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The limts of Pattern.

Given the Pattern use of altering probabilities. Whats the limit for this?

For example if a box is known to be empty, could Pattern affect it so in fact, it wasnt empty?
Who would have to check the box? anyone that saw that the box wasnt empty?

Its not the same thing after all if

Case A:
me as a player find a box and alter the chance there is, lets say, money in the box.
vs.
Case B:
I hold a box in my hands which i triple checked for emptiness. Now a player comes in and changes it so there is now money in the box.

On a first approach we could say Case A is about a low probability with Case B being probability zero. Now lets assume it wouldnt make sense for money to pop in case B (aka cases with zero chance) with mere probability change (aka no conjuring, etc).
 
Then, What dictates that probability? Seems to me it's knowledge, basically the fact that someone knows that there is nothing in the box is what makes the chance zero instead of just low.
However this is an interesting exercise because we are kinda saying that the chance something can be altered through pattern depends on if someone knows. But, does it matter who? If we a couple of shadow folks checking the box is indeed empty does count, then altering chances on shadows with people looking around is very hard.

Well, just food for thought on pattern power application and wondering what other people thought on the issue.

First of all, I suspect you've been playing too much Mage. The belief that "Belief defines reality" doesn't stand up to close scrutiny in it's own game -- it certainly doesn't hold up in Amber!
 
Regardless my answer is: Yes, even if you triple check that you are in Kansas holding an empty box, an initiate of the Pattern can shadow shift until you are not in Kansas anymore and your box contains whatever they wish.
 
The point about probabilities is that it affects how quickly the shadowshifter can make the changes they want. A high probability is quick to acomplish. So in the example in the ADRPG book where the player attempts to find something in a pocket that he knows to be empty, it not being empty is a low probability because it is empty -- not because the character knows.

Heh, actually never played mage or any setting with weird magic/reality. Amber would be my first and perhaps thats why i am confused.

So there is no limit to what the shadowchanger can alter?
If, for example, i have the box open and i am watching it empty, something will suddenly pop up before my eyes?

Btw, what did you mean with "until you are not in kansas anymore"? you can shift someone else to a different shadow?

Quote from: Abrojo;258485Heh, actually never played mage or any setting with weird magic/reality. Amber would be my first and perhaps thats why i am confused.
 
So there is no limit to what the shadowchanger can alter?
If, for example, i have the box open and i am watching it empty, something will suddenly pop up before my eyes?

There are limits to shadowshifting and you've hit one one of them: things don't appear "out of thin air." However, you can make stuff appear "before their very eyes." So to take an example from Nine Princes in Amber, when Random and Corwin are heading back to Amber, Random shadowshifts the car that Corwin was driving, the clothes he was wearing and even the money in his pocket.
 
So, back to the question of the empty box, you could make gradual changes while shadowshifting. You could, for example, start out with a tiny mote of sand in the box and gradualy make it bigger and greener until you've got a priceless Emerald or what not.
 
[/quote]Btw, what did you mean with "until you are not in kansas anymore"? you can shift someone else to a different shadow?[/quote] Right. When you shadowshift you leave a trail that anyone can follow. That's how you lead an army from your shadow to Amber for example.
 
If you had an unwilling person to transport, the easy way is to drag them with you (Corwin does it by tying his prisoner to his horse.) You could also keep pace with them and shadow shift, or if they were stationary, run circles around them.
 
My take on it is that people who are passed by a shadowshifter are dislocated through shadow, but in such a slight manner that they don't notice the extra bluebird in the sky, or whatever detail the shadow shifter was thinking about when he passed by. But that's my own conjecture, there's nothing official that explicitly says it.

Quote from: Abrojo;258485Heh, actually never played mage or any setting with weird magic/reality.

You managed to hit the old debate about "vulgar" and "coincidental" magic in Mage by accident, by the way. That's the stuff that decade-long flamewars are made of.

