Would you describe Amber's Mechanics as "Point-buy"?

[JongWK]

It's point-buy, and I don't see any problems with that. The term is so vague that it can mean anything from BESM and Shadowrun to D&D and Amber.

[daniel_ream]

I've seen enough auctions where a few players went crazy (usually on Psyche and Warfare) to see how it can screw further plans on "purchasing" Pattern Imprint and other significant powers. Arguably it's mostly newbie players who go berserk on auctions, but sometimes veterans will do it too because of a character concept they have in mind.

I've handled this in the past by just giving everyone 25 extra points after the Auction by surprise, just so everyone can at least afford Pattern Novice; Capping total points spent in the Auction at 60; or just letting players ignore the ranks they bid for and create a character from scratch (the ranks they bid to are still there, they just don't get rank for them if they buy them; they get Rank.5 like everyone else).

The one habit I have to break people of in ADRPG is having a character concept before the Auction.  It's always a mistake.  I tell them to bid opportunistically, and figure out what they have afterwards.  This really doesn't work for a lot of people, I had a lot of develop-at-start players in my original group.

[jibbajibba]

Jibba, 2 simple examples, if I may, comparing you and your brother. Let's assume that, in both cases, he is 1 rank above you, so, in a ranks-based system, the 2 exemples are equivalent.

- You've got Strenght 20, your brother 24. If comparing points, this is minor, he's only 20% better.
- You've got Strength 20, your brother 30. If comparing points, this is major, he is 50% better.

To take back your comparison with Gurps, you could say that:
- Compare points: If 1 character spends 45 points in Intelligence and another in dex, they both know they'll get a stat of 14, which is good.
- Compare ranks: The first character could end up with a 18 in intelligence (1st), the second could end up with 11 in dex (last rank).

IMO, point-buy = predictable. You know what you get at what cost. Using bidding + ranks throws that to the window, while bidding or not, using points keeps that.

This is not to say point-buy is bad. I actually quite like it, and hate with a fury systems in which I have to roll stats and skills (despite a long loved Stormbringer and Cthulhu campain)

I can see where you are coming from but there is a fault with the way amber works and how you present it here.
In Amber if I spend 20 points and am ranked 2nd I am still far superior to most of the oponents I will face. If my brother spent 1 point or 20 points more than me he is better than me but compared to most of our oppoents we are very similar. So saying in Gurps its an 11 or a 14 only works if you agree most of the guys you face will have 5 or 6, if you see what I mean

Also, and this was the thrust of my arguement, in an open ended point buy system like Amber is the only way you can make sure you are the Strongest guy in the party is to spend all your points in Strength, this would be in a gurps point buy a d&d points buy or an amber points buy.

The argument is getting embroilled in the relative strengths of PCs because that is Amber, but the real essence of point buy is that you can work out what you want to be then create it in the system. You can do that in Amber every time. I want to be a sorcerer with high psyche, pattern and some endurance. Okay create that character. The only thing you can't do is determine that you will have 'the best psyche' but you can't do that in Gurps either. Just like the guy in Gurps with 14 int doesn't become stupid because all the other PCs have 15 Int so in Amber. If you have spent 20 in warfare you aren't crap because all your brothers have spent more than 30 you are simply not as good as them. You are still a skilled swordsman who can fence with 3 regular opponents at once and slice an apple in half blind-folded.

Now I can see that a player might approach the auction in a different way and look to see what was the cheapest stat and then buy into it and then build the character concept from there but that is a very rare option and is really no different from asking the other Gurps players what they are playing and then taking the gap to round out the party.

[finarvyn]

I would argue that unpredictable point buy is still a form of point buy.

Agreed. While the auction distorts the attribute ladder sometimes, it's still point-buy.

[boulet]

I've handled this in the past by just giving everyone 25 extra points after the Auction by surprise, just so everyone can at least afford Pattern Novice; Capping total points spent in the Auction at 60; or just letting players ignore the ranks they bid for and create a character from scratch (the ranks they bid to are still there, they just don't get rank for them if they buy them; they get Rank.5 like everyone else).

