Entries are by date, starting at the earliest.
Understanding Alex
Sometimes I don't understand my own characters. In MK's Amber game I play Alexander. "Hangs out with the wrong crowd" is probably the best way to describe Alex. The son of Corwin he was raised on an Earth created when...
Methuselah's Children
Sebastian is dead. Alexander stabbed him and fled into shadow. I, the player, know that Alex has made a horrible mistake. He has made Veronica (Carla's character) a bitter enemy. He has used he knife to draw Sebastian's Psyche into...
Ambercon
The con was a lot of fun and all of my games were (I believe) successful. Out of the games I played in, I enjoyed MK and KL's game the most. With two GM's, MK's style of game works a...
Ambercon Review
OK. Sunday night I was just posting to complain about some of my pet peeves. Now for the full review, in case you care- Slot 1 - Exalted This game was cancelled because the GM left stuff at home and...
Amber- Two Minutes to Midnight
(I woke up thinking about this. I don't remember what got this idea started. By the time I was conscious enough to know what I was thinking, the whole scenario was there.) Two Minutes to Midnight (alternate title- Strangeshadow) Amber...
Ambercon North: The Games
Friday Morning- I ran "Blood and Darkness in the Dreaming City." For the scenario I did something similar to what I had done in the game I ran at ACUS. I split the characters in to two different groups. There...
Ambercon US 2003
>How many games are too much? Last year, I GMed 3 games and it went well but this year I have so many games I want to run that I'm having problems narrowing them down.Games I am definately running:The LARP:...
New Gods!
An Ambercon 2003 scenarioThere came a time when the old gods died! In their final battle, the brave died with the cunning, releasing an ancient power that ended an era in fiery holocaust. The world of the old gods was...
Morpheus Interrupted
This probably needs lots of editing but I'm tired. I had a tough time deciding what my fourth game should be, but finally settled on the idea of doing a follow up to Morpheus Calling. There were too many games...
Gary Flinger! Live at Ambercon!
An Ambercon 2003 LARPFor almost half a decade, the Chaosian Broadcasting Network has presented the Gary Flinger Show, the raunchy daytime talk show of which all others are but shadows. The 50th anniversary of the show is quickly approaching...
On Matters Morpheus
I figured out a way a system for how to gage the matrix "stunts" character can do (slowing time, leaping across buildings, etc.) in the Morpheus Calling and Morpheus Interrupted games: Focus Points. Characters can build focus points up beyond...
Zelazny and the King
For all my friends out there who are fans of Roger Zelazny:I was doing some web surfing, looking for Jack Kirby art to use for my "New Gods" game, and I found this page. It's a bunch of concept art...
Just Hungry
Alexander's not evil. He's just hungry.-Simone OK. Alexander has become a much darker and more tragic character than I ever wanted him to be. Training with Nestor, the black knife and last night's actions have built him up to be...
Anoki
Anoki, my Amberite character, who was raised in a society like Native Americans is always telling stories to ilustrate points. (He is a shaman/storyteller for his people, so this comes natura for him.) Luckilly, most of the play in the...
Monday Mashup: The Dukes of Amber
I'm actually thinking I could run this game sometime at a con.... This week's Monday Mashup is The Dukes of Hazzard. The way I see this, The Dukes of Hazzard was basically a show about a family of swill-making smugglers...
Monday Mashup: We Are Legend
This week's Monday Mashup asks us to mash I Am Legend. I haven't read the book, but I've read a comic adaption and watched the movie (Omega Man, although I hear there was another movie that was more loyal to...
Strengths and Weaknesses
There has been a lot of conversations in the Amber blog community about mutipe GM, shared-serial campaigns. One of the things I like this idea is that it allows players to build a history for their character while being able...
Amber: The Nature of Chaos
some rambling thoughts... The wizard and good neighbor, Himmaggery, talks in his journal about how he pictures the first series Chaosians as something more like the Fair Folk of White Wolf's Exalted setting. I don't know a whole lot about...
