Partial powers -- or not? And: Why?

[jibbajibba]

You added some rule because you felt the need for them: you did the right thing, if you are satisfied with them like it seems clear.
I and some other GM do not feel something is missing (in this area at least!) so it would be stupid to add more rules.

That is more then fair

[Croaker]

You added some rule because you felt the need for them: you did the right thing, if you are satisfied with them like it seems clear.
I and some other GM do not feel something is missing (in this area at least!) so it would be stupid to add more rules.

Exactly, that's what I was trying to say above. So long as everyone is happy, everything's fine

[Lorrraine]

You can run Amber using the rules from Fiasco if you really want to and as long as I'm not in the game I don't really care.

Jibba, your game sounds far too much like Gurps for my tastes. It works for you, but it sounds like it would not feel like Amber to me.

One part of what I love about Amber comes from the sheer grandeur of what PCs can actually accomplish in the setting. If Tempest wants to become an MD and she can get to a fast time shadow she can pick up the degree while a lazy summer afternoon passes in Amber. The average PC could commandeer the Death Star without breaking a sweat. I want PCs, mine or my players, to leapfrog past minor challenges like solving a cypher or learning to use a computer except in the rare instance where something like that actually matters. And as a GM I can make those rare instances meaningful by restricting PC movement and time so that the PCs can't just handwave these things.

Wucjik placed no restrictions on learning skills other than time. That works for me. Anything more than that makes the Amberites feel limited to me. As a GM I don't really want to detail out the skill lists of millenia old ageless immortals. As a player I want to focus on my PC's next grand plan not look for gaps in my skill list that an enemy might exploit.

Different people like different games.

[jibbajibba]

You can run Amber using the rules from Fiasco if you really want to and as long as I'm not in the game I don't really care.

Jibba, your game sounds far too much like Gurps for my tastes. It works for you, but it sounds like it would not feel like Amber to me.

One part of what I love about Amber comes from the sheer grandeur of what PCs can actually accomplish in the setting. If Tempest wants to become an MD and she can get to a fast time shadow she can pick up the degree while a lazy summer afternoon passes in Amber. The average PC could commandeer the Death Star without breaking a sweat. I want PCs, mine or my players, to leapfrog past minor challenges like solving a cypher or learning to use a computer except in the rare instance where something like that actually matters. And as a GM I can make those rare instances meaningful by restricting PC movement and time so that the PCs can't just handwave these things.

Wucjik placed no restrictions on learning skills other than time. That works for me. Anything more than that makes the Amberites feel limited to me. As a GM I don't really want to detail out the skill lists of millenia old ageless immortals. As a player I want to focus on my PC's next grand plan not look for gaps in my skill list that an enemy might exploit.

Different people like different games.

Fair enough. I think your Amber sounds more like Erick's than Roger's though

Don't you think it's odd that you can't just go and learn Sorcery like you would take an MD? I mean its not like Sorcery is apparently any harder Julia learns it after all. Don't you think it odd that on earth a normal mortal can practice fencing and improve noticably whereas an Amberite can't?
Now I know why this is its Erick's way of putting in game balance. If you can travel to a fast shadow and learn something for no cost then all the PCs will go and learn all the powers, max their Warfare etc etc . As a game balancing thing its excellent. You only learn through overcoming conflict and that is expressed through your points. All I do is extend that into the whole character.

Brand couldn't find the Jewel of judgement hidden in a compost heap.
Corwin and Oberon struggle to defeat a very localised threat from the black road.
Benedict the greatest swordsman in the verse, who can apprently avoid invisible snipers through instinct alone, looses an arm in a battle, gets tricked to walk over some grass, and lets his brother get close enough to mind paralyse/ensorcell him.
Merlin goes to college, does track, learns about computers has a girlfriend who turns on him learns sorcery and nearly kills him on several ocassions.

The strength of the novels is in the humanity of the characters not in their super-powers.

As for my games being like Gurps, never played so meh. we are still talking about a diceless game where as I have said before I can play a 5 hour session at a con with players I have never met  Where I can run a major criminal investigation, several large combats, a couple of interrogations and a trial and never open a rule book or consult my notes.. Sound like Gurps?

[Evermasterx]

As for my games being like Gurps, never played so meh. we are still talking about a diceless game where as I have said before I can play a 5 hour session at a con with players I have never met  Where I can run a major criminal investigation, several large combats, a couple of interrogations and a trial and never open a rule book or consult my notes.. Sound like Gurps?

Oh, no! This is why we love ADRPG! I use the books only for the Items & Creatures section.
It's incredible how my players do not use their character sheets now: only sometimes the stored spell/equipment personal list. They are only focused on the characters and the story. Thank you Erick! You were right, the rules and the points serve only at the beginning, then the players stop thinking in terms of points.

[Lorrraine]

Years ago and several editions back I used to have the ability to run Champions without consulting a rulebook or my notes. I have known people who could do the same for Gurps.

My Amber game definitely borrows some elements from Erick. The man created a fine game and ran more than a few excellent scenarios.

I actually would allow any player that wanted to learn shadow magic to do so for free as easily as going to college. The magic would only work in the specific shadow in which they learned it, but if they had the points to buy sorcery the training would help serve as justification for buying that power.

My Amberites do improve with practice. Only the truly obsessive grind types like Benedict maximize their potential because lets face it doing the same thing for millenia to get smaller and smaller increments of improvement requires a degree of obsession in the face of countless universes full of temptation. Corwin would have to work a long time to get any better with a sword, but he could improve his skill with a Halberd fairly quickly with practice if he felt the need. I don't need points to represent that. I just need to know that Corwin practices obsessively with his Sword and spends virtually no time at all with a Halberd.

