"Half-Assed Trump Artistry"

[weilide]

At one point early in the second series Merlin and Bill Roth are talking and the conversation gets to the subject of trump:

"Those sorcerers you spoke of—from the adjacent kingdoms...Could any of them do up a set of Trumps?"

"Yes, but theirs would be less than perfect. It is my understanding that you have to be an initiate of either the Pattern or the Logrus to do them properly. Some of them could do a sort of half-assed set, though, one you'd be taking your chances on using—maybe winding up dead or in some limbo, sometimes getting where you were headed."

I really love this little exchange, and not just because it involves the use of the term "half-assed" in a serious fantasy context. It also says about lot about how Trump work in Zelazny's universe.

I've been thinking that the next time I run Amber I would like to include "Half-Assed Trump Artistry" as a power, something a little akin to Broken Pattern. The idea is that Pattern or Logrus would be prerequisite for proper Trump Artistry and that anyone lacking these who bought Trump Artistry would get the lesser version instead. I would probably want to lower the price to something like 30 points in order to recognize that A) the lesser version is more problematic than the standard one in the sourcebook and B) the proper version requires a considerable point investment elsewhere.

In fact, depending on how one sees these things, one might stipulate that even half-assed Trump Artistry would have a prerequisite of either Broken Pattern or the Logrus equivalent, however that might work. (Zelazny seems to imply this is the case. Regarding the "sorcerers from adjacent kingdoms" in the quote above, Merlin says: "And then there are the inhabitants of the various Shadow kingdoms nearest to Amber and to Chaos. Those at both ends breed mighty sorcerers, just because of their proximity to the two power centers. Some of the good ones can become fairly adept at it—but their images of the Pattern or the Logrus are imperfect, so they're never quite as good as the real thing." I suppose whether or not "imperfect Pattern" equals "Broken Pattern" is an open question at this point. For my purposes it does.)

However the mechanics work out, this could be a really fun opportunity from  a GM standpoint. Just think of all the things that could go wrong with half-assed Trump (although it's probably not cricket to actually kill your players): limbo, static and other interference, trump that suck you in as soon as you look at them, repeated dropped connections like a cellphone in the boondocks, trump that are suddenly so cold that they burn the holder's fingers, trump that occasionally contact a shadow of the target instead of the genuine article, random snippets of conversation or music wafting through the contact for no reason, and so on.

Any thoughts?

[Seanchai]

Any thoughts?

I like things like these. As player, they allow me to build a character that I or someone else hasn't already played a hundred times before and provide some interesting challenges. As a GM, they're toys. Shiny toys. In the form of plot hooks. Me like.

Seanchai