Powers auctioned as attributes

[Sydius Mendoza]

Panjumanju,

Wasn't trying to troll you. Sorry if I was rude. For the record, I did read your post. I was not objecting to the content on most of what you said, so much as the tone. It came across (to me anyway) with sort of a 'This is the only way you can play Amber'. You were presenting an opinion as fact. You have no way to prove this assertion, just as I have no way of refuting it.

Here is my feeling on it. IMO, no one gets to actually play in Rogers Amber. Unless you played in a ADRPG game with Roger as the GM you haven't, and never will. Erick Wujcik created the closest approximation available. The brilliant thing about the system is that it doesn't claim to be THE Amber, it provides a framework for each of us to realize our own visions of this universe. Roger gave us his vision. Erick gave us the tools to help us embrace that vision and make it our own. The golden rule gives each of us the freedom to create our own interpretation.

That all being said, if I missed the intent of your posting or assumed a meaning that wasn't intended to be there, I apologize.

[Panjumanju]

Panjumanju,

Wasn't trying to troll you. Sorry if I was rude.

Sydius, I don't think you were trolling.

For the record, I did read your post. I was not objecting to the content on most of what you said, so much as the tone. It came across (to me anyway) with sort of a 'This is the only way you can play Amber'. You were presenting an opinion as fact. You have no way to prove this assertion, just as I have no way of refuting it.

I'm sorry that I was unclear. I'm certainly not of the opinion that there is only one way to play a game about a multi-verse where everything is possible. However, as you rightly point out - Erick Wujick gave us the closest thing to Zelazny's Amber as an RPG. And I think (and many would agree) that it this system, designed to be the best system for an Amber game, probably is.

What I'm thinking is this: how much can you change a system before it becomes a different system? Amber Diceless is a bit of an odd one for this question because it is so unique. I'm not at all critical of what the OP is doing - they're trying to get the best game they can. But I notice all the Dungeons & Dragons clones (especially the early ones) that claim not to be Dungeons & Dragons, which bare greater similarity than Amber Diceless does to and the game of Amber the OP is proposing.

Amber Diceless has spawned many high profile games from just such a process: Fate, Fudge and Big Eyes Small Mouth all claim they started with an Amber game and started tweaking. The reason why I'm frustrated is because these "Children of Amber" systems, so to speak, could be really cool.

We should be having a million awesome Diceless games - Lords of Olympus and Lords of Gossamer and Shadow should only be the tip of the iceberg. So, if there is an animosity in the tone of my post, it's not because of you or because of the OP's idea, but because I wish people would take these cool and original notions of expanding the auction character creation format and do something original with them, and give us more cool games.

Do you know what I mean?

//Panjumanju

[jibbajibba]

That's cool, but...why keep the Amber setting? I mean, it's a great setting but I feel it is really best served by Erick Wujcik's rules. If you're going to change the statistics and the method of acquisition of powers, you're steering the system towards a very different place, which may be better served by an original setting. Just an idea.

//Panjumanju

Can't agree with that a by the book approach to adrpg is almost itself going against the book that tells you to chop stuff up change things about etc.

I don't auction powers though I have considered it. I do auction brth order , political influence, allies, items.

I use partial powers, usually on a power tree model

The setting tumps the system every time (pardon the pun)

[Sydius Mendoza]

Do you know what I mean?

//Panjumanju

I grok.

[RPGPundit]

Panjumanju,

Wasn't trying to troll you. Sorry if I was rude. For the record, I did read your post. I was not objecting to the content on most of what you said, so much as the tone. It came across (to me anyway) with sort of a 'This is the only way you can play Amber'. You were presenting an opinion as fact. You have no way to prove this assertion, just as I have no way of refuting it.

Here is my feeling on it. IMO, no one gets to actually play in Rogers Amber. Unless you played in a ADRPG game with Roger as the GM you haven't, and never will. Erick Wujcik created the closest approximation available. The brilliant thing about the system is that it doesn't claim to be THE Amber, it provides a framework for each of us to realize our own visions of this universe. Roger gave us his vision. Erick gave us the tools to help us embrace that vision and make it our own. The golden rule gives each of us the freedom to create our own interpretation.

That all being said, if I missed the intent of your posting or assumed a meaning that wasn't intended to be there, I apologize.

I agree with you on all of this.

I also agree with Panjumanju on letting a thousand flowers bloom from the base game and playing with different settings too, obviously.

RPGPundit