Partial powers -- or not? And: Why?

[Bird_of_Ill_Omen]

In my game, if the  character only had 5 XP, he would indeed get 45 Bad Stuff -- he'd simply have enormous problems understanding and using his newly acquired power. With time, this would get better and better (as the player would spend XP to reduce Bad Stuff).

Bad Stuff is a powerful tool. Some of the most memorable characters in our campaigns were the ones with obscene amounts of Bad Stuff.

I'm going to go a little off-topic, but since you mention running a game where a character could have 45 points of Bad Stuff, I was wondering (and this question is for all GM's here, not just Norbert) how much Bad Stuff could a player have and still enjoy playing the game?  Is there a limit to the amount of Bad Stuff you'll let characters have?

For instance, if my character somehow accrued enough Bad Stuff that he got his eyes burned out and locked in the dungeon for 5 years until I was able to spend enough XP for my eyes to grow back and my "family friend" to come by to help me escape, I don't know that I'd enjoy that game.  Mainly because I'm figuring that it would take a couple years of playing time to earn 45 XP points to offset that Bad Stuff (and even then I don't know how much opportunity for XP gathering there'd be while locked in the dungeon).

I do think it would be fun roleplaying through that 5 year scenario in an accelerated manner over the course of a couple sessions, but the point I'm trying to illustrate is what kinds of scenarios do you create for a 45 pt Bad Stuff character -- how bad does it get before it gets so bad that it's not worth playing anymore?

So there's mainly two questions here for everyone to chime in on.  In your Amber game:

1. is there a cap on Bad Stuff (and Good Stuff)?
2. how bad is Bad Stuff in your game?

For my games...Corwin's fate in the dungeons would be equal to 10 points of Bad Stuff.

1 point -- you're seen as suspicious, but bad things will only happen as a result of risky moves.

3 points -- you'll be perceived as a villain unless you go out of your way to prove yourself, and even then, some people will accuse you of being self-serving.  Plan very carefully, because if something can go wrong, it will.

5 points -- strangers cross the street to avoid you, and you see fear in the faces of those you say hello to because you have a serial-killer vibe.  Bad things will fall out of the sky to hit you.

7 points -- really?!  You want to take 7 points?  Maybe you should think about doing another player contribution.  Already doing +20 in contributions, huh?  How about we get some points back by severing that bond to that special item of yours.  No?  Well, I guess I'll just say, have a buddy with you at all times...if you can find another player to trust you, cause no NPC will.  Better yet, have two buddies; you'll need the help to pull you out of all the crevasses you're gonna fall into, and to watch your back from all the people trying to kill you.

10 points -- you're locked in the dungeon for 5 years.  Let's talk about what your new character is like...


As a way to bring this back to the original topic of partial powers, for me, having characters saddled with obscene amounts of bad stuff due to a full power purchase becomes unwieldy narratively speaking.  Sure, I could slide my Bad Stuff scale so that 10 points isn't as bad as I've made it out to be, but if you take that too far then each Bad Stuff unit becomes so close that 5-10 points of Bad Stuff basically means the same thing.  Partial powers is a good way to keep the bad/good stuff scale tighter, while at the same time, allowing characters to specialize in different aspects of a new power (like Caine's trump spying trick).

[Stormwind]

As has already been mentioned, I find the good stuff/bad stuff scale to be one of the serious weak points in Ericks Amber (RAW).
Whether someone saves up 55 points of good stuff, or accepts 45 points of bad stuff in order to get Basic pattern, the scale is just too big (IMHO). It also forces what I call the seesaw effect, where your character goes from being incredibly lucky to incredibly unlucky, and for most character concepts, I don't find this to be realistic. The seesaw effect also prevents certain character concepts (e.g. the lucky dabbler who maintains a constant amount of good stuff as he progresses through the story - consider Donald duck's lucky cousin).

As has also been mentioned, it is not possible to emulate the books completely with Ericks (RAW) system, and case in point is Caine with his trump tricks.

For the above mentioned reasons I prefer a partial powers system where you don't have to deal with ridiculous scales of good/bad stuff and the game allows for more customization, and more unique characters.

[jibbajibba]

I dislike the formal partial powers structures where you get subpower x for 5 points since those lead to mini-maxing.

On the other hand, I do let players buy powers a bit at a time with the understanding that they don't reach full functionality with the power until they pay for it.

The difference- in my version the GM decides what the character can and can't do with a partially developed power. The player does not get to pick and choose,

This leads to players who will willingly develop a power over time rather than try to save up points then suddenly become experts once they have enough. Players definitely explore the ins and outs of a power as they develop it since they don't automatically know what they can and can't do or necessarily how to do it.