This probability/stuff manipulation, the way I see it, is a side effect of traveling through shadows. So one has to move to use it. When doing that you're not in the same shadow anymore, because it's difficult to finely reshape local reality and keep the "whole picture" (the shadow you started in) unchanged. In terms of game balance it provides a benefit to conjuration or Logrus over pattern power. Every time Corwin needed a material thing (say diamonds in order to buy the pink matter to power guns) he had to travel. It brought interesting complications with Benedict in the process.

Quote from: boulet;258698This probability/stuff manipulation, the way I see it, is a side effect of traveling through shadows. So one has to move to use it. When doing that you're not in the same shadow anymore, because it's difficult to finely reshape local reality and keep the "whole picture" (the shadow you started in) unchanged. In terms of game balance it provides a benefit to conjuration or Logrus over pattern power. Every time Corwin needed a material thing (say diamonds in order to buy the pink matter to power guns) he had to travel. It brought interesting complications with Benedict in the process.

Perhaps, but the main example of probability manipulation that I can think of from the books is in NPiA when Flora (unsuccessfully) manipulates the probability of the the shadow fellows gaining entry to the mansion, announcing "I have decided it's unlikely they will enter" (or something to that effect). Are there others that I'm just blanking on? There may well be...

Ooops I forgot about this :)

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;258620So, back to the question of the empty box, you could make gradual changes while shadowshifting. You could, for example, start out with a tiny mote of sand in the box and gradualy make it bigger and greener until you've got a priceless Emerald or what not.

Interesting take, could a change be done while still in the same shadow though? (touched again later)
 

Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;258620Right. When you shadowshift you leave a trail that anyone can follow. That's how you lead an army from your shadow to Amber for example.
 
If you had an unwilling person to transport, the easy way is to drag them with you (Corwin does it by tying his prisoner to his horse.) You could also keep pace with them and shadow shift, or if they were stationary, run circles around them.

Yeah was mostly wondering about unwilling (already knew they could follow you). Like if you could shift another player without them moving (or them being unwilling). Same question for objects i guess.
The running circles around them is interesting, never would have imagined that would've worked.
 

Quote from: GrimGent;258651You managed to hit the old debate about "vulgar" and "coincidental" magic in Mage by accident, by the way. That's the stuff that decade-long flamewars are made of.

oops, not intentional i assure you. Dont even know what those are and not sure i even want to find out.

Quote from: boulet;258698This probability/stuff manipulation, the way I see it, is a side effect of traveling through shadows. So one has to move to use it. When doing that you're not in the same shadow anymore, because it's difficult to finely reshape local reality and keep the "whole picture" (the shadow you started in) unchanged. In terms of game balance it provides a benefit to conjuration or Logrus over pattern power.

(my bold)
yeah or sorcery, thats one of the reasons i started thinking about this in the first place. Why cast meteor like spell if one could very well drop on their head, etc.

Quote from: boulet;258698Every time Corwin needed a material thing (say diamonds in order to buy the pink matter to power guns) he had to travel. It brought interesting complications with Benedict in the process.

Thats quite interesting. I mean, the fact that changing something implies a shadowshift. And it kinda makes sense when you consider there are infinite shadows. If you want to find, lets say, a gun, you actually are doing a slight shift to a shadow thats exactly the same but with a gun where you wanted it to be.

However, as nice as this interpretation is (i dig it), it does brings a couple of possible issues.
Lets say you are with another amberite and you apply some pattern to find, lets say, a car. The slight shift would imply that unless they follow you, you would indeed be in a different shadow, regardless if it is almost identical except for the fact that the one you are in has a car where you wanted it to be.
Similar issue with shadow dwellers you interacted with, if i apply pattern to change something then the shadow dwellers are no longer the sames i interacted with, for example forgetting a conversation with me.

