In case the above sounds bitter or something along those lines (I reread it this morning and thought, 'wow, that could be taken the wrong way'), it was meant to be an amused comment on game systems, not me crabbing about how awful my character is MrGMwhywon'tyougiveusmorepoints?  :)

I'm having a blast!

In reply to Shard (msg # 28):

Highest agreement. On all points.

I will admit that Shard's regular attempts at exercise have motivated me to put a pip into her 'Stamina' skill.  She now has 3d, so it matches her 'Running'.

Someday, I will be able to outrun Stormtroopers.  Someday...

It's all about the Wild Die, plus the expentiture of Force Points. ;)

Writing with you all is a privilege, regardless of game system. :)

In reply to Juragga (msg # 31):

More agreement. Also strongest.

In reply to Juragga (msg # 31):

And strategic use of character points...

Privilage with ALL of you.  :)

Has anyone actually seen the 'A New Hope' stats for the Character?  Luke got a LOT of points for a single movie!  ^_^

In reply to Rhijans Thanus (msg # 33):

DESPERATE use of CP you mean. Like unto a drowning man reaching for air.

And yeah, I have seen them. It was the leap between Empire and Jedi that always got me.

My GMs were always stingy enough with CP that even after playing the same character for close to a decade, he was nowhere close to the stats they had in the movies.  But the GMs also tended to tweak how the big-name characters were played (not to mention the constant appearance of dramatically-appropriate wild-die rolls, so our aspiring would-be Jedi rolled a string of 6's against Vader's 1 and crashed his (Vader's) speeder-bike into a stone wall with him on it...)

But we all tended to play with a cinematic flair...there were a lot of times, I'm sure, where the dice technically said that we failed at what we were trying to do, but the GM said, "Y'know, that's just cool enough that I want it to work, if only to see where they're going with it..."

It's always amusing seeing 'movie character' or 'book character' stats in a game and realizing 'well, my character will never, ever be even close...'  :)

The dice are determined to make this a long and arduous firefighting experience, apparently...

Whether it's searching for a lost boy or firefighting, the dice roller seems determined to foil my characters in our good GM's games.

...thank goodness Amber doesn't use dice.  :D

Oh, gawd, Rhijans!  You too?  :(

Yes, because an Amber GM would never dream of inflicting all manner of misery and humiliation on his players the way that dice would.

Oh, wait...

In reply to The Force (msg # 41):

*mildly mocking laughter*  Oh, yeah...such fond memories of Amber and how the lack of dice made for everything working according to plan...

Whose plan, well...that's another matter, altogether...

Oddly enough, I have zero problems with THAT.  :)  I've done enough horrible things to my own character in that game, Force.  Though you're still the master of misery...

Nobody does Amber like The Force, Rhijans.  ^_^  'Whose plan'...well put!

You know, it's a shame to admit it, but I've never played Amber.  Even though I'm old enough, and remember buddies playing it tabletop back in "the day".

I only ever got involved in one game of it...which I really enjoyed, even though it only ran for a few months before the GM and his wife moved to another state and the game folded up.

I've actually toyed with adapting their diceless system for some game ideas I'd like to see run on here.  I'd probably be more enthusiastic about the prospect if I actually enjoyed GMing...*grin*

Ron is...exceptional.  He has an enormous knowledge of both the series and the rules, and fantastic creativity (necessary for this game).  He has run two games on Rpol - I've had the good luck to be in the second of them, still going, which according to my private messages started in September, 2002.

O_o

Has it been THAT long?  :D

I have also never played Amber. I keep coming across it, and I am quite keen on the idea of a system-based game with no dice, but I've never gotten around to getting it and/or playing it.

Never read the books either...

I would imagine, if you haven't ever read the books, Amber would actually be very difficult to get into, although not impossible (after all, Corwin--I think it was, but it's been a long time since I read the books, so I may be confused--had amnesia when the series started and just thought he was a normal person and found out about all his special abilities as the story went along.  If you had a player who was willing to read the books and find out just what all was involved, you could do something similar...but not knowing the significance of the Trumps and the Pattern and all, it would make building a character with long-term appeal rather tricky...)

One of the things I would adapt, if I were to kit-bash my own rules around their diceless system, would be to do away with the player auction at the start and just have people set their stats and run with it, because it would make it easier to bring new players into the game (something that, as far as I recall, is not provisioned for in the Amber rules...)  But for the Amber setting, knowing the hierarchy of who's best at what is kind of an integral part of how it all works.

Yeah, I never read the books, either.  Which is probably why I didn't play the game...

Agreed.

Just...don't read the second series.  Stop at the end of the first.



Auctions are also less-than easy to do in PBP.  Not impossible, mind.  And this actually how Ron decided to do his.  :)

It's quite an amazing game, with an enormously intricate and devilishly clever story, where we've only been INTO Amber once, rarely met any of the Amberites, and spent the vast majority of the time traipsing around the Myriad Worlds (as my character calls them, finding the term 'Shadow' belittling and personally insulting) and trying to deal with the potentially universe-ending problem.  :)

Never liked the auction method for character creation in Amber.  Just as I don't like seeing another Throne War type game.

Also didn't want to start in Amber, because none of the original characters were from there.  Made sense to have them start elsewhere, on their way to Amber.  Unfortunately, as Shard will testify, they kept getting sidetracked.

I drew my inspiration from Gilligan's Island, in which a three hour boat ride extended into something much longer.  That's why the game started on a boat.

As for the "traipsing about" - when you have characters who can travel all over the place and have abilities that would make them gods in most places, it seems a waste to keep them in one location.  And if they're going to be going all over the universe, they may as well be saving the silly thing while they're at it.

A bit late for the warning, and I suppose it says something about the relative quality of the two that while I remember bits and pieces of details from the first series, about the only thing I recall about the second is that I've actually read part of it (I can't even remember if I've read the whole thing or not...)