TheRPGSite

In my current FTF game, my players have been... breeding. And it reminded me of an instance years ago when a player (I was playing as well not GMing) spent the time to raise an army of his children using the wonderful properties of fast-time shadows etc. Another in a different game created a clone-army of his own, fully roleplaying through the difficulties of raising an army of clones and all that good stuff/nonsense.

At the time, the GM did his best to allow it while making things hard on the PC on a technical side of things.

So here are a few questions I have for you guys:

How would YOU handle those situations and the subject of PC children in general in your campaigns?

How powerful would THOSE amberites be?

Could they all walk the Pattern?

Are these things you pulled on your GM or something a player pulled on you?

How do you handle PC children in general?


As a side-note, in my current campaign, one player has one daughter and is raising the illegitimate child of the other player... The other player has bred to produce an offspring a total of ten times. Any fun suggestions?

Well, just remember that an Amberite child, like any other possession, has a mind of its own.  In my campaigns PCs have often ended up having children, and usually those children have either been ripe for manipulation by other Amberites, or have ended up screwing up or betraying their parent's plans as often as they've helped. Amberites are a notoriously dysfunctional family to begin with, and having "parent issues" seems to be in the blood, all the more so if the kids get a whiff that dear old mom or dad is just using them.

RPGPundit

I've never been a big fan of letting players do excessive things with fast time shadows, and thankfully my players have rarely wanted to use them for more than rapid healing and occasionally studying something relatively quickly.

I wouldn't let a character breed a large family in a whim since all the evidence seems to suggest that Amberites are relatively infertile. Children arise when the plot dictates, not the player, which means I as the GM get to decide if and when any of the PCs have children and I would never put myself in the position described. Family interaction is always significant in Amber, and the family should never expand to the point where a member can be considered nameless cannon fodder.

Generally I've always assumed that the blood of Amber will remain strong for a few generations at least, although it may require a booster shot of Chaos blood every so often ("I trust to the blood of Chaos for strength"). In my games the extended Chaos families are only able to maintain their power through measure inbreeding over the generations, although an infusion from other supernatural entities occasionally helps. The Amber family is only an offshoot of Chaos with a recent Unicorn booster which may have resulted in some changes to the genetic mix (reduced shape shifting potential for a start).

I generally assume that PC level Chaosites come from stronger bloodlines (including the named Houses with ties to the throne) which are on a par with Amber. I limit access to the Logrus to those stronger lines (Merlin suggests that he knows most/all of the Chaos sorcerous types, at least by reputation, which implies that they are not too numerous) with weaker bloodlines relying more on natural shapeshifting. Even among the stronger houses, Logrus is generally reserved for the core family and certain sorcerous savants (for example, Gilva of Hendrake may well not be an initiate).

I would apply the same approach to Amber scions, but the point where the blood would begin to loose the potential for Pattern imprint would be several generations removed and unlikely to come up in play. Merlin is an interesting case here - was the decision to unite the line from Benedict with that from Corwin entirely down to the desire to enhance Merlin's claim to the throne, or had Benedicts bloodline thinned too far by that stage and a Corwin infusion was considered necessary for Merlin to walk the Pattern?

Alternatively, or sometimes in conjunction, I assume that walking the Pattern or the Logrus "resets" the family potential to be an initiate, and as long as one's parent claimed their birthright so can the child. The weaker Chaos families therefore become those where no one has successfully assayed the Logrus for a few generations. This is then a mark of weak blood and personal shame for those related to specific failures.

Yup, this is what I do.

In short, the potential to walk the pattern disapears after 3 generations, as the "true" blood is too diluted with unreal chaos blood. You're also less and longer lived, with base attributes going only lower.

However, asseying the pattern makes you entirely real, and gives you a new level of existence, making you a "true" amberite, resetting the blood clock, making you immortal and giving you better potential. Amber potential.

As per the children thing, I'd do two things:
- Difficulty of producing offstrings for amberites
- The children have a mind of their own.
I had in fact one player have a child, but we stopped playing before he could get any older.

