Spikards... feh

[gabriel_ss4u]

Well I would just invent them I am fairly certain that given both our approaches most players wouldn't notice the difference and I woudl be able to fit in at least 2 games of pirates and hidden treasure ( i refuse to play Dr Who as I am always the assitant who gets exterminated) with my daughter whilst you were making notes

Yes, a good storyteller can or will create the story to unfold as it goes, taking notes for themselves as the player would. Often I amaze myself with the flow of circumstances as the players create the story with you by their often unpredictable actions. Too many stories go the way of a waste of time in preparation when a PC does the unexpected or even completely ignores it.
Now I'm not saying don't prep. I do alot of prep myself, due to the fact I'm anal retentive and love detail, but it is a marriage of the two for me really.

Often I will concentrate more on the goals of a player and the scenario, and the levels of success they can attain. This; a lesson from my GM.

[gabriel_ss4u]

In respect to Jib et all and back to Ivanhoe, I think people are overlooking a major point here.

1) Sure, a GM can BS players for nigh on forever... lead 'em on wild goose chases and whatnot.  Sure also that the 'secret of spikards' may also be too big for a single game to hold (ie: one of those things that could literally take centuries to research, ICly).  But, there's a certain integrity issue involve as well.

2) In short, if someone uses spikards in their game, there is an immediate call to define them (especially if PCs are going to get their grubby hands on them).  Players PAY for their abilities in the drpg and most players want to know what they pay for.

3) IMO, the only fair way to use spikards in the game is to never allow a PC to own one!  I don't mean that no PC will ever get to use a spikard, just that the player cannot spend points on them.  A GM can then make things up, even changing the rules, as he goes along.  He can have the damn thing blow up on the (un)lucky PC using a spikard.  He can have it suddenly stop working... work in 'reverse'... work only under specific conditions... change under seemingly random conditions, etc.

4) With the above understood, "you get what you pay for" can be applied.  Drive the player to a state of near paranoia in which they may actually be afraid to use the thing!  Use it as a story device, too, of course.  But never ever make the spikard dependable and taken for granted.  Always let the PC know they're carrying the "hot potato" which can and likely will eventually lead to their doom.

1)
you call creating a story or details of background on the fly BSing a player?
This is a skill that comes with experience and creative imagination. Some might think it would be BSing, but perhaps it is because they have not this skill. I have it, Jibba has it... it works well for me, and I have players always coming back for more. This can be done with integrity, I've said it before, I've been in lotsa campaigns/groups of players. It is rare to me to find a great group that messes well and a great GM that can handle it all in this way. I feel so many have not had this, therefore they can't conceive of it actually working.

2) I've had players deal with powers they didn't understand, and eventually it works into the story, if not the main driving plot of a characters background sometimes. (this power was created by your mother to protect you from the evil ones after you... a-la Harry Potter, or even the character my best player had played for 8 yrs. before finding out the truth of his origins... worked well for Wolverine too...) If a player trusts their GM, they KNOW their points are well spend and not neglected... (again... it takes a group that works well together and an exceptional GM)

3) Fair...
not many fair things happened to Corwin...
How many bad points do you have? Or even good points...?
I don't play with GMs that change rules as they go along unless it is for the betterment of the game and discussed with the players.... do you?
I know I don't change them at a whim, it takes a complete process to work out such things like that.
Yeah, those crazy things can happen with any power you have, even Pattern, if that is what the story brings out.
We had people lose their bodies and get trapped inside their Trump... Players with Pattern Hated it, Trump masters ruled that leg of the story, anything can happen in a system where anything is possible.

4) Any player that relaxes their guard on a spikard they possess has it comin' to them, The lesson of the one true ring should show this lesson painfully.
I agree you should get what you pay for, and 1 thing I try never to mess with are players artifacts, as these tend to define those special things about that character. If a spikard is bought like this, I agree it should have a history tied to it, and if a PC/player understands it from the git, that makes it no different to me than a power ring or Mandor's balls.

[scottishstorm]

Gabriel_ss4u .

I can over-generalize things, I know.  You're right.  A good GM can make a compelling story about bellybutton lint if s/he sets their mind to it.

