TheRPGSite

Guys,
I'm sure this question has popped up pretty often. Still, since my search fu seems to be weak today, let me ask you this:

What category of powers do you use in your campaigns? Partial powers (as suggested by many Amber GMs) or the Wujcik-like full powers (as suggested in the ADRPG rulebook)? Why?

Personally, I prefer full powers, simply because they stimulate my players' creativity ("What happens if I do... this?" ). I've tried partial powers but they feel too artificial and rigid to me.

Quote from: Norbert G. Matausch;423595Guys,
I'm sure this question has popped up pretty often. Still, since my search fu seems to be weak today, let me ask you this:

What category of powers do you use in your campaigns? Partial powers (as suggested by many Amber GMs) or the Wujcik-like full powers (as suggested in the ADRPG rulebook)? Why?

Personally, I prefer full powers, simply because they stimulate my players' creativity ("What happens if I do... this?" ). I've tried partial powers but they feel too artificial and rigid to me.

I use full powers for my players too. I prefer to stick to the Wujcik vision as much as I can, otherwise I'm not playing his game. If someone doesn't have the points to get a power, they receive a lot of bad stuff which simulate the lack of control on that power. You can give the player a lot of hints telling him that he's not mature for the power (the magnitudo is based on how many points he lacks): it is his choice to go on or not.
Allowing partial powers, in my opinion, is like a mathematician who knows calculus, but not tensors: this can't be for a professional.

in actual play partial powers are better for a host of reasons.

i) XP
ii) creativity at character creation
iii) extending powers in new directions whilst maintain the concept of 'you get what you pay for'
iv) Emulation of the books , with Caine spying on trumps but not having Trump Artistry
v) the classic "pc with 5 good stuff walks the pattern do they suddenly have -45 bad stuff ?" that changes the whole character
vi) Introducing new powers

I don't buy the Eric wrote it that way so RAW are gospel (I have a skill system as well :) )


My partial Power trees are open ended and not published to the players they have to choose the path they go down and we extend the power in the direction they want to travel. Want to have a skil that allows you to trail a walker through shadow sure ... want a skill that hides your trail from someone that has that power .... etc etc


Sample -

Broken Pattern:

10   Imprint
    5   Shadow walking
       5   Hellriding
              5  Search for Items/Creatures of Power
              5  Search for Shadow of Desire
       5   Broken Pattern Lens/Broken Pattern Defense (only versus magic)
              5   Broken Pattern Tendrils
              5   Spell Rack (named and numbered, decay is hours to days)

Quote from: jibbajibba;423886in actual play partial powers are better for a host of reasons.

i) XP
ii) creativity at character creation
iii) extending powers in new directions whilst maintain the concept of 'you get what you pay for'
iv) Emulation of the books , with Caine spying on trumps but not having Trump Artistry
v) the classic "pc with 5 good stuff walks the pattern do they suddenly have -45 bad stuff ?" that changes the whole character
vi) Introducing new powers

I don't buy the Eric wrote it that way so RAW are gospel (I have a skill system as well :) )


My partial Power trees are open ended and not published to the players they have to choose the path they go down and we extend the power in the direction they want to travel. Want to have a skil that allows you to trail a walker through shadow sure ... want a skill that hides your trail from someone that has that power .... etc etc


Sample -

Broken Pattern:

10   Imprint   5   Shadow walking       5   Hellriding            5  Search for Items/Creatures of Power                5  Search for Shadow of Desire       5   Broken Pattern Lens/Broken Pattern Defense (only versus magic)             5   Broken Pattern Tendrils              5   Spell Rack (named and numbered, decay is hours to days)

Dear Jibbajibba, we walk definitely in different shadows... ;)

Dear Jibbajibba,

partial powers, skill system... I have to agree with Evermasterx: you're walking different shadows ;)

Quote from: Norbert G. Matausch;423973Dear Jibbajibba,

partial powers, skill system... I have to agree with Evermasterx: you're walking different shadows ;)

And Erick would say: "It's alright, Jibbajibba!"

Quote from: Norbert G. Matausch;423973Dear Jibbajibba,

partial powers, skill system... I have to agree with Evermasterx: you're walking different shadows ;)

Don't knock it til you've tried it :)

I have tried it, Jib. And haven't liked it.

