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A few questions

Started by Yahuda, January 02, 2010, 08:15:56 PM

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Rook

#15
Quote from: Yahuda;352883I mean, is it possible to exist a character with all powers and 10000 points of strength, endurance, psyche, warfare in a distant shadow? Is it possible that a player's shadow defeating the player? Are there big dragon armies which can conquer Amber? Are there people who can shift shadow but doesn't have Amber or Chaos blood?

In shadow, if you can imagine it, it exists someplace.  So I would answer your question with a yes.  But remember, there is a divide between OOC and IC determinations on what is in shadow.  To say, as a player, your character is seeking out a shadow where the denizens are all at around 1000 points in strength, Endurance, Psyche and warfare is not really a description I as a GM would allow for your character to locate anything.  After all, you would be using descriptors that have no meaning inside the game.   You could tell the GM your character was seeking a shadow where giants ruled the world and played baseball with boulders.  Thats a shadow your character could find.  You could say you sought a shadow ruled by giant dragons that breathed nuclear radiation.  And you could find a shadow where your character had a shadow self, bigger and stronger then himself.  However, as powerful as these creatures might be, they would likely never pose a true threat to Amber as they would lack any real method of reaching Amber.  Shadows are like parallel dimensions, they can be right on top of us and yet completely unreachable as they do not connect in a way that is spatially or even temporally meaningful for a creature capable of moving only within 3 or 4 dimensions.  For this reason, a true Amberite of the blood must personally lead their army when marching through shadow.  They must open a way through shadow which their host can then follow.  Chaosians tend to do this with Black Roads or channels.

Now, assuming that one of these shadows found a means to march their powerful army through shadow and to eventually face Amber itself(and based on the books, Zelazny makes mention that just such events do occasionally happen), they still must get their army from point A--their shadow, to point Z--Amber.  Amberites can throw any number of obstacles in the path of such an army and through sheer attrition, whittle that army down to a manageable threat by the time the enemy makes it to the foot of Kolvir or the forest of Arden.  There is a saying, there is always someone bigger.  So why not make that powerful army march through a hostile shadow, or series of shadows inhabited by even bigger baddies?  Or just keep throwing shadows in their path until they either die of old age or simply give up.  The resources open to the Eternal City are many (we wont even mention what the Jewel of Judgement allows in Amber's defense).

 
QuoteAs a player, if I say "I want to go to a shadow where the population is full of people who are stronger than any Amberite in any ways, who will obey only me (because of their holy book, legend, etc.)" what would you say as a GM? Is it impossible or is it only hard? If I walk through slow time shadows, it will be quick enough, I think.

I'd say, no problem!  And you'd likely find that shadow.  Though as a GM, I would want to know exactly what ways they should be stronger.  Then if you decided to use that army of zealots, please refer back up to where I mention what usually happens to armies marching on Amber:)

If you opted to stay, then that would be good too.  If your character is fine with ruling a shadow of the real thing, more power to him and long may he reign.

Quote4) If we think time travel as shifting shadow, does it mean DeLorean can shift shadow?

I'm in the camp that says space and time are one fabric and in shadow they only have one direction.  Straight ahead.  For this reason, Corwin can never reclaim what he lost with his first Avalon.  He can find a near perfect shadow of it, but not "it".  Thus when you move back in time, you are traveling to adjacent shadows in an earlier timeline.

QuoteThanks, this part helped me understand. I thought that everything I can imagine exist in shadow. But I understand now that imaginations of mine must be adequate to this "reality" law. So, shadows don't contain all the imaginations. They contain adequate ones. (Am I right? )

Now this is an interesting point you raise, Corwin mentions that all Amberites reach a point in shadow, past which they can go no further.  Is this because, they can travel "only" to those shadows they can imagine?  I believe it is.  Thus a limited imagination means a limited amount of traveling space.  And now if we take this a step further, into a macro perception of what lies out in shadow, we can say that as a whole, the Amberites have set standards upon what they are willing to believe or imagine.  They are careful, as well not to imbibe anything that can let their imagination run too wild.  We see the effects of a bad acid trip on Luke.  He and Corwin are nearly killed by a frumious bandersnatch down in the rabbit hole!