Amber: Infinite Diversity, Infinite Combinations
The whole StickySerial conversation originally started as a conversation on why noone seemed to be playing "traditional Amber" games. Then, Paul comments below that "it is the setting, the milieu, the potentials which make ADRPG work." Years ago, long before...
Amber: Infinite Diversity, continued
Sol comments below and points out some of the difficulties of making shadow interesting to players: 1) The game rules spend too much time emphasizing how insignificant Shadow is. Zelazny's books make it secondary, but still important and challenging --...
Heorot: An alternate Amber setting
This one's been sitting at the back of my mind for a while now. An Amber setting based around Heorot, the mead hall in Beowulf. This Amber would have an early Anglo-Saxon feel with the elders and common-people alike meeting...
Amber: Power Languages
I was reading A Wizard of Earthsea this morning and something that was said in it got me thinking about an alternate magic system for Amber: Diceless (or other games). The magic in Earthsea seems a lot like the power...
Ambercon US 2004
Dealing with my health the last couple of weeks, I haven't had much chance to write up my game descriptions or even decide which games I'll be running this year. I need to decide and get the descriptions in my...
Ambercon LARP
The creative juices just aren't with me today. I can't for the life of me think of a title for the LARP and I'm having a tough time coming up with the blurb. Here's what I have: We fell, my...
Ambercon 2004- "Shattered Mirror"
The storm has passed and the elder's return home with the new king, Random, but something is wrong in Amber. Shadows move and paranoia builds. The voices warn of danger. Is someone trying to make sure that Random's reign ends...
ACUS 2004- "Morpheus Defiant"
It has been over a year since Morpheus and his crew liberated Amber from the forces of Chaos. The process of rebuilding the Eternal City has been slow and political tension is building as the magic of the Emerald Throne...
Morpheus NPCs
Follow link for a overview of the major NPCs in the Morpheus Calling universe.
ACUS 2004- "The Crystal Ship"
After weeks of indecision, I've decided what the fourth game I'll run at ACUS will be:
It is one hundred years into the reign of King Random. A hundred merchant ships come through the port of Amber each day, but this one offers something different: another chance at bliss.
Characters will be built on 125 points. No Merlin books, no exalted powers & no artifacts above 25 points. Players must submit their characters before the con for approval or a 100 point pregen will be provided.
Amber: The Masquerade
This is fun. For those of you have not seen this already, here is a ,a href="http://www.homestead.com/AIF_Emerson/VampVsAmber.html">comparison of Amber and Vampire Link: http://www.homestead.com/AIF_Emerson/VampVsAmber.html
ACUS 2004- Game Book
The Ambercon game book is now online! Link: http://www.ambercon.com/
ACUS 2004- Selecting games
As usually happens, I find that the one game that I really would like to play in is in a slot I'm GMing. To make things worse, it starts in a slot I'm playing in but continues into one of...
ACUS 2004- "The Longest Fall" nanofiction
An open invitation. It seemed like a good at a time. After all, this was his realm. Any unwelcome guests could be dealt with, or so he thought. Approaching the new arrival, there was no doubt. He didn't have his...
The Ixslaw
Planning for "The Crystal Ship," I was thinking of how I want to apply the Amber IDIC to the game and particularly how I wanted a sign that shadow is infinite to show up in the early scenes of the...
Ambercon 2004- Player Lists
Although they aren't official yet, I got player lists for 3 of my 4 Ambercon games in my email last night. It's a happy mix of people I know and people I don't know. Of the people that I know...
Ambercon 2004- Character Creation Rules
I still need to fix typos and grammar, but if anyone is interested in a sneak peak, this is the character creation information I will be sending out to players of the Shattered Mirror and The Crystal Ship....
