Amber, using Everway fortune cards

[Norbert G. Matausch]

... or tarot cards, for that matter.

Has anyone ever GM'ed Amber and used tarot or similar cards to get inspiration or support for his decision?

Like, I used those beautiful Everway fortune cards when my players had their characters walking the Pattern.

[Evermasterx]

... or tarot cards, for that matter.

Has anyone ever GM'ed Amber and used tarot or similar cards to get inspiration or support for his decision?

Like, I used those beautiful Everway fortune cards when my players had their characters walking the Pattern.

I know very well Everway (I think is inspired by Amber) and in my opinion is a great game. I didn't used the cards in Amber because I want to play it as in the books, but what you did is an interesting idea. Did it work?

[Croaker]

Well, it may depend a lot, but I wouldn't use it for most decisions, since it would mean reintroducing a random factor (a "dice") in the game.
Decisions should depend on attributes, powers and stuff, IMO.

OTOH, inspiration is another thing, although I wouldn't neglect stuff here, mostly to "color" the cards

[Norbert G. Matausch]

I know very well Everway (I think is inspired by Amber) and in my opinion is a great game. I didn't used the cards in Amber because I want to play it as in the books, but what you did is an interesting idea. Did it work?

Oh, it worked beautifully.
I used the cards both for color and for decision-making. The latter I did when I felt burnt-out or too lazy to think hard.

[jibbajibba]

I let PCs do readings in game and then use the outcome of those readings to influence play. But I don't use it as way of getting inspiration rather as a method of foreshadowing.

[RPGPundit]

There was, long ago, in some magazine an article that got printed that talked about randomly generating Amber characters with a tarot deck.  One of the amber campaigns I ran used that method.  Ultimately, I vastly prefer the attribute auction.

I have used the trump cards that I'd printed out as a deck for whenever someone does a trump divination, more often than not letting those cards fall where they may, and sometimes using elements of that reading in the ongoing plot.  I could of course use Tarot cards for that (I own about a half-dozen decks myself, and The Wench owns 130 or so decks, so its not like we lack them around the house), but I think its much more sensible to use the actual trumps of the Amberites.

RPGPundit

[two_fishes]

Have you seen this?

Amberway

[RPGPundit]

I did see that, yes.  Never made use of it myself, though I played Everway back in the day.

RPGPundit

[Norbert G. Matausch]

Ultimately, I vastly prefer the attribute auction.

I second that. Nothing better under the sun for a true Amber game than the auction.

I own about a half-dozen decks myself, and The Wench owns 130 or so decks, so its not like we lack them around the house

Cool!
Back in the days, I held seminars on tarot reading... I still own my Morgan-Greer deck, even though I don't do anything with it any more.

[RPGPundit]

There's an Amber-themed Tarot deck, by the way, though ironically its one of the few that The Wench doesn't actually own.

RPGPundit

[finarvyn]

There's an Amber-themed Tarot deck, by the way, though ironically its one of the few that The Wench doesn't actually own.

The wench hasn't missed much. It's hard to find and therefore pretty expensive, but I don't think it's that impressive. The character names are on the cards, but I don't think that the artwork inspires me much.


Frankly, I'd rather have a deck with the artwork from the ADRP rulebook.

[RPGPundit]

I'd agree with that preference; but given the artwork I've seen on some of the tarot decks The Wench does own, I'd say that one isn't even in the bottom 75% in terms of quality.  

RPGPundit

[daniel_ream]

I used the tarot-based chargen a lot when I played Amber to generate NPCs.  It does a bang up job of generating complex characters who all have interesting relationships to each other.  It's good for when I want a number of Scions of Amber and Chaos Lords poncing around doing things without having to come with them ex nihilo.  I wouldn't use it for PCs; the whole point of the Auction is to get the players antagonistic to each other.

[isomage]

Since diceless roleplaying never quite sat well with me, I've always wanted to do Amber using a Tarot deck in the manner of the Fate Deck from the old SAGA systems, with the four major arcana corresponding to the four character attributes in the diceless game.

Never got around to it, but it's something I still think about from time to time.

As for using Tarot for character generation, I made this with that in mind: http://axiscity.hexamon.net/users/isomage/tarot/  You have to bring your own interpretations to the table, but I've used it a couple of times to create fairly well fleshed out character personalities.

[RPGPundit]

Hmm, I can't say that I'd find that very useful.

RPGPundit