Quote from: Norbert G. Matausch;424070I have tried it, Jib. And haven't liked it.

No you haven't tried mine :)

I ran a game at Gen Con to 6 pretty hard core amber fans.

I used pregen characters with partial powers and my skill system.

The PCs bid for which character they wanted and for positions with authority.

Without an excpetion all the PCs loved it and even though they had started with 'a skill system ...wtf??' they all came out as converts.

As skill systems go its pretty light.... I have 30 in pilot x-wing, you have 25 so i am better than you... Wantto fly down that channel without hitting anything.... you don;t think you have the skill (GM has determeined that needs a skill of 30) . The guy with 25 skill crashes ....
Most of the time it works by comparison as with most of Amber its about competion.

Just to take a sample in your games if 2 PCs are engaged in a horse race say Oberon has offered a price to the winner of a race. How do you determine the outcome? How do you determione who is hte best horseman? How about a poetry competition? or a challenge to produce the most evocative sculpture?

When the PCs discover a body in the forest how do you feed them clues about the crime scene? When they are running from a half dozen blue skined guys through the back streets of of a post-cybertech Los Angeles how do you know if they know how to jury rig the police cyborg to turn against their pursuers.

A skill system does all of that and it cascades out of the background stories that all Amberite PCs have. 30 years as a corsair on the Seas of Glass, 40 years as a Battlemech pilot in the Solaran Free Company etc etc ... The skill system just formalises this and allows PCs to be the very best at something be that Robotics, Art, horseriding etc etc ...

As for Partial powers. It's just better :)

Quote from: jibbajibba;424071No you haven't tried mine :)
...
As for Partial powers. It's just better :)

You are saying that your game is better than that of Wujcik. I'm saying that I want to play his game, not your, because for me the most free-form it is, the less rules there are, the better it is: for my taste, clearly. Don't say your game is better, say your game is better for you :)

Quote from: Evermasterx;424074You are saying that your game is better than that of Wujcik. I'm saying that I want to play his game, not your, because for me the most free-form it is, the less rules there are, the better it is: for my taste, clearly. Don't say your game is better, say your game is better for you :)

Well in my Gen con game I never opened the rule book once in a 5 hour game. Some players tried to use powers in ways that was not possible in my flavour of Amber (changing the nature of shadow dwellers) or tried to make changes in a shadow that to me would result in a shift to another shadow. I ruled it immediately with no issues.
So ... pretty rules light I would say.
In many ways partial powers assist here as its clearer what players can do. This is not a restriction to creativity because as I allow you to develop any partial you like in side a power tree so infact the powers each PC possesses are all different and all vary from the standard so they are all unique.

However when I moved to partial powers it was really in answer to the XP issue and the what if I walk the pattern now will I end up with 45 points of bad stuff ?

As for Erick's Amber. The strength of Erick's Amber is you can change it to fit your own style and choices and I find these changes work for me largley because they clarify things for players and remove the requirement for me to create ad hoc rules on the fly.

If you can explain how you deal with each of the situations I site in my example in a consistent manner then great. I hate the idea that your ability to crack a cypher depends on your Warfare nearly as much as I hate the idea that an Amberite with High Warfare always expects there to be an invisible spy with a dagger round the next corner and so takes steps to avoid them as a matter of course.
If you don't care about that stuff in your games then also great. Its Your Amber you run it as you see fit.

Quote from: jibbajibba;424087In many ways partial powers assist here as its clearer what players can do. This is not a restriction to creativity because as I allow you to develop any partial you like in side a power tree so infact the powers each PC possesses are all different and all vary from the standard so they are all unique.

We've been doing that ever since ADRPG came out, so I can see no advantage here. Plus, as I said, we tried it (more than once), and neither my players nor I liked it.

QuoteHowever when I moved to partial powers it was really in answer to the XP issue and the what if I walk the pattern now will I end up with 45 points of bad stuff ?

In my game, if the  character only had 5 XP, he would indeed get 45 Bad Stuff -- he'd simply have enormous problems understanding and using his newly acquired power. With time, this would get better and better (as the player would spend XP to reduce Bad Stuff).

Bad Stuff is a powerful tool. Some of the most memorable characters in our campaigns were the ones with obscene amounts of Bad Stuff.

