:: Zelazny :: [polish] :: sparks that fly from the ironsmith's hammer ::
::. Friday, November 22 .::
Game Weekly Idea Sharing Hegemony
Turn of a Friendly Die:
WISH 23: Companion Creatures What have pets and companions belonging to PCs and NPCs in campaigns you've GMed or played in added? What have their bad points been? How do they compare to sentient magic items in terms of their effect on play (good or bad)?
At one Con, I found myself in a game where one Player Character had a Companion. In fact, the Player had a small plush dragon that sat on his shoulder. He would reach up and wiggle it when it talked, and it seemed to talk more than the Player Character did.
That distracted me. I wanted to interact with the Player Character, but addressing that worthy often got me an answer from the Companion. It became almost a reversal of roles. As a result, I never connected with the PC.
OTOH, when I joined Strange Bedfellows, I was a novice in a long-running PBEM game of experienced folks who had carefully worked out a Character-woven backstory. My character didn't fit, and it didn't seem right to pry into those backstories looking for a way to fit my Player Character in.
So I cheated. I decided I would need two characters. I took the model of Sherlock Holmes and his faithful chronicler, Dr. Watson. I would choose a brainy PC, and add a Companion to allow for dialogue, repartee, and exposition. For a twist, I decided that the amberite would come out slowly in the writing, but the companion would be developed first, actually be the smarter one, and the amberite would tend to fall into the Watson part.
This allowed me several benefits (from my POV):
1. The GM would certainly be entertained.
2. I could slowly build the complex amberite in posts, while plunging right into the story.
3. I could write third-person but avoid constant "stream of thought" posts, where the only give and take was a single character's mindset.
4. I could bring elements to Amber of shadows more complex and Real and mysterious than ordinary Amber campaigns. The assumption being not that the shadow-born companion was mightier than the amberite, but was possibly gifted, had a complex backstory of his own, and felt that he was the "star" of the adventure. A real equal. The trick here was to show and not tell in the ongoing game.
5. To address the above, I wrote several pieces of short fiction, almost exclusive to the Companion's point of view. I showed the "origin" of the young companion, and his destiny, and his life being tangled with the amberite-- but the amberite didn't appear in the stories at first. Characters in the stories talked about the amberite, but she did not appear. This kept the focus where I needed it, and allowed me the luxury of building the amberite in-game.
I do not have any regrets about those choices--- as things have worked out better than I could have hoped. I started out with two sketched characters and now have two fully rounded ones.
In the Eternal City campaign, I've used another aspect of this week's question: sentient magic items.
Needless to say, visions of talking magic swords spring to mind, and I so did not want to do that in Amber. Completely too corny.
What I wanted to solve was the canon issue of spikards. I wanted them to be sentient problem solvers. Tools of the most perfected sort of primal magic. Artificially Intelligent computers, if you will. This would allow me to address Zelazny's theme of Ghostwheel and Merlin's creation of a "son" that quickly outstripped the father.
From a "rules" point of view, this also ties into the entire issue of constructs and items as defined in the ruleset. A point where many feel the rules are "broken" (which I did not know when I started my campaign.) So before the game began, I was thinking about how I wanted to manage these themes.
To me, items, constructs and spikards are "nonhuman", where monsters, creatures and companions are "alien". They offer distinct possibilities as characters. I see playing them being a very different experience. Both can be relationships, but the manner and cross-purpose of the drama involved says a lot about your game's theme. Aliens have culture (of a kind, or potential), and nonhuman things do not.
I've had great fun as a GM rendering those distinctions into the infinity of shadow. The Player response has been good too.
Blog, Jvstin Style Arref's page looks horrible, and Ginger's page was even worse...I wanted to make a comment on the whole Grand Ellipse thing...but the stupid page is cut off and I can't.
Try using "full screen" (F11) and then switch back again. There is some small rendering glitch in MT that cuts off pages. A refresh usually works, but F11 is faster, without a full refresh page call.
Sorry about the 4.0 thing-- I've spent quite a bit of time getting my page to render well in all browsers... but 4.0 is troublesome.
I've been watching this VialleVision stuff with continuing amusement... and certainly I've dealt with the whole "hey, there's an important character with lots of 'screen time' who's blind, try not to forget that" campaign issues.
You guys might be over-reacting to your flubs.
Some points to consider:
1. Notes to the queen; hey, she can have attendants, or a personal secretary, or etc. who can read her notes. This isn't either historically out-of-line, or a breech of royal privilege. If sensitive info gets out, who ya gonna throw in the dungeon? Right, so the queen picks a young woman who can go everywhere with her. Someone who understands the seriousness and confidence of her position. Isn't there some good NPC value to that? It also saves on translating all those books and records into braille.
2. Vialle has been blind a long time. How did she get along as a part of Moire's court? What sort of everyday things did she have to compensate? Be creative, the Rebmans are more familiar with magic than the amberites are.