Also, I as GM don't have to deal with characters with massive amounts of bad stuff unless the players choose it.

Other GMs may treat 45 points of bad stuff differently than I do, but for me that can lead to some fairly horrendous developments. I don't want to make every character's life suck that badly because they walked the Pattern, unless the player wants that.

And on a sidenote, Amber has a fully functional skill system. Characters only have their full ability with the things they have actually learned to do. A character with first rank in warfare may have no idea how to pilot a starship if she has never used one before and unless she spends the time and effort to get good at it a character with a lower rank may outfly her for quite some time.

My PC in Cathy's Amber game has first rank in Warfare and very little combat ability because before the start of the campaign she had literally never gotten in a fight. Tempest (my PC) has amazing Parkour skillls, an innate grasp of strategy, fantastic computer skills, and a real knack for breaking and entering, but fighting not so much. Since the start of the campaign she has gotten fairly good with a gun and started studying martial arts, as well as learned to pilot a helicopter, but when a fight breaks out she still lets the other PCs do the majority of the work. Her biggest combat success to date, she caught a venomous rat without getting bit because she has plenty of experience dealing with animals both from growing up on a farm and dealing with another PC's fairly hostile cat.

I use 5 point power steps but I don't show the PCs the tree and I don't really limit them to the tree. If they want to learn to use the Pattern to hang spells I will say okay how many points do you want to spend doing that .... okay I want to spend 15 points (after getting the base walk the pattern for 10 - that much I do tell them). Now as the GM I know that the Pattern tree has a thread that goes down using the pattern of the mind. I know that the first step is holding the pattern in your mind to act as a defense, I know that the next step is a pattern lens and then the branch forks and there is a route that lets you imbue things with that Pattern power which can be used in conjuration or to allow Pattern Teleport, the other branch heads down to using the Pattern to hang spells. The first step is to allow you to hang a single spell. So with 15 points the PC has learnt to bring the pattern to mind, to use the Pattern lens to get pattern sight and to hang a single spell on a mental pattern construct.

I can have 3 PCs each with 50 points in Pattern and their Pattern abilites will be totally different. Its entirely possible that one of then can't pattern walk at all. They might be a super advanced master of manipulating the property of the shadow they are in. Another might be a pattern sorcerer who can hang spells, imbue objects with Pattern essense use Pattern sight. The last might be an expert in Pattern walking, able to hide traces of their movement, track others move into and out of Amber.
Now those PCs will have no idea of how far down a tree you have to go to get that cool power the other PC just used. Min/maxing is almost impossible using this method.

A nice side effect is where a PC wants to add a new power we can do that and rather than have them create something fully formed they just have to give me a hint of it and we can spin up the initiation cost and the first step. So I have had 2 PCs in teh same game that wanted a new power that sounded quite different but were linked. I ended up creating a single power that both of them were approaching from different angles. As they gained XP they chose how to grow the power and I set limits and costs. Eventually they ended up crossing over and picking up the same partial power.

[RPGPundit]

In my history GMing Amber, for a very long time I was strongly in favour of putting caps on bad stuff.  More recently, however, that policy has changed.  I had my reasoning behind the concept, which I imagine is similar to that many Amber GMs have, but nowadays I see it as much more interesting and worthwhile to give players all the rope they want with which to hang themselves.

RPGPundit

[Evermasterx]

In my history GMing Amber, for a very long time I was strongly in favour of putting caps on bad stuff.  More recently, however, that policy has changed.  I had my reasoning behind the concept, which I imagine is similar to that many Amber GMs have, but nowadays I see it as much more interesting and worthwhile to give players all the rope they want with which to hang themselves.

RPGPundit

Exactly.
I follow this rule: you can have what you want, but you have to pay the price, and every action has a consequence. You, as a player, choose. We've found this interesting and funny: the price is interesting as the prize, it seems.

[jibbajibba]

Still no one has told me how they would handle a horse race between 2 PCs that both said they were great at horse riding and no one has said how one PC could crack a cypher prepared by another ....

And 45 points of bad stuff ...really.... with 10 points in my games life is a nightmare. With 45 points ... how would you guys differentiate 30 bad stuff from 45 points .....

[Evermasterx]

Still no one has told me how they would handle a horse race between 2 PCs that both said they were great at horse riding and no one has said how one PC could crack a cypher prepared by another ....