25 surprise points: why not but I could see how it could be perceived as some kind of favoritism for the over-bidder.
Letting player start from scratch: sounds very bad to me, like in "What? You let Brian restart his character? But the reason why I spent 40 in Warfare is because Brian and I were fighting over it. I would probably have won the 1st rank in Warfare with just 15 points if it wasn't for him." I think it could lead to a player feeling cheated and I would agree with him/her.
Capping auctions at 60: Basically a set of points to buy traits and another to buy powers/shadows/items. Yes, why not. But why wasn't this in the rules to start with? I like that there is only one pool of points. It makes players responsible for whatever aggressive auction tactic they want to try. They're free to self-impose a restriction: "OK I can't spend more than 60 points during auctions because I really want to buy Trump Artistry"  

The one habit I have to break people of in ADRPG is having a character concept before the Auction.  It's always a mistake.  I tell them to bid opportunistically, and figure out what they have afterwards.  This really doesn't work for a lot of people, I had a lot of develop-at-start players in my original group.

I agree pre-existing character concept is not the best way to approach char gen in Amber. But I don't think it's silly to set one's mind on being able to purchase Patter Imprint (for instance) before the auctions.

[jibbajibba]

I agree pre-existing character concept is not the best way to approach char gen in Amber. But I don't think it's silly to set one's mind on being able to purchase Patter Imprint (for instance) before the auctions.

In my experience the oposite is true. Amber is such an intense game and campaigns run for months with few PC fatalities that you have to love the PC you are playing. I have seen players go into an auction with no idea thinking they will just see how it goes and ending up blowing too many points because they don't know what they want. It's like wandering round a supermarket or going to a real auction. If you are not careful you end up blowing a wad of cash on a pile of crap you don't really want and you can't buy the stuff you were really after.

I am not sure how you approached Degion (loved the character by the way )  in my Spoken truths game but the PCs that emerge as the most rounded tend to be those that have a strong concept from the off and use the auction almost exactly like point buy. (I will spend upto 42 in Psyche and I want to be near top rank if possible then I will buy AD trump and 2 points of bad stuff....)

Of course my partial power trees are a way for me to muddy the waters of point buy as well as create a more diverse set of PCs.

[boulet]

In my experience the oposite is true. Amber is such an intense game and campaigns run for months with few PC fatalities that you have to love the PC you are playing. I have seen players go into an auction with no idea thinking they will just see how it goes and ending up blowing too many points because they don't know what they want. It's like wandering round a supermarket or going to a real auction. If you are not careful you end up blowing a wad of cash on a pile of crap you don't really want and you can't buy the stuff you were really after.

I see your point about long campaigns. And surely players with poor impulse control are going to bite their nails later down the road. But Amber DRPG doesn't mandate people to plan their characters in a lot of details which is great for casual players.    

I am not sure how you approached Degion (loved the character by the way )  in my Spoken truths game but the PCs that emerge as the most rounded tend to be those that have a strong concept from the off and use the auction almost exactly like point buy. (I will spend upto 42 in Psyche and I want to be near top rank if possible then I will buy AD trump and 2 points of bad stuff....)

(Thanks for the compliment) I had planned to try to get at least one first rank. And then I was surprised to see how top ranks were cheap so I took the opportunity.

Of course my partial power trees are a way for me to muddy the waters of point buy as well as create a more diverse set of PCs.

I loved it as a player: makes it easy to make a powerful PC trait wise while going for lot of powers/shadow/items and still have a functional character. As a GM I wouldn't be excited about the extra book keeping

[Croaker]

I can see where you are coming from but there is a fault with the way amber works and how you present it here.
In Amber if I spend 20 points and am ranked 2nd I am still far superior to most of the oponents I will face. If my brother spent 1 point or 20 points more than me he is better than me but compared to most of our oppoents we are very similar. So saying in Gurps its an 11 or a 14 only works if you agree most of the guys you face will have 5 or 6, if you see what I mean

(...)

The argument is getting embroilled in the relative strengths of PCs because that is Amber, but the real essence of point buy is that you can work out what you want to be then create it in the system. You can do that in Amber every time. I want to be a sorcerer with high psyche, pattern and some endurance. Okay create that character. The only thing you can't do is determine that you will have 'the best psyche' but you can't do that in Gurps either. Just like the guy in Gurps with 14 int doesn't become stupid because all the other PCs have 15 Int so in Amber. If you have spent 20 in warfare you aren't crap because all your brothers have spent more than 30 you are simply not as good as them. You are still a skilled swordsman who can fence with 3 regular opponents at once and slice an apple in half blind-folded.