But, what if their collective conscious only allows for a finite amount of circumstances?  Why then you could easily say that some shadows just don't fit the mold.  

As for time, well, time is it's own hairy mess and Corwin surmises that understanding all of it's ins and outs may have started Dworkin down the road to insanity.  In a nutshell though, time, like space can take many forms.  It can run much faster then that in Amber--much like the rapid run of time within Narnia, where C.S. Lewis had his children protagonists grow into adulthood and yet still return to their earth after only a few minutes.  Such shadows are great for when you need to heal a wound or finish reading Moby Dick before going to the Amber book-of-the-month meeting.

Anyway, hope this helps:)
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Yahuda

Thanks for all the answers, they will help me next week, when I'm GM'ing an ADRP game in our monthly convention named Wizards of İstanbul. They never heard ADRP or any diceless system, so it'll be interesting for all of us there. : )

But in few weeks I have learnt that preparing a scenario for an ADRP game is a little bit hard and different. Wish me good luck. : )
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finarvyn

Quote from: Yahuda;365008I have learned that preparing a scenario for an ADRP game is a little bit hard and different.
Agreed. Amber Diceless is both a simple and complex game at the same time. It's a simple game in that it has very direct and non-complex rules. It's a complex game in that interpretation of those rules can go in so many directions, and is only limited by imagination.

In other words, you could take the core rules from the ADRP and SK rulebooks and compress them into a small number of pages. Most of the rules are actually examples. At the same time, however, if you haven't read and thought about the examples then you won't quite know how to make the game flow smoothly.

Very tricky sometimes.
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Klaus

#18
Quote from: Yahuda;352764But I would love to read a game. Where can I find?

If you want to read a game I have a recommendation for you: Through a Mirror Darkly is an online Amber campaign. It has two sequels, Unicorn no Seishi and Forth the Nine Riders, with the PCs in each game being the children of the previous generation.

The massive logs from Through a Mirror Darkly and Unicorn no Seishi were actually my introduction to ADRPG. They contain a lot of discussion between the players and the GM and are very helpful for someone learning the game. One player in "Through A Mirror Darkly," Hiko the Firechild is completely new to ADRPG so I would start with her logs.

http://www.skyseastone.net/amberlinks/ also has links to a lot of campaigns and other resources, but none with logs as good as "Through a Mirror Darkly" and it's sequel.

finarvyn

Seconded. "Through a Mirror Darkly" is an excellent website. Lots of rules and explanations. Well organized. Definitely one of my favorites!
Marv / Finarvyn
Kingmaker of Amber
I'm pretty much responsible for the S&W WB rules.
Amber Diceless Player since 1993
OD&D Player since 1975

warp9

Quote from: jibbajibba;352911There will be things that are much tougher than Amberites but they will be limited to a shadow or range of shadows. I generally say that the more 'points' a thing costs (ie the tougher it is) the more limited the shadows it can work in. Now the game uses a points system that doubles for each rank. so a thing with human strength might be 1 point, Chaos rank is 2, amber 4. To get as good as corwin at Strength might be 8 points to be as good as Gerard, the epitome of Strength might be as many as 32 points. to get something with 10,000 points of strength would probably come in at 256 points or something daft like that that would be for each stat so .... maybe a 1024 point creature to max out all the stats. Now this would 1024 days to shadow walk to on top of all that as I said the chances are that this creature would only have these stats in a very very narrow range of shadows.
Actually the ADRPG book lists "Exalted Vitality" (page 119 of my book, under the heading of "Extending Artifact and Creature Potential") as giving the level of strength of Gerard, and that goes for 16 points. Although the book also mentions that those extra options are "not available to player characters."

But I'd argue that the points you mention are more for more for a "special enhancement," and something that would work almost anywhere. IMO you don't have to deal with the 16 point "Exalted Vitality," if you want to find some thing like a big machine, a big elephant, or a whale.

