I let my Amber players have a lot more control of the set up of the narative. I let them build the castle and the kingdom and I allow them to populate it.
Once these things are set they don't get any narative control well not as I define it though Pundy may disagree as I allow 'I pick up a wine bottle from the table to use as a weapon,' and he would insist on 'Is there a wine bottle on the table I can use as a weapon?'.
I think arguing one is roleplaying and one is some sort of shared narative exercise is a stupid idea.

It is amusing though as Pundy also hates points buy and Amber is points buy, sure its an auction and you have ranks but its points buy.

But then this is Amber, the epitome of games the purest of pastimes.

So I can only deduce it's a ying yang thing. For Pundy to be so anti-narativism, point buy and shared control he has to accept and love Amber. I suspect that Ron Edwards probably has a copy of FtA he breaks out for some mad hack and slash goodness every couple of weeks.

Quote from: RPGPundit;340764Yes. It proves that there are a lot of desperate Forgers out there.

RPGPundit

Yeah dude, anyone who disagrees with your view of narrative control in Amber Diceless must be a Forger.  That makes so much sense.  By the way, is your tinfoil hat on snug today?

Quote from: RPGPundit;340830Again, this only seems really meaningful to someone who doesn't play Amber. So what?
Before, I compared this power to being able to travel.
In fact, that's an exaggeration.

What this power is really like is like having a holodeck. It isn't even real. The PC can go out and find infinite SHADOWS where he can fulfill his wettest of wet dreams, yes, but it DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING. And all the places that do mean something (Amber, the Courts of Chaos, Ygg, etc) are places where their powers can't actually do any manipulating.  That's a big part of why they matter.

And again, the Player can't actually alter the narrative, any more than giving a Sci-fi RPG character a spaceship (or a virtual spaceship) "alters the narrative".

I mean seriously, fuckers, you need to start working harder than this if you want to be a challenge.

RPGPundit

The fact that you are not grokking the challenge you are trying to respond to doesn't help your case any.  When you actually comprehend what we're saying (lots and lots of people who have read your thoughts on this topic), then you might be in a position to tell others to work harder on challenging you.  When one person fails to get the message across to you, then it's probably that persons fault.  But when dozens, over many years, say essentially the same thing and you still don't get it and make responses like you just did which demonstrate you REALLY don't get it? Yah, then it's on you for not being willing to think.

Quote from: jibbajibba;340863I let my Amber players have a lot more control of the set up of the narative. I let them build the castle and the kingdom and I allow them to populate it.

Which, in my opinion, is just what the rules encourage.

QuoteOnce these things are set they don't get any narative control well not as I define it though Pundy may disagree as I allow 'I pick up a wine bottle from the table to use as a weapon,' and he would insist on 'Is there a wine bottle on the table I can use as a weapon?'.
I think arguing one is roleplaying and one is some sort of shared narative exercise is a stupid idea.

I agree

QuoteIt is amusing though as Pundy also hates points buy and Amber is points buy, sure its an auction and you have ranks but its points buy.

It's another one of those "Pundit likes it, therefore there must be an excuse as to why it is OK this time but not other times for those poopy games I hate".

QuoteSo I can only deduce it's a ying yang thing. For Pundy to be so anti-narativism, point buy and shared control he has to accept and love Amber. I suspect that Ron Edwards probably has a copy of FtA he breaks out for some mad hack and slash goodness every couple of weeks.

LOL

Quote from: Balbinus;340807I think Pundy's right I'm afraid, that to me isn't player level sharing of authorial rights.

As I suggested above, it stretches the dividing line rather thin.  Perhaps more amusingly, though, the power to traverse infinite Shadows pretty well demands the "Yes, but..." response from the GM, that slippery slope into pseudo-narrativism that Pundy has decried from Nobilis and other games.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;340899As I suggested above, it stretches the dividing line rather thin.  Perhaps more amusingly, though, the power to traverse infinite Shadows pretty well demands the "Yes, but..." response from the GM, that slippery slope into pseudo-narrativism that Pundy has decried from Nobilis and other games.

!i!

Well, Pundy is trying to craft the definition to fit where he wants it to go.

I found this interesting quote related to this topic on the Gygax Games front page:

"The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group, cooperative experience. There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you're involved in, whether it's a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agents or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things."

-E. Gary Gygax

Quote from: Mistwell;340897The fact that you are not grokking the challenge...

Be careful with that word. It doesn't simply mean "understand". Rather, it means, as it was stated in the book:

Quote...to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man.

Quote from: Hieronymous Rex;340953Be careful with that word. It doesn't simply mean "understand". Rather, it means, as it was stated in the book:

True.

Pundit is the central character in a mythical anti-forge movement he envisions existing, which includes as a central principal "players do not get narrative control over the game", among other central principals.  

Pundit is also one of the primary characters in the continuation of the Amber Diecless RPG fanbase.  Many, if not most, Amber Diceless participants believe that Amber Diceless gives players a degree of narrative control over the game.

This is a conflict which, if Pundit is going to remain a central/primary character in the "movements" I have described, he will have to some day resolve.  And, to do that, I contend he needs to more than just understand the issue, but he really needs to grok it.  

Others might be able to get away with just understanding and responding to it (often flippantly).  But if you are THE guy on the crossroads, it's going to come down to you formulating the position that likely eventually ends the debate, by either synthesizing the positions or changing a position or something else.  And to do that, he should really grok the issue.  