But... the other guys all have 5 or 6! Shadow dwellers anyway

You're clearly too embroiled in points to see it, so I'll try another way.

First, let me restate a very important thing again: In base (let's say "hardcore") amber, points don't matter, ranks do. If you're 1st in a stat, it doesn't matter whether you've spend 20 or 60 points for it. You're first.

So let's give an exemple. It is theoretical, yet perfectly possible under hardcore amber. I'm using extreme exemples because it shows things better.

______________

Imagine a GURPS-like, point-buy system where Amber stat is 10, 12 costs 20, 14 costs 40, 16 costs 60, and 18 costs 80.

Now, imagine an Amber auction with 05 players, where they seldom bid in psyche, and each time, 1 player, knowing what he wants, bid heavily on a given stat from the start, blocking things.

So, costs for Psyche ranks are 5, 10, 15, 20.
Costs for every other rank are 5, 10, 20, 80.

So, you've got, for exemple the following players:
- Player A: 1st in Endurance (80 pts), 4th in psyche (05), total expenditure 85.
- Player B: 1st in Strength (80 pts), 3nd in psyche (10), 4nd in Warfare (05), total expenditure 95
- Player C: 1st in Warfare (80 pts), 3nd in Endurance (10), 4th in Strength (05), total expenditure 95.
- Player D: 1st in psyche (20 pts), 2nd in Endurance (20), Strength (20), Warfare (20), total expenditure 80 points.
- Player E: 2nd in psyche (15 points), 4th in Endurance (05), 3rd in Strength (10), 3rd in Warfare (10), total expenditure 40.


Now, the power of 1st rank depends on the GM (some will stat it as very superior to Amber rank, some as barely better), but lets assume that, were it translated into our gurps-like system, 1st would give you a 18, 2nd a 16...
This seems reasonnable to me (The GM could have just as well settled on 14/13/12/11, or 50/40/30/20).

So, translating:
- Player A: Endurance 18 (80), Psyche 12 (20). This'd have costed 100 in "GURPS".
- Player B: Strength 18 (80), Psyche 14 (40), Warfare 12 (20). This'd have costed him 140 points in "GURPS", yet in "Amber", he just spend 10 more points than Player A.
- Player C: Warfare 18 (80), Endurance 14 (40), Strength 12 (20). 140 points in "GURPS". Similar to player B, with different attributes.
- Player D: Psyche 18 (80), Endurance 16 (60), Strength 16 (60), Warfare 16 (60). He spend 5 less that A, yet in "GURPS", he'd have needed 260 points to buy such attributes.
- Player E: Psyche 16 (60), Endurance 12 (20), Strength 14 (40), Warfare 14 (40). In "GURPS", he'd have needed 160 points. In Amber, he used only 40.

So, if you use "hardcore" amber and discard the points once past the auction, this gives results similar do rolled stats:
- A rolled an awesome Endurance, good psyche, average stats otherwise.
- B rolled an awesome Strength, fine Endurance, Good psyche, average warfare.
- C, idem to B, with different stats
- D rolled an awesome Psyche, and excellent Endurance, Strength and Warfare.
- E rolled an excellent Psyche, good Endurance, fine Strength and Warfare.

This effect in even accentuated, since points used for Stats aren't used for powers, so, in effect, this gives as if B and C had crappy rolls for powers, A and D had a bad ones, and E a good one.

To take back the previous exemple, if you spend 20 in warfare, you're better than Amber (10 in "GURPS").
But, in "hardcore" amber, whether that a 12 or a 18 will depend of the other player's bid: If everyone spends more than 20, sure, you're better than Amber, able to slice shadow dwellers and their GURPS 05 dexterity with ease. So what? You've still got Dex 12.
And if they spend less than 20? Well, you're still able to slice shadow dwellers. But you can also beat your siblings with your Dex 18.

This is, IMO, your biggest... misconception? Blind spot? thing you forgot? In hardcore ADRPG, spending 20 points merely ensures that you're better than Amber, nothing else. By how much you surpass Amber depends of your final rank. This is why the Auction is so important.

Is it clearer now?

Now I can see that a player might approach the auction in a different way and look to see what was the cheapest stat and then buy into it and then build the character concept from there but that is a very rare option and is really no different from asking the other Gurps players what they are playing and then taking the gap to round out the party.

Well, IIRC, this is one of the things erick encourages in his advices to players.