Rook

If you like, you are welcome to see the logs from my own online Amber campaign, Reflections of Amber, now running over a year and getting ready to hit the 4,ooo post mark.

I'm actually gearing up to start a second campaign over on my own website http://dgsforum.freeforums.org/ , entitled, A Darker Shade of Amber.
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warp9

Quote from: Yahuda;352883Are there big dragon armies which can conquer Amber?
For me, that kind of question has always been a big deal in regard to playing in Amber.

If Corwin could really find any kind of army that he could imagine out in Shadow, those little blue furry guys don't seem all that effective.

And the arguments put forward as to why he couldn't found a more powerful army never fully make sense (at least not IMO).

Obviously a big part of it is that a lot of stuff will not work in Amber. It may be easy to go out and find an army of Jedi knights, but their force abilities and light-sabers are not going to work in Amber. Still, from the books it is pretty clear that a number of more powerful entities (magical ones, such as dragons) can exist in Amber. And, for more "human-like characters" with hyper-exceptional skill, I'm not sure that abilities such as mega-human levels of combat skill are as easy to have malfunction as gun-powder.

Arguments about the logistics of having an Amberite guide the dragon army to Amber are an interesting topic to explore. However, given that Amber level Warfare is supposed to be above the best human military minds, I'd think those problems could be overcome by most Amber PCs. It shouldn't take too much, by Amber Warfare standards, to lead them through Shadow without having the dragons wander off, starve, or kill each other (especially if you picked the right kind of dragons, meaning ones which had some sense of discipline).

Rook

#23
I cannot speak for Zelazny, but I always interpreted it as this.  Magic does not work in Amber.  It's a great irony, I know, but then so is the fact that the one power that sets Amberites above shadows, also does not work in Amber.  I see magic as just another manipulation of shadow physics and you cannot manipulate the physics of Amber.  Dragons are in their very being, creatures composed of magic.  They defy reason.  Not just their breath, but they themselves.  The further out from the Pattern, the closer one gets to Chaos.  Therefore I say mythical creatures reside on the outer boundries of Amber's influence.   Try to bring them in close to the Eternal City and they simply die or disappear even as most magic gives out.

That said, the next arguement I predict is that if this is the case, why then could manticores make it to Arden?  Perhaps because they trod the Black Road and that road afforded them protection.  

But, we saw a manticore attack Corwin from Arden off the black road!  Maybe, the black road affords enough protection for short stints off of it?  In the end we know one thing,  We see very few sorcerers in Amber when compared to the Courts.  Fiona might be a great sorcerous, but really, how often does she demonstrate such ability in Amber itself?  Corwin, himself, says though, a sharp length of steel works pretty much anywhere.  A bullet that fires is truly devestating against plain troops of medieval tech.   A short furry zealot willing to die for his god and possessing a trigger finger adds to a gun.  A lot.  Dragons that either die halfway to Amber or cannot hold a gun after their magical breath weapon gives out, is less useful.

Thats my explanation.

Or maybe it's because he can get 10,000 of the suicidal ewoks and arm them with M-16s.  Conversely, he can get 100 dragons (Dragons being ego driven and notorious loners).  Given a choice, I'd take the suicidal ewoks armed with automatic weapons.
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warp9

Quote from: Rook;365661I cannot speak for Zelazny, but I always interpreted it as this.  Magic does not work in Amber.  It's a great irony, I know, but then so is the fact that the one power that sets Amberites above shadows, also does not work in Amber.  I see magic as just another manipulation of shadow physics and you cannot manipulate the physics of Amber.  Dragons are in their very being, creatures composed of magic.  They defy reason.  Not just their breath, but they themselves.  The further out from the Pattern, the closer one gets to Chaos.  Therefore I say mythical creatures reside on the outer boundries of Amber's influence.   Try to bring them in close to the Eternal City and they simply die or disappear even as most magic gives out.
I like that explanation, although you have to ignore a bunch of stuff in the Merlin series for that theory to be true. In the second series, Merlin, Mandor, and others, were able to pull off magic inside castle Amber.

