in the Shadow of Greatness

:: Zelazny :: [polish] :: sparks that fly from the ironsmith's hammer ::

:: Thursday, January 28 ::

ambercon 2010 - first draft

Not sure where to put this...and if anyone is reading it. However, since we are at the 12th hour and I just started thinking about it... well, yes, I'm planning on Ambercon 2010 and here are the games (first draft):

Slot 1) Agents of the Argent Rose: "City of Ghosts" (gm - arref)
Paris, 1923, and Corwin's descendants hold the brighter world safe
returning players first choice

Slot 2) playing something

Slot 3) playing something

Slot 4) A Full House (gm - arref)
Every player is a scion of the late King of Amber. Every player has access to the secret resources your father, Eric, passed on to you to use in case of his death, for the enemies of Amber are many. But a usurper named Random sits on the throne now. Your father's advisers believe the time is right to reinstate the true blood. Will you make war on Random or find another way? Can you get your sibs to support your plan?

Slot 5) Clandestine Chronicles of the Cobalt Charter (gm - arref)
Once more the secret order of shadow rogues tries to hold the universe a more just place.
returning players first choice

Slot 6) playing something

Slot 7) Changing Hands (gm - arref)
King Random needs the shadows searched for signs of Chaos perfidy. You get the job.

Slot 8) The Soft Cimmerian: 'Mirror Teeth' (gm - arref)
Special game exploring Rebma's secrets and the Gallants of the Glass. Returning players only...and perhaps One new Player.

:: Friday, January 22 ::

IMC :: GM bias and attribute play

I'm capturing this text from another forum.... Attribute domains and GM bias - 01-11-2008, 11:58 AM

So many GMs like to 'tweak' what the Attributes are defined as in the rules. We see that on this forum. These GMs also like to support their changes with a whole bunch of 'flavor' or 'personal expertise' banter.

But they don't speak much to actual play or how the game got better because of these changes to what Erick designed.

One thing you will see much of if you are cruising the web: players and GMs love to talk about how Attributes suck.

Endurance is too weak.
Strength is unusable.
Psyche makes puppets of your fellow Players.
Warfare does everything too well.
Stuff is dumb and shouldn't affect PC interpretation by others.

IMC, we've never had such problems--for in fact--the Attributes do not suck. Attributes are glorious and yet sublime. Any simple system can be abused if you don't give a damn about the consequences to narrative.

When the game of Amber is run as a 'zero-sum' exercise, and the GM cannot create plot conflict about anything but Warfare, then Attributes except Warfare suck.

I almost think it is that simple. Can you weave in an Endurance theme to your campaign? Can your narrative show the awesome power of Strength? Is the only kind of Psyche story about puppeting characters?

Because as I said once on the AmberMailingList:

Quote: "Attributes empower the PC's ideas and allow realization of plans. Each Attribute has cunning, dexterity, speed, and a plethora of uses both subtle and brash. While the Psyche monster can set out to threaten other characters, so can the Warfare monster or the Strength monster. Even Ms. Endurance monster can get away with this if that is the nature of the narrative--though imagination is stretched to make this use of the most internal Attribute of all."

I always imagine the five Attributes (including Stuff in this) to be the axis of conflict for the narrative. Dramatic conflict.

In many game systems, warfare is the only conflict and all other things revolve around it. So these are the stories easily told.

The hard part is balancing the stories between the five so that they seem to have meaning that relates to the gaming group. So that the Strength narrative isn't constantly ignored in favor of the Warfare narrative.

What are your actual play experiences?

:: Thursday, December 17 ::

test ping

do comments still work? seems to give error

:: Wednesday, September 16 ::

IMC :: Amber - on death, dying and dismemberment

--- On Tue, 9/15/09, DMK wrote:

How have you managed your characters physical suffering in Amber games?

Generally, describing injuries intensely in my games are enough to get a 'shiver' and 'yuck' factor from the room at large. IMC, shadow is dangerous if you are careless or lead with your chin...and less so if you are canny. A common Player/PC comment in our campaign is, "I hate guns."

While we (on the AML and herein) have sometimes talked about the merits of genre and hi-tech vs swords vs guns....I have seen the PCs take this to heart and steer away from hi-tech and guns whenever they can...because danger in those places can jump you quite thoroughly and leave your PC messed up.

One of the biggest narrative distances (IMC) between PCs and Elders and NPCs is the GM's feedback loop on injuries. Elders often seem to dodge dangers or brush off injuries, PCs often seem to get caught and thumped, NPCs often get trashed or knocked out of narration. This also is a lovely reinforcement of drama: when Fiona gets brought into the infirmary with several knife wounds and blood everywhere....folks get intense and drama ratchets up.

Endurance matters: so there are not a lot of fancy patches and quick fixes that are Real for Amberites. Conservation of Drama, when you injure a Real Person they need Real Healing and not much in shadow can do more than make it possible for that Endurance to get to work efficiently. IOW, if you rest, you heal faster, if you go to a high tech hospital, you heal faster, if you get a god to set your bones, you heal faster. If the injury you got was dramatically trivial, then the healing is dramatically trivial....otherwise you are counting on the endurance you bought to get you up and going again.