3. Remember, the eyes are the windows to the soul, and Vialle has not been blind since birth. She *would* look at people who are talking, she would *glance* at sounds, or stare at things she was holding in her hands... these are reflexes that she wouldn't lose just because they no longer are meaningful. Furthermore, in Amber, where the eyes are Psyche emitters/receivers, there is something to be said for Vialle not being able to see Light and Color, but who's to say there isn't something else she *does* see? Hmmm? I use that one to give her a bit more mystery IMC.
You have been involved in a shameful online RPG, and your soul will never be clean. You've soiled the memory of a dead author and neglected yourself and other human beings for months at a time; there is no way to make up for this.
Like Ginger, I'm unrepentant-- and I have no clue how my answers ended with this result. :)
Campaigns parallel film models? Ginger weighs in for House of Cards as 'Casablanca'. What a great model to choose!
My own Amber: The Eternal City is probably more like The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) from director, Michael Curtiz (as it turns out, same director of 'Casablanca'). Romance, combat, intrigue, and colorful characters; including villains you love to hate.
Quite strange and silly, the folks that you think are almost immortal.
James Coburn has been an important mythic icon to me since I first saw his quiet and lanky character in The Magnificent Seven. Recently picked up his arch performance on DVD in Our Man Flint. He always seemed to have as much work as he needed, and even his voice lent great character to his work, as recently in Monsters, Inc. Here is another blognote tribute from ***Dave.
You can now link to specific comments. There is a new comment design. Comments will begin with a commentor's name: a bit friendlier that way.
Also note that you can "jump link" right to the comments form by clicking on "share your ideas" at the beginning of the comments box.
(update: color tweaks)
Here's another Martin story.
After you've been tangled in plots of Chaos, Amber, and Rebma for a few decades, you get away from it all and try and find out who you really are.
You're Martin, heir to Rebma and Amber. Martin in my Eternal City has the old girlfriends, the crazy past, the wild parties, the neglected role as Heir to the reflected kingdoms. Martin was a great host of visiting Youngers. Knew great places to hang out. Great ability to make folks comfortable. And one gal pal who stuck by him through every girlfriend, every party, every new experience that Martin tried on for fit. She plugged-in when a new music trend grabbed his interest. She danced the clubs until her shoes gave out.
She was his bodyguard, lover, live-in housekeeper. She could rumble with the best. She could keep up with any amberite. She could kick ass better than Martin. She never grew old or questioned her boss' strange relatives. In fact, visiting Youngers in the campaign got to know her and like her for her loyalty and great sense of humor.
She was an android, rebuilt from scratch by Martin. She was the perfect companion. Martin knew he could trust her. He'd programmed her himself.
And Martin actually fell in love with her.
Random didn't like it. He mentioned this to Martin on occasion. They argued, but Random never pressed very hard.
And there was no way she could ever come to Amber, because there, she was just two hundred and thirty pounds of immovable junk.
Of course, was Martin really in love? Or was he in love with the idea of a completely dedicated, trustworthy lover?
Family wondered. So did he, though his respect for his gal Friday precluded talking about it openly.
Her intelligence and affection for Martin were never in question. Martin's didn't seem to be either.
She understood how he might disappear for years at a time. She valued him more than her own life. She even knew that he wasn't completely happy with the fact that his family probably considered her a toy; a psychological prop to ease the pain of Brand's attack on Martin's confidence and his damaged sense of intimate relationships. A talking vibrator. A shadowy exercise in self-love.
Despite that, with a grin and a shrug, she loved him and kept him safe.
Unroll five years . . . forty years of the campaign. The relationship kept working. It became part of accepting Martin. Amid the various troubled relationships of the family, Martin and his love were steady and sure. Martin quietly began some serious investigations of what it might take to make her trans-shadow.
Sadly, that's not how it ended.
She's buried in her own sepulcher on Kolvir in the royal cemetery.
The funeral was well-attended. King Random did the eulogy. There were a lot of tears.
Dorothea gets more specific about Player Character relationships (snippage):
Caveat Lector: Reader Beware! I’m less interested in so-called “game balance” than in how characters justify their presence in parties, and how party members see themselves in relation to each other.
Military units. Priestly orders. Guilds of all sorts. Families. Feudal structures. Policing structures. Economic structures. Local authorities all the way up to empires. So many hierarchies available to play with, so little time to game!
I've seen Players spend no time or lots of time on backstory crossover. Amber is the game where most time is spent on backstory, since the Characters have the possibility of years and years to know each other in various ways. Vampire or Highlander would probably work out in a similar way. Immortal characters can require extensive background treatments.
Yet I have seen plenty of social or hierarchal relationships between PCs in many games. Church and Military are ones that come up quite a bit. You can always assume that a PC wearing their dedication (a uniform, a set of vestments) is seriously committed. Committments to something greater than the adventuring party are always good for highlighting the world at large and the place of the PCs in it.