And until he does grok it, from what I have seen so far his answers on this issue will remain unsatisfactory and frankly a bit smug and dismissive.  Much like the answers of the Forgers he loathes.

Quote from: RPGPundit;340830What this power is really like is like having a holodeck. It isn't even real. The PC can go out and find infinite SHADOWS where he can fulfill his wettest of wet dreams, yes, but it DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING. And all the places that do mean something (Amber, the Courts of Chaos, Ygg, etc) are places where their powers can't actually do any manipulating.  That's a big part of why they matter.

It's been a while since I read the Amber books, but I do remember the Shadows being somewhat more significant than that. Incidents which particularly stand out include the protagonist starting the story having been robbed of his memories and trapped in a Shadow by another Amberite, and a bit later the protagonist travelling the Shadows to find a way to make firearms which will function in Amber. They're places where you can hide things that matter, and where you can actually acquire things that matter to boot. I wouldn't call that insignificant by a long way.

Not that I agree that Amber shares authorial control with the players - the powers granted to go to Shadows are the IC powers that the characters possess, not OOC powers that are invested in the players - but I don't think you can completely dismiss the Shadows.

Quote from: Warthur;340983Not that I agree that Amber shares authorial control with the players - the powers granted to go to Shadows are the IC powers that the characters possess, not OOC powers that are invested in the players - but I don't think you can completely dismiss the Shadows.

This is a ludicrous excuse.  Your discussing the means, not the end, of obtaining narrative control.

Imagine a game that said the characters specifically can create any NPC with their specifically dictated looks and personality and knowledge, and any location of anything that does anything they want it to, and any object of any power whatsoever, and they are the only ones that could do this in that universe, and nothing can interfere with this "power".  

Note, I am not in any way saying that IS Amber Diceless, I am just asking you to imagine it.

Now how is that not a degree of narrative control, just because the means of obtaining that control is a character "power"?

Calling it a character power or a player power is essentially meaningless if the end result is the players can exercise control over the narrative.  And Amber absolutely gives players a degree of narrative control, even though the mechanism is a "power".  The mechanism is not as important as the result, when determining narrative control.

Quote from: Mistwell;341006Now how is that not a degree of narrative control, just because the means of obtaining that control is a character "power"?

Calling it a character power or a player power is essentially meaningless if the end result is the players can exercise control over the narrative.  And Amber absolutely gives players a degree of narrative control, even though the mechanism is a "power".  The mechanism is not as important as the result, when determining narrative control.

By this line of reasoning, all character abilities, down to blacksmithing, are "narrative control". The mechanism is the important thing: Did your character construct a new set of armor, or did you the player declare the armor's existence?

Quote from: Hieronymous Rex;341011By this line of reasoning, all character abilities, down to blacksmithing, are "narrative control". The mechanism is the important thing: Did your character construct a new set of armor, or did you the player declare the armor's existence?

In Amber, it's both.  You cannot tell the difference.  If the player wants armor for his character, the player can declare the armor into existence, controlling that portion of the narrative, and the best the GM can do is "yes, but.." or houserule a "your powers don't work here" into the game, which are both just GM fiats that serves to further highlight the control the players have over the narrative.

It's obvious to anyone who has no dog in the fight that the players have a much larger degree of control over the narrative in Amber than they do in most games.

I have to speak up for Pundy here.
His dividing line is very clear.  The Amberites have powers to affect the universe they can use these powers (if the PC has them) to make certain changes. The players in and of themselves have no such rights.

At the extreme end of this an Amberite with Pattern can create a world, populate it with denizens and tailor its geography, but if someone attacks him when he sleeps and manages to land a fatal blow he can not ask for a do over.

Now my concern is at two points. I like the PCs, who are ancient beings, to feel like they inhabit the world. To achieve this I allow them to share in the building of it. This gives them narative control to a degree. If they want there to be a noble house who were banished 500 years ago for an act of treason then sure no problem.
My second issue is at the micro level. In all my games I encourage players to take decisions. So for me a player saying 'I head to a bar where I know some shifty characters and ask old Two-fingers what he knows about activities on the docks.' Is fine but to Pundy this crosses the narative control line. He would expect use of some character based skill and then for the GM to provide the name of the contact. I am comfortable enough to short circuit this process and allow the player to control it. I will keep in mind their skills and if we are in a game where information gathering or criminal-subculture are named skills I will probably ask for a skill check but I don't feel the need to be totally in control of the small stuff.
Now to me the assertion that the direct result of me being comfortable with my own ability to run a game with no need to sweat the edges is that I am no longer playing an RPG is ludicrous.

I have no defintion of an RPG by the way but if I did it might well include freedom of action. So Clue is not an RPG because I am not allowed to pursue Col Mustard to the Ballroom and club him to death with a candle-stick. Games where I have hero-points like James Bond or Beanies in Savage Worlds are still RPGs because these are just mechanics of the game part.

If a games publishers identify it as a roleplaying game, then that in and of itself is good enough for me.

There are, of course, some games that I like better than others, but that doesn't, in essence, make them any more or less a roleplaying game. Attempting to objectively define what makes something a "roleplaying game" is a largely prententious and masturbatory effort to codify one's subjective value judgments.