In a nutshell, I think that the nature of spikards actually cheapens the genre.  But, that's just an opinion.  Within a certain arrogance, I assumed everyone should share my view.

Oh well.

This is a little like the 'PG-13' thread.  There are certain mechanics and methodologies I consider lazy and cheap.  The concept of spikards ranks high among them.  I cannot, however, argue they are always handled badly (I do believe they were handled horribly in the books).

[Ivanhoe]

There is a limit to ad libing. You can surprise players with a little skill or imagination but you can not have them unfold a big mystery. Little surprises are fun but what makes a great and coherent campaign is that when everything is linked together and a piece of mystery fits well with the overall puzzle. Patching together many random surprises rarely create a great setting.

Example : If I know there is a master spikard, and also two lesser spikards whose only power is to bind and unbind power sources, that Clarissa owns the master one and conspires with her children to spread regular spikards into the courts of Chaos and Amber, that a guild who understood the scheme own the lesser binding spikard and opposes them, that Benedict is behind them, then I have the beginning of a setting. Then, when a player happens to get a spikard by (apparent) sheer luck, there are already a lot of mysterious but completely explainable events that can unfold. First, as soon as Benedict heards about their possession, the spikard's sources will begin to disconnect one after each other. If they investigate, they could maybe see people from the guild breaking links. They may find them protected by a masked a really skillful swordman, they may get help from Fiona to deal with the issue, etc...

The feeling I got reading Merlin's series is that many people in the Courts knew what spikards were and that if Merlin were slightly curious about it, they would tell him all they know. Now if my players have access to cooperative Chaosian mages, I have to be prepared to tell them what they are, what they were made for, how many are accounted for, who wants them and why. I feel that the only way to ad lib around this would be to separate completely the spikard issue from the rest of the campaign's setting. Which would be a pity...

[jibbajibba]

There is a limit to ad libing. You can surprise players with a little skill or imagination but you can not have them unfold a big mystery. Little surprises are fun but what makes a great and coherent campaign is that when everything is linked together and a piece of mystery fits well with the overall puzzle. Patching together many random surprises rarely create a great setting.

...

But When I adlib something at the moment I start the ad lib spiel I have already determined the great power behind the thing that is the first step in the ad lib process, ' Where does this lead?'

So in the example I gave up there some place the first thing I had decided was that this power source was fed from the energy provided by a million million trapped souls. It leads to a huge decision on the part of the PCs do they break the enchantment that binds the souls to this Primal Plane thus giving them eternal peace or do they let them remain and so provide the spikard with a powerful magical source to draw on. Of course the spikard has a high compelling on it to protect itself so the PC will unless they make explicit statements to the contrary take the trapping of the souls as a given and the GM (me) will never raise any complaints a few NPCs might of course.

The most important thing about a lie is that you convince yourself it is true well before you present it to anyone else.

On the side I write Murder mysteries for hotels. Paying guests that examine every nuance and exchange between my 12 actors. I start with the base plot but change things on the fly ad lib add scenes delete characters etc all as I go along. The actors hate it When you meet one in the toilet and tell them that they have to go down to dinenr and start a fight with the other actor because they just found out that the other guy has been sleeping with their wife, they do blanche albeit momentarily.
Anyway 30 mysteries and 12 years later I have yet to have any guest point out a whole in one of my plots or not feel the sense of completion that if only they had spotted that key clue they would have solved it.

[Ivanhoe]

I suppose your murder mysteries are one-shot games. In Amber you have a campaign where several scenarios contribute to the story. Ad libing one game works fine, ad libing several in the same campaign is a more risky endeavor.

[gabriel_ss4u]

I suppose your murder mysteries are one-shot games. In Amber you have a campaign where several scenarios contribute to the story. Ad libing one game works fine, ad libing several in the same campaign is a more risky endeavor.

More risky, yes... but impossible?
I disagree...

