Psyche, Endurance and Strength or replace them. then you replace the powers with Force, Pilot, Robotics or whatever. You can then house rule somethign of rthe dark/sside Light Side balance based on player actions and you are good to go.
The system is very elegant and lightweight. You could even let the players select which attributes and skills they want to use and build the setting round that.
A key aspect of Amber that differs from most RPGs though is that PCs are generally not unified into a common cause there is a lot of competition between PCs even those that might cooperate so genres with that feel are best suited. Highlander, Lost, Heroes, would all adapt well.

[Croaker]

after getting suckered in with Terry Goodkind and Robert jordan I have an aversion to series now

No wonder.

Terry goodkind is pretty boring and dumb (the whole "We are madly in love but can't sleep together because he'll fall madly in love with me" is making my brain cry), while jordan, although fun in a "this looks like some low-to-average gaming group story" quickly gets boring by continuing again and again.

For your info, Amber is not 10 books, but 2*5 books, and you can read either series independently. And I'd gladly read again the whole 10 books rather than another single tome from goodkind.

Try to read 9 princes, this can be read alone, and then, you'll see.

[Logos7]

I have more problems with Objectivism from Terry Goodkind. I can really enjoy a good sappy love story, and the occassional harlequine romance.

As for Robert Jordan, well like many good epic authors, he nots the best writter in the world nor is he willing to kotow to some of the more obvious dictums of pacing and novelization.

Not bad, and I grew up with it so here I am , but definitely not something you want to start all over again.

L

[Logos7]

Do you guys think I could a power auction and kinda let the players define stuff that way?

How would you do theivery and rogue stuff in that kind of system. The Force, Light, Dark all seem to have some pretty clear analogs to sorcery, pattern and logrus, but being han solo? What would his stats be?

Also as my beautiful wife points out, People tend to be surpassed in star wars. Any ideas how to do that ( my original guess would be to break it up into chapters and reauction every chapter)

[weilide]

To my mind, your situation represents kind of a pickle. Most of the mechanical eccentricities of ADRPG seem thematically tied to Zelazny's Amber universe. Eg, measuring all the pc attributes by rankings really only makes a lot of sense in a setting where the characters are meant to have grown up in competition with one another. If you want to do a different setting you might be better off taking ADRPG diceless conflict resolution (attribute comparison + roleplaying) and grafting it on to GURPS or something.

Oh, and you should at least read Nine Princess in Amber. Either it will be a chore and you can abandon the series with a clear conscience or it will be fun and you won't need any more persuading to read the rest. In any case, it's important to get at least a glimpse of Zelazny as a stylist, which doesn't really come through in plot summaries.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Hi Logos7;
point blank, you'll be cheating yourself and any potential players from awesome play of "Amber" if you do not read at least the first 5 books, which in total are like as thick as 1 Jordan Book, but thrice as good IMO.
The characters and Zelazny's 'feel' are essential for 'Amber', anything else is basically Gurps or some copy system.
You won't feel 'suckered-in' once you read 9 Princes in Amber, you'll be upset you didn't pick it up sooner.
Once you have a feel for the genre as written by RZ, you'll be better equipped to handle your vision of it.
This is one of the few games that players may actually be very upset if they have read the books and expect something like them from their GM.
If you have never played it, I seriously suggest reading the books, before GMing it.
IF you find that you don't want to pursue it, let me be the 1st to say, I'd be interested in your copy of the Amber DRPG book. I have 1 and would love a 2nd to use for potential players as a loaner.

My other suggestion would be to go through some of the old posts here, there is a lot of info that can be helpful.
If it is just the system you are interested in, Xenon's suggestion was fair, apply it to anything that has a similar pantheon and get the hang of being 'diceless'.

[jibbajibba]

Do you guys think I could a power auction and kinda let the players define stuff that way?

How would you do theivery and rogue stuff in that kind of system. The Force, Light, Dark all seem to have some pretty clear analogs to sorcery, pattern and logrus, but being han solo? What would his stats be?

Also as my beautiful wife points out, People tend to be surpassed in star wars. Any ideas how to do that ( my original guess would be to break it up into chapters and reauction every chapter)

Unlike the other amberphiles I think the system can be lifted and dropped. You can get the effect you are after just by using experience and you don;t need reauctions.

I actually do think letting the players determin the stats they want to use and the 'powers' is fine. If for instance Pilot becomes a 'power' then Han solo gets advanced pilot (by the way there is a school of thought that says that powers work best as partials and the main elements are split into bit size chunks - lots of info on the web on this) .

The thing is you could do this and sumarise the game into about 2 pages of A4. The whole thing hinges on a mix of narative and the simple diceless mechanic of comparing scores. Now that mechanic is a lot more subtle than it appears because there are myriad combinations of attributes and powers and manipulatign the situation to use your strengths is key.
So the question is do you want to use a simple diceless system if so its fine and the core mechanics, the attribute auction, the stat compare and the concept of 'powers' can be ported to just about anything.
If you like crunch and need to know the precise effects of firing a full uzi magazine into a room full of party goers, or you like lists of spells and equipment and the mechanics of the low level stuff then there are other more suited games.

[Croaker]

How would you do theivery and rogue stuff in that kind of system. The Force, Light, Dark all seem to have some pretty clear analogs to sorcery, pattern and logrus, but being han solo? What would his stats be?

Also as my beautiful wife points out, People tend to be surpassed in star wars. Any ideas how to do that ( my original guess would be to break it up into chapters and reauction every chapter)

Han Solo: Go for attributes, creatures and items (the millenium falcon, chewbacca) and stuff.

And they tend to be surpassed... By their betters. This is even worse in the new movies, where normal soldiers are mostly powerless versus a jedi. But even back in the day, one on one, most star wars characters would win against most NPCs.
So you could just "lower" the rank effects, with less difference between them than in ADRPG, and replace Human/Chaos/Amber by Incompetent/Average/Skilled. Have then the ranks as "Master", with growing ranks of mastery.

[RPGPundit]

Dude, in the first movie, Luke, Han and Chewie shot their way through the whole death star without so much as a scratch. They were routinely facing storm troopers like the latter fuckers were stone blind. They couldn't hit the broad side of a bantha.

RPGPundit

[JongWK]

Dude, in the first movie, Luke, Han and Chewie shot their way through the whole death star without so much as a scratch. They were routinely facing storm troopers like the latter fuckers were stone blind. They couldn't hit the broad side of a bantha.

RPGPundit

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