I have also played in games that do not use points at all after character creation. The players can learn any power or raise any stat for free provided they can come up with a way to do so in the context of the game. It can work.

Merlin was a very young immortal. Everybody starts somewhere.

Benedict stands utterly unbeatable in anything approaching a fair fight. Corwin cheats. We don't see him lose his arm so we can speculate all day on how exactly that happened. Benedict also has a bad habit of giving a brother a chance and counting on his combat ability to save himself. That does not always work.

A Lord of Chaos or powerful Demon can threaten Corwin. As to Oberon having to struggle in Avalon. I don't buy that. The man played a deeper game than that.

The Jewel  defies magical and powers based location. Brand had a limited amount of time to look.

Lack of time, difficult circumstances, powerful opposition, clever tricks, their own character flaws, and several other things can challenge an Amber Elder. Vast power does not make them infallible. That said anything that takes away from them having vast power makes the game feel limited to me.

The strength of the novels comes from these people of vast power still having a solid core of humanity. Lose either half of that equation and you have lost something valuable.

[Bird_of_Ill_Omen]

What I find interesting is that when I read Jibba's posts and Lorrraine's posts when they're not commenting on each other's styles directly, it seems to me that your two games would feel and play very similarly -- I think you're actually on the same page about what an Amber game should be like.  When Lorrraine was describing her high-warfare character who had very little combat skill, it jibed very well with Jibba's skill system -- and both require that the character's background account for what the character can and can't do.  And both their ideas about partial powers highlighted that powers be learned by the character through roleplay and in-game practice, and not just checked off on a sheet as "learned."

The major difference as I see it is that Jibba formalizes his mechanics, whereas Lorrraine prefers letting her intuition and instincts guide action resolution and advancement.  By formalizing his mechanics, a Jibba-GM is comforted by the consistency of his universe -- he knows that when result x happens as a consequence of y action, he will reliably rule in the same fashion the next time such an event occurs, and not risk contradicting the way his world works.  Plus, knowing that there are clear mechanics in place, when the same action results in a different consequence, his players can be confident that there is a real mystery there, as opposed to GM whim going awry.

Lorrraine trusts herself as a GM to effectively make spot-on and interesting rulings for her players.  Jibba doesn't HAVE to trust himself as a GM in that regard because he's pre-done that part of the work and can devote more of his brain-processing to other GM areas.

I get the impression that if Lorrraine played in Jibba's game, you'd find that all the structure and mechanics that Jibba talks about would be virtually invisible during gameplay.  For myself, it sounds like I would enjoy both games, and would find them both to be very much Amber to me.

[jibbajibba]

What I find interesting is that when I read Jibba's posts and Lorrraine's posts when they're not commenting on each other's styles directly, it seems to me that your two games would feel and play very similarly -- I think you're actually on the same page about what an Amber game should be like.  When Lorrraine was describing her high-warfare character who had very little combat skill, it jibed very well with Jibba's skill system -- and both require that the character's background account for what the character can and can't do.  And both their ideas about partial powers highlighted that powers be learned by the character through roleplay and in-game practice, and not just checked off on a sheet as "learned."

The major difference as I see it is that Jibba formalizes his mechanics, whereas Lorrraine prefers letting her intuition and instincts guide action resolution and advancement.  By formalizing his mechanics, a Jibba-GM is comforted by the consistency of his universe -- he knows that when result x happens as a consequence of y action, he will reliably rule in the same fashion the next time such an event occurs, and not risk contradicting the way his world works.  Plus, knowing that there are clear mechanics in place, when the same action results in a different consequence, his players can be confident that there is a real mystery there, as opposed to GM whim going awry.

Lorrraine trusts herself as a GM to effectively make spot-on and interesting rulings for her players.  Jibba doesn't HAVE to trust himself as a GM in that regard because he's pre-done that part of the work and can devote more of his brain-processing to other GM areas.

I get the impression that if Lorrraine played in Jibba's game, you'd find that all the structure and mechanics that Jibba talks about would be virtually invisible during gameplay.  For myself, it sounds like I would enjoy both games, and would find them both to be very much Amber to me.

Yup that sounds about right.

Sequence and Order, Stress and Balance are all important in this Matter.

[finarvyn]

Seems to me like there are a couple of different styles and issues here, and that no one style will make everyone happy. Some like a more loose system, others like well-defined mechanics. I think that both can work well, and as long as both the GM and players are having fun the exact rules aren't that important.

As far as partial powers go, I like them. But I like them more later in the game than earlier. In other words, in the character creation phase I'd rather stick to the "all or nothing" powers so that players need to make choices. Once the game is underway, however, I don't award that many XP and without partial powers my players would basically never ever get to add anything.

I've tinkered with skill systems, both simple and elaborate, and have had mixed results with them. The problem I see is that Powers are supposed to be impressive and worthy of points spent, but skills are much lower on the "coolnes" chart and aren't really worthy of spending many points. My compromise is to allow each player to list 5 things special about his character "for free" and this can include military rank, something skill-like, or whatever. Players are allowed to keep some slots empty for later fill-in if the situation arises where they wish they had a certain skill. After some unspecified number of sessions, I reserve the right to add additional slots to their list so they can "grow" skill-wise with play. Also, the higher it is on your list the better you are at it, so if two people both pick a single skill it's probable that one will rate it higher than the other. Seems to work for me.

All-in-all, I'd rather stick pretty closely to Erick's rulebook because I like the feel of his rules. On the other hand, I don't mind little tweaks, either....