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Author Topic: Julia  (Read 8337 times)

moritheil

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Julia
« on: June 11, 2009, 09:17:45 AM »
Has anyone ever made a character sheet of her?  I'm curious.  I've seen depictions of Merlin ranging from 200-300 points, but it seems that Julia can be accurately rendered in under 100 points.  Despite that, she manages to keep an impressive hand in things.

Here's a quick guess on how I'd model her:

Warfare: Human
Strength: Human
Endurance: Human
Psyche: Chaos (extraordinarily high aptitude for Sorcery, for a human.)

Broken Pattern Adept
Sorcery
Chaos Friend

This works out to be equivalent to -43 points (if she were given 100 points like a normal starting PC, she'd have 143 points of Good Stuff.)  

I can maybe see an argument for Chaos endurance.  She did walk the Broken Pattern and survive.

Please tell me what you'd do differently and why.
« Last Edit: June 11, 2009, 09:25:20 AM by moritheil »

gabriel_ss4u

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Julia
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2009, 01:13:43 AM »
Have you seen her in Shadow Knight?

I'd be planning on making her goals obtaining Chaos rank for End in her future wishlist, but I like the way you set her. By game standards she won't last long without good stuff or Chaos warfare the way she goes out on vendettas.
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Croaker

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Julia
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2009, 02:12:06 PM »
Or not.

More than anything, at amber's core lies cleverness and schrewdedness, not attributes or raw power. So, she could survive and prosper.
 

Schattensturm

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Julia
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2009, 09:02:47 PM »
Quote from: Croaker;307908
Or not.

More than anything, at amber's core lies cleverness and schrewdedness, not attributes or raw power. So, she could survive and prosper.


Which is part of the problem. Cleverness and shrewdness are governed by Warfare and Psyche. Of course the player can be more stupid/intelligent than his character, but essentially a character's attributes reflect her/his abilities.
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Xenon

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Julia
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2009, 09:39:10 PM »
i disagree. a human can outsmart an amberite, IF the amberite is not paying attention. If i tell you its an alarm clock (and not a bomb), and you dont check for yourself, then it doesnt matter how high your warfare is at 8am.

attributes are not the be-all end-all that some people seem to think they are. even Benedict can lose a fight (and an arm) when the enemy cheats to win. attributes are how well you do something, but they dont tell you what to do.

that said, whatever her attributes were before, Julia will be more powerful now that she has assayed the broken pattern and commanded the power of the Font. even mere empowerment can do a lot for 'human' stats in the short run.

SunBoy

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Julia
« Reply #5 on: June 14, 2009, 04:28:21 AM »
Quote from: Schattensturm;308092
Cleverness and shrewdness are governed by Warfare and Psyche. Of course the player can be more stupid/intelligent than his character, but essentially a character's attributes reflect her/his abilities.


No. Definitely no. Mentally, warfare governs perception, and psyche, willpower (plus the more tangible aspects of both). But your character's cleverness, wits, creativity and savoir-faire, just like his charisma and charm are yours. All the way. Just think about it. In Amber, you can't roll for "Sense Motive", "Diplomacy", "Intelligence" or "Smarts" anymore than you can roll to hit. With Warfare, you can know if a bloke looks aggressive or afraid, or nervous, but you can't know why. Is he afraid of you, or of his boss? And you can't bail out of a situation by telling the GM "I roll for Intelligence to see if I can come up with something". Actually, that's pretty near the top of my list of reasons for liking Amber so much. Your character can have the power of a god, but if you're a meathead, you'll go down.
Exempli gratia: Bill Roth. A human. Old guy, probably out of shape (before coming to Amber), couldn't give any amberite a decent thirty-seconds workout -that is, his warfare blows. But he acts as advisor to the king, and is praised (by Random!!!) as a shrew legal mind. Even though he can be psyched silly by any half-retarded chaos demon, because his psyche is also not worth a toss.
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Croaker

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Julia
« Reply #6 on: June 14, 2009, 08:33:35 AM »
Quote from: Schattensturm;308092
Which is part of the problem. Cleverness and shrewdness are governed by Warfare and Psyche.

If that were the case, Corwin would have lost against both Benedict and Borel ;)

Great bill roth example, too.
 