But, off hand, I can't think of any specific instances in the Corwin series which really violate the concept that magic couldn't work in Amber. Trump power clearly works in Amber, and Brand was able to pull off some sort of magical type tricks (but that could be connected to his "Living Trump" status).

Still, even putting magic and dragons aside, there are a number of other options for cool troops that an Amberite could use for an assault on Amber. A culture which has developed sword fighting to totally insane levels comes to mind. An army composed of hyper intelligent, tool using Velociraptors, could be pretty interesting too.

Part of the issue becomes what actually works in Amber. Electricity apparently doesn't work in Amber, but lighting works, and the impulses in people's nerve cells still apparently function. Would an electric eel still have its qualities in Amber? If so, it might be possible to find other creatures in Shadow with more interesting variations on the electric eel abilities.

Sound still works in Amber, and it might be possible to find some creatures with some interesting sonic attacks.

jibbajibba

The magic doesn't work idea is a bit thin. The reason why we don't see magic in Amber in the corwin saga is becuase we don't see any magic aside from the hotfoot Corwin gives Stalgwdyr (sorry can't recall the spelling). There is no magic anywhere. If we accept magic we are accepting the Merlin saga. In this case you have to accept that there are pet dragons and that amndor and Merlin cast spells in amber with no hindrance. The other option is to remove magic entirely.
Having said that you still have the Weir that server Eric and they are as magical as a dragon surely?

As for asaulting Amber. I have done it with a horde of angels, winged and 8 feet tall, an army of rats that bring a varaition of the plague crossed with ebola and a Kraken.
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warp9

Quote from: jibbajibba;365679The magic doesn't work idea is a bit thin. The reason why we don't see magic in Amber in the corwin saga is becuase we don't see any magic aside from the hotfoot Corwin gives Stalgwdyr (sorry can't recall the spelling). There is no magic anywhere. If we accept magic we are accepting the Merlin saga.

In this case you have to accept that there are pet dragons and that amndor and Merlin cast spells in amber with no hindrance. The other option is to remove magic entirely.
I've known Amber GMs who do try to throw out the Merlin saga, even though the Amber DRPG clearly incorporates aspects of the second series. The existence of the Merlin series does raise some big questions about why things happened the way they did in the first series. So it might make it easier if you did want to throw that stuff out.

I couldn't actually see doing that myself. Getting rid of the Merlin series doesn't get rid of all the problems, and the second series added some interesting stuff to the Amber Universe. Those things are a part of what I think of as "Amber."

Quote from: jibbajibba;365679Having said that you still have the Weir that server Eric and they are as magical as a dragon surely?
If Trump is a power and not magic,
and if Pattern is a power, and not magic,
and if Shape Shifting is a power and not magic. . .
. . . then it is possible that the weir were not actually "magic" based.

They also were encountered at a point somewhere out side the center of Amber, not all that long after Corwin and Random had dumped their car. So it might be possible to argue that such creatures couldn't exist in the heart of Amber (although, as has been pointed out this is something with is totally contradicted in the Merlin series).


Quote from: jibbajibba;365679As for asaulting Amber. I have done it with a horde of angels, winged and 8 feet tall, an army of rats that bring a varaition of the plague crossed with ebola and a Kraken.
Moving on to a question relating to something you said earlier about paying points for these things. . . .

Did you stat them out, as having specific qualities listed in the Amber DRPG book? Or did you assume that, as the book says, "the basic creature or item is free, no matter how exotic it is," and that many of the qualities of an 8 foot tall winged angel would simply come free, as being "natural" to such an exotic creature?

Croaker

Quote from: warp9;365604If Corwin could really find any kind of army that he could imagine out in Shadow, those little blue furry guys don't seem all that effective.

And the arguments put forward as to why he couldn't found a more powerful army never fully make sense (at least not IMO).

