Amber: How Do You Prepare?

[Panjumanju]

Preparing a game of Amber Diceless can be a daunting task. There are a million characters and situations to consider even before the Auction. How do you go about structuring your Amber game?

* Write out in detail an ongoing plot among NPCs, and the PCs find themselves in the middle of the complicated mess?
* Keep an events listing of meta-plot items to pop in when things get slow?
* Arm yourself with a trap or situational-funnel wherein the PCs are bottle-necked into plot (rather than scattering out to shadow)?
* Present a sandbox universe (or several) of interesting events that PCs may or may not trip over?

How do you go about presenting your Amberverse to players?

//Panjumanju

[RPGPundit]

I usually go the sandbox route.  I determine at the start if there's going to be any over-arching mega-threat in the campaign, or some important event that sets everything off.
I take stock of where every NPC is at, both literally and in the sense of their interests and alliances.

Then we have the auction, and crucially that's done as a separate session (if at all possible); we don't start playing on the same day.  After that I spend the time between the auction and the first session of play to figure out how the PCs will fit into the situation and how they will relate with the NPCs and factions.

Then in the first session, things set into motion and I go organically from there.

RPGPundit

[Artifacts of Amber]

Depends on the players.

New players I do an intro plot of some type. I find doing otherwise (Sandbox style) leaves them mostly lost. They need some direction to begin with.

I note down names and details of important staff (only 3-4 people)

Stat out the Elders as I plan to use them for the game. I have some elders with same point spent as the players and some miles ahead. Never cared for the structured tiers in the base game book. Also this is more to keep me in line than anything else. It helps remind me what each is capable of when I play them. Also I don't feel locked into these stats if I need to change them though I never have so far.

Stat out the bad guys.  In my last game of running them as shadow empowered terrorist I just ha d list of things they would do such as Commit gruesome murders in the city that slowly escalated up the social ladder. Prostitutes up to Nobles. I winged each crime scene once I decided which bad guy did it since that determined how they did it and what clues might be left behind.  My whole plot for the campaign fit on a small note pad sheet. I winged the rest.

A small notebook held everyone's stats, players, elders and bad guys. Made it easy to game. one notebook held it all. I have a pretty firm knowledge of my campaign world. I don't end to vary a lot but since it has been run only a few times it is still got the shine on it.

Only really have 3 campaigns I use.

Shadow intrigue - the shadow sorcery terrorist

We all Fall Down - a almost post apocalyptic Amber with a ton of shit for players to fix.

Sins of the Father - A chaos based campaign after the fall of Amber. In house Beriman.  This one is the most detailed as Chaos has a lot of info I need to run it. A much larger number of NPC's of import. I don't know all the houses inside and out and all the family in the characters house like I know the Princes and Princesses of Amber. Have to use notes.

Of course all this prep has been done for years. Wish I cold use it