ADRP in Dragon

[Finarvyn]

While looking though some old boxes of Dragon magazine, I ran across the article that started it all for me Amber-wise.

The Amber Diceless RPG was first published in November, 1991, according to my first printing of the rulebook. I first heard of ADRP in June, 1992, in reading a couple of reviews in Dragon magazine and I immediately ordered a copy. (I've been quoting 1993 as when I started playing ADRP. I guess it was actually 1992. I was wrong. )

Anyway, I thought I would post the contents of both articles. The first one actually is a dual review of ADRP and some small-press game called "Pixie" but I'm only posting the Amber part.

[Finarvyn]

A Review of Amber Diceless Role Playing
by Lester Smith
Dragon Magazine • Issue 182 • June 1992

Background: Since its inception 22 years ago, Roger Zelazny’’s Amber novel series has been extremely popular. Ten books have been published in the series thus far. The first five are sometimes called the “Corwin Cycle” and the second the “Merlin Cycle” (not Arthur’s Merlin, but rather Corwin’s son), after their respective protagonists. Parts of those works were also serialized in Galaxy magazine.
Also available is a work called Roger Zelazny’s Visual Guide to Castle Amber. And now there is the AMBER DICELESS ROLEPLAYING game.

For those who are not familiar with the series of books, let me take a moment to describe the central premises. First, imagine that there is one primal world of which all others are but shadows. Now, populate this primal world with a family of individuals who possess the power to travel among those shadows to any place they desire, to find anything they wish. Give them incredible strength and stamina, and make them immortal (barring violent death). Among the “Shadows,” then, they are as gods. Now imagine that they are perpetually squabbling over the central reality’s throne in the most Machiavellian manner. That, in a nutshell, is Amber. Throw in the Courts of Chaos, a secret, collective enemy nearly as powerful as the Amberites; mix in multitudinous imaginative and mystical elements; write it all as a mystery in a Dashiell Hammett-style, first-person narrative that lapses on occasion into archaic, formal English; and you’ve got a hit novel series on your hands.

Now, design a game that lets people play members of that larger-than-life family, make the system diceless to emphasize role-playing (and to pique people’s interest), and you’ve got the makings of a hit
role-playing game on your hands.

Presentation: Physically, the AMBER game is impressive. Its 256 pages are perfect bound, but rather than the usual binding for perfect-bound game products, the AMBER game is ‘smith sewn. in 32-page signatures. If that sounds like Greek to you, suffice it to say that the result is that the book easily lies open to pretty much any page you choose, making it very easy to access. The spine also remains flat regardless, which makes the book long lived even through continual use. The cover’s glossy coating stands up to wear.

Visually, the game is a mixed bag. The cover painting is intriguing and evocative (though I’ve heard repeated, albeit minor, complaints from fans of the novels, concerning the “cyber” look of the most prominent inset). The title on the cover appears a bit bland by comparison, as does the back and spine. While such things won’t turn a dedicated Amber fan away, they make the game less likely to draw a neophyte’s eye. Inside is page after page of double-column text, typeset in a less-than-inspired manner and broken rather infrequently by illustrations, all black and white but typically quite good. The hierarchy of headings is confusing, especially when compared with the table of contents; it’s often difficult to know what’s subordinate to what else, based on heading size, etc. The result of all of this is a more difficult read than it ought to be, especially given the nature of the text. This is to say that while the text itself is engagingly written, it is of necessity long (as I’ll explain in a moment), and the physical presentation makes it seem that much longer.

Mechanics: One of the primary attention-getters of this RPG is that it is diceless. Many role-playing gamers cannot help but scoff at such a notion, but this game’s diceless nature is definitely more that just a gimmick. Wujcik has developed a remarkable system that both suits the Amber novels well and encourages roleplaying in a manner second to none and far better than most. In this system, players are each given 100 points with which to buy a player character’s four primary attributes (Strength, Warfare, Psyche, and Endurance), but each player must also bid against the other players for those attributes in an auction. Whoever bids highest on an attribute gains the best PC among all others in that attribute. For example, a character whose player bid highest in Strength will be the strongest of the PCs and will always win a “straight-up” contest of Strength among them. Second place will always beat third place and below, and so on. Interestingly, this bidding process tends to set up rivalries among the players very much like those of the Amberites in the novels.