There are those who can calculate and create threads of reason and activity faster and with greater complexity than others.
Some people can ad lib with the greatest of imagination & processing to fit things into a scenario.
True it is easier to do it for one-shots or Throne wars, but it is also capable in long term. I know, we do it.
It doesn't come off like GM manipulation.
It does take a certain amount of planning, and it helps if you can process story threads, actions, reactions, and outcomes faster than others, like playing chess in the storyline.
A great chess master can attempt to explain his methods to a great checkers player, but it may just be too far out of their realm of thinking or possibility for the lesser.
Now, I'm not a chess master, nor a checkers wiz, (or am I comparing anyone here to that...) what I am is a player/GM that can do these things similar to jibbajibba I believe, and I think that's why i understand his thoughts on it.
Again, it does take a great group of players to mesh well with it IMO.

[jibbajibba]

I could reply but it would make me sound like an arrogant wanker so I will refrain.

Ivanhoe, whatever floats your boat mate.

[RPGPundit]

I wouldn't really see the problem with putting points into a Spikard; you see, the point value that the spikard construct must have in total is so high that unless a player is putting a shitload of points in it, they might gain some control over that particular spikard versus other PCs, but the higher point value that the creator of the spikards has would dwarf their investment.

RPGPundit

[Croaker]

Yup, you can perfectly see payment for a spikard as akin to attunement to the JoJ: You've learned how to use it, but you don't own it.

As fer the whole GM thing, I tend to go towards jibba's style: I usually have a starting point, like "there's this menace. A opposes this for reasons xxx, and B is behind it for reasons yyyy". But then, when I have ideas, I throw them in, either linking them to my original stories, or, after the game, thinking about it and tying it all.
So, I might throw some disparate elements in a game session, and, after it, decide that elements 1-3 are all part of mystery A which is ~~~~, and elements 4-5 are part of mystery , while element 6 is just a random occurence.

Like, with the spikards, if I decide in a session to have a spikard speak to the player and tell him it was dying, I'll later decide that maybe spikards are sentients and that Benedict's actions are killing them. Or maybe it was just clarissa that used her master spikard to make the characters believe this in order to oppose Bennie.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Yup, you can perfectly see payment for a spikard as akin to attunement to the JoJ: You've learned how to use it, but you don't own it.

As fer the whole GM thing, I tend to go towards jibba's style: I usually have a starting point, like "there's this menace. A opposes this for reasons xxx, and B is behind it for reasons yyyy". But then, when I have ideas, I throw them in, either linking them to my original stories, or, after the game, thinking about it and tying it all.
So, I might throw some disparate elements in a game session, and, after it, decide that elements 1-3 are all part of mystery A which is ~~~~, and elements 4-5 are part of mystery , while element 6 is just a random occurrence.

Like, with the spikards, if I decide in a session to have a spikard speak to the player and tell him it was dying, I'll later decide that maybe spikards are sentients and that Benedict's actions are killing them. Or maybe it was just clarissa that used her master spikard to make the characters believe this in order to oppose Bennie.

Yes yes yes.... exactly!
GM brain firing on all circuits at tachyon speeds, variable actions and outcomes filtering, appropriate responses to likely reactions, tying in clues that fit perfectly into situation, general final-outcome materializing from direction of scenario's path, trying to retain smile from hidden knowledge... "cause the player's gonna love this..."

I know there are things some of us are so alike in as far as gaming concepts, and/or personal theories within Amber, Chaos, & Beyond.
It makes me feel good and that is why I have always said, a game with some of us would be so cool. And now I get my wish...
"Good Stuff for me!"  in passable-Russian accented English.

And let's not forget, Some of those Swords are Spikards... Would a GM feel easier giving Greyswandir to a player than a magical spell casting monstrosity of a ring?
And if so, why?
Perhaps because it's easier to fit in a story, not as much thinking?
I say a GM could have as large a problem/opportunity if they play that sword to it's fullest potential. Think of all the things a Magical sword forged on the steps of Tir made of Silver and called a magical artifact older than the Patten by some could be capable of.
These items are quite possibly ancient...
Perhaps even powered by jewels set within them, as if it was the sight of some other primal archetype god-like creature who saw the multiverse for what it was, and captured it within it's precious stone of an eye...?
That was all just thought up on the fly by me... see?
Let your imagination fly.
Now you take pencil to pad and jot down the thoughts as they come.
This could also be done during game-play, so long as you can project yourself down the path of your own story...

Yesss, Whis'par would definitely take a Spikard....
but with all this talk of elements by Croaker...

