Players who go off and "do their own thing"?

[jibbajibba]

I imagine it's kind of similar to Vampire the Masquerade when the PCs are not part of the same coterie and basically come to town for the first time with their own aims and goals and ambitions. That's basically how I run VtM. A sandbox "by Night" with the PCs coming to the city, free to do what it is they want to do. It does involve a fair share of single PCs doing their own things. It's a time management thing on my part. And yes, it means some players wait for their turn sometimes. But it leads to great games when everyone's into it.

So I guess I'd say you should have players receptive to these kinds of things in the first place. The whole adult gaming, wait for my turn thing, for one. The 'not getting mad if that involves some PvP at some point' too. That kind of thing. Mature gamers. Not in the sense artsy fartsy "white wolf mature". I mean real mature.

PS: yeah I know. I'm comparing to a WW game. I go with what I know. That's the most straightforward comparison to me. And you know I'm not into the whole "storygaming" thing - that's a given.

Yes its very similar. The only difference is that as Amber is multiverse PCs can quite literally be in entirely different universes and these are universes for which the PC can often control a number of the fundamental laws of reality. But that is largely window dressing to the actual process.

This process is one of the reasons why Amber lends itself so well to Internet play, well that and the non-random nature of combat and skill use.

[gabriel_ss4u]

the PCs coming to the city, free to do what it is they want to do. It does involve a fair share of single PCs doing their own things. It's a time management thing on my part. And yes, it means some players wait for their turn sometimes. But it leads to great games when everyone's into it.

a very good point. it is a GMs aquired skill to be able to time manage all the players and continue the paced excitement when needed, i have had a couple GMs do this really well.

there r some interesting things on-line about mixing Amber & Vampire, and the Caine in the Amberverse translates to Cane in Vamperverse.
( i went one step further and made the Immortals the seed of  loins; Caine, whereas the Vamps were the seed of his magic.)
good storylines when u run a Vampire campaign and all of a sudden some Fae end up leading to the fact that Amber exists and there is much more to the multiverse than just earth and it's world of darkness.

[Benoist]

there r some interesting things on-line about mixing Amber & Vampire, and the Caine in the Amberverse translates to Cane in Vamperverse.
( i went one step further and made the Immortals the seed of  loins; Caine, whereas the Vamps were the seed of his magic.)
good storylines when u run a Vampire campaign and all of a sudden some Fae end up leading to the fact that Amber exists and there is much more to the multiverse than just earth and it's world of darkness.

My multi-worlds cosmology covering most of the RPGs I run follows a similar pattern, albeit it has nothing to do with the Amberverse, Amberites etc, and more to do with Gygax's many Earths and Moorcock's Multiverse.

I'm also thinking about doing something with Immortals.

[RPGPundit]

I imagine it's kind of similar to Vampire the Masquerade when the PCs are not part of the same coterie and basically come to town for the first time with their own aims and goals and ambitions. That's basically how I run VtM. A sandbox "by Night" with the PCs coming to the city, free to do what it is they want to do. It does involve a fair share of single PCs doing their own things. It's a time management thing on my part. And yes, it means some players wait for their turn sometimes. But it leads to great games when everyone's into it.

So I guess I'd say you should have players receptive to these kinds of things in the first place. The whole adult gaming, wait for my turn thing, for one. The 'not getting mad if that involves some PvP at some point' too. That kind of thing. Mature gamers. Not in the sense artsy fartsy "white wolf mature". I mean real mature.

PS: yeah I know. I'm comparing to a WW game. I go with what I know. That's the most straightforward comparison to me. And you know I'm not into the whole "storygaming" thing - that's a given.

Basically, yes.

RPGPundit

[daniel_ream]

The whole adult gaming, wait for my turn thing, for one. [...] Mature gamers. Not in the sense artsy fartsy "white wolf mature". I mean real mature.

See, the problem I have with this attitude is that I and all of my players are adults.  That means we have families that need time, kids that need our attention, homes that need maintaining, and jobs that need doing.  We're lucky we can carve out four hours every two weeks of mutually free time to play any game at all.  None of us wants to spend any of that time "waiting our turn", watching somebody else roleplay; there's Youtube for that.  Any game or game style (cf. the logistics thread that generated such frothing and pantswetting) that requires us to sit around and not game is a non-starter.

[RPGPundit]

See, the problem I have with this attitude is that I and all of my players are adults.  That means we have families that need time, kids that need our attention, homes that need maintaining, and jobs that need doing.  We're lucky we can carve out four hours every two weeks of mutually free time to play any game at all.  None of us wants to spend any of that time "waiting our turn", watching somebody else roleplay; there's Youtube for that.  Any game or game style (cf. the logistics thread that generated such frothing and pantswetting) that requires us to sit around and not game is a non-starter.

Well, Amber is a game that tends to demand a lot of its players.  Creativity, a deep connection to the character they create, and yes, patience.

I do think that for most of my players, waiting their turn was made fun enough by seeing what else was going on in the multiverse that they didn't mind.  Not all of my players, to be sure, which sometimes proved problematic, but that's the nature of the game.

RPGPundit

[boulet]

Well, Amber is a game that tends to demand a lot of its players.  Creativity, a deep connection to the character they create, and yes, patience.

I do think that for most of my players, waiting their turn was made fun enough by seeing what else was going on in the multiverse that they didn't mind.  Not all of my players, to be sure, which sometimes proved problematic, but that's the nature of the game.

RPGPundit

Also, in my experience, players who wait for their turn are going to be vocal when it takes too long. They sometimes wait until the end of the session to point out that one player "monopolized" GM attention, but more often than not they will have an eye on the watch and call for a transition already. There's also the very cool phenomenon of players conspiring IC while waiting for their turn. As a GM it's a fascinating thing to witness and makes me feel like the game has a life of its own.

[warp9]

See, the problem I have with this attitude is that I and all of my players are adults.  That means we have families that need time, kids that need our attention, homes that need maintaining, and jobs that need doing.  We're lucky we can carve out four hours every two weeks of mutually free time to play any game at all.  None of us wants to spend any of that time "waiting our turn", watching somebody else roleplay; there's Youtube for that.  Any game or game style (cf. the logistics thread that generated such frothing and pantswetting) that requires us to sit around and not game is a non-starter.

(A) regarding the "mutually free time," if people are off on their own, you don't really need a time where everybody can get together (all you need is the specific player and the GM), which makes things more flexible.

(B) Even when everybody is in one group, you still can't all speak at once anyway. And it seems like there are a number of times where your character is likely to be in the back seat while the group's thief picks to lock, or while the group's mage examines some magical effect. If you can be patient while the group's thief has the spot-light, I'm not sure it is all that different waiting your turn as part of a separate group. And if you are in a group with some really pushy characters (or pushy players), you might find that you'd get more time to game if you were off on your own instead.