Of course, the first question that occurs to the uninitiated is “Why even bother to play if you know ahead of time who is going to win in a contest?” There are several answers.

First, the trick is to avoid a “stand-up” contest in an attribute in which your character is weak. An example from the novels is given concerning Corwin facing an obviously superior swordsman (in game terms, having a higher Warfare attribute) and tricking his opponent into stepping into an unusual patch of plant life that immobilized him by pinning his legs, thus giving Corwin the advantage.

Second, a character’s “stance” can affect the final outcome, especially between two closely matched foes. In an example from my own gaming, a dazed character refused to give ground before a slightly less-adept swordsman who was both fresher and attacking very forcefully. As a result, the first character took some slight wounds. The attacking character won that encounter.

Third, even if someone is more highly ranked than you are in a particular attribute, you always have the option of getting other people to help you gang up on that person.

Fourth, if your character faces someone other than another PC, there is no way of knowing just how good or poor that person‘s abilities are. An excellent example of this is given from the novels. Corwin is facing another swordsman, someone he thinks is slightly better than him. But he manages to make the other fellow begin to doubt his own abilities, and the tide of the battle turns. In fact, once PCs begin to gain experience, there is no way of being certain how good anyone’s abilities are, including those of your own character (more about this in a moment).

I should mention that the characters you play are not the Amberites from the novels. Rather, your PCs are the next generation-the sons and daughters of Corwin, Gerard, et al. This means that you can feel free to design whatever type of character you’d like -- within the limits of the 100 points, of course. If, after the auction, you have points left over (and you’d be smart to save at least a few), they can be spent on secondary abilities.

Highest on the list are Pattern Imprint and Logrus Mastery, which those familiar with the novels will recognize as the essential patterns of the multiverse and are what make Amberites and Lords of Chaos able to manipulate Shadow. Also available are Trump Artistry (Trump are tarotlike cards that allow Amberites to “call” one another across the multiverse), Shape Shifting (a necessary ability for surviving the continual chaos of the Courts), Power Words (sort of one-word spells, more flash than substance), Sorcery (the ability to weave stronger spells, at the cost of more time), and Conjuration (which allows for the summoning or creation of items and creatures, and the imbuing of items with powers). Pattern Imprint, Logrus Mastery, Trump Artistry, and Shape Shifting all have advanced versions into which characters can grow. Finally, you can spend points on personal artifacts and creatures, personal shadow worlds, and allies (some types of allies serve also as .place holders.; having them means your character is of royal blood and can eventually try to walk the Pattern or Logrus, or maybe both).

Don’t have enough points? You can gain a few extra by committing yourself to a special contribution to the campaign: keeping a diary for your character, drawing Trumps for campaign use, keeping a game log, or whatever else you can talk your game master into approving. (These options are collectively another good example of how the game enhances player involvement in the campaign story.) Or, you can simply spend the extra you need, then log it as “Bad Stuff,” sort of a battery of bad luck. On the other hand, if you have any points left over, you can declare them as “Good Stuff,” meaning that life tends to smile on your character. It is also possible to have “Zero Stuff” and neither suffer bad nor enjoy particularly good luck. This “stuff” serves the GM as a means of deciding an outcome that would seem random, or as a tie breaker when all else seems even. For example, a character who asks “Is the door locked?” might receive different answers, depending upon his Stuff (and assuming that the GM has not previously determined the state of that door).

Character growth through experience is unusual, too, in this game. When a story has been completed (not merely one session, but the conclusion of a major plot), the GM assigns a number of experience points and divides them evenly among the group. But the players are not told how many experience points they have gained. Rather, they each will have previously provided the GM with a list of what abilities they want to improve, in what order, and how much Bad Stuff they would be willing to take to receive them. The GM then updates their character sheets appropriately, again without telling the players what their characters have gained. Consequently, the only way of finding out how your character has grown is by continually testing his limits. Interestingly enough, that’s the only way of finding out just what the powers you already possess are capable of doing. Again, this duplicates the feeling of the novels nicely (and simulates real life, I’d argue).