And 45 points of bad stuff ...really.... with 10 points in my games life is a nightmare. With 45 points ... how would you guys differentiate 30 bad stuff from 45 points .....

suppose you have 2 pc with the skill of riding of the same value: who win with your system? do you roll the die?

[Croaker]

Horse race:

Well, thing is, your skill matters, sure, but even the greatest rider in the world will do crap if you put him with an arthritic mule vs a decent rider with a fine horse.

So, I would consider their mounts. Their skill as described. Their weight (why do you think real-world jokeys are all dwarves?). Their stuff. And their roleplay and stats (Any attribute could help, depending on what the players describes).
So no, I absolutely don't see a skill in "riding" as being necessary to adjudicate this. Evermasterx's objection is also a good one.

Cypher: Described skill, psyche, warfare, stuff, roleplay.

For bad stuff, your problem is that you think of them points-wise. So "3 points of bad stuf is bad, 10 points are suicidal"... So when someone comes up with more than 10, you come across the problem.
Stop thinking by points, start thinking somewhat like with ranks. If you've got 10 points and your opponent 45, you become lucky in your fight with him, since the balance tips your way, his bad luck outweights yours. Bad luck is relative.

[jibbajibba]

Horse race:

Well, thing is, your skill matters, sure, but even the greatest rider in the world will do crap if you put him with an arthritic mule vs a decent rider with a fine horse.

So, I would consider their mounts. Their skill as described. Their weight (why do you think real-world jokeys are all dwarves?). Their stuff. And their roleplay and stats (Any attribute could help, depending on what the players describes).
So no, I absolutely don't see a skill in "riding" as being necessary to adjudicate this. Evermasterx's objection is also a good one.

Cypher: Described skill, psyche, warfare, stuff, roleplay.

For bad stuff, your problem is that you think of them points-wise. So "3 points of bad stuf is bad, 10 points are suicidal"... So when someone comes up with more than 10, you come across the problem.
Stop thinking by points, start thinking somewhat like with ranks. If you've got 10 points and your opponent 45, you become lucky in your fight with him, since the balance tips your way, his bad luck outweights yours. Bad luck is relative.

In my system two people are almost impossible to have the same skill in riding, its possible but you have multiple players buying from an opened ended skill system with no limits on how many points you can spend and no steps, 10 points in riding 11, 23, 145 , 189..... chances of two people getting the exact same score... and then mounts and so on .....
As for cyphers.... look at the books we all get the feeling that this is Caine's domain he ranks maybe 6th in Warfare (B,C,E,B,G ? ) maybe 6th in Psyche (F,B,E,B,C ?). How are you goign to RP this ... "I use a cypher I learnt in Traloxi based on adjacent Prime numbers"   "I sit down with my pocket computer and try to break the cypher" .
The 4 stats are fine but there are loads of things from the books that constantly come up in games, like Caine and espionage, Julian and hunting, Flora and seduction, Corwin and poetry, Random and diplomacy etc etc that you can't explain with them. A skill system fixes that. Its simple easy and in play adds no complexity to the rules rather it simplifies them.

Ranks for stuff doesn't work..... if i am going to be the unluckiest guy with 11 points of bad stuff .... well I might as well take 80.... This is the most effective thing about the ranks in the stat area and one that those people who argue against me when I propose focusing more on points than ranks.

You know my argument the one that goes in round 1 player a bids 100 on warfare. result no one else gets to bid. The initial bids submitted were A, A 3 , 100 so now no one will ever get more than 3 in Warfare. the argument levelled against me when I stress that is broken is that the number of points between 3 and 100 doesn't matter all that matters is that its rank 2 to rank 1. Apply that logic to Bad stuff and 11 points or 80 points makes no odds but 80 points in powers as opposed to 11 points of powers makes a fuck of a lot of difference. And I am sure you would treat a PC with 3 bad stuff in a game where other PCs have 0 stuff or good stuff, very differently to a PC with 45 points of bad stuff in any game.

Going lower than -10 in stuff is equivalent to a character in a standard point buy game buying a dozen daft disadvantages. Its minmaxing and its almost impossible to consistently GM because you get to a point where either everything the PC ever does goes wrong or the cost doesn't outweigh the advantages.

[Croaker]

Jibba.

The fact that your play style works perfectly for you while others didn't doesn't mean that it's intrinsiquely better. It's just better for you, given your tastes.

The reverse is also true

We've got the perfect exemple here, between your distaste of "block" powers, and other people's distate of partial ones. They're no more right than you are.