Ambercon 2004- Game Lists
So here are my games for this year: Slot 1: GM - "Shattered Mirror" Slot 2: "Matrix Diceless: the Railroad" - New character to be created Slot 3: GM - "The Crystal Ship" Slot 4: GM - "The Longest Fall"...
Ambercon 2004- Pools of Red
Since there was a need for more games in slot 7 of the con, I have submitted a pick-up game, a fifth game that I will be running at Ambercon this year. I'm almost caught up with C.K.. Here's the...
Ambercon 2004- In review
I'm back from Ambercon and I had a great time. Every year, I seem to enjoy Ambercon more than the last and this was no exception. All of the games were fun and it was great seeing everyone. As for...
Ambercon NW 2004- Scenarios
I've started thinking about what scenarios I may run this year at Ambercon Northwest. So far I'm thinking of these games:...
Ambercon NW 2004- Kneel Before Zod!
A scenario for Ambercon Northwest Brave New Krypton It has been almost 20 years since the aliens arrived. A few hundred survivors of a doomed planet many light-years away, they escaped the destruction of their planet in giant space arks....
Ambercon NW 2004- The House at Pooh Corner- Chapter XI
IN WHICH Sir Pooh de Bear, Tigger, Owl and the rest of Christopher Robin's friends in the Hundred Acre Woods realize that Christopher Robin is not going to return. The Hundred Acre Woods gets smaller. Rabbit organizes a search party...
Looking for New Chestnuts
Arref pointed out this thread form the GOO Message Boards where the original poster puts forth that there are only four themes that Amber games fall in to: 1. "massive threat to the universe" 2. "war for the throne of...
Ambercon Northwest: A Review
So, I'm back from Ambercon Northwest and figured I should write up a review........
GoO News
I decided to check the Guardians of Order website to see if there was any news on their new version of the Amber DRPG and I found a few things: 1- They have released the Amber DRPG in a downloadable...
ACUS 2005- The End of All Roads
It calls to you. It is the home you have ever known. In your dreams, you can almost see it, but when you wake it is gone. What is Amber? The myths call it a city of gods, but what...
ACUS 2005- Battlestar Pegasus
"The Cylons were created by man. They Rebelled. They Evolved." Many years before the destruction of the colonies, the Battlestar Pegasus went missing near the Cylon border. A full investigation never revealed the fate of the ship and its legendary...
ACUS 2005- Splinters of Amber
In Tir-na Nog'th, you are a true son or daughter of Oberon, surrounded by images of Ambers that could have been. Ghostly images of your brothers, sisters...even yourself surround you and they believe themselves as real as you. In Tir-na...
Now for a peek....
...at the games that Ambercon was spared. I had several ideas I was wanting to run. Despite my problems writing blurbs and my lack of energy this last week for game brainstorming, I had a back lof of one-shot game...
ACUS 2005- The End of All Roads
I worry that The End of All Roads may not get many players. It can run fine without players, but I always feel better when I have more players because more people are getting enjoyment out of the work I've...
ACUS 2006- Phoenix Rising
Forward-thinking, I am. I wanted to run another "Elseworlds" game at ACUS 2005, since the last one went so well. Unfortunately another scenario that could allow players to play "any DC or Marvel character" had not presented itself to me....
Amber: Changing the System
One of my pet-peeves about Amber is seeing how often GMs try to use it, as-is, for other settings. The four attributes that are in Amber almost make sense for the types of stories that Zelazny told. It does not...
Ambercon 2005: 4 days of Peace, Love and Diceless Gaming
I almost did not make it to Ambercon this year. I started getting very sick at work on Wednesday. When I went home, I went straight to bed and slept until the next morning. Thurday, I spent most of the...
Dr. Adolphus Bedlo
In case anyone was curious, here is the stats and game description I sent the GM for my character in One Night in Heerat, Dr. Adolphus Bedlo. I added more points later and fleshed some stuff out, but this basically...
