So I Don't Think I Get Amber

[Sydius Mendoza]

Moreover, the play examples were irritating (not in that they existed, in their content), and the GM came off as a snide, patronizing jerk to me.

This resonates with me. I have read the entire series + short stories many, many times. So I'm quite familiar with the setting. I have pdf copies of the source books and although I have not had an opportunity to play yet, I'm very excited about the system.

That being said, I don't find the play examples very helpful, mainly because of the way the GM is treating the players.

The auction example blatantly encourages the GM to be disingenuous with the players by presenting each attribute as "The MOST important one". I understand that as a GM you want to establishing a sense of competition between the players. But, this could be done by letting them know that they are competing with one another and telling them that the "most important" attribute depends entirely on what they want their character to be best at. Are all the attributes important? Absolutely, but in their own way. "Most important" is entirely subjective, and the players should know that their judgement on this is the only one that really matters.

"Trust the GM" is good advice, but at the same time trust has to be earned. If I were to run the auction like the book suggests my players may very well sour on the idea of trying out Amber. Which would be a shame. My core gaming group are all close friends that have never played ADRPG, but we've all read the Chronicles and are, to varying degrees, fans of Zelazny. We already love the setting. The system will be an experiment for us. One that I personally think could work very well. We've been a D&D clique for almost 15 years. Most of us were in HS theater together, so there is a huge emphasis placed on the acting aspect of roleplaying. Honestly I think that ADRPG will prove to be a great system for us because it appears to eliminate the thing that always slows our sessions to a crawl. That being combat mechanics. We like rolling dice, it's just that we enjoy the character dynamics of roleplaying so much more.

[Panjumanju]

The auction example blatantly encourages the GM to be disingenuous with the players by presenting each attribute as "The MOST important one". I understand that as a GM you want to establishing a sense of competition between the players. But, this could be done by letting them know that they are competing with one another and telling them that the "most important" attribute depends entirely on what they want their character to be best at. Are all the attributes important? Absolutely, but in their own way. "Most important" is entirely subjective, and the players should know that their judgement on this is the only one that really matters.

I've introduced many friends to Amber and run it several times at conventions, and I've always presented the Auction mechanic exactly as it's written in the book - and people love it. It only takes the second attribute auction for players to say, with a smile: "Hey wait a second, you said that for Psyche!", and by the time you say it about a third attribute, people know what to expect, and have a lot of fun with it. Presenting the attributes at auction this way does EXACTLY what you want it to - every one of them is displayed in their best light, and at the time feels like the most important statistic. It helps players focus on what really matters to them and their character.

This is a prime example of how the Amber DRPG rules are written - they often look terrible on paper, ugly even - but when you play them as they're written, they work very, very well. (I've found other game books filled with very pretty looking rules that don't work out at all - more fashionable, but certainly not more useful than the approach Amber takes.)

I haven't met a player who hasn't hesitated when reading the rulebook.
I haven't met a player who hasn't loved playing Amber. (I've heard of people on the internet, but I have no idea how they were playing.)
I haven't met a player who hasn't thought the rulebook was amazing, only after they'd already played a few sessions.

It's like a tome.
Or a cryptonomicon.
A book of secrets.
And on, and on, and on...

The point is - just play the game already.

//Panjumanju

[Premier]

"GM: A fist-sized object comes flying into the room, shattering
the window and splashing right into the big soup bowl.
What are you doing?
Willy: Greymer is here with me, didn't I have any warning?
GM: Your lynx, Greymer, looks startled and his fur is standing
straight up on end. What are you doing?
Willy: Greymer is supposed to be psychically sensitive to
danger. Why wasn't I warned?
GM: Greymer takes off for the door, so fast you'd think his tail
was on fire. What are you doing?
Willy: I don't get it. Greymer should tell me about this stuff.
Why didn't I expect this? Is this fair?
GM: Are you asking me?
Willy: Yeah, I'm asking you.
GM: What's the question?
Willy: Why didn't Greymer warn me of this attack?
GM: Are you asking as Willy, or as Garvin?
Willy: What's the difference? Just answer the question.
GM: If you are asking as Willy, I was going to suggest that we
get to it some other time, after the session. As to Garvin,
how is Garvin going to find out the answer?"