Evaluation: By now, it should be obvious to you that the AMBER game concentrates on playing a role and telling a story, while making game mechanics as unobtrusive as possible. It isn’t a game for “rules lawyers”; event resolution is set firmly in the GM’s hands. Nor will it suit casual players; the back copy emphasizes that it is a “mature, demanding, and time-consuming system.” The game requires a lot of its participants. It takes a long time just to read: The back copy advertises over a hundred pages of tips on role-playing style and technique, and even the rules aren’t so much defined as illustrated with example after example. As a GM, then, you don’t learn the rules; you absorb them and make them your own. (Consequently, when AMBER game GMs get together, they tend to debate their respective visions and even those of Wujcik and Zelazny.) Even the stats for the Elder Amberites, the various characters from the novels, are given in multiple different formats, so that GMs can choose those they prefer for their campaign.

The result is an intensive role-playing experience. Without numbers in front of them, players have nothing to do but play the parts of their characters. Without rules to cite and dice to roll, they must be able to trust the GM’s judgment. And the GM has to react specifically to the PCs in the guise of the world he has created. It becomes entirely obvious that the GM can do nothing until the players begin to interact with that world.

The AMBER game is absorbing. The very first time I ran it was magical, despite the fact that I was using the “Throne War” scenario (the first of three included in the book), a rather simplistic set-up that allows players to try out the system for the first time. Surprisingly, while I typically think of a group of six or more gamers to be fit only for a dungeon crawl, and three to be the optimum number for real role-playing, the AMBER game seems to cry out for large groups to enrich the stew of story input, I suppose. Also, the game has been sufficiently engaging to maintain player interest even though I’m able to run it only once a month at present. That I find surprising for any role-playing game.

Of course, there is another consequence of that “absorbingness.” GMs have to spend quite a bit of time and creative effort coming up with wide-reaching plots for their players to work through. Canned, linear adventures just won’t serve. Secondly, to really give the players a fair shake, the GM has to be thoroughly familiar with all the statistics for each and every PC. Besides absorbing the rule book, they’ll need to be fairly expert with the Amber novels. I’ve found myself rereading and studying them all carefully before feeling really comfortable in running a campaign. Wujcik himself purports to have read them over 30 times in the six years he spent working on the game.

As for criticisms of the AMBER game, I have very few. I’ve already mentioned my complaints concerning the typography. Some GMs have complained that the sorcery rules seem sort of thin and don’t reproduce very well what Merlin is capable of in the novels, but I don’t think the answer is more specific rules. Rather, a more in-depth treatment of spell examples from the novels would be nice, following the pattern of the rest of the book. Other GMs have complained that, despite the PCs. superhuman abilities, these characters are small potatoes compared to the Elder Amberites and can’t hope to stand up to them. But the second and third sample adventures in the book demonstrate ways to avoid that problem. In the second adventure, while the PCs are on hand to battle the menace, the Elder Amberites are not. (I should mention, however, that the “shrinking universe” idea in this scenario doesn’t really thrill me -- it strikes me as a bit silly, though others might find it less so.) In the third adventure, the PCs are used somewhat as pawns by some of the Elder Amberites, but it is in a way very much in keeping with the novels, and the PCs are still participants rather mere spectators. (I am less than thrilled at the idea that in it Caine kills a double of himself once again, and certain persons who I thought dead are still alive, but it’s only a suggested adventure, not the one and only “official” line.) These are very minor complaints.

As impressed as I am with the game, do I think it is the “end-all” of role-playing games, or that diceless systems are the wave of the future? I’ll give a firm “No” on both counts. First, the AMBER game is pretty much Amber-specific. While the Amber novel series theoretically allows its characters to move through Shadow from high-tech SF worlds to magical worlds of legend, all such worlds still possess Amber‘s flavor. In fact, Zelazny’s novels never really include interstellar travel within Shadow, and I doubt that many Amber gaming groups will, either. Second, as fun as the AMBER game can be, there are certainly times when I’m not up to such intense role-playing and would rather take part in a dungeon crawl. Finally, there is a thrill in making an incredibly good or bad roll of the dice, so I sincerely doubt that gamers everywhere are likely to pitch out their dice collections and-their most treasured table of random results

However, I certainly do think that the AMBER DICELESS ROLE-PLAYING game is destined for great popularity and a niche among the most respected of role-playing game designs.