Schattensturm

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« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2009, 10:05:34 AM »
Quote from: Croaker;308187
If that were the case, Corwin would have lost against both Benedict and Borel ;)

Great bill roth example, too.


It's a matter of logic. The ADRPG rules are by no way perfect. Four attributes may work well for supermen like Corwin, etc, but not for normal human beings. I, e.g., deem myself rather good at chess, but I'm a lousy fencer and wouldn't know how to muster soldiers, even if you gave me a handbook "Mustering for Dummies". The simplicity of the system has its advantages AND its flaws.
Corwin, btw, won against Benedict, because he had crucial information Benedict did not have; and probably he was better than Borel or almost as good, but decided not to play fair. Thus Borel refrained from using his full potential by displaying chivalry.
Bill Roth has special talents, which are definitely part of Warfare - court and law strategies fit into this category. You could call this a skill or specialization - only that the system does not know these things.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2009, 10:08:48 AM by Schattensturm »
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Croaker

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« Reply #8 on: June 14, 2009, 12:06:19 PM »
Corwin wins because he doesn't play fair. That's cheating, being schrewd and all. How could julia not do this, despite her human warfare?

And the special talents? Ok, let's admit that for a second.

What would bill roth be? The best lawyer /advisor on earth? He is good, but not that good. But let's say he is. That Chaos rank. Let's even say he's truly exceptionnal, and reaches Amber rank. Certainly nothing to impress Random.

Even then, by creating this  special category, you're defeating your own argument that julia won't be able to be schrewd enough because she's lousy at warfare.

Note also the example of Gerard, which has a good enough warfare and psyche, but still is easily mislead.
And there are the young generation, certainly very close to us "normal humans", all because they don't have the centuries of experience their elders have.
 

Schattensturm

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« Reply #9 on: June 15, 2009, 03:52:54 AM »
Quote from: Croaker;308215
Even then, by creating this  special category, you're defeating your own argument that julia won't be able to be schrewd enough because she's lousy at warfare.


In fact, I am not. Just read ADRPG, p. 22, first stanza of "The Potential of Warfare."

But the circumstance that someone with obviously lower Warfare can still trick someone with higher warfare sometimes, is the reason why I am using skills in my game. Whereas a point in a skill equals three points in the corresponding attribute. The skills are specializations of the attributes and the effective value of the skill is skill + attribute. Thus noone needs to take skills, a generalist is better off only investing in attributes. Still it allows a human character to beat Amberites in some aspects, without being of equal overall power in an attribute (Shadowdwellers pay double for attributes above Amber rank in my game). But that's again just another house rule.

Apart from that I give boni for creative player ideas on the attribute/skill - whereas I am with you. Of course good roleplay and creativity has to be regarded. If just to keep up the motivation. Still a good idea often only helps for a few moments until the better (N)PC (in skill/attribute) adapts to the tactics. E.g., if Benedict had somehow avoided Corwin's plan to be pushed back into the vampiric grass, he would, over a short period of time, have noticed, that there must be something fishy about that patch of grass as Corwin tries to press on into that direction. He then would have had the chance - as the better swordsfigher - to use Corwin's tactic against Corwin himself.

Nonetheless my opinion is that Erick created a game with two main concern in mind: simplicity and playability. He did a fantastic job at that. Roger Zelazny wrote hos books not thinking about how Erick's rules would explain what happens, he wrote to tell a story the way he thought it was meant to be told. I love diceless, heck, I adore the beauty of it, but some of the things that happen in the books would be best explained by randomness, which is not part of diceless. Does that make diceless inferior? No, it doesn't, it creates a different world, tho.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2009, 04:19:42 AM by Schattensturm »
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jibbajibba

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Julia
« Reply #10 on: June 15, 2009, 06:52:08 AM »
Quote from: Schattensturm;308375
In fact, I am not. Just read ADRPG, p. 22, first stanza of "The Potential of Warfare."

But the circumstance that someone with obviously lower Warfare can still trick someone with higher warfare sometimes, is the reason why I am using skills in my game. Whereas a point in a skill equals three points in the corresponding attribute. The skills are specializations of the attributes and the effective value of the skill is skill + attribute. Thus noone needs to take skills, a generalist is better off only investing in attributes. Still it allows a human character to beat Amberites in some aspects, without being of equal overall power in an attribute (Shadowdwellers pay double for attributes above Amber rank in my game). But that's again just another house rule


.