Quote from: Norbert G. Matausch;424229We've been doing that ever since ADRPG came out, so I can see no advantage here. Plus, as I said, we tried it (more than once), and neither my players nor I liked it.



In my game, if the  character only had 5 XP, he would indeed get 45 Bad Stuff -- he'd simply have enormous problems understanding and using his newly acquired power. With time, this would get better and better (as the player would spend XP to reduce Bad Stuff).

Bad Stuff is a powerful tool. Some of the most memorable characters in our campaigns were the ones with obscene amounts of Bad Stuff.

Totally subscribe.

Quote from: Evermasterx;423889Dear Jibbajibba, we walk definitely in different shadows... ;)

Not me. From where I stand those concepts sound great! :)

I dislike the formal partial powers structures where you get subpower x for 5 points since those lead to mini-maxing.

On the other hand, I do let players buy powers a bit at a time with the understanding that they don't reach full functionality with the power until they pay for it.

The difference- in my version the GM decides what the character can and can't do with a partially developed power. The player does not get to pick and choose,

This leads to players who will willingly develop a power over time rather than try to save up points then suddenly become experts once they have enough. Players definitely explore the ins and outs of a power as they develop it since they don't automatically know what they can and can't do or necessarily how to do it.

Also, I as GM don't have to deal with characters with massive amounts of bad stuff unless the players choose it.

Other GMs may treat 45 points of bad stuff differently than I do, but for me that can lead to some fairly horrendous developments. I don't want to make every character's life suck that badly because they walked the Pattern, unless the player wants that.

And on a sidenote, Amber has a fully functional skill system. Characters only have their full ability with the things they have actually learned to do. A character with first rank in warfare may have no idea how to pilot a starship if she has never used one before and unless she spends the time and effort to get good at it a character with a lower rank may outfly her for quite some time.

My PC in Cathy's Amber game has first rank in Warfare and very little combat ability because before the start of the campaign she had literally never gotten in a fight. Tempest (my PC) has amazing Parkour skillls, an innate grasp of strategy, fantastic computer skills, and a real knack for breaking and entering, but fighting not so much. Since the start of the campaign she has gotten fairly good with a gun and started studying martial arts, as well as learned to pilot a helicopter, but when a fight breaks out she still lets the other PCs do the majority of the work. Her biggest combat success to date, she caught a venomous rat without getting bit because she has plenty of experience dealing with animals both from growing up on a farm and dealing with another PC's fairly hostile cat.

Quote from: Norbert G. Matausch;424229In my game, if the  character only had 5 XP, he would indeed get 45 Bad Stuff -- he'd simply have enormous problems understanding and using his newly acquired power. With time, this would get better and better (as the player would spend XP to reduce Bad Stuff).

Bad Stuff is a powerful tool. Some of the most memorable characters in our campaigns were the ones with obscene amounts of Bad Stuff.

I'm going to go a little off-topic, but since you mention running a game where a character could have 45 points of Bad Stuff, I was wondering (and this question is for all GM's here, not just Norbert) how much Bad Stuff could a player have and still enjoy playing the game?  Is there a limit to the amount of Bad Stuff you'll let characters have?

For instance, if my character somehow accrued enough Bad Stuff that he got his eyes burned out and locked in the dungeon for 5 years until I was able to spend enough XP for my eyes to grow back and my "family friend" to come by to help me escape, I don't know that I'd enjoy that game.  Mainly because I'm figuring that it would take a couple years of playing time to earn 45 XP points to offset that Bad Stuff (and even then I don't know how much opportunity for XP gathering there'd be while locked in the dungeon).

I do think it would be fun roleplaying through that 5 year scenario in an accelerated manner over the course of a couple sessions, but the point I'm trying to illustrate is what kinds of scenarios do you create for a 45 pt Bad Stuff character -- how bad does it get before it gets so bad that it's not worth playing anymore?

So there's mainly two questions here for everyone to chime in on.  In your Amber game:

1. is there a cap on Bad Stuff (and Good Stuff)?
2. how bad is Bad Stuff in your game?

For my games...Corwin's fate in the dungeons would be equal to 10 points of Bad Stuff.