This is relevant to what i was wondering in the sense of offensive pattern use vs utility of conjuring/certain sorcery/etc. Continuing with the example of the meteor-on-your head example applying this change-means-shift idea:
If i can "pattern" a meteor in the location someone else is standing on, it could be fine except that you (and the meteor) end up in another shadow where that actually does happen, with the other person unaffected in his original starting point.
Of course the meteor example might be a bit too exaggerated, just using it as an example.

The actual game rules are pretty clear in that you can affect probability within the same shadow, without having to shift out of it.

The real question then should be what are the limits of that ability?

RPGPundit

ok then i guess its back to some of the initial questions.

To synthesize:

Is it really probability?

(No) If i can truly make something appear in this box which i know its empty, then that particular use doesnt seem to be dependent on probability. Which would mean that besides the standard probability change, there would be some sort of reality alteration aspect of pattern. If we acknowledge this, we would have to define the limits specially when compared against conjuration, sorcery, etc the other reality manipulation powers.

(Yes) If something can't pop out of thin air in the empty box, then we are kinda acknowledging the power is dependant on probability (cant amplify something that has zero chance of happening). The immediate next question would be what dictates this probability, etc. (plus other consequences more developed in the first post).


Perhaps i am over complicating the whole thing heh  :)

My position is that using pattern alone, if something has no probability of happening (ie. a box that has been previously determined to be empty containing something with no intermediate point where that "something" could have been put in the box), then pattern alone cannot make it happen, not without shifting shadow (you could shift shadow to a nearly identical one that DOES have something in the box).

RPGPundit

I am with Pundit on this. I think you can make sense of this by putting the rules to one side and looking at the source material. The characters in the book never use pattern in a truely offensive way. When Brand wants to get rid of Corwin he tries to shoot him. He does not just arrange for a car to hit him or make a meteor fall on his head.

I think the Mage parallel is actually useful. Pattern is capable of reality switches that are 'coinsidental' anything that moves you toward the vulgar or 'obvious' is likely to mean a shift to another shadow. So you can  not make something appear in the box. But if the box was placed back on the mantlepiece you could walk up to it 5 minutes later and take out a fat cuban cigar.

I would allow a pattern user to alter reality in this way. I would note that I tend to make pattern use slow. So you can't use pattern to modify the magical properties of a shadw as a spell is being cast and therefore causing the spell to fizzle. You can prep a spell based on advanced pattern that can do this.

With propability stuff like falling meteors I would stick to the spirit of the books. You can shift a person to a shadow where meteors fall out of the sky and you can alter the probability of being hit by meteors in a place where there are meteors falling out of the sky but the shift from a cafe in shadow earth to a cafe in an alternate shadow where meteors fall frotme h sky is going to take a lot of tweaking and other incidental stuff will change like the colours of the table clothes the price of a cappacino the big signs saying warning falling meteors.... etc.

As for shifting shadows and people without moving. I woudl allow an advanced pattern user to focus on an object and move the shadow round it. That object could be a person. I can see a Matrixesque Pattern master using this trick to screw with a newbies head :-)

ah cool thanks, i get it a bit more.
Please bear with me a bit longer, got a couple of questions then :)

When do we say that something has probability zero?

We say that a given box is empty because someone checked it right? can this person be a shadow dweller?

I say this because there are a couple of implications. For example, making something appear (example: car) in a city could be very hard since people around could be watching that empty spot where you are trying to make the object appear.

However i assume that you can affect some dice thrown in front of a bunch of people because they dont have any knowledge that limits you.

So basically here comes the followup: how much does knowledge trump probability?