While we're at it, I also recall there's a cypher analog in the core ADRPG. I believe it's with lockpicking. IIRC (someone correct me?), wujcik resolves it using mostly 4 factors: warfare, skill, stuff, and time. You're just quantifying skill and dropping attribute.
Different play styles, different preferences, that's all

[Lorrraine]

Still no one has told me how they would handle a horse race between 2 PCs that both said they were great at horse riding and no one has said how one PC could crack a cypher prepared by another ....

And 45 points of bad stuff ...really.... with 10 points in my games life is a nightmare. With 45 points ... how would you guys differentiate 30 bad stuff from 45 points .....

Answering the second question first- Every single point of bad stuff gets assigned to someone or something that will make the character's life suck. Every single point. That's a lot of work on my part so I discourage high levels of bad stuff, but I do allow them. Getting rid of these things requires the PC to both resolve the situation and pay off the bad stuff. If they don't pay the points new bad situations will replace the resolved ones. Strangely enough my players who have taken bad stuff have always made buying it down or away a high priority. Funny coincidence that.

As to skills, if you let the PCs say "I'm great at horseback riding" then 95% will say so. If riding becomes a focal point of the story I ask where the PC learned to ride and from who, under what circumstances they have ridden since and who else has taught them a trick or two? I also check on the capabilities of the horse, their familiarity with the mount in question, and what sort of tricks has the mount learned? Additionally I find out how everyone involved in the race intends to cheat or prevent cheating. That includes PCs, racers or no, and any NPC with an interest. In Amber someone always has an interest. Only after checking all of that do I bother with stats and stuff.

Cyphers typically depend on techniques known, processing power, and time. Given access to a high tech fast time shadow anyone competent can brute force virtually any cypher.

Rank in stats equals potential. No one can live up to their full potential in every possible way. Only the real grinds who continually practice really live up to their full potential in more than one or two areas. An outranked character willing to continually devote themselves to an area of specialization can win against a higher ranked character in that narrow area although if the higher ranked character decides to focus they can narrow or eliminate that gap much more quickly especially if the have access to fast time.

So with points for skills how do you handle the PC who spends 100 years in a fast time shadow studying and practicing some specialty in preparation for a contest? The rules as written handle that rather easily, but how do you?

[jibbajibba]

Answering the second question first- Every single point of bad stuff gets assigned to someone or something that will make the character's life suck. Every single point. That's a lot of work on my part so I discourage high levels of bad stuff, but I do allow them. Getting rid of these things requires the PC to both resolve the situation and pay off the bad stuff. If they don't pay the points new bad situations will replace the resolved ones. Strangely enough my players who have taken bad stuff have always made buying it down or away a high priority. Funny coincidence that.

As to skills, if you let the PCs say "I'm great at horseback riding" then 95% will say so. If riding becomes a focal point of the story I ask where the PC learned to ride and from who, under what circumstances they have ridden since and who else has taught them a trick or two? I also check on the capabilities of the horse, their familiarity with the mount in question, and what sort of tricks has the mount learned? Additionally I find out how everyone involved in the race intends to cheat or prevent cheating. That includes PCs, racers or no, and any NPC with an interest. In Amber someone always has an interest. Only after checking all of that do I bother with stats and stuff.

Cyphers typically depend on techniques known, processing power, and time. Given access to a high tech fast time shadow anyone competent can brute force virtually any cypher.

Rank in stats equals potential. No one can live up to their full potential in every possible way. Only the real grinds who continually practice really live up to their full potential in more than one or two areas. An outranked character willing to continually devote themselves to an area of specialization can win against a higher ranked character in that narrow area although if the higher ranked character decides to focus they can narrow or eliminate that gap much more quickly especially if the have access to fast time.

So with points for skills how do you handle the PC who spends 100 years in a fast time shadow studying and practicing some specialty in preparation for a contest? The rules as written handle that rather easily, but how do you?

Okay As I say I have a skill system. As Erick points out the only way to improve in Amber is to overcome conflict so heading out to a fast shadow to learn horseriding is the same as heading out to a fast shadow to learn sorcery or Pattern. You get no benefit unless you spend points because points represent the conflict you overcame (to learn the last of Dworkin's Lore and pay the price so to speak).
So in my game each point you spend gives you 200 skill points. For a skill 10 is a novice, 50 is a genius, but there is no top level and no skill list. So yes in all likelihood all players will have riding but the chance of them being the same are very very limited.

Brute forcing a cypher is a very poor way to play it in a game I think. I can't see Roger going down that route.

So if someone headed out to a fast shadow to learn a skill for me its easy,  How many points do you want to spend on that? For you ... not so easy ... 2 PCs both go and spend 40 years learning the saxophone .... who is better ? the one with higher Psyche? really ?