1 point -- you're seen as suspicious, but bad things will only happen as a result of risky moves.

3 points -- you'll be perceived as a villain unless you go out of your way to prove yourself, and even then, some people will accuse you of being self-serving.  Plan very carefully, because if something can go wrong, it will.

5 points -- strangers cross the street to avoid you, and you see fear in the faces of those you say hello to because you have a serial-killer vibe.  Bad things will fall out of the sky to hit you.

7 points -- really?!  You want to take 7 points?  Maybe you should think about doing another player contribution.  Already doing +20 in contributions, huh?  How about we get some points back by severing that bond to that special item of yours.  No?  Well, I guess I'll just say, have a buddy with you at all times...if you can find another player to trust you, cause no NPC will.  Better yet, have two buddies; you'll need the help to pull you out of all the crevasses you're gonna fall into, and to watch your back from all the people trying to kill you.

10 points -- you're locked in the dungeon for 5 years.  Let's talk about what your new character is like...


As a way to bring this back to the original topic of partial powers, for me, having characters saddled with obscene amounts of bad stuff due to a full power purchase becomes unwieldy narratively speaking.  Sure, I could slide my Bad Stuff scale so that 10 points isn't as bad as I've made it out to be, but if you take that too far then each Bad Stuff unit becomes so close that 5-10 points of Bad Stuff basically means the same thing.  Partial powers is a good way to keep the bad/good stuff scale tighter, while at the same time, allowing characters to specialize in different aspects of a new power (like Caine's trump spying trick).

As has already been mentioned, I find the good stuff/bad stuff scale to be one of the serious weak points in Ericks Amber (RAW).
Whether someone saves up 55 points of good stuff, or accepts 45 points of bad stuff in order to get Basic pattern, the scale is just too big (IMHO). It also forces what I call the seesaw effect, where your character goes from being incredibly lucky to incredibly unlucky, and for most character concepts, I don't find this to be realistic. The seesaw effect also prevents certain character concepts (e.g. the lucky dabbler who maintains a constant amount of good stuff as he progresses through the story - consider Donald duck's lucky cousin).

As has also been mentioned, it is not possible to emulate the books completely with Ericks (RAW) system, and case in point is Caine with his trump tricks.

For the above mentioned reasons I prefer a partial powers system where you don't have to deal with ridiculous scales of good/bad stuff and the game allows for more customization, and more unique characters.

Quote from: Lorrraine;424319I dislike the formal partial powers structures where you get subpower x for 5 points since those lead to mini-maxing.

On the other hand, I do let players buy powers a bit at a time with the understanding that they don't reach full functionality with the power until they pay for it.

The difference- in my version the GM decides what the character can and can't do with a partially developed power. The player does not get to pick and choose,

This leads to players who will willingly develop a power over time rather than try to save up points then suddenly become experts once they have enough. Players definitely explore the ins and outs of a power as they develop it since they don't automatically know what they can and can't do or necessarily how to do it.

Also, I as GM don't have to deal with characters with massive amounts of bad stuff unless the players choose it.

Other GMs may treat 45 points of bad stuff differently than I do, but for me that can lead to some fairly horrendous developments. I don't want to make every character's life suck that badly because they walked the Pattern, unless the player wants that.

And on a sidenote, Amber has a fully functional skill system. Characters only have their full ability with the things they have actually learned to do. A character with first rank in warfare may have no idea how to pilot a starship if she has never used one before and unless she spends the time and effort to get good at it a character with a lower rank may outfly her for quite some time.

My PC in Cathy's Amber game has first rank in Warfare and very little combat ability because before the start of the campaign she had literally never gotten in a fight. Tempest (my PC) has amazing Parkour skillls, an innate grasp of strategy, fantastic computer skills, and a real knack for breaking and entering, but fighting not so much. Since the start of the campaign she has gotten fairly good with a gun and started studying martial arts, as well as learned to pilot a helicopter, but when a fight breaks out she still lets the other PCs do the majority of the work. Her biggest combat success to date, she caught a venomous rat without getting bit because she has plenty of experience dealing with animals both from growing up on a farm and dealing with another PC's fairly hostile cat.