Some examples (maybe there are better):

(i) I dont see inside the box but i lift it and find it extremely light. That imposes a limit of what can be popped inside the box regarding weight?
(Basically if deduction & rational do apply)

(ii) Someone wants a storm to form but you have weathermen on the scene that is sure it's impossible, lets say, too low pressure, barely any humidity, etc.
(a slighter extended case of d&r from the previous example)

Ok this one is slightly complicated :(
(iii) Player A has a gun with an anti-jamming system that corrects instantly any jamming that can occur. Player B doesn't know and uses pattern to "make the gun jam". Does the gun jam but then corrects itself or does the term jam apply to everything? This is relevant in the sense that being as vague as possible gives higher chance of success? Knowledge of the item in question makes no change on succeeding (if person attempting the change) or defense (if witness to the event).
Similar examples can be done with things with backups or countermeasures. or something with like 9999 failsafes that makes the probability almost nil or add a recovery mechanism in case of failure. Something that a scientist/whatever would find it as unlikely as something popping in the empty box.
(Final extended version of the case for d&r)


Or perhaps this is all simplified into making the probability lower and therefore just a more difficult task? (takes more time?) Making something with 9999 failsafes to fail through pattern is considerably more difficult than changing a normal version. With counters and vagueness are discarded as factors.

Quote from: jibbajibba;259284I woudl allow an advanced pattern user to focus on an object and move the shadow round it.

IIRC, that's how hellriding works.

As per pattern, what is possible can be made probable, and what is probable can be made sure. With time.

So, while it is still possible (quantum fluctuations, magic...) that a meteor will appear our of nowhere to smash someone, it is usually way too much time-consuming to be of any utility.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402When do we say that something has probability zero?

Never.
Even in the "real" universe, IIRC, some "impossible" things have just insanely low probabilities.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402We say that a given box is empty because someone checked it right? can this person be a shadow dweller?

Nope. These are Shadows, irreal and easily manipulated.
What's more probable? That an item appear in the box, or that the shadow dweller lied to you and an item was in fact in it?
Thus, he lied, and there was indeed an item in the box all along.

Pretty easy, IMO.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402I say this because there are a couple of implications. For example, making something appear (example: car) in a city could be very hard since people around could be watching that empty spot where you are trying to make the object appear.

So long as no real person watches it, this is a moot point. If you don't open the box, can you tell if the cat is alive, dead or both?

Shadow dwellers are shadow, easily manipulated. Forget them.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402I say this because there are a couple of implications. For example, making something appear (example: car) in a city could be very hard since people around could be watching that empty spot where you are trying to make the object appear.

The box could be a "magic box", like a bag of holding, in that it always weight the same weight, regardless of its contents.

Quote from: Abrojo;259402Someone wants a storm to form but you have weathermen on the scene that is sure it's impossible, lets say, too low pressure, barely any humidity, etc.

And we all know how the weathermen are never, never wrong. And that weatherman would never lie to you, nope. What's the probability of that?

Quote from: Abrojo;259402Player A has a gun with an anti-jamming system that corrects instantly any jamming that can occur. Player B doesn't know and uses pattern to "make the gun jam". Does the gun jam but then corrects itself or does the term jam apply to everything?

No system is foollproof.

Thus, the anti-jamming system could fail, and the gun jam. It is possible.
Thus, Player B will be able to make the gun jam, but this'll be harder than making a "normal" gun fail, and will take him more time, although he on't know exactly why.


In my system, pattern just suspend the observer's effect in quantum probabilities, locally returning things to a state of non-ordered Shadow (ie suppressing the Pattern effect on shadow), allowing one to shift through the miriad of possibilities that exist. Thus, anything is possible via pattern, but the less common occurences take time to find, for lack of a better vocabulary. Once you've found it, you reassert Order over Shadow, with the selected possiility as the only reality.

Abrojo,

Here you hit some issues and we see that there are differences between all of us. So the rule is pick a position and stick to it for the games you run and so log as it's logical and consistent you are fine.

For my part ...

Hellriding
Yes that is how Hellriding works but I would allow an Advanced pattern user to do it with no movement ie standing dead still.

