Amber Diceless

As you may or may not know, I received a copy of Amber Diceless Role-Playing for Christmas.

I'd read through it once when it was still in print (when I was much younger than I am now). I'd started looking for it a few years ago, when I picked up Nobilis - I wanted to compare the systems. By then, of course, the price for Amber had skyrocketed, and I was unable to do any sort of comparison, even for myself.

So, now that I have (and have read thoroughly) Amber, what do I think?

Here's the thing you have to keep in mind: Amber kicked off diceless roleplaying. I'm sure there were diceless games before it came out, but none of them were as big as Amber was.

So why did Amber make it so big?

Good question.

Having read the game, I still can't tell you. I can tell you that it's phenomenal on several levels. The game is one where the demand for trust between GM and player is higher than most. This is in large part because - after character generation - players don't necessarily know what their stats are, or how they compare to the other PC's.

This, by the way, is brilliant.

Having players participate in an auction for their attributes is clever - but the brilliant part here is the ability to secretly increase your attributes after the auction.

The game is based on Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. If you aren't familiar with them, I suggest buying this book and reading them. PC's are the children of Corwin's generation - grandchildren of Oberon.

Obviously, there are probably other siblings and cousins around, but the PC's are the key players.

The mechanics of play themselves are honestly nothing special: Highest number wins. Yes, it's that simple.

The key is to maneuver circumstances to your advantage before comparing numbers. Are you the best wrestler of your generation? Make sure your opponent is unarmed before engaging.

Where this book shines, however, is when it gives advice to the GM. Some of the advice is specific to Amber, but there is a fair amount that can be used in any game. I'd suggest that the majority of the advice is usable in most games.

The book has numerous examples of the various types of conflict players tend to get into, complete with multiple examples, ranging from melee combat when the player is significantly better than their opponent to psychic conflict when weak-willed PC's face stronger NPC's.

It's a fascinating read, and well worth looking for.

You can still, by the way, order a PDF version of the game, and its lone supplement, Shadow Knight.

A lot of fans of Amber disliked Shadow Knight. While I have Shadow Knight, I haven't read it, yet, so I can't comment on whether it's worth the $12. I can tell you that print copies of Shadow Knight are usually available for less than $15, including shipping (I got it for $11 including shipping from Troll and Toad).

And all of this reminds me: I need to write sometime about the importance of GM-player trust and how to use (and abuse) that trust.

Next week, however, I'm planning to talk about Dungeon Twister a bit more - players have been asking me for help with items, and I plan to talk about items and characters and combinations next week (Planned future posts are, of course, subject to sudden change without warning).