Believe me in play my skill system resolves so many issues.

[Croaker]

So if someone headed out to a fast shadow to learn a skill for me its easy,  How many points do you want to spend on that?

So if a PC spends 40 years in a shadow learning to ride, then 40 in another learning medecine, then 40 in another learnign saxophone, all without spending a single point, he'll have no skill at all?

I can find rationnales for this if need be, but I far prefer the "potential" explanation of lorraine.
In fact, and I wrote this before somewhere, if I were to do a skill system for Amber, I'd have something like "chose 2 skills at full rank, 4 at 1 rank less, 8 at 2 ranks less, and the rest is at human skill level", allowing a PC to change it through time and training, to reflect that potential and focus idea.

who is better ? the one with higher Psyche? really ?

Why not? So long as everyone is fine with that?

And, as always, you forget prior character description (A PC that was continuously depicted as a musician with a knack and interest for music will trump a gerard), stuff, roleplay...

[jibbajibba]

So if a PC spends 40 years in a shadow learning to ride, then 40 in another learning medecine, then 40 in another learnign saxophone, all without spending a single point, he'll have no skill at all?

I can find rationnales for this if need be, but I far prefer the "potential" explanation of lorraine.
In fact, and I wrote this before somewhere, if I were to do a skill system for Amber, I'd have something like "chose 2 skills at full rank, 4 at 1 rank less, 8 at 2 ranks less, and the rest is at human skill level", allowing a PC to change it through time and training, to reflect that potential and focus idea.

Why not? So long as everyone is fine with that?

And, as always, you forget prior character description (A PC that was continuously depicted as a musician with a knack and interest for music will trump a gerard), stuff, roleplay...

For me Yes if he spends no points he gets no skill. You don't mind using that system for learning trump or Sorcery I suspect and in any other point buy game I am guess you accept that skills cost points.It's the same here except of course that you can always get a point of bad stuff and the cost of a skill is trivial compared to the cost of a power.

Put aside the game for a moment and look at the novels. Everydays skills get used far more often than powers. The strength of the books is in the fact that the key protagonists appear so human. It's rare for siblings to test their powers against each other instead they look to better each other in minor ways where a failure is less lethal.

Yes its true that a character in my games will have more numbers on the sheet than in yours but all this does is clear up actual play. The mechanics for who wins in skill contests are exactly the same as the core Amber mechanics but rather than using Warfare or Psyche you use Dancing or play violin.

I like the role play part of your comment and that is definitely a way of handling this however as we know there will be conflicts where both PCs claim to be master spies or whatever and then you come down to the four attributes again.

I don't want the guy who got the highest warfare also being the best lockpick, the best at crossword puzzles, the best at untying a knot, the best at .... I don't think that is true to the books. You might say ah but I use roleplay so a guy with crap warfare who states they are a master lockpick will be better, well to that I say that isn't how the rules are written either so .... A skill system makes all those questions go away and means you as a GM can focus on the game not the numbers.

[Evermasterx]

For me Yes if he spends no points he gets no skill. You don't mind using that system for learning trump or Sorcery I suspect and in any other point buy game I am guess you accept that skills cost points.It's the same here except of course that you can always get a point of bad stuff and the cost of a skill is trivial compared to the cost of a power.

Put aside the game for a moment and look at the novels. Everydays skills get used far more often than powers. The strength of the books is in the fact that the key protagonists appear so human. It's rare for siblings to test their powers against each other instead they look to better each other in minor ways where a failure is less lethal.

Yes its true that a character in my games will have more numbers on the sheet than in yours but all this does is clear up actual play. The mechanics for who wins in skill contests are exactly the same as the core Amber mechanics but rather than using Warfare or Psyche you use Dancing or play violin.

I like the role play part of your comment and that is definitely a way of handling this however as we know there will be conflicts where both PCs claim to be master spies or whatever and then you come down to the four attributes again.

I don't want the guy who got the highest warfare also being the best lockpick, the best at crossword puzzles, the best at untying a knot, the best at .... I don't think that is true to the books. You might say ah but I use roleplay so a guy with crap warfare who states they are a master lockpick will be better, well to that I say that isn't how the rules are written either so .... A skill system makes all those questions go away and means you as a GM can focus on the game not the numbers.

You added some rule because you felt the need for them: you did the right thing, if you are satisfied with them like it seems clear.
I and some other GM do not feel something is missing (in this area at least!) so it would be stupid to add more rules.