Obviously a big part of it is that a lot of stuff will not work in Amber. It may be easy to go out and find an army of Jedi knights, but their force abilities and light-sabers are not going to work in Amber. Still, from the books it is pretty clear that a number of more powerful entities (magical ones, such as dragons) can exist in Amber. And, for more "human-like characters" with hyper-exceptional skill, I'm not sure that abilities such as mega-human levels of combat skill are as easy to have malfunction as gun-powder.

Arguments about the logistics of having an Amberite guide the dragon army to Amber are an interesting topic to explore. However, given that Amber level Warfare is supposed to be above the best human military minds, I'd think those problems could be overcome by most Amber PCs. It shouldn't take too much, by Amber Warfare standards, to lead them through Shadow without having the dragons wander off, starve, or kill each other (especially if you picked the right kind of dragons, meaning ones which had some sense of discipline).
My take on this.

Shadow is based on Amber, only worse (since the copy is inferior to the original).
So, the "base" shadow will be like amber, but with, well, human stats everywhere. Shadow animals will also be slower and less dangerous than their amberites equivalents (like the difference between a non-amberite resident of Amber and a shadow human).

That's the base. And then, everytime you deviate from this, it gets less and less probable, and thus more and more difficult (and maybe dangerous) to find.

So, finding basic humans with human stats is easy. Finding humans with better stats (like your jedi army) is harder. The more you go towards amber-equivalent, the less probable it is. And above Amber? it gets a lot worse.

Note also that your jedi knights? They might have been Chaos rank: Most of their talents comes more from the Force than anything else (including using it to enhance reflexes, maybe by a 6th-sense effect). So, outside of their shadow, they might have been actually WORSE than the blue guys, with mostly human stats and a lot of bad reflexes (like expecting all those nifty force enhancements to work).

Likewise, finding a Dragon (even more, an obedient one) is possible, although difficult. Finding an army becomes next to impossible, because it's so darn improbable.

That's my take, at least.
 

jibbajibba

Quote from: warp9;365940I've known Amber GMs who do try to throw out the Merlin saga, even though the Amber DRPG clearly incorporates aspects of the second series. The existence of the Merlin series does raise some big questions about why things happened the way they did in the first series. So it might make it easier if you did want to throw that stuff out.

I couldn't actually see doing that myself. Getting rid of the Merlin series doesn't get rid of all the problems, and the second series added some interesting stuff to the Amber Universe. Those things are a part of what I think of as "Amber."


If Trump is a power and not magic,
and if Pattern is a power, and not magic,
and if Shape Shifting is a power and not magic. . .
. . . then it is possible that the weir were not actually "magic" based.

They also were encountered at a point somewhere out side the center of Amber, not all that long after Corwin and Random had dumped their car. So it might be possible to argue that such creatures couldn't exist in the heart of Amber (although, as has been pointed out this is something with is totally contradicted in the Merlin series).



Moving on to a question relating to something you said earlier about paying points for these things. . . .

Did you stat them out, as having specific qualities listed in the Amber DRPG book? Or did you assume that, as the book says, "the basic creature or item is free, no matter how exotic it is," and that many of the qualities of an 8 foot tall winged angel would simply come free, as being "natural" to such an exotic creature?

Stated them out, as you note some thing are rare and so you need to have a method of working out how rare and that would be the points. however they would have had some extra points like they had more than human srtrength and endurance but I bundled that in as I costed the flight at 4.

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Amber ranked Combat (4)
Hardened Armour (1)
Flight - adopted from movement rules (4)
Shadow Wide (x4) (Horde didn't give enough for an army)
36 points.
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warp9

Quote from: jibbajibba;365987Stated them out, as you note some thing are rare and so you need to have a method of working out how rare and that would be the points.
If points represent how rare and exotic stuff is. . . . How many points would it cost to find a typical D&D type world? (If you actually stated it out that would be a lot of exotic stuff: angles, and demons, and dragons, and djinni, and gods, and magic items of all sorts)