The clone problem? This is soooo simpler to do! ^^ I had a similar thing, with a player's true love that my co-GM and I decided to be in fact a blood creature tailored for him.
If a player creates some clones, just make the clones dissolve after some time into a kind of flesh creature that want to be reunited with his father self. Your player will have a big surprise when he'll discover hundred and hundred of mad flesh golems hunting him through shadow repeating his name like a mantra.

Some players would respond to that, "You know, if you didn't want me to do that, you could have just said so."  Is there any circumstance in which someone COULD accomplish the goal in that case?

Why not? I just adressed the case where it posed a problem.
And this isn't saying "it is not possible", but rather "well, it did work, but not quite how you expected it".

Nonetheless, even if a PC has good relations with is children, they are still independant being, who will soon desert him if he uses them as cannon fodder.

On an aside, I find the idea of the clones gone wrong (however wrong) much more interesting than the "Ok, you've got an army of utterly obediant amberite slaves"

Quote from: Nihilistic MindIn my current FTF game, my players have been... breeding. So here are a few questions I have for you guys:

How would YOU handle those situations and the subject of PC children in general in your campaigns?

How powerful would THOSE amberites be?

Could they all walk the Pattern?

Are these things you pulled on your GM or something a player pulled on you?

How do you handle PC children in general?

As a side-note, in my current campaign, one player has one daughter and is raising the illegitimate child of the other player... The other player has bred to produce an offspring a total of ten times. Any fun suggestions?

Amber's blood is too important to trivialize: this is canon.

IMC, this is why identical amberite twins is nearly impossible; partly why Chaosi assassins specifically trained to shape-impersonate Amber royals go mad if they try; and why the Rinaldo-Luke pattern-ghost event ended in tragedy.

IMC, the entire idea of cloning would make for a plot arc of frustration and foibles, which could be very interesting or extremely pointless depending on the maturity of the Player. You would be 'pushing' the universe "up hill".

It would be good to get the offspring issue on the table for meta discussion if it was something the Player was pushing for. Hopefully, the PC has a line of research or an "in" with a cousin who can help dig up info.

Yes, IMC, PCs have been reproducing. There is even a bit of competition to it.  However, amberites are not extremely fertile for a variety of canon and campaign specific reasons. Hence, PCs do not always know how to have children (that's right, Oberon didn't include the Real information in his talks with his kids.) So having kids is a bit like meeting Dworkin or knowing how to get to the Primal Pattern: it is a plot point you have to do work for.

IMC, the children have the same potentials as the parents. So far, all the children that have tried the Pattern have walked it successfully. However, King Random has been 'testing' children to make sure they are tough enough. If the King says "wait a year", that's not been defied by anyone.

As Player, I've never presented the GM with a 'child plot arc'. As GM, I've seen it many times. It can be a lot of fun. Certainly, PCs see themselves in their kids. Some of the same mistakes are made. And often when "wiser counsel" is offered, the kids (just like their parents) elect to ignore subtle advice.

And for whatever amusement it might bring, I'll link to an essay I did on amber reproduction. Have fun (http://home.comcast.net/~arrefmak/blood.htm).

Great! I just love reading your essays :)

Quote from: CroakerIn short, the potential to walk the pattern disapears after 3 generations, as the "true" blood is too diluted with unreal chaos blood. You're also less and longer lived, with base attributes going only lower.

There is no basis whatsoever to suppose that Chaos blood is inherently weaker than that of Amber, or that Chaosites are any less real than Amberites, other than in Wujcik's personal interpretation of the Amber universe. Dworkin even came from Chaos and has no inherent Amber blood, and Oberon even said "I trust to the blood of Chaos for strength".

QuoteHowever, asseying the pattern makes you entirely real, and gives you a new level of existence, making you a "true" amberite, resetting the blood clock, making you immortal and giving you better potential. Amber potential.