I dislike the ADRGP concept that shrewdness, cunning and the like all come frm warfare. The idea that Benedict would be the best Amberite as solving a ridlde, opening a lock, doing the Times Crossword becuase he has the best Warfare is simply daft. Benedict has the best Warfare therefore he is hte best at ..warfare :-)
I use a skill system as well. There is a caveat in that you can't have a skill that is directly equal to an attribute. No knife throwing, hypnosis or long distance running. However, I do allow things like play chess or interrogation (play chess is actually a skill score you add to your warfare other wise how could Jopin ever be a challenge for Corwin or how come Kasperov can't beat Mike Tyson over 5 rounds....)
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Croaker

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« Reply #11 on: June 15, 2009, 12:18:37 PM »
Quote from: Schattensturm;308375
In fact, I am not. Just read ADRPG, p. 22, first stanza of "The Potential of Warfare."

And? This doesn't make the Warfare master more clever or schrewd, just more paranoid.

You'll note that, a few moments later, erick writes that not every character will want to devellop these abilities, because not every character will want to live as if perpetually under attack.
This may sometimes protect a warfare master from dirty tricks à la corwin but, even then, this doesn't work sometimes, as proved by the black grass episode.

Avoing direct conflict, overpowering your foes with massive power (like the Fount), using allies... are all options for a julia that as proven to be remarquably effective so far.
 

Schattensturm

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« Reply #12 on: June 15, 2009, 05:12:56 PM »
It makes him clever and shrewed enough to react appropriatley to cleverness and shrewdness. Paranoia alone doesn't provide intellectual skills, just the fear of being surrounded by enemies. I can see your point, and I positively believe that it is an appropriate interpretation of the original rules to keep characters like Julia and Bill Roth playable. On the other hand, I always felt that Human, Chaos, and Amber rank are not useful categories to handle humans. The gaps are too great. I prefer a linear system with 0 points as Human rank, Chaos rank around 15/20, Amber rank at about 30 and from then on the point/rank race.
Again, I firmly believe that Erick's basic idea of diceless roleplaying is outstanding, his play examples are even better, but the rule details are far from perfect. That's my interpretation.
I even had a short email discussion with Erick on that matter - that is the discussion on Human, Chaos, and Amber rank, we didn't write about skills - a few years ago and he agreed that he would've done some things differently in retrospective. But it was clearly a minor issue to him, writing that the way the GM handled it was more important than the question of rules itself. At least that's how I recall it. Unfortunately I changed my PC a few times since then and my older emails didn't survive the process.
It was a short discussion we had after I mailed him a new webdesign for the phage press web site. Unfortunately he only adapted the menu with the Unicorn, and skipped the rest. So the result didn't really look much better than the site had looked before. :(
« Last Edit: June 15, 2009, 05:16:14 PM by Schattensturm »
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Croaker

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« Reply #13 on: June 15, 2009, 05:49:52 PM »
Quote from: Schattensturm;308593
On the other hand, I always felt that Human, Chaos, and Amber rank are not useful categories to handle humans. The gaps are too great. I prefer a linear system with 0 points as Human rank, Chaos rank around 15/20, Amber rank at about 30 and from then on the point/rank race.

On this, we agree :)

You should maybe look at the demonic scales for inspiration. It worked well for me, aside from being a great help understanding ranks and their working (and the idea behind it)
 

jibbajibba

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« Reply #14 on: June 15, 2009, 06:29:11 PM »
So our new edition of Amber Still Diceless Roleplaying needs an option of starting Humans at zero and then placing Amberites on a starting value of 25 - 30 points and Chaosites at 15 - 20.
Oh and an optional Skill sytem. I will publish mine someplace. It works in its aim which is to establish rivalries between PCs in everything from Driving cars to painting but its cumbersome to design a character (and Pundit will hate the poiints buy).
In Erick's defence I think he was imagining a system where Amber is the default and Humans aren't worth worrying about. It would be like D&D having 3-18 for Humans but then a decimal range of values from 0.00-2.00 for household pets and squirrels :)
Needless to say there are more humans in Amber than you find squirrels in a typical dungeon delve.
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