The way I read it, Willy considered the notion that a hard and possibly heavy fist-sized thing crashing through the window and missing your brains by not all that much is dangerous. Which it is, bricks falling on people tend to be nasty. THAT was the danger he was expecting some warning about, not some undisclosed event AFTER the thing has come to a full stop in his soup bowl. And from that point of view, the GM did screw him over. I mean, I reckon the cat's magical warning is supposed to be about things still in the future, not something that has already happened and by now turned inert and safe. "Purr purr, hey master? That brick that just flew through your window and brained you? Guess what, it was dangerous."

Of course, it might be that the thing is actually a hand grenade and it WILL go off rather soon-ish, in which case the GM did it right.


Anyway, slightly off perhaps, but...

You know what I think would be a REALLY great thing to do for Amber DRPG fans who'd like others to check out the game? Get together a good, experienced GM, a few good players, run a good game of 6 hours or so, record it and put it up on Youtube. As it is, both the concept of the DRPG and the possible kinds of adventures you could run are so fucking utterly unintuitive to every gamer or fantasy fan who's not already part of the Cult of Amber/AmberDRPG, that an actual demonstration would do a hundred times more good than any amount of general conversation about it on forums.

[Sydius Mendoza]

Some of my apprehension comes from people I know recounting bad experiences with ADRPG. A former co-worker of mine told me about the one time he and a group tried Amber. They ran the auction with the GM following the play example from the book. Now he must not have done a very good job explaining the system because not a single player had points left to spend on powers after the auction. The players were pissed off and ready to abandon the game before it even got going. The GM re-ran the auction, only this time the players conspired to basically low-ball the bidding (BTW, is there a common term for this here?). So you had players scoring first rank in attributes for less than 5 points spent. The GM had full on pink-panty meltdown and refused to run the game stating that the players had broken the system. The more time I spend on the forum here, the more I see that the failure is on the GM of that group, not on the system.

This is a prime example of how the Amber DRPG rules are written - they often look terrible on paper, ugly even - but when you play them as they're written, they work very, very well.
//Panjumanju

Thanks for the input. It really is helpful to have advice from the experienced, especially when it comes to things like this. I think for the first trial run I will do my best to trust the source books and run the auction as written. I honestly value all the advice that i have received so far. This is what keeps me coming back to this forum.

[RPGPundit]

The whole "most important attribute" thing at the auction is not stupid, its actually a stroke of genius.  Like the auction itself, it teaches some important lessons to the players in the very first minutes of the game that set the tone for the entire campaign.

And like with Panjumanju, every time I've used it people have gotten that and loved it; that Amber is a game about not trusting, about manipulation, and one where anything can theoretically be "the most powerful attribute", to boot.

RPGPundit

[finarvyn]

I'd say the best way to "get" Amber is to find an existing game and sit in a while.

I went through a gradual evolution in order to "get" Amber.

FIRST STAGE: Read about the game in Dragon, ordered the game, read the book, mostly didn't get it but thought the concept sounded cool.

SECOND STAGE: Sat in a game at a local store, sort of got it, ran some games.

THIRD STAGE: Gamed with Erick, talked to Erick about Amber, pieces really clicked into place.

So, I have to agree with Kevin. The best way to get Amber is to experience it.

[Doctor Jest]

It seemed like a good two-thirds of the book could have been replaced with a page saying "Wing it" and nothing would have been lost.

This has always been my impression, too, and I likewise wondered if I was missing something.

I am familiar with the Amber novels, so the source material is cool and all.

I also don't know how you'd go about making a character if you have only 1 player. I run alot of solo games for my wife outside of our regular group, so that's pretty important. The rankings and bidding system only make sense in the context of multiple players.

[Panjumanju]

This has always been my impression, too, and I likewise wondered if I was missing something.

I am familiar with the Amber novels, so the source material is cool and all.

I also don't know how you'd go about making a character if you have only 1 player. I run alot of solo games for my wife outside of our regular group, so that's pretty important. The rankings and bidding system only make sense in the context of multiple players.

You cannot run the game if you only have one player. You need many players for the auction - to a certain extent, the more the better. Once you're in the game itself, you can run solo adventures no problem.

