Reality

[Croaker]

From the possession thread, some questions about Reality.

What does it means to you? How have you used it in your games?

To me, it means that you can't be manipulated by shadow manipulation. Only psychic domination will do. For exemple, one can't change your hair color or body parts. This also holds true for places, items... You can't alter a real place.
So, I've got Amberites, and, at the other end of the spectrum, some shadow so ethereal than a simple shadow manipulation can change them entirely.

I think fun ideas about it would be for Amber to become less and less real, or, conversely, for Shadows to gain reality. Have you done something like this?

[RPGPundit]

That's more or less what reality means to me. Amberites and Chaos Lords, having more reality, are not easily changed around like Shadows are. And of course a certain level of reality is necessary in order to receive power from major forces like the Pattern or Logrus.

RPGPundit

[Stormwind]

To me, it means that you can't be manipulated by shadow manipulation. Only psychic domination will do. For exemple, one can't change your hair color or body parts. This also holds true for places, items... You can't alter a real place.
So, I've got Amberites, and, at the other end of the spectrum, some shadow so ethereal than a simple shadow manipulation can change them entirely.

How would Shapeshift fit into your picture of reality? Particularly the ability to shapeshift others?

[Croaker]

You'll notice I talked about shadow manipulation

Shapeshifting is a propriety of the body, just like healing or growing. At its core, it involves allowing your cells to regress and take other paths than the original. It's still the same person and all, just like, when aging, you're not subjected to shadow manipulation but to a normal bodily fonction.

When shapeshifting others, you just unlock this ability in someone else, and, through psychic domination, overrides his control. Just like, when taking a baby that can't walk, you can lift him so that his feet are upon the ground and lead him whenever you want.

But tell me, what's your take on all this?

[jibbajibba]

Ooh I might well argue that shapeshift is the basis of all powers and all things are made of Shadow. Shapeshifting is just altering the shadw stuff you are made up of, which is why you can add or subtract to your mass by absorbing shadow stuff, becuase all the stuff is the same.
Manipulating shadow is jus the external expression of this shapeshifting ability.

The question then comes in at what is reality. Well it will be the will of the individual. Will of a shadow dweller might well be real but just tiny compared to an amberite or chaosite. Of course you coudl argue that the will is itself contained by the trump but I digress.

[Stormwind]

You'll notice I talked about shadow manipulation

Shapeshifting is a propriety of the body, just like healing or growing. At its core, it involves allowing your cells to regress and take other paths than the original. It's still the same person and all, just like, when aging, you're not subjected to shadow manipulation but to a normal bodily fonction.

When shapeshifting others, you just unlock this ability in someone else, and, through psychic domination, overrides his control. Just like, when taking a baby that can't walk, you can lift him so that his feet are upon the ground and lead him whenever you want.

But tell me, what's your take on all this?

My take would be that Shapeshifting is a primal way of manipulating reality (initially oneself, and then other creatures and objects).
Logically it would then follow that both the Pattern and the Logrus are then simply constructs that provide access to the same ability to manipulate reality, but with more of a focus on manipulating others rather than oneself. Of course they are very intelligent, very powerful constructs, but nethertheless ...

Shapeshifting others might be as you describe except that that would assume that everyone has the potential to learn to shapeshift (if you just 'unlock the ability'). I subscribe to a slightly different view of it.

Or course, when you throw trump into the mix ... things get complicated

[Croaker]

Ooh I might well argue that shapeshift is the basis of all powers and all things are made of Shadow. Shapeshifting is just altering the shadw stuff you are made up of, which is why you can add or subtract to your mass by absorbing shadow stuff, becuase all the stuff is the same.

Note that this might not be an argument, in that you could have a "body" comprised of both Real and Shadow matter.

An interesting thought might be to have Real beings unable to do this (and, IIRC, we don't see any of them do it) because the shadow stuff just can't cling to them.

But if Reality = Will, does this means Reality = Psyche?

Stormwind: A problem I see with this is that, as a consequence, if it is the same ability, only specialised, Pattern and Logrus might be more efficient at changing someone real (or even a plant or animal in Amber), which isn't the case. Nonetheless, it is a fun idea

[RPGPundit]

I don't see shapeshifting as a manipulation of shadow; shapeshifting is molding the body; if you're a shadow its a shadow body, if you're real its a real body. You aren't changing their fundamental reality, you're working with what's there and molding it.

RPGPundit

[Bird_of_Ill_Omen]

From the possession thread, some questions about Reality.

What does it means to you? How have you used it in your games?

To me, it means that you can't be manipulated by shadow manipulation. Only psychic domination will do. For exemple, one can't change your hair color or body parts. This also holds true for places, items... You can't alter a real place.
So, I've got Amberites, and, at the other end of the spectrum, some shadow so ethereal than a simple shadow manipulation can change them entirely.