[Finarvyn]

Random thoughts on a nonrandom game
by Allen Varney
Dragon Magazine • Issue 182 • June 1992

My friend, John Brunkhart, tells about a 1989 game session at Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE). John, who had recently joined Customer Service at ICE, had played HERO SYSTEM* games for years but had never tried ICE’s SPACE MASTER* science-fiction RPG. An ICE hanger-on who ran a campaign invited John to sit in. He spent two hours generating a character and joined the veteran players (mostly fellow ICE employees) as a new adventure began.

For starters, the characters embarked on a space journey to the world where they would receive their mission. En route, their ship entered a dangerous asteroid belt. John rolled his character’s Piloting skill and achieved a critical success. Like Han Solo, he sent the ship barreling flawlessly through the field. Except that . . .

As I understand it, in the SPACE MASTER game there is an unmodified percentage chance that a ship in an asteroid field will hit something. The GM rolled this chance, right out where everyone could see the dice: collision! Then he rolled the size of the surprise asteroid: about as big as the Moon, the way John tells it. Then he rolled for location: the drives. Then he rolled damage: maximum. Before the scenario had properly begun, the ship exploded, killing all aboard.

The GM apologized but didn’t retract the results. He wanted to keep the players’ respect by respecting the dice. It worked, mostly. These guys played ICE games, after all, and they obeyed dice slavishly. “Yeah,” they told each other, “that’s probably what would really happen -- asteroid fields are dangerous.” But John, who had expected to take part in an adventure story, was baffled and apoplectic by turns.

Narration or (putative) simulation? Die-roll fudging or relentless justice? Here in a nut-shell -- or better, in a dice bag -- we have one of the great religious schisms of our hobby, ranking with “realism vs. playability.” I strongly favor story and role-playing values. If you want dice to rule your destiny, you could play the SPACE MASTER game, but why not go to Las Vegas and shoot craps instead? You’ll probably have a better story to tell afterward.

Recalling John’s horror story and many like it, I salute the courage and integrity of Erick Wujcik’s AMBER game. I have some (pardon the term) random musings:

The “attribute auction” in character generation is brilliant and elegant. This fun system produces several nice effects apparent only after close study. At first it seems that canny (and cooperative) players could fix attribute prices at artificially low levels, but this oligopoly backfires as soon as the PCs receive their first advancement points, when everyone can easily buy up to every top rank!

The auction system could easily work with other point-based RPGs. It does need a large player group to work best. In my experience, the specified 100 points cannot create a well-rounded Amberite. I offer more points and free Pattern Imprint.

Another AMBER game breakthrough, the idea of gaining extra points to improve your character through extra-campaign activity (character diaries, artwork, campaign logs, etc.), depends on the honor of the players -- but then, so does much else in this game. (I wonder how long before some penurious GM starts offering extra points to players in a cash auction.)

Advancement comes slowly, perhaps too slowly. Players have little idea how their own characters improve, let alone other players’ characters. Still, this effect mimics Zelazny’s novels. There, our hero Corwin doesn’t know whether (for instance) he can defeat his brother Eric in fencing until they actually go at it. This game system cultivates suspicion, caution, and even paranoia -- all survival traits in Amber.

Likewise, I believe the game’s nonrandom approach suits Amber well. Others disagree, yet in the novels, Corwin seldom says, “If it hadn’t been for [the wind / the sun in my opponent’s eyes / the phase of the moon], I’d never have scraped by. The situation could have gone either way.” No, when Corwin achieves something, he overcomes random circumstances. Story logic, not some lucky break, usually motivates the occasional last-minute rescue. As in the novels, so it works in the game, and bravo.

