Scifi Amber Campaign Idea

[Norbert G. Matausch]

We're starting a new Amber campaign in a couple of weeks. Only two of the fiver players have played Amber before, the others have heard about it, but are basically newbies.

I'm thinking about plunging them in medias res and kick off the campaign with an emergency call from Gerard; somehow, somebody has led a huge number of Battlemechs very close to the Golden Circle. Amber is under siege.

That, or I'd like to start out in a scifi/mecha universe.

Do you have any ideas how I could pull this off?

[Artifacts of Amber]

I like sci fi and throw it in my games a lot more than the books suggest. I personally would invent something new to be "threatened" instead of a Golden circle nation. I tend to keep the low tech fantasy style the closer you get to Amber as a staple.

But I have a lot of islands of Primality to threaten and do things with plot wise. Places that are important but might not warrant an Elders attention but something for youngers to do as they grow into more power/authority.

Otherwise leaping into a battle between mechs would be awesome and fun since I love battle tech as well. Only I would stay away from the Golden circle myself. Give the players something unique and fun  to explore that is all their own.


Just some thoughts.

[Panjumanju]

An extension of your idea - technology cannot get too close to Amber, but what if battle mechs surrounded the Golden Circle in the closest areas where technology could function? They would make a blockade, much like a naval blockade. You couldn't get in or out of Amber without encountering an army of mechs. It would disrupt trade routes, cut off family from each other, and generally present a terrible problem whether they could come any closer or not.

//Panjumanju

[RPGPundit]

An extension of your idea - technology cannot get too close to Amber, but what if battle mechs surrounded the Golden Circle in the closest areas where technology could function? They would make a blockade, much like a naval blockade. You couldn't get in or out of Amber without encountering an army of mechs. It would disrupt trade routes, cut off family from each other, and generally present a terrible problem whether they could come any closer or not.

//Panjumanju

This is a fairly good idea.

[Norbert G. Matausch]

An extension of your idea - technology cannot get too close to Amber, but what if battle mechs surrounded the Golden Circle in the closest areas where technology could function? They would make a blockade, much like a naval blockade. You couldn't get in or out of Amber without encountering an army of mechs. It would disrupt trade routes, cut off family from each other, and generally present a terrible problem whether they could come any closer or not.
//Panjumanju

Absolutely, that was what I meant! Thanks.

I whipped up an audio teaser for that campaign a while ago... in case anyone is interested: Patterntech

[Sydius Mendoza]

An extension of your idea - technology cannot get too close to Amber, but what if battle mechs surrounded the Golden Circle in the closest areas where technology could function? They would make a blockade, much like a naval blockade. You couldn't get in or out of Amber without encountering an army of mechs. It would disrupt trade routes, cut off family from each other, and generally present a terrible problem whether they could come any closer or not.

//Panjumanju

Oooohh! I like this a lot. I've been trying to work out a more high tech sci-fi element to the larger campaign setting I'm developing. I'll build you one more off of this. This is how it will work IMC moving forward.

Technologically occur randomly the further out you get from Amber and the GC. New plot device to work with. The shadow that Ghostwheel resides is rapidly developing a "golden circle" of it's own as it gains power. The surrounding shadows are all very high tech and are becoming more "real" or anchored as Ghost becomes stronger.

[RPGPundit]

Oooohh! I like this a lot. I've been trying to work out a more high tech sci-fi element to the larger campaign setting I'm developing. I'll build you one more off of this. This is how it will work IMC moving forward.

Technologically occur randomly the further out you get from Amber and the GC. New plot device to work with. The shadow that Ghostwheel resides is rapidly developing a "golden circle" of it's own as it gains power. The surrounding shadows are all very high tech and are becoming more "real" or anchored as Ghost becomes stronger.

That would be a good way to explain, also, why the whole thing couldn't just be resolved by an amberite walking up to the area and using Advanced Pattern to wipe out the mechs.

RPGPundit

[jibbajibba]

There is a fine line between a Mech and a Golem.

For a while I have been toying with the concept that Luke has managed to find other uses for crystals. Related to the Blue crystal cave a series of other crystals that can perform a range of functions. One of these can store and transfer magical energy using it to energise and manipulate contructs.

So take the Mecha, steam punk them; brass not foamed aluminium; crystal powered not microchips; no firearms but magical bolts or hand to hand mecha combat.
I actually have Luke 'collecting' broken patterns to form a crystal lattice through shadow that gives his constructs a resistance to pattern and logrus attacks. Imagine the golden circle with broken patterns linked through shadow by lines of magical force acting as a latice in whicht eh primal patterns are effectively emeshed.

Now I have no idea why Luke would want to do this rather than just out of curiosity but  it has the right blend of sci/magic/power for him and  represents a Powerful alternate force

[Sydius Mendoza]

Now I have no idea why Luke would want to do this rather than just out of curiosity but  it has the right blend of sci/magic/power for him and  represents a Powerful alternate force

Lack of specific motivators aside, that is fucking brilliant idea Jibba!

[finarvyn]

I'm going to suggest an idea from the 7th Sea RPG. 7th Sea is a game based on a land very much like Europe in the late 1600's, roughly during the golden age of pirates. Ship combat can be a big part of an adventure, and what they do is to assign character attributes to a ship. You could do this with your mechs.

Strength might represent the sheer ability for the mech to lift and throw something, Warfare can be the guns or other weapons built into the mech, and Endurance could represent fuel or battery power. (I'd have to think about how Psyche could be used. Sensors or RADAR? Hmmm.) Anyway, a mech army could be constructed much like a group of characters where each has its own attributes. Worker mechs could be strong, combat mechs could have more guns. Each type of mech might have identical stats, so that a "Type I Worker Mech" might have a particular set of attributes while a "Type II Worker Mech" a different profile. Essentially, the army of mechs becomes a bunch of NPC templates for the characters to encounter.

Those attributes could be in a seperate "mech scale" or could be built using the Ranks ladder established by the character auction. If you use Ranks it would get rid of the "is Gerard stronger than a mech" question, which could be a good or bad thing.

Anyway, just a thought.

[RPGPundit]

That's a good way to handle it.

[Croaker]

Those attributes could be in a seperate "mech scale"

Given how he did the demons, it seems that's one of the ways erick wujcik would have handled it.

[RPGPundit]

Given how he did the demons, it seems that's one of the ways erick wujcik would have handled it.

Possibly, though really not the most elegant way of doing things.