I use 5 point power steps but I don't show the PCs the tree and I don't really limit them to the tree. If they want to learn to use the Pattern to hang spells I will say okay how many points do you want to spend doing that .... okay I want to spend 15 points (after getting the base walk the pattern for 10 - that much I do tell them). Now as the GM I know that the Pattern tree has a thread that goes down using the pattern of the mind. I know that the first step is holding the pattern in your mind to act as a defense, I know that the next step is a pattern lens and then the branch forks and there is a route that lets you imbue things with that Pattern power which can be used in conjuration or to allow Pattern Teleport, the other branch heads down to using the Pattern to hang spells. The first step is to allow you to hang a single spell. So with 15 points the PC has learnt to bring the pattern to mind, to use the Pattern lens to get pattern sight and to hang a single spell on a mental pattern construct.

I can have 3 PCs each with 50 points in Pattern and their Pattern abilites will be totally different. Its entirely possible that one of then can't pattern walk at all. They might be a super advanced master of manipulating the property of the shadow they are in. Another might be a pattern sorcerer who can hang spells, imbue objects with Pattern essense use Pattern sight. The last might be an expert in Pattern walking, able to hide traces of their movement, track others move into and out of Amber.
Now those PCs will have no idea of how far down a tree you have to go to get that cool power the other PC just used. Min/maxing is almost impossible using this method.

A nice side effect is where a PC wants to add a new power we can do that and rather than have them create something fully formed they just have to give me a hint of it and we can spin up the initiation cost and the first step. So I have had 2 PCs in teh same game that wanted a new power that sounded quite different but were linked. I ended up creating a single power that both of them were approaching from different angles. As they gained XP they chose how to grow the power and I set limits and costs. Eventually they ended up crossing over and picking up the same partial power.

In my history GMing Amber, for a very long time I was strongly in favour of putting caps on bad stuff.  More recently, however, that policy has changed.  I had my reasoning behind the concept, which I imagine is similar to that many Amber GMs have, but nowadays I see it as much more interesting and worthwhile to give players all the rope they want with which to hang themselves.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;424879In my history GMing Amber, for a very long time I was strongly in favour of putting caps on bad stuff.  More recently, however, that policy has changed.  I had my reasoning behind the concept, which I imagine is similar to that many Amber GMs have, but nowadays I see it as much more interesting and worthwhile to give players all the rope they want with which to hang themselves.

RPGPundit

Exactly.
I follow this rule: you can have what you want, but you have to pay the price, and every action has a consequence. You, as a player, choose. We've found this interesting and funny: the price is interesting as the prize, it seems.

Still no one has told me how they would handle a horse race between 2 PCs that both said they were great at horse riding and no one has said how one PC could crack a cypher prepared by another ....

And 45 points of bad stuff ...really.... with 10 points in my games life is a nightmare. With 45 points ... how would you guys differentiate 30 bad stuff from 45 points .....

Quote from: jibbajibba;425058Still no one has told me how they would handle a horse race between 2 PCs that both said they were great at horse riding and no one has said how one PC could crack a cypher prepared by another ....

And 45 points of bad stuff ...really.... with 10 points in my games life is a nightmare. With 45 points ... how would you guys differentiate 30 bad stuff from 45 points .....

suppose you have 2 pc with the skill of riding of the same value: who win with your system? do you roll the die?

Horse race:

Well, thing is, your skill matters, sure, but even the greatest rider in the world will do crap if you put him with an arthritic mule vs a decent rider with a fine horse.

So, I would consider their mounts. Their skill as described. Their weight (why do you think real-world jokeys are all dwarves?). Their stuff. And their roleplay and stats (Any attribute could help, depending on what the players describes).
So no, I absolutely don't see a skill in "riding" as being necessary to adjudicate this. Evermasterx's objection is also a good one.

Cypher: Described skill, psyche, warfare, stuff, roleplay.

For bad stuff, your problem is that you think of them points-wise. So "3 points of bad stuf is bad, 10 points are suicidal"... So when someone comes up with more than 10, you come across the problem.
Stop thinking by points, start thinking somewhat like with ranks. If you've got 10 points and your opponent 45, you become lucky in your fight with him, since the balance tips your way, his bad luck outweights yours. Bad luck is relative.