Amber 2.0
I attended GoO's/Mark's talk on the future of the Amber DRPG at Ambercon this Sunday. The short version: Be Patient. He is determined that there will be a 2nd edition of Amber one way or another. However, with GoO's current...
Battlestar Galactica RPG
Since I was asked how I designed the rules/characters for the Battlestar Pegasus scenario I ran at ACUS, here are the basics of my variation of the Amber DRPG for roleplaying in the Battlestar Galactica universe....
Bringing Random to Amber
The most sacriligious post about Amber ever. Guess what? There are times where it could go either way. The PC may succeed. The PC may fail. Either way, it could be an interesting story. Also, if the players start getting...
Lesson Learned
I learned a simple GM lesson through the games I ran at this year's Ambercon. Never submit to run a game that you, as GM, are not excited about. I ran three games this year out of a sense of...
ACUS 2006- Game Ideas
It's been a long time since I posted here. It's also been a long time since I've been able to play or run much. My Buffy game is still meeting but has missed the last couple of months. For those...
ACUS 2006- "Brave New Genosha"
I decided on my Elseworlds game for Ambercon a while back and have finally wrote a description for it:...
ACUS 2006- 4 Days of fun, gaming and sleep deprivation
Well, another year of Ambercon has come and gone and I once again find myself looking forward to the next. Looking to get rid off a lot of my extra stuff and in doing so, prepare for my impending move,...
ACNW- Brainstorming games
The game submission deadline for ACNW is coming up quick and I need to figure out what I'm going to be running. I know I will run one or two Dreaming City games. I don't have names for them yet...
ACNW 2006
I have titles for the games I plan to run: Gargoyles and Grails in the Dreaming City High School and other Horrors of the Dreaming City Brave New Gotham Brave New Krypton (repeat) The 4400 That's right. Five games....with the...
Amber in Exile: The Campaign
I've been prepping for the first game in my first-ever traditional Amber campaign (at least the first one I've GMed) and realized that there are some folks out there who would be interested in reading what I am doing. The...
Amber-in-Exile: The Background
Here is the background information I sent the AiE players:...
A-in-E- Llewella's Shadow
Llewella settled on the shadow-world of Proteus. The world was discovered by the survivors of a great space battle, Proteus is one of the universe's greatest mysteries....and sadly for the locals, it is a mystery they have not been able...
Amber: Trump Props
So, since it is very important in Amber to know who has a trump of who, I've come up with a plan. To start the game, I'm giving each player index cards with the name of each person or place...
Amber-in-Exile: Session One
All went well. Well, it went well from a story viewpoint, but no so well for the protagonists. One of the great joys of Amber is that players have the greatest power I know to affect the plot. In a...
Amber- Walking in Shadow
One of the most beat-up books I own is a hardcover of the First Chronicles of Amber. I've read it probably more than any other book I own, despite the fact that I don't really like them all that much....
Ambercon Northwest 2006 Review
(re-posting this here) The con kicked off with some very exiting news as it was announced by Edwin Voskamp that he is aquiring the rights to Amber Diceless and will be working to get new products available....
Ambercon 2007- Brave New Arkham
(Here is the game description for the Elseworlds game I will be running at ACUS 2007.) Since 1921, the Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, has been one of the leading treatment centers for many advanced forms of psychosis. Despite...
ACUS 2007- The Summer Queen-Game Description
Here is the game description for the game I will be co-GMing with Jen Z. at ACUS 2007: The ruling monarch of the seelie court rules supreme over the land of Arcadia for six months of the year. As both...
ACUS 2007- Summer Queen background
Here is the background info sent to the players: In the Faerie-lands, an uneasy truce was struck almost a millenia ago between the Seelie Court and the faeries loyal to it and the Unseelie Court. For half of the year,...
What am I gaming these days?
My gaming is probably the most eclectic it has even been these days. I don't get to roleplay as much as I like, but I am running a monthly Amber campaign, running a series game at Ambercons (Dreaming City), am...