Amberites don't appear to be immortal so much as very long lived. Oberon certainly appears older than his children, for example.

Age is in the eye of the beholder.  If I remember correctly, Corwin commented that shadows will lie for them.  That said, I suppose you would see some people (Fi) change around the primal plains.

Quote from: TrevelyanThere is no basis whatsoever to suppose that Chaos blood is inherently weaker than that of Amber

Ooops!!!
Sorry, typing error, I meant "Shadow Blood", I dunno were that came from.

All great responses, really, and I agree with most of you that Amber blood shouldn't be trivialized and that breeding is a difficult thing.

I think for the most part that we, as GMs, find an easy way to turn the player's idea around on them: that's just how things work in RPGs when the PCs abuse the system in some manner - Let the system work but let them mind the consequences!

Here's a side question for raising amberites: would those children raised in Shadow be less powerful than say those raised in Amber, or the Courts of Chaos? I'm not talking about education (yet) or their lineage, but about the proximity to Real Planes of existence... Substance, if you will.

Would you, the GM, take that into consideration?

Would you even go so far as saying that amberite children raised in fast-time shadows would end up being weaker than those raised in shadows with similar time differential, for game-balance reasons?

I realize all of those questions can be very specific to certain GMs and even to certain campaigns, but I'm just trying to get other ideas than my own on this since I haven't had to deal with PC children very much before and our current FTF game is "lineage heavy" - Some duties in the game are inherited; the PCs are descendants of characters from a previous campaign; the characters have decided to start legacies of their own and from what I can tell plan on using their children pretty much the same way Oberon has. This is all in the early stages so I figured I'd get more opinions on the matter.

And to clarify, the clone army and amberite child army idea has not come up in this campaign. It's just something I remember another player doing a long time ago. The GM basically turned the PC's creations against him... Pretty much what's been mentionned before. :D

For me, Amber Blood is Amber blood. Asseying the Pattern strenghten it, the pattern claiming the character as its own, but living elsewhere from amber changes nothing... For real people, as the effects are too subtle for them (like, what's a +1% when you're at 80%?). OTOH, shadow characters brought to Amber will become more real and stronger over time (+1% is significant when you're at 2%)

Fast time shadows change nothing, save the ammount of mundane skill you can have. Attributes and all stay the same, unless confronted to a real challenge.

Quote from: Nihilistic MindHere's a side question for raising amberites: would those children raised in Shadow be less powerful than say those raised in Amber, or the Courts of Chaos? I'm not talking about education (yet) or their lineage, but about the proximity to Real Planes of existence... Substance, if you will.

Would you, the GM, take that into consideration?

Would you even go so far as saying that amberite children raised in fast-time shadows would end up being weaker than those raised in shadows with similar time differential, for game-balance reasons?

These are really good questions. Your campaign could change directions based on the answers.

What I try to keep in mind, answering questions like these, is that science isn't as important as metaphysics. That also seems to be part of your presumption in the question.

I think there are two important issues (that earth logic would say are linked but Amber logic might say are not), first is matter/substance and the question of the poles of Reality. The first issue concerns things like fast-time shadows , environ reality support and challenges that might make the young of Amber grow strong.

In this, you can see possible flaws in raising Amberites in shadow. If there are no local challenges, do the kids grow up weak and lazy? If fast-time shadows are inherently unstable, do the kids grow up more subject to Logrus, chaos forces and magic? If shadow energies are quite low compared to Amber, does the air, food, nutrients and support of the home world cripple the blossoming teen years of a growing amberite?

You have to consider the 'flesh' and substance might be weakened by all these factors. You might find that young amberites are not crippled, but instead take much longer to mature properly.

Second is the Blood, and by this I mean only power and substance and Pattern. The Blood of Amber is a mystic thing not subject to weak forces or the flesh. Even near death, the Blood of Amber can spin devastating curses or destroy shadows. Even reproducing with shadow blood does not trivialize Amber Blood.