Quote from: Croaker;425074Horse race:

Well, thing is, your skill matters, sure, but even the greatest rider in the world will do crap if you put him with an arthritic mule vs a decent rider with a fine horse.

So, I would consider their mounts. Their skill as described. Their weight (why do you think real-world jokeys are all dwarves?). Their stuff. And their roleplay and stats (Any attribute could help, depending on what the players describes).
So no, I absolutely don't see a skill in "riding" as being necessary to adjudicate this. Evermasterx's objection is also a good one.

Cypher: Described skill, psyche, warfare, stuff, roleplay.

For bad stuff, your problem is that you think of them points-wise. So "3 points of bad stuf is bad, 10 points are suicidal"... So when someone comes up with more than 10, you come across the problem.
Stop thinking by points, start thinking somewhat like with ranks. If you've got 10 points and your opponent 45, you become lucky in your fight with him, since the balance tips your way, his bad luck outweights yours. Bad luck is relative.

In my system two people are almost impossible to have the same skill in riding, its possible but you have multiple players buying from an opened ended skill system with no limits on how many points you can spend and no steps, 10 points in riding 11, 23, 145 , 189..... chances of two people getting the exact same score... and then mounts and so on .....
As for cyphers.... look at the books we all get the feeling that this is Caine's domain he ranks maybe 6th in Warfare (B,C,E,B,G ? ) maybe 6th in Psyche (F,B,E,B,C ?). How are you goign to RP this ... "I use a cypher I learnt in Traloxi based on adjacent Prime numbers"   "I sit down with my pocket computer and try to break the cypher" .
The 4 stats are fine but there are loads of things from the books that constantly come up in games, like Caine and espionage, Julian and hunting, Flora and seduction, Corwin and poetry, Random and diplomacy etc etc that you can't explain with them. A skill system fixes that. Its simple easy and in play adds no complexity to the rules rather it simplifies them.

Ranks for stuff doesn't work..... if i am going to be the unluckiest guy with 11 points of bad stuff .... well I might as well take 80.... This is the most effective thing about the ranks in the stat area and one that those people who argue against me when I propose focusing more on points than ranks.

You know my argument the one that goes in round 1 player a bids 100 on warfare. result no one else gets to bid. The initial bids submitted were A, A 3 , 100 so now no one will ever get more than 3 in Warfare. the argument levelled against me when I stress that is broken is that the number of points between 3 and 100 doesn't matter all that matters is that its rank 2 to rank 1. Apply that logic to Bad stuff and 11 points or 80 points makes no odds but 80 points in powers as opposed to 11 points of powers makes a fuck of a lot of difference. And I am sure you would treat a PC with 3 bad stuff in a game where other PCs have 0 stuff or good stuff, very differently to a PC with 45 points of bad stuff in any game.

Going lower than -10 in stuff is equivalent to a character in a standard point buy game buying a dozen daft disadvantages. Its minmaxing and its almost impossible to consistently GM because you get to a point where either everything the PC ever does goes wrong or the cost doesn't outweigh the advantages.

Jibba.

The fact that your play style works perfectly for you while others didn't doesn't mean that it's intrinsiquely better. It's just better for you, given your tastes.

The reverse is also true ;)

We've got the perfect exemple here, between your distaste of "block" powers, and other people's distate of partial ones. They're no more right than you are.

While we're at it, I also recall there's a cypher analog in the core ADRPG. I believe it's with lockpicking. IIRC (someone correct me?), wujcik resolves it using mostly 4 factors: warfare, skill, stuff, and time. You're just quantifying skill and dropping attribute.
Different play styles, different preferences, that's all ;)

Quote from: jibbajibba;425058Still no one has told me how they would handle a horse race between 2 PCs that both said they were great at horse riding and no one has said how one PC could crack a cypher prepared by another ....

And 45 points of bad stuff ...really.... with 10 points in my games life is a nightmare. With 45 points ... how would you guys differentiate 30 bad stuff from 45 points .....

Answering the second question first- Every single point of bad stuff gets assigned to someone or something that will make the character's life suck. Every single point. That's a lot of work on my part so I discourage high levels of bad stuff, but I do allow them. Getting rid of these things requires the PC to both resolve the situation and pay off the bad stuff. If they don't pay the points new bad situations will replace the resolved ones. Strangely enough my players who have taken bad stuff have always made buying it down or away a high priority. Funny coincidence that.