YMMV

:: Tuesday, August 25 ::

...end of summer '09, we will see a revised Amber Diceless?

While there is not a lot to report on the Amber Diceless 2.0 front... there are hints that the project is not forgotten through the tangle of Real Lives, legal mumbo-jumbo and rocky economy.

We send the 'Diceless by Design' group our best wishes for the project.

:: Monday, April 27 ::

IMC :: shadows of amber: the question of dworkin

"Possessed of the abominations born of the disease, beyond their aid, their power..." Hand of Oberon, Chapter 5

Some thoughts (not all-inclusive, of course...)

* Does he mean truly "possessed" as perhaps something he, ahem, developed (in that disease sense) in his "meditations upon the Abyss?"

* Perhaps he owns abominations, like having demonic familiars?

* Who are "they"?

* Is "Order" the disease, or is there truly something viral about Pattern's design and how it replicates Shadow?

* "Beyond their aid, their power," could be a very powerful piece of this. The obvious side of this shows how tyrannical Chaos might have been pre-Pattern, in that aid was available at the cost of being under someone else's power. (The idea of 'fealty' is just a loose version of choosing to be near one of the stronger who might protect rather than eat the weak, right?) But just here we see that there are those that Dworkin might have called out to for aid, and those that were interested in keeping him for Power, and even more - that he WAS beyond them, and that was something important. "Beyond" being possibly both in the sense of knowledge, intent, and action, as well as the idea of location?

What does this mean to you?

My interpretation of Dworkin is that he is badly broken and mostly used up by the time he is saying these things. Perhaps like an exhausted man, gasping out information between breaths, does he have the strength to lie or dissemble?

Does he remember it all? This was a long time ago.
Has he decided (based on the looking back through time) that what happened had a greater meaning and now he can speak more clearly of it?

Dworkin is badly used by both sides of this drama. I suppose he didn't foresee most of what happened to him and subsequent events. I think there is plenty of narrative interest in Dworkin post-Corwin five tales because he might be on the mend and actually acting on his own plans.

-more soon-

:: Wednesday, April 22 ::

Ambercon US 2009, afterwards

I have to admit that I wasn't sure if the energy and passion were still in the gaming community. ACUS 09 proved the energy was there in 'full house' form.

Slot 1) Agents of the Argent Rose: "City of the Dead" (gm - arref)
Well, we got through half the blurb but no one had a moment to spare with all the character driven action. The dramatic tension between the PC's grandparents (Corwin and his Lorelei) wavered about as additional pressures were brought to bear by the Fae Protectors of the Argent Realm. Lorelei was kidnapped when Corwin had his back turned. The PCs made sure it didn't become a certain disaster. A great cast that virtually needs no GM at all----true family feeling. Magnificent!

Slot 2) Five Sides to Every Story (gm - arref)
Never the same game. Quite action-packed this year with the PCs sniffing out trouble faster than ever before. Not an easy game, but the Players had fun. Perhaps the last of "Five Sides", first run at ACN in 1999.

Slot 3) Sealed to Llyr (gm - john lees)
Dark and well-fleshed gaming background for a new system by gm John Lees. Lots of potential, good immersion by the Players.

Slot 4) A Piece of the Pattern (gm - john lees)
Excellent throne war that captured the cinema textures of gangwar in a Noir City. My favorite thronewar I can recall. Also run with a new diceless system by the gm (same as above--cross genre!!) Turned out the social cabal won the day instead of the warfare guys. Some close calls.

Slot 5) Clandestine Chronicles of the Cobalt Charter (gm - arref)
Well... the Cobalt Charter is supposed to keep a low profile, supposed to handle things Chaos and Amber choose to ignore. They are PCs built on shadow scale.
This year they decided they needed to find their missing leader, Julia Barnes-Sawall. And that set a game crossing through the perilous holdings of Chaos in the Black Zone where Lords and Ladies of Chaos stood in their path. The Charter kicked ass and teamed up with Lord Jurt, convincing him to return to the Fount of Four Worlds to gain the powers of madness and Living Trump. Julia was saved from a fate literally worse than death. No casualties this year.

Slot 6) In a Wicked Amber (gm - ben benard)
Ben stepped in to run this when illness took out the GM pair the day before the con. Interesting system yielding very different Amber flavor that had many parallels to Zelazny's own writing style. Worth the trip (even tho' my Fiona got the short end of many dice contests, yes, the game played with a dice mechanic!) Thanks, Ben!

Slot 7) Changing Hands (gm - arref)
This worked very well. PCs made good progress against a full agenda handed them by King Random to clear shadows of Chaosi influences. Many interesting shadow stories, much range of play and good efforts by the cast to also collect resources for the 'strifed and strained' Amber transitioning while the Patternfall Treaty is hammered out in Chaos. Thanks gang.

Slot 8) The Soft Cimmerian: 'Go Ask Alyse' (gm - arref)
Special game exploring a unique undersea realm, the Gallants of the Glass were in good form. A personal request from Queen Moire is satisfied by intense and dangerous quest. A Guisel is thwarted. The Cheshire Puss makes an appearance. Lost lovers are rejoined. No casualties. Awesome stuff.

It is likely I will offer Soft Cimmerian at least once more... and hope that some of the starter PCs will have time to do that in March 2010.

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