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Pros and Cons of Amber at Cons

Started by Panjumanju, December 16, 2018, 11:39:08 AM

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Panjumanju

Quote from: RTrimmer;1069827Couple of serious questions:
Does an animosity game require a larger group?

Yes. I run most RPGs with no more than 4 or 5 players. Any more and it gets unwieldy. Amber I'd run with 7 or 8 players, because it becomes easier if people can essentially play among themselves between meetings with the GM.

Quote from: RTrimmer;1069827Does an animosity game require a potentially world ending plot to keep the pcs even marginally together, role playing?

That is a good point, and one big problem with the setting. The game is largely self-driven, so players want to go off and fulfill their own goals. It's not hard to set up morally conflicting (or just allegiance conflicting) scenarios, but you need something overarching going on to bring all the PCs together once and a while.

The fact is, it's hard to get an Amber character motivated to act for a greater good, even if the problem is literally world-ending, because there's always more Shadows. So it's easiest to have this be some universe-destroying problem, like shadow is breaking down, or there's war with the Courts, or just a vacant Amber throne.

//Panjumanju
"What strength!! But don't forget there are many guys like you all over the world."
--
Now on Crowdfundr: "SOLO MARTIAL BLUES" is a single-player martial arts TTRPG at https://fnd.us/solo-martial-blues?ref=sh_dCLT6b

Headless

I like the auction as well.  When I have run them they took a long time.  I guess I could just whip through it, Auctions are used to sell cows becuase it gets the best price the fastest.  

My players were all new, and with out me really selling the Atributes there was almost no action.  Which ment not much point in having an Auction and they would have had too many points left over for toys.  

The Auction did its job in the end, established Ranking rivalry and shared history, but it would have been nice if they came out swinging, instead of me having to coax, taunt bully and bait them into spending their points.

Thondor

Quote from: Headless;1069921I like the auction as well.  When I have run them they took a long time.  I guess I could just whip through it, Auctions are used to sell cows becuase it gets the best price the fastest.  

My players were all new, and with out me really selling the Atributes there was almost no action.  Which ment not much point in having an Auction and they would have had too many points left over for toys.  

The Auction did its job in the end, established Ranking rivalry and shared history, but it would have been nice if they came out swinging, instead of me having to coax, taunt bully and bait them into spending their points.

Last time I ran an auction I did it very quickly. I also had 2 NPC "siblings" that I used in the auction and as rivals/allies in the game. Worked well.
I did allow folks to buy up a stat silently afterward, but the limit was double what they bid in the auction. Worked well. I also did a quick character web, where I had each player draw one or two connections to another player or important NPC.

I plan to do something very similar at a convention at the end of the month (jn Ottawa).

zircher

Just a little necro posting...

This year, AmberCon NW was held online and thus I was finally able to attend.  I had a blast.  I was in several Amber based games and one dicless version of FGU's Space Opera.  The one thing that they had all in common was that character generation was done in advance of the con and it was point buy without an auction.  Because that was adopted by 100% of the games, I expect that is the norm for GMs at ACNW whether face to face or virtual.  They have been running Amber games for a long time, often with recurring characters, so I expect that experience has resulted in the streamlined way that they handle it.
You can find my solo Tarot based rules for Amber on my home page.
http://www.tangent-zero.com

Panjumanju

Quote from: RTrimmer on December 27, 2018, 09:27:05 PMDoes an animosity game require a larger group?

Yes. But to be clear, it's only as adversarial as people make it. They don't have to form cabals and little clubs and work against each other, but the character motivations (especially when egged on by elder Amberties) often put PCs at odds with each other when their goals conflict.

After a few sessions most Amber groups form into two or three little sub-groups with the occassional floater between them. So, yes, it requires a larger group.

Quote from: RTrimmer on December 27, 2018, 09:27:05 PMDoes an animosity game require a potentially world ending plot to keep the pcs even marginally together, role playing?

That is a common and fair criticism of Amber. The problem is power and motivation. With ultimate power, and differing goals, why would these people work together? Family ties help. The rule of not killing family (or not being supposed to) help. But generally you need something big to unify all the PCs periodically or they'll just continue in their separate cabals.

Typically you have the King or Queen or whomever is on the throne pull them together every once and a while and give them a mission by royal drecree, but you tend to lean on "universe-ending threat" to give a sense of stakes. In a game where the end of the world is no big deal, you walk to the next one, it's hard to drive the mission forward over multiple games without a common goal.

//Panjumanju
"What strength!! But don't forget there are many guys like you all over the world."
--
Now on Crowdfundr: "SOLO MARTIAL BLUES" is a single-player martial arts TTRPG at https://fnd.us/solo-martial-blues?ref=sh_dCLT6b

jhkim

Quote from: zircher on November 20, 2020, 11:50:48 AM
Just a little necro posting...

This year, AmberCon NW was held online and thus I was finally able to attend.  I had a blast.  I was in several Amber based games and one dicless version of FGU's Space Opera.  The one thing that they had all in common was that character generation was done in advance of the con and it was point buy without an auction.  Because that was adopted by 100% of the games, I expect that is the norm for GMs at ACNW whether face to face or virtual.  They have been running Amber games for a long time, often with recurring characters, so I expect that experience has resulted in the streamlined way that they handle it.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it, zircher. I've been going to ACNW for years, and I'm glad the online format let some new people attend.

I ran one Amber Diceless game and one freeform diceless game, and I played in one Amber Diceless and two indie games.

Yeah, point buy without an auction by pre-game email has been the norm as far as I've seen for standard Amber games. Also, a lot of the Amber games downplay the PC-vs-PC aspect, but not all of them. My game featured some PC-vs-PC clashes, but overall was focused on an external NPC.