//Panjumanju

[finarvyn]

You cannot run the game if you only have one player. You need many players for the auction - to a certain extent, the more the better. Once you're in the game itself, you can run solo adventures no problem.

Actually, you don't really need the auction in order to enjoy Amber, so even if a party is better you can play one-on-one quite well.

Once the player assigns numbers to his stats this helps to define the character's strengths and weaknesses and the GM has material to work with when creating the creatures and NPCs encountered during the campaign. This clearly changes the focus of the game from "player vs. player" to "player vs. environment". Not the same, but can still be fun.

[Panjumanju]

Actually, you don't really need the auction in order to enjoy Amber, so even if a party is better you can play one-on-one quite well.

Once the player assigns numbers to his stats this helps to define the character's strengths and weaknesses and the GM has material to work with when creating the creatures and NPCs encountered during the campaign. This clearly changes the focus of the game from "player vs. player" to "player vs. environment". Not the same, but can still be fun.

I am corrected.

You can just use the points. I find many players of Amber do this anyway, misalign the importance of the ranking system in favour of number comparison. It's probably an easier way to do character vs. environment.

However, I think a quintessential part of the Amber experience is lost when you don't run an auction.

//Panjumanju

[finarvyn]

I think a quintessential part of the Amber experience is lost when you don't run an auction.

I agree that a part of the Amber experience is lost, but I can't decide just how significant a part this represents.

I GM a group of players who are more cooperative than competitive. When I ran an auction, they hated it. When I had them do a point-buy (and insisted that there be no ties in points spent in attributes) they were okay with it. They seemed to have a good time.

However, your point is well taken. Erick's base ADRP rules system is brilliant in the way it approaches the Amber universe and the way it handles conflict. In general I'm wary of changing anything from the core rulebook, but the auction is one of the few things that didn't work well for my players.

[Panjumanju]

I GM a group of players who are more cooperative than competitive. When I ran an auction, they hated it.

That's very interesting.

I think the auction requires at least a few shoaboats in order to work. There can be many sneaky-shadow-tactics people in the auction, and it just makes the experience stronger - but you need two or three people on the social front-lines, so to speak, being ambitious, or I can imagine that the auction will not operate. I'm very curious if you don't have some egotistical jokester in your group, or if there's some other social dynamic going on.

Most gaming groups have a high index of socially awkward. (Mine sure does!) Would you rate your group especially so? Fear of conflict, or they don't know each other well, or what? Are they just a timid bunch? How far along the scale of passive versus aggressive would your rate them? What age group are we talking about, here?

I don't mean to be insensitive, I'm just wondering what lead to a breakdown of the auction.


//Panjumanju

[finarvyn]

Much of their "fear of conflict" is a direct result of the group demographic -- my wife, two teenaged children, sister, and a couple of friends. They love role-playing and have had excellent experiences with ADRP, but mostly in an "us against them" environment instead of "us against each other."

I'm sure it would be very different with a group of friends instead of family.

[jibbajibba]

Much of their "fear of conflict" is a direct result of the group demographic -- my wife, two teenaged children, sister, and a couple of friends. They love role-playing and have had excellent experiences with ADRP, but mostly in an "us against them" environment instead of "us against each other."

I'm sure it would be very different with a group of friends instead of family.

Sounds like a perfect grup for an amber game you just need to make them all hate each other in real life....

I think you can work round ranks, though I still like an auction to build up pressure. I don't think I coudl play amber without inter PC intrigue though that would kill the buzz for me.

[Panjumanju]

Much of their "fear of conflict" is a direct result of the group demographic -- my wife, two teenaged children, sister, and a couple of friends. They love role-playing and have had excellent experiences with ADRP, but mostly in an "us against them" environment instead of "us against each other."

I'm sure it would be very different with a group of friends instead of family.

It makes sense.

I engage in roleplaying games as a huge excuse to spend time with friends. You may only have so much time with your two teenagers especially, before they say: "Hanging out with my dad? Ewwww!" So you get in that time while you can. Forget the auction. At the end of the day you do what you have to do to make the game happen and spend time with the people you care about.

//Panjumanju