Just this week, IMC, a Player was probing into the differences between kids raised near Ygg, or near Chaos, or near Amber. Those differences showed up in the flesh, but not in the Blood.

I think that's a good Zelazny-esque answer.

It makes sense, I like it. The blood of Amber has the potential needed to walk the Pattern and the potential for fantastic abilities, but the environment/conditions of the child's growth might have an impact until that potential is unleashed (either with proper challenges, walking the Pattern, etc).

Merlin gets proper education in the Courts of Chaos and ends up with tons of Powers! But also a lot of baggage...

I could even see the potential of Amber Blood being true for Amberites who have already matured. For example, Corwin, after being imprisoned and malnourrished for years, seemed very old and quite weak, even to Shadowlings. But he eventually returns to his former potential, rising that the challenge of the Black Circle presented. Without that challenge, and if he'd been lazy, he might have continued to age and his health could dwindle a bit more... But the potential would always be there...

Oh, and I'll keep you updated with what happens to the offsprings of the PCs soon... I don't want to spoil it in case the players are lurking on here. :)

Quote from: Nihilistic MindHow would YOU handle those situations and the subject of PC children in general in your campaigns?

In the first Amber Diceless campaign, Mike Kucharski's character Morgan was determined to create allies for himself. He wandered out into Shadow, shape-shifted himself into a psionic wolf form, and found a mate (I'm skipping over the role-playing, but there were obstacles).

I responded by recruiting a suitable number of new players, and holding a special Attribute Auction. The new players were given a modified character sheet, one where there were different costs and options (including a massive discount for Shape Shifting).

The end result was the Wolfling Campaign which was extensively described in Amberzine, mostly in "Morgan's Children," written by player and campaign chronicler, Cathy Klessig.

A great time was had by all... but Mike found parenthood to be a pretty aggravating experience, dealing with a half-dozen unique player characters, plus he never managed to rid himself of his wolf-wife.

Erick


Illustration of Morgan, on the cover of Amberzine #2:

I have dealt with kids a couple of times. In one case a Character, Reuben, bought 2 Amber allies at 6 point each to be his children, Conrad and Torbjorn. Torbjorn was a hothead and got himself into fights a lot and was a great hook to get Reuben out of his comfortable chair in Amber. Conrad was a would be sorceror and as such was heniously manipulated by another PC and turned against his dad in a pursuit for more power. Hey when they had to kill him I allowed him to recoup the 6 points ...

In the same game Hugo has a creature called Iago that was like a shapeshifting chaos demon. Since kids seemed to be about Hugo had Iago shapeshift into a cute little ginger haired kid that could hang about being sweet and find out what Conrad was after so Hugo could use it to turn him.
It all worked out rather well to be honest so I think Amberite kids are great.

As for Clones, Pattern Ghosts and the like. Bit tricky here if the clones are formed like pattern ghosts they could probably approach Amber but if there were technological creations in my world they would be limited to one or a small range of shadows. I work to the higher the tech the fewer shadows it works in principle.
If there were magic, pattern ghosts or empowered shadow copies then they are going to be just as sneaky and manipulative as the real version and so all of them will be looking for Power and apt to take over after why would an Amberite want to be number 2.

You could by a 'clone' army as an item at character gneration time, or named and numbered or whatever and that would be the only time I would give a player total control. But even if you allowed say a 16 point manipulate shadow power and Amberite endurance, strength etc they named and numbered copies of yourself would cost ... 60 or so points so ... you would probably need them to survive anyway.

Things turned out pretty good with the PCs' kids. One of the PC died and is going to play as his progeny (with less points and a lot of baggage), while the other one keeps worrying about his daughters and their need for independence and getting side-tracked.

I'd definitely let player characters have kids again. It has created great roleplaying situations!

Quote from: Nihilistic MindHere's a side question for raising amberites: would those children raised in Shadow be less powerful than say those raised in Amber, or the Courts of Chaos? I'm not talking about education (yet) or their lineage, but about the proximity to Real Planes of existence... Substance, if you will.