An AMBER game should be nonrandom, but that doesn’t mean the Amber milieu works well for role-playing. The setting selects for loners, because an individual character: 1) is vastly capable, and; 2) has reason to mistrust other PCs. Players routinely go off in their own directions. They form factions and retreat from the game room to plot. The characters have Trumps that can negate traps or blow open mysteries. They can mess with time or find anything they want for free in infinite parallel universes.

Experienced GMs can accommodate all this, and the AMBER game clearly targets the most experienced GMs (and players!). But it’s tough work. Proceed with caution.

On the same note, I’d be reluctant to run this game for players who aren’t familiar with the first five Amber novels, Nine Princes in Amber through The Courts of Chaos. (Regrettably, the second Amber sequence is only a Shadow of the first’s reality.)

“Diceless” does not necessarily imply “ruleless.” But the AMBER game dispenses with most rules as righteously as it throws out dice. At every point, Wujcik asserts the primacy of story values over systems. Notably, the Combat chapter describes tactics and their likely success, different wound levels, and so on, all in plain words with few rules and no numbers. It’s rather curious reading.

To be honest, this bold approach unsettles me. Politically, I must applaud the dominance of story values over rules. The text offers copious advice, including scripts that advise GMs how to stage a fight at varying levels of detail. But I betray my upbringing. I keep looking for a way to sequence combat, hit points, and all those training wheels I grew up with.

Yet the intensity of the AMBER game indicates Wujcik is on to something. When success in every action depends on the role and not the roll, players develop a sense of both control and urgency, along with creativity that borders on mania.

I once heard a second-hand remark attributed to E. Gary Gygax, designer of the AD&D game, that went, “The secret we should never let the game masters know is that they don’t need any rules.” Now the AMBER game has exposed the truth. Soon, I hope, we can safely enter an asteroid field.

[Finarvyn]

As a further interesting note, I found the original advertisement for ADRP in Dragon magazine #174, which would be October 1991. The text reads as follows:

---------------------------

AMBER is the most character intensive game ever!

It takes hours, plus a whole gaming session, just to create a new group of Amber player characters.

Amber Characters start out with the strength to lift a car, the endurance to fight a whole day without tiring, a mind trained to psychic combat, and the battle skills of a master. Better yet, they start out as fully rounded people.

Character building starts with players competing in an Attribute Auction, using their character's points to vie for dominance in psyche, strength, endurance and warfare.

Then players use their points to get Powers.

Pattern is the ticket to immortality, the birthright of any Amberite, and the ultimate key to controlling worlds

You see, our Earth is but one of an infinite number of Shadows, cast by the light of the only true world, Amber. Player characters with Pattern have the blood of Amber's ruling family. This means being able to walk among infinite alternate reality, shaping or destroying, to toy with destiny.

The flip side of Pattern, it's opposite, is the power of the Logrus, symbol of Amber's great foe, the Courts of Chaos. Between these two powers are the lesser abilities of Magic, Shape Shifting and Trump.

When we say no dice we mean it. No dice, coin flips, cards, yarrow sticks, computer chips or any randomness! Here's how we can do that:

1. Characters are made with points, bidding in an Attribute Auction where the players compete for Rank. NO DICE!

2. Combat is resolved by comparing each combatant's Rank and specific actions. The best character wins! NO DICE!

3. Players choose their own "LUCK," spending points to be lucky, or borrowing point against bad luck. NO DICE!

4. Ever been frustrated with a bad dice roll? In Amber, if your character can do it, consider it done! NO DICE!

5. No Random encounters! Instead, each character is part of a story, and encounters are planned by the GM! NO DICE!"

[blinky55]

I bought my Amber corebook in the 90s, i didnt know what it was initially, i just liked the weird cover art and there wasnt much else in stock, i had to be faster than one other buyer too. I was very positively suprised at the game i got, but i dont remember when i first read the 10 books.

There was only one publication for Amber Rrpg in my country, it was an npc statted in polish ''Magia i Miecz'' magazine that i have no longer in my posession. Maybe one day ill find another copy but with each passing year it seems less likely.

[thondor]

I don't have anything intelligent to say about this. I just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading this material, thanks for sharing Fin