Yes. P14, "stay flexible"

[RPGPundit]

The one habit I have to break people of in ADRPG is having a character concept before the Auction.  It's always a mistake.  I tell them to bid opportunistically, and figure out what they have afterwards.  This really doesn't work for a lot of people, I had a lot of develop-at-start players in my original group.

And THAT is exactly why I say its not quite point buy.  The whole basic concept of "point-buy" is that you can think up a completely-controlled concept of what character you want, and then fiddle with the points until you have precisely that.  You go in thinking of A and you end up with A.  

In a random game, you may think you want A but you can end up with anything from A to Z.  

In Amber, you can have a concept and that concept can more or less be stuck to, but whatever concept you had before the auction is quite likely not to survive after the auction, either because the ranks make it impossible for you to be able to create character concept "A", or because you realize at that point it would be much more advantageous for you to do B or C anyways.

RPGPundit

[jibbajibba]

Croaker,

A complex explanation but it still has a basic fault

The only way for the auction to be different to point buy would be for it to be a truely ranked model which it is not. It's not a true rank model becuase there are static points on the scale Human, Chaos and Amber.

Now if the guy that bids and comes 5th in warfare in an auction of 6 players ended up with 'about as good as a normal human' rather than excellent in warfare but not as good as some of his cousins then you would have a true ranked system but you don't have that. If you bid in a state you will be good in that stat end of.
I can build a Gurps character to be really strong and if all the other players turn up with characters that are stronger than my character it doesn't stop me being strong it just makes them stronger.
 

I speak not through some theroetical position but from a host of experience and real examples. I go into an Amber game wanting to play a naive soldier character a PC that starts good at warfare and endurance with a sense of honour and justice. the character growth curve I see for them is the challenge as to whether their sense of honour can survive the nest of vipers that is Amber. That is my character concept I worth out in advance of the auction I will spend

Warfare : 31
Endurance: 15
Pattern :50
Eldritch blade: 4

Player contributions to give me some good stuff.

I go into the auction. There are 6 players and warfare bids hard and my 31 points gets me 4th place. I luck out in endurance as get 2nd. Now just because my cousins are better swordmen than me doesn't make me shit they merely exceed normal human capacity more than I do.

Now if coming 4th in the auction meant I was Chaos rank, because we distributed the available ranks across the full range of possible values like you do in D&D where stats go from 3 to 18 or even in Gurps where in theory stats can go from 1 to 20 but we aren't doing that in actual Gurps terms what happens is someone that buys down to Chaos rank gets say 14 in a stat someone that buys down to Amber rank gets 16 and the ranked guys get 15, 16, 17, 18 etc so me coming 4th in Warfare in an amber auction is like me getting 15 "Warfare" in a gurps game. That is still great and still fits my character concept even if there are 3 other PCs with more than 15.

To link back to this months Superhero theme. Spiderman doesn't turn into a weakling just because the Thing and The Hulk show up.

In Amber terms Bleys is still a great swordsman even though Corwin, Eric and Benedict might be better. The Bleys character concept is not wrecked because he is only ranked 4th in warfare.

[RPGPundit]

The way the rank system works, being 4th place out of 15 is a lot better than being 4th place out of 4.  That's because a GM ought to make those attributes that got the most interest (ie. ranks) into the attributes that have the most oomph (which the others make up for via their exclusivity).

And no, Bleys is not a bad swordsman because he's 4th compared to three of his brothers.  But he's still not the best swordsman, which might be what Bleys' player wanted.

In any case, at this point I'm willing to accept that there are at least, significant point-buy elements to Amber, since as you pointed out the Amber-and-lower ranks have stable point values.

RPGPundit

[Croaker]

Croaker,

A complex explanation but it still has a basic fault

Not really

The fact that the exact ranks are point-buy and deterministic below amber doesn't mean that it is above it.
We talked about the auction. Lowering stats is not part of the auction, so the fact that it is point-buy is irrelevant to the discussion.

That's exactly why, in my exemple, all the ranked characters had values above the starting defaut value of 10 ("Amber"), but it seems this wasn't clear.

Every character that bid is better than normal. But, in a true ranks-based system, the extand by which they are IS random.

So we have something like this:

Human Rank => Amber Rank: Point buy and deterministic: You gain some points, you know exactly how bad you'll be compared to Amber (score of 10)

Above Amber: Random: You spend some points, you don't know how good you'll be, and could end up slightly better (score of 12) or awesome (18).

