Sorry Rinaldo, nobody cares about Kashfa but you.

[Brent Not Broken]

So, help me understand the Golden Circle and the Black Circle.

I'm trying to prep for a political Amber game and it seems like these Shadows should be important politically, but the stakes have always felt so small there. What's the point of vying for political control of a Golden/Black Shadow? I know they "have commerce" with Amber and the Courts, but since it's so easy for anybody who can use the Pattern or the Logrus to get whatever they want, it's hard to make commerce, trade, and economics seem important.

Is it a matter of borders and logistics, where the Circles "ring" Amber and the Courts on all sides such that you'd have to travel through some Circle Shadow or other to get to or from Amber or Chaos? This'd make the Circles useful as buffer zones; you could station armies there to protect Amber or the Courts from invasion. Or you could take one of those Shadows over to plot your own invasion or coup targeted at Amber or the Courts.

Or maybe it's about having a ready labor pool in these Shadows' natives, who are already familiar with their Amberite/Chaosian liege lords and may be called upon to form trans-Shadow militias and work crews on short notice. Or maybe it's about giving the royals somewhere to vacation where they'll be properly recognized and lauded?

I always got the sense that Zelazny was building up to something with the whole Luke/Kashfa climb to power, and we just never got to see the result, which is why that whole plotline has always struck me as a bit odd. Aside from various characters acting like the throne of Kashfa is important, there's really no reason to think that it is. I don't want to set up that kind of reasoning in the game; I'm afraid that will seem forced and arbitrary-- "it's important because I said so; you should want it just because."

So I'm really curious about how experienced ADRPG veterans have used this sort of political idea, or seen it used effectively by others.

Also: Hi, I guess!

[two_fishes]

I think there's some indication that anyone shadow-walking to Amber had to pass through the nearer shadows to Amber, and that by controlling these shadows, access to Amber could be controlled in some fashion. But there's also a sense, from the first novels at least, that occupying the throne in Amber may have granted that control. As much as we see in the first five books, this mean having access to armies that will fend off invading armies before an invader can ever reach Amber. And when the roads to Amber are not closed off, the royal can walk to Amber praised by throngs of crowds all along the way, with playing and rose petals thrown at their feet.

[RTrimmer]

Luke worries about Kashfa because it's his home.

The GC is important to Amber the City because that's where most of their goods and food come from.

Oberon's children could supply the City by Pattern-assisted piracy but then you'd have a Blackened Circle.



Randy

[Brent Not Broken]

I can buy that the Golden Circle is strategically important to Amber because it supplies Amber, and because it controls access through Shadow to Amber. That makes perfect sense.

I think that might be harder to transfer over to the Black Circle and Chaos, just because Logrus users can summon supplies they need, so while a bunch of Black Circle farms might be useful or convenient (goodness knows I wouldn't necessarily want to summon every single meal and ration from Shadow), Chaos could do without if it had to. (Are we ever given any mention of the Black Circle in the novels, besides a passing reference to it as the rough equivalent of Amber's Golden Circle? I can't recall any more specific details than that.)

I don't think I can buy that Luke's only gain from the throne of Kashfa is a sentimental one. (Although, sure, that's a part of it that I always forget about.) I think that, as a son of a traitor, he might have also been looking for power and responsibility as a way to prove he can "play nice" with them.

But really, I'm not interested in Luke's personal situation so much as in the power and privilege of his office. Specifically, I'm looking for ways to establish Golden/Black Circle areas in positions of importance, so that players might consider them tempting places to rule or important places to leverage or exploit strategically.

[daniel_ream]

Specifically, I'm looking for ways to establish Golden/Black Circle areas in positions of importance, so that players might consider them tempting places to rule or important places to leverage or exploit strategically.

The thing is, they're not important in the source material.  They're mentioned offhandedly as a part of the setting, but none of Corwin's generation really seem to care about them all that much, and there's good reasons for that.

From a literary standpoint, the Amber Chronicles are about self-discovery (Corwin understanding what's really important to him in the first, and Merlin understanding how the consequences of his actions can come back to haunt him in the second).  That's not a useful thing for a group RPG, so the next fallback is the relationships between the characters and the way they interact with each other.  That's what the ADRPG is about, and it's one of the reasons the design makes such a big deal about Amber and your family members being The Most Important Things In The Multiverse, because they're the only things in the multiverse there's only one of.

So if you want to make the Golden Circle Shadows valuable enough for the PCs to fight over, you can, but the mechanics and the setting are going to make that difficult to do (anyone can hike for 6 days and *poof* new Golden Circle Shadow, so why would they care what you did to their old one?).  ADRPG's a game about the personal conflicts between the PCs and the mechanics are designed to back that up.  You'll need to take that into consideration if you want to change the focus to more conventional temporal power politics.

[Brent Not Broken]

Well, hell-- I've been thinking about this backwards. Back to the drawing board!

[Arref]

I know they "have commerce" with Amber and the Courts, but since it's so easy for anybody who can use the Pattern or the Logrus to get whatever they want, it's hard to make commerce, trade, and economics seem important.

My assessment of scale in economy is different from yours.

Did the privileged folk of England need the colonies around the Earth to survive?  Probably not. Did it enhance their lives and goods and ease? Probably did.

So imagine a Chaos Lord with Logrus: does he spend four days a week yanking goods and arms and food and clothing into the Courts of Chaos to supply his aunt/uncle's servants and guards and retainers with things? No. The scale of one person's effort (a rare privileged person to boot) *working* to make the servant class comfortable does not seem rational to me.

The Gold Circle is built from years of Princes finding and smoothing shadowpaths to goods/services that Amber likes to have.

The Black Zone is built from years of conquest and manipulation of Lords of Chaos to goods/services that Chaos likes to have.

And you can make it weirder than that too.... this is just the easiest explanation of why it matters.  In short, it's a long term machinery that works without privileged folks exerting much effort now. Only important if it breaks down for some reason.

[alcmarauder]

I would think you would have to look at the Player Character's personal motivations as to what they want.  What drives the character into action?  

Take a character like Julian.  Why does he prefer to stay in Arden?  He enjoyed hunting and being in the forest.  He built it up into his personal power center.  He now has something that a good GM can threaten and get a reaction.  If a horrible monster is lurking in the depths and killing his men he calls out the hounds, saddles Morgensten and off he goes.  Right into where the GM wants him.  You get the idea.

Now look at your player characters.  Do any of them share something that could easily come from a shadow? (power?  gambling establishments?  magical resources?  exotic food/goods suppliers?  Adventure and exploring? Political maneuvering?)  Would they be interested in residing in that location for a time and building up the connections and power base there?  Then make your shadow have what they want and let them know it exists.  Most players will take the bait and go visit.  Or have a request for aid come and they get assigned the task to help.  Hopefully they enjoy it and want to stay.  If not, pull out the next idea and see if it sticks.