An Amber-in-all-but-name Game?

RPGPundit · July 30, 2009, 07:41:42 PM

Let's say someone was sick of those useless fucks over at Diceless by Design doing fuck all to keep amber going.

Let's say that someone released an Amber-clone, slightly revising the basic rules and tiptoeing around the setting material in such a way that it would clearly be Amber but without breaking any copyright law, and maybe presenting some new and interesting setting material at that.

Just how much demand do you think there'd be for a book like that?

RPGPundit

Xenon · July 30, 2009, 07:51:47 PM

well, first i think we would need a decent author to write some fiction in the new setting. that would create a shared frame of reference for the game, as well as creating a copyright to use for the property.

after that, we would need to revamp the system to be competitive in the modern RPG market. this would mean including all the classic house rules in the main book, such as partial powers. maybe changing the attributes a bit- lots of people split warfare into two stats. basicly get it different enough to avoid being a 'clone' so to avoid lawsuits.

if you can get a very similar 'clone' out without getting sued, that would be great, but i dont think it would be likely. as for demand... not without some advertising. the Amber fandom has been dwindling slowly over the years i think. the lack of any action by the license holders implies a lack of perceived demand.

jibbajibba · July 30, 2009, 08:05:30 PM

As I said before I think combining all the free stuff out there and making a new Amber free edition is viable, although some warning there about getting 'busted' by the Amber estate. I fear that if you tried to bring out a commercial clone that was not amber specific it would fail as its the Amber brand (small pun intended) that sold the game the first time round and that brand woudl be what was needed.

I think you could build a more generic game a level up from Amber which could be used to map a range of genres including the Amber one. efffectively you keep the core elements -
Attribute auction (the actual attributes would vary with setting)
Diceless mechanic
The 'powers' mechanism but which each setting has a number of powers you buy either in whole or using a partial method (which woudl eb my approach)

If you did all of that you would have a game in which you could legitimately run Amber without being in breach of Amber copywright. However it would be just another game and the diceless mechanic is such a controvertial option that I can't see it becoming a huge seller.

finarvyn · July 31, 2009, 07:39:05 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;317023Let's say that someone released an Amber-clone, slightly revising the basic rules and tiptoeing around the setting material in such a way that it would clearly be Amber but without breaking any copyright law, and maybe presenting some new and interesting setting material at that.

Cranking out the clone itself wouldn't be that hard, because the core rules for ADRP are pretty short and most of the bulk of the rulebook is setting information and examples.

The hard part might be that "slighly revising the basic rules" part, since I'm not sure that we agree on what kinds of revision should be done. What did you have in mind?

RPGPundit · July 31, 2009, 05:38:55 PM

Trust me, nothing very heavy. Changing the sorcery rules (which were the weakest part of the original rules-set), maybe including things like partial powers and split attributes as optional concepts, and editing some of the existing powers or items rules for clarity.

RPGPundit

gabriel_ss4u · July 31, 2009, 09:58:07 PM

Instead of amber, it could be called; Quartz!
ummmm.... Pyrite!.... Jasper?
I mean, what are we talking about? Amber diceless Gurps?
Nothing is the same as Amber.
I care not about making any profit from it, I would be happy to just throw together all the info, find a funder to put it together, (one who'd do it for the love of it, and has the $ to spare) and just hand out the 1000 copies to the hard-core Amber GM's.
yeah...
of course I wish I had ther computer power and time/resources to do it, then I would!

SunBoy · August 05, 2009, 02:19:50 AM

I really don't like to be a killjoy, but... nope. It couldn't work. If you do it similar enough as to be... interchangeable, let us say, then copyright lawyers would be all over you (DC's Captain Marvel, someone?), and if you stray far enough to avoid that, then it won't be a tenth as good. Let's face it, the game system itself is brilliant, I won't be caught dead denying that, but it truly shines when paired with Zelazny's masterpieces. The tale of the eight princes in Fossilized-tree-sap, where king Auberen reigned for aeons and valiantly fought the armies of the Halls of Entropy (all that TM SunBoy, of course)... just won't cut it.

boulet · August 05, 2009, 08:49:52 AM

Glad you're back Sunboy!

SunBoy · August 05, 2009, 01:59:16 PM

Thanks. Good to be back.

Lawbag · August 05, 2009, 03:21:32 PM

Wouldnt it be ironic if after spending several years doing bugger all with the license, that the moment someone releases a Diceless Clone of Amber (maybe Remba) that they spend all their efforts on legal action to sue the creators fo the clone game, when they could be spending that very same effort on creating a new version of the game.

Croaker · August 06, 2009, 09:22:11 AM

Ironic? Maybe. Credible? Surely

jibbajibba · August 06, 2009, 06:34:38 PM

Only one thing really confuses me about the whole situation. If I were DbD and I was going to do the mileage to secure the license I would have already have a revised game ready to edit and illustrate and I would have immediately kicked off my forum and started outlining the major rule changes and get my Big Idea list out there for comment.

finarvyn · August 07, 2009, 04:33:42 PM

I think that the DbD guys were friends of Erick. I don't think they came to Erick with a finished product in hand and said "can we do this?" They probably were sitting around after a game session, speculating on what they could do with the game and Erick said something to the effect of "sounds great" and they got the franchise.

So they have some ideas but probably no manuscript. They have at least made both ADRP and Shadow Knight PDFs for sale in several locations, which is a start. And if they've never written an RPG before they may have had no idea how much work is involved with a project of that magnitude. Heck, the two rulebooks add up to about 500 pages. That's really a lot of text to ponder.

RPGPundit · August 08, 2009, 12:17:26 AM

It is, without doubt, a major endeavour. Not to mention the weight of the fact that it has to go right, because this is the only chance anyone will get; either 2nd edition Amber is a hit, or the game is done.

That said, jibbajabba has a good point too; there has been a massive failure to maintain communication and do a lot of the basic stuff other than actually writing the book that they should have been doing as heirs to the Amber RPG license.

The fact that they were friends of Erick (and supposedly big amber fans) makes it worse, not more excusable, that they haven't apparently done as much as thing one in the course of two fucking years.

RPGPundit

fizzbinn · August 08, 2009, 01:02:09 AM

Quote from: finarvyn;318937And if they've never written an RPG before they may have had no idea how much work is involved with a project of that magnitude.

They do know. Edwin was one of the lead writers on the most recent version of Tekumel. He's also been running a massive diceless game called "Shadow World" with over a hundred players via email, forums, at cons, and other occasions for years.