Shadow dwellers.
I do not think that shadow dwellers are all that trivial. Frst of all I would not take the 'so he lied' approach at any point its very poor and just doesn't fit in my mind. So if a guy says the box is empty it is empty until it isn't so again the guy shakes the boxes turns it upside down blah blah closes it again puts it down and then you go open it and take out a gun (I still prefer a cuban cigar).

You can't make a car appear on the street but you can walk into an alleyway and find a car. Tree, forest, no one to hear it, sound?

Weather is a tricky one both in the books and the rules. In theory you can just create weather as it's a feature of shadow and manipulating it is simple. Compare the probability of a weather front showing up compared to a cuban cigar appearing randomly in a box. Yes the weatherman would be saying but that's impossible however there are degrees of impossibility. Now the problem is that in the book manipulating the weather is actually not so very easy. It's one of the Jewel of Jugdement's main external powers and when Corwin's fleet gets hit with storms he is unable to defeat them. What's more he doesn't even try so it's not like a he tried but the jewel was too powerful. It doesn't even occur to him to try and manipulate the weather with pattern. So that leaves us with a problem.. one I can't solve however, In my games you can manipulate the weather with pattern but if it's a magical or pattern induced storm there is a strong chance it will come down to a level of pattern or Psyche. Actually it hadn't occured to me before but I would probably use a partial Pattern power focused on just manipulating the weather.

Now the spell.... if you used Pattern to jam a gun (and my players would be unlikely to do that because I tend to make Pattern slower but also cos its a bit naff. Why take a physical action so obvious when you can just pursuade the guy to put his gun down of his own accord.) and there is a spell to unjam it then I would say it unjams it. If the pattern user created a bubble of reality in which gunpower did not work (requires Advanced Pattern) then the gun just doesn't work, which all in all a much nicer way to do it.

I would say Probability 0 is not the issue. It gets to the point that with a low enough probability, it just takes too much time and effort to make it happen with pattern. You'd need a ton of Psyche, a ton of Endurance, and a lot of time to do it.

RPGPundit

Wow great answers and discussion, i feel enlightened :)
The only 2 small issues i will take as homework to think about are how relevant are shadow dwellers (interesting take i never thought about) and weather manipulation.

Thanks a lot folks!

I thought weather control was a privilege of those who are attuned to the judgement jewel...

Easy, fast weather control is. You could theoretically use regular old pattern to manipulate weather patterns (pardon the pun), and a lot of Abrojo's questions stem from one player in our current Amber game that seems determined to use pattern regularly in combat to do just that.

RPGPundit

Quote from: jibbajibba;259447I would not take the 'so he lied' approach at any point its very poor and just doesn't fit in my mind.

Of course, that was just an exemple.

Quote from: RPGPundit;259451I would say Probability 0 is not the issue. It gets to the point that with a low enough probability, it just takes too much time and effort to make it happen with pattern. You'd need a ton of Psyche, a ton of Endurance, and a lot of time to do it.

Exactly. IMHO.

Quote from: RPGPundit;259546Easy, fast weather control is. You could theoretically use regular old pattern to manipulate weather patterns (pardon the pun)

Agreed too :lol:

Quote from: RPGPundit;259546Easy, fast weather control is. You could theoretically use regular old pattern to manipulate weather patterns (pardon the pun), and a lot of Abrojo's questions stem from one player in our current Amber game that seems determined to use pattern regularly in combat to do just that.

RPGPundit

Just want to make clear my questions are not in detriment of the other player. After all, considering my character doesnt have other real powers, i would too benefit from similar kind of pattern use.
It's more like witnessing several uses of the pattern sparked my curiosity and showed me that my conception of pattern wasnt proper and that better understanding would allow me to use it better. Also not all my questions where about limits and more also about methodology and understanding, since i have been trying to make my character a heavy technology user and wanted to know more about interaction in that area too.

Sorry, Abrojo, I didn't mean to accuse you of something, just wanted to clarify what had historically set off the whole question in our recent group's minds.