[Trevelyan]

I could save myself some trouble and just quote Jibbajibba from beginning to end on this one, but I'm a glutton for punishment so I'll add some stuff of my own.

Briefly on ad libbing, it's a skill that any good GM should master, and in particular any good Amber GM. It is entirely possible to ad lib a detailed and interwoven mystery plot if you go about it the right way, and that way includes heavy amounts of listening to the players speculate about what each element means. Once you've set the ball rolling, any group of players will start to wonder what is going on and share ideas amongst themselves. Listen to those ideas. You can disguard them, incorporate them or use them as a springboard for new ideas of your own, but a group of heads looking at a situation form every angle are always going to be better at spotting links than one.

On spikards, let's look at what we actually know about them.

Merlin exlains, when he finds his first, that the ring is the centre of a web of forces leading out into shadow and speculates that it must have taken ages to make. He does't seem to feel that a spikard is anything particularly unusual, but rather is a work of magic art, an example of someone taking the time to do something that ultimately he could do himself if he had the time and the patience. But in essence, a spikard is a focal point for any number of lines of power leading to spell catches, sources of energy and so on in shadow. Jibbajibba has already covered the vulnerability of this setup, and in the books the Pattern manages to block the spikard, pehaps using this very principle. Clearly the greater powers, even those which postdate spikards, are stronger than these rings.

Merlin explains, using one of his many programming analogies, that the spikard functions as a spell processor, calculating hundreds of variables in an instant from a given set of inputs and providing the desired output. In essence, it enables the user to bypass time restrictions on sorcery. It also appears to enable the wielder to draw directly on the available power sources to boost those spells of other powers, but this isn't far from a spell effect in itself. Ultimately, however, a spikard doesn't enable a sorcerer to do anything that he couldn't do himself, it just makes things quicker.

Spikards have been around for a long time, they predate the Pattern, but not the Logrus. This in itself is intriging information, it lends a sense of age to the spikards, but doesn't make them inherently more potent. They still function as they do. Perhaps the only advantage they have is that they are linked to some very old, and potentially very potent power sources. IIRC, Merlin mentions dead gods as a source of power for spikards. That may lead to all sorts of juicy background, but doesn't alter the basic nature of the spikard as a shadow-powered spell processor.

Spikards appear to be addictive and somewhat sentient. The addicitive element appears to come, in part, from the user adjusting to the power flows of the ring. The degree if sentience is not certain - rings can change shape of their own accord, but they aren't above being removed by the user, and they don't seem to mine when someone lays a potent compelling on the ring to dominate the wearer. Either way, while you might play up this aspect for the good of the story, there is no need to assume that PCs are going to be chatting to their spikards and exchanging long lost secrets.

Greyswandir and Werewindle were once spikards before they held their current sword form and seem to be able to draw on their power sources even while still swords. However, the nature of sword spikards is not immediately apparent to someone pickig up the sword, even if that person is a trained sorcerer - Merlin has handled both swords and a spikard, while Luke has encountered a spikard and held Werewindle, and neither noticed that the swords were anything other than potent weapons. It took Frakir to explain to Luke how to draw on power through Werewindle, and Vialle's talking heads to highlight that Werewindle was essentially a spikard.

That Bleys has any spikards is pure speculation. We know that Delwin and Sand may be guardians of the spikards, though, but even this doesn't imply that they make regular use of them.

Several potent sorcerers who know about the rings are more than happy to pass them on to others. Either Mandor or Dara could have kept a spikard for themself had they chosen to do so. That they didn't suggests that they either don't see the benefit (unlikely) or are aware of the flaws (far more likely).

So we've got a bunch of items that add no new powers to the setting, only enhacing existing, weaker powers, but that clearly come with limitations both in the extent of their use and the side effects of that use. They also have some pretty funky backstory/setting implications which aren't explored in the books, therefore leaving the GM free to devise his own material. What's not to like?

[boulet]

Excellent post Trevelyan!

[gabriel_ss4u]

Copy... paste...
saved
goes into my suppliment GM book.
thanks Trevelyan/jibbajibba...

[RPGPundit]

Very good summary of the facts.  That's basically what I did, I took what was fact, and then filled in a bunch of stuff of my own creation, for the current campaign.

RPGPundit