PbEM throne wars?!?

[Schattensturm]

Okay I will run something in the Autumn. Won;t be an out and out throne war but will keep to an open agenda.
What sort of game do you want what level of power? you want a small scale group based game or a large Amberesque multiple cabals across the Amberverse type game?
Want to include Chaos characters or not?
Anyone else on here would be willing to participate? so far I think we would have 3 or 4 players which is not really enough for a fully blown Amber in my opinion (I think you need 6-10 PCs).

I would be interested, jibbajibba. As for the setting - I always like surprises from the GM. I'm still willing to offer a sharepoint based web solution, in case it is wanted/needed.

[weilide]

I'd love to participate contingent on how much time investment you expect of your players. Sadly, grad school has a way of slaying hobbies like dragons…

[Xenon]

sounds interesting J, will we be able to build constructs? i have a few ideas ive been wanting to try out

[jibbajibba]

Oh I am a very open GM construct away but remember to be careful what you wish for :-)
Oh and I have made a coupel of decisions int eh shower the other day

200 point characters
All childern of Oberon (can be illigitiame bastard children of course)
No Cannonical elders in Amber (aside from Oberon and Dworkin)
The title of the peice is "Spoken Truths" (I always adapt the titles to my Amber Games from If by Kipling the relevance of which may or maynot be lost int eh mists of time).
Initial Setting  - Oberon's Wedding to Lady Ophelia

Will sort out more in a couple of weeks

[gabriel_ss4u]

Oo oo-oo!!
A new Queen of Amber? is that the setting?
where's the faction of keeping 'us' first in line... ?
"no no Ophelia, yours is the glass on the left... The Flagon with the Dragon."

::: lemme know about GM bonus points for journals, trumps, what-not please.:::

what sorcery system will you go by?... and please throw up a link for your existing page, I read some before, but for the convenience of others too.

[jibbajibba]

site is here http://www.jibbajibba.com/Amber

The wiki is a mess and covered with SPAM but as each journal entry is secured its irrelevant anyway :-)
History, Amber, city, background and family tree will change obviously.

I will keep the core ideas

Partial powers (generally in 5 point steps through a skill tree more later)
3 round blind auction with some tweaks..details to follow.
2 new attributes , Birth order and Political Influence
A ploitcal system known as The Sanctum which has Wardens in control of Ambers military and political arms and lesser Dukes in control of smaller elements (arguably only there to prevent any one Prince from gainign too much power)

[Stormwind]

@jibbajibba: Do you still have space for another interested player?

I absolutely love Amber and have played in (and GM'd) several campaigns many years ago. I've also played many other online PbP and PbEM games, one of which I've been playing since 2005 and is still running

[gabriel_ss4u]

I'm reading your link info on your upcoming game...
question; is 'Stuff' used in your game besides the birth order?

[Xenon]

looks to me like you have a lot of higher powers as being more expensive. any explanation of the 5-point magic thing? plus i dont see power words.

does your blind auction allow for any buying up to a .5 rank afterward, or would we have to decide how many points for attributes before the auction ends?

the skill points thing does look interesting

[jibbajibba]

There are still places as we haven't started yet
The link to the site is just for a taster I will change a fair bit of stuff. On the sorcery side I might switch to pundit's alternative system - have yet to decide but in any case there is a buy in to magic which you have to pay before you get stuff, it basically makes magic cost more that in the basic rules and fits the three magical powers into a tree. I use partial powers on a tree system this means that you could spend say 40 on pattern and end up being a specialist in one area and get sopme powers that would be considered advanced. More will be explained when I revamp the site but don't expect to see the full power trees I keep these hidden and you only get to see what you pay for. It makes it a little more complex but adds variety and you can add you own power varients at the top of trees (again this sounds more complex than it really is).
I am writing this on a blackberry over breakfast in Czech so sorry for any typos.
I will be starting a new thread for the game when I get back next week. Over july I will answer questions and sort the site out. Aiming to kick the auction off at the start of august (note on the auction - you can not spend on attributes after the auction, you have to have spent in round 1 to bid in round 2 etc but you do not have to outbid the previous high bid to bid in a round and do not worry about ranks. But I am waffling again - will explain this in detail on a dedicated thread). More later.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Cool, excitement abounds.
If you could put a few sample char.s in your site to help later, that would be appreciated.
Good luck overseas buddy.

[jibbajibba]

Yeah good idea I will put up a sample of character generation from soup to nuts so to speak and annotate it to show the process.

[Stormwind]

There are still places as we haven't started yet

Cool, then I'm definitely interested.



Could you expand a little on the two additional attributes ('Birth order' and 'Political Influence'), and on the Sanctum, with regards to how points spent affects the players?
For instance, if you choose to spend nothing on 'Birth order' I would assume that you will be youngest character in terms of lineage to the throne of amber, although you may very well be older chronologically than some or all of the other characters if you have spent significant time living in faster shadows - Would that be correct? What if you spent an outrageous amount of points here, would that make you heir to the throne to start with at least?
With regards to 'Political Influence', would that only refer to influence within Amber? What about if you had some influence in the Courts due to your maternal family there, how would that be represented (Allies in the Courts?)?
Finally, with regards to the Sanctum, would obtaining a position there be a direct correlation between your abilities and your 'Political Influence'? I further presume that positions can change from person to person during the course of the game - is that correct?

[jibbajibba]

Right birth order - you got it spot on. The one that spends the most is the oldest. It also sets up sibling groupings amongst the characters.
@olitical influence only applies in amber. If you want chaos influence you need to buy allies or devotees. PI has three basic effects. First it sets the order sanctum positions are selected. The sanctum is like a parliament if you will made up of 8 wardens and 8 dukes and 8 masters. Many think it was created by oberon in order to ensure there was no way anyone could get too much control in amber and to foster the competition he used to control the family.. Second PI let's you get stuff done in amber its like grease. Want to get some one held quitely in a lonely cell for a while? Want to set up a meeting with the ambassador of a golden circle kingdom? Thirdly its like a pool of un specified allies in amber low level lackies who do stuff.
-n one of my games a pc spent 100 of his 200 points on PI for him it was like warfare was to benedict and he used it to control and manipulate every one else in the game, even me at times and I was the GM
I breifly mentioned the Sanctum I will stick more details up on the site as I am thinking about some modifications. Suffice it to say that of the wardens most come with troops or agents or access to specific information and resources. The dukedoms are similar but lower levelled captain of the guards of amber for example. Masters are much more practical and time consuming like Master of keysn who is the chief jailer or master of the hunt who runs ambers stables and hounds. Typically most masters have been non royal npcs and most dukes have been members of amber's noble houses. Some one with a high PI and a few named allies could probably wrangle the allies into important positions. The king is in charge of course but in the event of his absence the wardens run the show by vote with the Overwarden holding the deciding vote. Even when the king is about there is a large kingdom to run and the wardens take care of that stuff.
As I say there will be plenty of detail. Sequence and order, stress and balance.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Jibba, I really like the idea of the Sanctum.
May I employ your idea to some extent IMC Golden Circle? It sounds like a natural progression of power, and I think it is cool.
I may change the name for mine, but perhaps not.