Of course, if you aren't trying to find ways to fuck up the other player, it begs the question of WHY the fuck NOT?  That's part of what Amber is all about! :D

RPGPundit

Fucking the other characters, not the other players, IMO

Quote from: Abrojo;259402ah cool thanks, i get it a bit more.
Please bear with me a bit longer, got a couple of questions then :)
 
When do we say that something has probability zero?

Probability zero means "impossible." Since even Random can fill empty pockets with cash, I wouldn't say that filling an empty thing is impossible unless it's actualy impossible for the thing to be filled. E.g. Clogging up the abyss is  impossible. It is a zero probability event.
 

QuoteWe say that a given box is empty because someone checked it right? can this person be a shadow dweller?[quote/] No, I'd say the box is empty is because there is nothing in it. It is the emptyness of the box that causes everyone who investigates to conclude that it is empty.
 

QuoteI say this because there are a couple of implications. For example, making something appear (example: car) in a city could be very hard since people around could be watching that empty spot where you are trying to make the object appear.

I think it's easier to find a car because in infinite shadow, there are a lot of cars. It's much harder by far to find the car that appears out of thin air because comparatively there are very very few cars that spontaniously exist. Probably so few that if you want such a car you should just pay to buy a car that shapeshifts into a mote of dust and back.
 

QuoteHowever i assume that you can affect some dice thrown in front of a bunch of people because they dont have any knowledge that limits you.

I see the probability of a pair of dice landing to give a a beneficial result as very probable. Although there are an infinite variations on how the dice bounce, where they land, how they're oriented etc... all of those infinite probabilities can be seperated into one of 36 outcomes (37 if you count bad throws). One in 37 is WAY better odds than say, having a black bird land on your shoulder with a message from your brother in shadow. I've never had ANY bird land on my shoulder with a note from my brother, and he lives in the same city as me!
 

Quote(i) I dont see inside the box but i lift it and find it extremely light. That imposes a limit of what can be popped inside the box regarding weight?
(Basically if deduction & rational do apply)

I'd allow a player to do a bit of shadowshifting to get something heavy out.
 

Quote(ii) Someone wants a storm to form but you have weathermen on the scene that is sure it's impossible, lets say, too low pressure, barely any humidity, etc.
(a slighter extended case of d&r from the previous example)

Page 42 ADRPG says that "With enough time it's possible to shift just about anything in shadow. However, there are two important limitations." Which are "you must move" and "shifting shadow is fairly slow." So, my ruling would be, yes but since you're limited by not moving out of shadow, you have to make up for it by taking a very long time. Observers would just see a storm sloooowly take form.
 

QuoteOk this one is slightly complicated :(
(iii) Player A has a gun with an anti-jamming system that corrects instantly any jamming that can occur. Player B doesn't know and uses pattern to "make the gun jam". Does the gun jam but then corrects itself or does the term jam apply to everything? This is relevant in the sense that being as vague as possible gives higher chance of success? Knowledge of the item in question makes no change on succeeding (if person attempting the change) or defense (if witness to the event).
Similar examples can be done with things with backups or countermeasures. or something with like 9999 failsafes that makes the probability almost nil or add a recovery mechanism in case of failure. Something that a scientist/whatever would find it as unlikely as something popping in the empty box.
(Final extended version of the case for d&r)

Vague can be an easy way to weasle out of things but also a blank canvas for a GM's details. A good rule of thumb is to be as detailed as possible if you have bad stuff and as vague as possible if you have good stuff.
 

QuoteOr perhaps this is all simplified into making the probability lower and therefore just a more difficult task? (takes more time?) Making something with 9999 failsafes to fail through pattern is considerably more difficult than changing a normal version. With counters and vagueness are discarded as factors.

I agree with the lower probability thing, but remember that failsafes have to be designed intellegently. It does no good to have 9999 failsafe locks on your front door if someone comes through the back door. Likewise it doesn't matter if someone has 9999 failsafes if they can be sidestepped.