I think fun ideas about it would be for Amber to become less and less real, or, conversely, for Shadows to gain reality. Have you done something like this?

This reminds me of something that happened in my first Amber campaign as a player.  The campaign started during the Courts of Chaos just after the Princes and Princesses left Amber to fight Chaos.  The younger generation were called in to help Gerard mind the castle and defend the kingdom while everyone else was gone.  Soon after that, the Pattern flared way up and started to very, very slowly fade away -- our job was to figure out why it was fading before it vanished completely (unbeknownst to us, it was because of Corwin drawing his own Pattern).  What we found out in shadow was a Pattern that was the Amber Pattern overlayed with Corwin's Pattern (it had all these crisscrossed lines).  My character (being a big shot) decided to walk it.  He went a little insane and became the villain of the story from then afterward.

What he discovered though, was that when he went back to Amber Castle he was able to shift shadow inside its halls (I think because he was using the Corwin Pattern energy to effect the shadow parts of Amber Castle).

It crystalized the idea for my character that Amber wasn't really the real world at all.  The real world was where the Primal Pattern was (which we'd seen by then), and Amber, Rebma and Tir was simply the first three shadows cast by it.  The reason they were immutable to shadowshifting was because of the reflected Pattern within each of those shadows which imposed its order on the shadow giving them the semblance of reality.  With the Corwin Pattern energy, I was able to impose a different set of rules there.

Likewise, the shadow where we found the hybrid Pattern was imbued with more reality, meaning we couldn't shift shadow close to the Pattern in the same way that you have to go deep into Arden before shifting shadow out of Amber.

[Rel Fexive]

Both as a player and in the role of a character I've never liked the 'reality' argument that much, especially when you capitalise it and say that one person is more Real than another.  Anyone who can kill you, or sire or bear your children, is as real as anyone else.

To me, 'Real' just means 'Power'.  Either you have the power to affect Shadow or you don't; but Shadow armies can still conquer Amber and Shadow rock slides can still kill you.  Unfortunately, it's not a superiority complex if you really are superior to most people you'll meet... hence the prejudice against "the little people".

[RPGPundit]

Except that if you can go, buy points in a shadow, and essentially change everything about someone standing before your very eyes with just a thought, then there's an argument to be made that they are less "real" than you.

RPGPundit

[Rel Fexive]

Of course there's an argument, but the same can be said of anyone who finds most people can't transform into a wolf, throw around fireballs or leap tall buildings in a single bound.  It's all about power; who has it and who doesn't. Saying that those without are not Real is just an excuse for dickery.

In my opinion, of course

[BillionSix]

You could argue that Real and Shadow are just based on whoever has the power to define those things.
But in the Amber game, there is an objective difference. Chaos came first. Amber was created later, and shadow came into existence when Amber did. The existence of shadow was literally created by the tension between Amber and Chaos.
I imagine that most shadows barely exist except as a thought or potential unless someone with some reality goes out and finds it. The more that shadow interacts with something real, the more real it becomes.
Is it dickery to feel superior to something that you effectively created from your own will? Especially if you are the strongest, smartest, mightiest being there? Well, maybe, depending on how you treat that shadow.
Most people consider humans superior to animals, but only the worst of us would enjoy hurting them.

[RPGPundit]

Of course there's an argument, but the same can be said of anyone who finds most people can't transform into a wolf, throw around fireballs or leap tall buildings in a single bound.  It's all about power; who has it and who doesn't. Saying that those without are not Real is just an excuse for dickery.

In my opinion, of course

Well, in the first place, I think most amberites are supposed to be sort-of dicks.

But beyond that, the difference is that if you have Reality, someone can't just blink and completely change you, whereas that's exactly what can happen with a shadow-being.

RPGPundit

[Stormwind]

Well, in the first place, I think most amberites are supposed to be sort-of dicks.

But beyond that, the difference is that if you have Reality, someone can't just blink and completely change you, whereas that's exactly what can happen with a shadow-being.

RPGPundit

Sure they can ... 'shapeshifting: shape shift other'. Of course not everybody has that level of shapeshifting (and the necessary psyche advantage), but then again, not everybody has the power to manipulate shadow either.

One can make a lot of arguments on this matter, but my viewpoint is that it is the amount of power that one has accrued that determines ones ability to resist being changed. This power normally takes the form of Pattern, Trump, Logrus, Shapeshifting, Magic or even just ones 'Stats'.

Of course, I could play devils advocate here and argue that one could simply define 'Reality' to be a measure of substance gained from one or more of the aforementioned powers.

In the end I think this is simply a matter of perspective.