Since its the blood that matters, I don't think that they will be physically weaker, but they may be weaker in other ways, socially weaker mainly. Not trained in the ways of Amber.

RPGpundit

Croaker   -   oooo, nice idea Croaker!

<"I wouldn't let a character...">  (fill in the blanks)   ---  there are GM's that still use this approach? I thought Amber would weed alot of those out. No personal attack Trevelyan, as I don't know you... but how frustrating is it to ANY player to hear that in a mutiverse that supposedly 'anything' is possible?

 ---  My rule is, if it doesn't fit in the campaign, it's worth discussing and open to debate, but not during game play obviously.

 ---  
 I agree, and like it.

 ---  
remember the quote - "I knew the Shadows would lie for me" as said by Corwin when speaking of his appearence and his true age. Any long-lived entity seems immortal to one of a signifigantly shorter life-span.
(oh, I see you remembered that too, Crafty.)

Beautiful, love the input Erick  ---  speaking of Amberzine ( how many available, and how much, I'm practically poor -but neeeeeed them so much.
I had several and had them all appropriated from me.)

Quote from: gabriel_ss4u<"I wouldn't let a character...">  (fill in the blanks)   ---  there are GM's that still use this approach? I thought Amber would weed alot of those out. No personal attack Trevelyan, as I don't know you... but how frustrating is it to ANY player to hear that in a mutiverse that supposedly 'anything' is possible?

I wouldn't read it as a personal attack.

It is a slight misrepresentation of my point which was that "I wouldn't let a character breed a large family on a whim since all the evidence seems to suggest that Amberites are relatively infertile."

In answer to the general point about frustrationg players, there is a significant difference between saying "No!", and saying "That's going to be difficult and will require a lot of work". In the Amber setting it is clearly not the case that anything is literally possible, characters, both PC and NPC, have their limitations, and relatively slow rates of reproduction appear to be among them. It's most appropriate to say that Amberites breed at the speed of plot since children pop up when they would be most likely to develop the story. Of course, the wider plot is in the hands of the GM, so a player cannot simply say "I'm gonna shag until I have an army of offspring" and expect things to go easily. At the same time, a PC who looks into the apparently aweful fertility record of his family, investigates methods to increase his chances and  possibly endulges in a little shape shifting to swing the odds (those crazy chaos types seem to have the edge in the breeding stakes) would fare far better.

Quote from: TrevelyanI wouldn't read it as a personal attack.

It is a slight misrepresentation of my point which was that "I wouldn't let a character breed a large family on a whim since all the evidence seems to suggest that Amberites are relatively infertile."

Thanks
I didn't... just wanted to make my stand/opinion.
I read some of the other things you've posted.... I like your style... where are you located?

(I'm new to this posting thing. I was once upon a time addicted to aol Masquerade Ball Chat Room back in the early to mid 90's and haven't really chatted w/people much and never really blogged, so it's still all new to me in this era. Thanks for your patience... I really am in respect of alot of these Amber gamers I read. Wish I had the time & funds to make one of the Ambercons. .... sigh

Quote from: gabriel_ss4uI read some of the other things you've posted.... I like your style... where are you located?

Ah, flattery! My Achilles heal :deflated:

I'm based just outside of London in the UK. I never seem to have time to make it to a Con either, but there are plenty of ideas knocking around here.

If a character with Pattern wanted to find a Shadow where he would be especially fertile, as a GM I would certainly let him find it.  I'm not sure why a PC would deliberately create extra hostages or targets for his enemies, though.

Quote from: Jefferson KroghI'm not sure why a PC would deliberately create extra hostages or targets for his enemies, though.

Well, you're assuming the character actually cares for his offspring. Using them, the way Oberon used his, was the player's main goal... In this particular case, anyway.

It's more likely the PC is reprimanded by an elder for his careless breeding: more Amber blood around means more blood to erase the Pattern with.

And this may be one of the reasons why amberites are so infertile ;)