To take back your DnD exemple, imagine:
- You have 50 points.
- Your basic stat is 10.
- If you spend 10 points, you can roll 3 dices for a stat, taking the result, with a minimum of 11. You can spend more points, throwing multiple dices and taking the 3 best ones.
- OR you can lower a stat, each -1 giving you 2 points.

Any stat from 0 to 10 is point-buy and deterministic: You can decide to have an int of 5 in order to throw 3 more dices for your strenght. You know you'll be dumb.
But if you throw 9 dices for your strenght, taking the 3 best, what will be your final score?
All you know is that you'll be stronger than average (minimum 11). But you could end up with anything from 11 to 18.
The fact that you'll be stronger than 10 doesn't mean it isn't random.
The fact that you can precisely lower stats doesn't mean the system isn't random for stats above 10

Is this clearer?

[jibbajibba]

Not really

The fact that the exact ranks are point-buy and deterministic below amber doesn't mean that it is above it.
We talked about the auction. Lowering stats is not part of the auction, so the fact that it is point-buy is irrelevant to the discussion.

That's exactly why, in my exemple, all the ranked characters had values above the starting defaut value of 10 ("Amber"), but it seems this wasn't clear.

Every character that bid is better than normal. But, in a true ranks-based system, the extand by which they are IS random.

So we have something like this:

Human Rank => Amber Rank: Point buy and deterministic: You gain some points, you know exactly how bad you'll be compared to Amber (score of 10)

Above Amber: Random: You spend some points, you don't know how good you'll be, and could end up slightly better (score of 12) or awesome (18).

To take back your DnD exemple, imagine:
- You have 50 points.
- Your basic stat is 10.
- If you spend 10 points, you can roll 3 dices for a stat, taking the result, with a minimum of 11. You can spend more points, throwing multiple dices and taking the 3 best ones.
- OR you can lower a stat, each -1 giving you 2 points.

Any stat from 0 to 10 is point-buy and deterministic: You can decide to have an int of 5 in order to throw 3 more dices for your strenght. You know you'll be dumb.
But if you throw 9 dices for your strenght, taking the 3 best, what will be your final score?
All you know is that you'll be stronger than average (minimum 11). But you could end up with anything from 11 to 18.
The fact that you'll be stronger than 10 doesn't mean it isn't random.
The fact that you can precisely lower stats doesn't mean the system isn't random for stats above 10

Is this clearer?

A bit

But you are still setting that default value to low. If you compare Amber to GURPS then Amber rank is not 10 its 15 because most of the people you meet will be normal shadow dwellers and so sit on the 5 - 12 range. Your Amber rank PC can still pick up the back end of an S-class Merc and carry it 20 feet....
So the randomness comes in the range 15 - 20 and even then its not random its at worst weighted random. I mean you can choose to be the strongest guy if you really want to yoiu just have to give up somethign else. Just like in Gurps where you can buy 20 strength if you sacrifice everything else.

Also I get the sense from the books, and this is how I play it in my games, the gap from Human to Amber is much more than the gap from Rank 4 to rank 1. The ranked amberites are like Olympic altheletes they are far close to each other than we are to them.

[boulet]

Also I get the sense from the books, and this is how I play it in my games, the gap from Human to Amber is much more than the gap from Rank 4 to rank 1. The ranked amberites are like Olympic altheletes they are far close to each other than we are to them.

That's the way I presented it to players, but I'm at loss to point at Zelazny or Wujcik for this. I mean Luke and Merlin are badass athletes but still in the realm of humanly possible. I think the big gap was visible in the numbers for me (-25, -10, 0) but also the rule book insistence that characters with a Human trait are in big trouble if entering conflict with Amber ranked characters.

[jibbajibba]

That's the way I presented it to players, but I'm at loss to point at Zelazny or Wujcik for this. I mean Luke and Merlin are badass athletes but still in the realm of humanly possible. I think the big gap was visible in the numbers for me (-25, -10, 0) but also the rule book insistence that characters with a Human trait are in big trouble if entering conflict with Amber ranked characters.

Actually that is an excellent point I was thinking about Strength there and hefting the merc but you are right Luke and Merle are pretty much top end US collage runners but not olympic class. Likewise you don't think that Corwin is good enough to beat Kasparov over a Chess board.
Hmm... makes me think .....