As to skills, if you let the PCs say "I'm great at horseback riding" then 95% will say so. If riding becomes a focal point of the story I ask where the PC learned to ride and from who, under what circumstances they have ridden since and who else has taught them a trick or two? I also check on the capabilities of the horse, their familiarity with the mount in question, and what sort of tricks has the mount learned? Additionally I find out how everyone involved in the race intends to cheat or prevent cheating. That includes PCs, racers or no, and any NPC with an interest. In Amber someone always has an interest. Only after checking all of that do I bother with stats and stuff.

Cyphers typically depend on techniques known, processing power, and time. Given access to a high tech fast time shadow anyone competent can brute force virtually any cypher.

Rank in stats equals potential. No one can live up to their full potential in every possible way. Only the real grinds who continually practice really live up to their full potential in more than one or two areas. An outranked character willing to continually devote themselves to an area of specialization can win against a higher ranked character in that narrow area although if the higher ranked character decides to focus they can narrow or eliminate that gap much more quickly especially if the have access to fast time.

So with points for skills how do you handle the PC who spends 100 years in a fast time shadow studying and practicing some specialty in preparation for a contest? The rules as written handle that rather easily, but how do you?

Quote from: Lorrraine;425583Answering the second question first- Every single point of bad stuff gets assigned to someone or something that will make the character's life suck. Every single point. That's a lot of work on my part so I discourage high levels of bad stuff, but I do allow them. Getting rid of these things requires the PC to both resolve the situation and pay off the bad stuff. If they don't pay the points new bad situations will replace the resolved ones. Strangely enough my players who have taken bad stuff have always made buying it down or away a high priority. Funny coincidence that.

As to skills, if you let the PCs say "I'm great at horseback riding" then 95% will say so. If riding becomes a focal point of the story I ask where the PC learned to ride and from who, under what circumstances they have ridden since and who else has taught them a trick or two? I also check on the capabilities of the horse, their familiarity with the mount in question, and what sort of tricks has the mount learned? Additionally I find out how everyone involved in the race intends to cheat or prevent cheating. That includes PCs, racers or no, and any NPC with an interest. In Amber someone always has an interest. Only after checking all of that do I bother with stats and stuff.

Cyphers typically depend on techniques known, processing power, and time. Given access to a high tech fast time shadow anyone competent can brute force virtually any cypher.

Rank in stats equals potential. No one can live up to their full potential in every possible way. Only the real grinds who continually practice really live up to their full potential in more than one or two areas. An outranked character willing to continually devote themselves to an area of specialization can win against a higher ranked character in that narrow area although if the higher ranked character decides to focus they can narrow or eliminate that gap much more quickly especially if the have access to fast time.

So with points for skills how do you handle the PC who spends 100 years in a fast time shadow studying and practicing some specialty in preparation for a contest? The rules as written handle that rather easily, but how do you?

Okay As I say I have a skill system. As Erick points out the only way to improve in Amber is to overcome conflict so heading out to a fast shadow to learn horseriding is the same as heading out to a fast shadow to learn sorcery or Pattern. You get no benefit unless you spend points because points represent the conflict you overcame (to learn the last of Dworkin's Lore and pay the price so to speak).
So in my game each point you spend gives you 200 skill points. For a skill 10 is a novice, 50 is a genius, but there is no top level and no skill list. So yes in all likelihood all players will have riding but the chance of them being the same are very very limited.

Brute forcing a cypher is a very poor way to play it in a game I think. I can't see Roger going down that route.

So if someone headed out to a fast shadow to learn a skill for me its easy,  How many points do you want to spend on that? For you ... not so easy ... 2 PCs both go and spend 40 years learning the saxophone .... who is better ? the one with higher Psyche? really ?

Believe me in play my skill system resolves so many issues.

Quote from: jibbajibba;425602So if someone headed out to a fast shadow to learn a skill for me its easy,  How many points do you want to spend on that?

So if a PC spends 40 years in a shadow learning to ride, then 40 in another learning medecine, then 40 in another learnign saxophone, all without spending a single point, he'll have no skill at all?