Secret agents, or super heroes are also PCs that have interesting bonds that are greater than casual.
And, blood relationships are fun for most games, as blood is not always thicker than water.
:)
Turn of a Friendly Die: Policy of Truth I think one of the problems I have with the definition of Amber as a backstabbing game is that there seems to be no distinction between a game where characters have individual goals that may be at cross-purposes (or may be orthoganal) and one where characters are actively working to block others' aims.
The wide range of perspective on this point is part of the reason the Amber DRPG has this muddy rep as a game of Treachery.
Here's another slant on the issue of Amber and its backstabbing family (see excellent comments to the earlier post):
What is the history of the Courts of Chaos? Complete domination of the universe.
What is the history of the first king of Amber? Complete domination of the reflections of Amber.
What is the family history of the royals of Amber? Domination of their own destiny, and where possible their siblings' interference in that personal destiny.
This last bit puts each individual in the family firmly in the mold of dear old Dad. Your own purpose is kept close to the chest, to reveal it to others allows them to realize that it may conflict with their destiny as seen by them. Control is the goal. Secrecy is the method. Cross-purpose is the inevitable result. But this is the history of Amber's family, not the totality of them as individuals and not the mandate of day-to-day actions.
If you can get your own way, without treachery or backstabbing; more power to you. Benedict and Llewella come to mind.
At some level, you care about your sibs, your family, their plans because they are the ones who might conceivably mess up your plans. It's a completely ego-centric spin that doesn't mandate killing family but does suggest that no one ever really expects to get a straight answer from another member of the blood. Amber royals can even be "honest" with each other, and not really tell what they are up to. There are ways to tell the truth and still not expose yourself (even if you've lost your memory). Managing information about yourself is the best control and protection you have.
Are amberites slightly sociopathic? You bet they are. Their society is a elite clique so small that it almost isn't a society at all. In 99% of the universe, their personal desires are fiat.
Do amberites have real feelings and vulnerabilities? You bet they do.
Is it treacherous to always want things your own way? Debatable. Civilization says, "yes", and so we have laws that govern our common behavior. Amber says, "hell no", but there are larger issues of survival as a "society" that do get steady respect.
(update: more points in comments)
This on the reputation of the Amber DRPG from the Amber Mailing List:
> From: Rain Donaldson
>
> I personally tend to prefer more cooperative games. Am I
> in the minority in the Amber community on this issue?
Register another vote for cooperative game environ and GMs who make this clear.
This doesn't mean I'm in favor of re-writing Zelazny's canon to reflect happy-vanilla amberites. Each and every amberite regardless of age is a scary character on occasion.
It means that I'm concerned with the tone of the rules, with the general stereotype of Amber gamers being fans of a backstabbing, treacherous genre. Reading the rules adds to the impression (where even the GM is winking and lying during the auction).
True, the last bit may be meant humorously, or not, but it adds to the widely held impression of this game.
Reading the Corwin/Merlin books first, diffuses the idea. (Depending, as others have pointed out, on how you read into the violence the family does to itself.) Reading the rules first, then the Corwin books, tends to reinforce the idea. A thing I'd quibble about in the rules, but that isn't my province here.
I agree with Astrid, the GM can set a tone in their invitation to game that goes a long way towards getting the right players to show up. Those con blurbs are more meaningful to me than the GMs' names attached to them. Likewise, if I was invited to an online game or a FTF campaign, I'd like to know plenty about the "Vision" of the Amber I'm about to invest in.
There are folks who really do not prefer "group centered" gaming. I think that Amber plays out well with solo adventures and mini-stories. But solo adventures do not automatically require treachery between Player Characters. Even gaming Amber with "threaded" plots weaving between Player Characters satisfies the non-group motif. It does not assume backstabbing.
I say this as someone who has played more than one "plot against the others" Character.
There seems to be a "rush" for some in playing Amber as a "I win, you all lose" game where first-place-at-any-cost is the goal. There are a lot of players who do this at cons. That's fine, as others have illuminated, the long-term consequences can't catch up to you in a con slot. Throne wars need clear labels that they are those kind of games.
GMs are the senior ambassadors of Amber DRPG, and the people who provide for the many ways the material can be done. Humor, suspense, horror, parody, violence, tenderness, love, and epic drama games are all workable under the Amber game.
Caveat Lector: Augusti 18, 2002 - Augusti 24, 2002 Archives Even more irksome, though, is the thick black line drawn between Childhood and Adulthood. Those be Childish Things, and any Adult who Playeth therewith is to be Carefully Watched. Especially, mind you, if that adult has no children; clear sign that said adult just never grew up, never became the deadly grim humorless reality-drenched drone that is the Adult par excellence.