I can find rationnales for this if need be, but I far prefer the "potential" explanation of lorraine.
In fact, and I wrote this before somewhere, if I were to do a skill system for Amber, I'd have something like "chose 2 skills at full rank, 4 at 1 rank less, 8 at 2 ranks less, and the rest is at human skill level", allowing a PC to change it through time and training, to reflect that potential and focus idea.

Quote from: jibbajibba;425602who is better ? the one with higher Psyche? really ?

Why not? So long as everyone is fine with that?

And, as always, you forget prior character description (A PC that was continuously depicted as a musician with a knack and interest for music will trump a gerard), stuff, roleplay...

Quote from: Croaker;425609So if a PC spends 40 years in a shadow learning to ride, then 40 in another learning medecine, then 40 in another learnign saxophone, all without spending a single point, he'll have no skill at all?

I can find rationnales for this if need be, but I far prefer the "potential" explanation of lorraine.
In fact, and I wrote this before somewhere, if I were to do a skill system for Amber, I'd have something like "chose 2 skills at full rank, 4 at 1 rank less, 8 at 2 ranks less, and the rest is at human skill level", allowing a PC to change it through time and training, to reflect that potential and focus idea.

Why not? So long as everyone is fine with that?

And, as always, you forget prior character description (A PC that was continuously depicted as a musician with a knack and interest for music will trump a gerard), stuff, roleplay...

For me Yes if he spends no points he gets no skill. You don't mind using that system for learning trump or Sorcery I suspect and in any other point buy game I am guess you accept that skills cost points.It's the same here except of course that you can always get a point of bad stuff and the cost of a skill is trivial compared to the cost of a power.

Put aside the game for a moment and look at the novels. Everydays skills get used far more often than powers. The strength of the books is in the fact that the key protagonists appear so human. It's rare for siblings to test their powers against each other instead they look to better each other in minor ways where a failure is less lethal.

Yes its true that a character in my games will have more numbers on the sheet than in yours but all this does is clear up actual play. The mechanics for who wins in skill contests are exactly the same as the core Amber mechanics but rather than using Warfare or Psyche you use Dancing or play violin.

I like the role play part of your comment and that is definitely a way of handling this however as we know there will be conflicts where both PCs claim to be master spies or whatever and then you come down to the four attributes again.

I don't want the guy who got the highest warfare also being the best lockpick, the best at crossword puzzles, the best at untying a knot, the best at .... I don't think that is true to the books. You might say ah but I use roleplay so a guy with crap warfare who states they are a master lockpick will be better, well to that I say that isn't how the rules are written either so .... A skill system makes all those questions go away and means you as a GM can focus on the game not the numbers.

Quote from: jibbajibba;425618For me Yes if he spends no points he gets no skill. You don't mind using that system for learning trump or Sorcery I suspect and in any other point buy game I am guess you accept that skills cost points.It's the same here except of course that you can always get a point of bad stuff and the cost of a skill is trivial compared to the cost of a power.

Put aside the game for a moment and look at the novels. Everydays skills get used far more often than powers. The strength of the books is in the fact that the key protagonists appear so human. It's rare for siblings to test their powers against each other instead they look to better each other in minor ways where a failure is less lethal.

Yes its true that a character in my games will have more numbers on the sheet than in yours but all this does is clear up actual play. The mechanics for who wins in skill contests are exactly the same as the core Amber mechanics but rather than using Warfare or Psyche you use Dancing or play violin.

I like the role play part of your comment and that is definitely a way of handling this however as we know there will be conflicts where both PCs claim to be master spies or whatever and then you come down to the four attributes again.

I don't want the guy who got the highest warfare also being the best lockpick, the best at crossword puzzles, the best at untying a knot, the best at .... I don't think that is true to the books. You might say ah but I use roleplay so a guy with crap warfare who states they are a master lockpick will be better, well to that I say that isn't how the rules are written either so .... A skill system makes all those questions go away and means you as a GM can focus on the game not the numbers.

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.

Quote from: Evermasterx;425631You 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 :)

Quote from: Evermasterx;425631You 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 :D

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.

Quote from: Lorrraine;425815You 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? :)

Quote from: jibbajibba;425854As 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.

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.

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.

Quote from: Bird_of_Ill_Omen;425990What 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. :)

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....