Amber (roleplay)

Universe and principles of play

For a description of the universe, to see Cycle of the princes d' Ambre

The universe of Amber as developed in the novels is very present in the roleplay, the players incarnating wire of Princes d' Ambre or the Court of Chaos - the heroes of the books. The world in which the characters evolve/move is in fact multi-worlds, vast plexus organized between two asymmetrical poles of reality: courses of Chaos and the Amber city. The presentation of the Amber roleplay makes a great place with the intrigues of capacities, which are the principal screen of the books and which offer a support unlimited to the Roleplay. That requires an effort of appropriation of the universe by the Master of play and the players; the freedom of play is at the price of an investment more important than in the majority of the other roleplays. Another characteristic of this play is the absence of dice to slice the noncommonplace actions. The chance and the destiny are dependant on the conventions established by Zelazny and the good agreement between players and Master of play. For this reason, Ambre is often disadvised to the player beginners - but its flexibility can contrary being tempting to begin.

The inspirations of the novels of Zelazny were generally medieval-fantastic: these same inspirations are found in the book of rules, which are more of conventions and the elements of play that intangible indications. They take again potential freedom to sail through the infinite Amber universes (“shades”), which offers completely singular prospects for a roleplay: where the majority of the plays propose a universe and develop it with meticulousness, Ambre proposes only freedom to deepen any universe desired by its players.

Characteristics

In the play, the player directs an Ambre prince of the third generation. As a descendant of king Obéron, the players have certain capacities: a force and a superhuman intelligence, temporal immortality, and especially the possibility of travelling in the worlds (“to go through Shade”).

To have an idea of the potential of the characters, one can take some examples: an Ambre prince never misses his target when it draws an arrow without handicap, it is able to beat all the large players of failures just like to fight with the sword several days of at a stretch, or to control the thoughts of human, etc the characters incarnated by the players thus start with highest of the social scale, with for only enemy realities Ambriens of the former generations and certain inhabitants of the Courses of Chaos. The plots and treacheries are legion at the Amber court: never not to trust another Prince d' Ambre is the first thing which a young Prince learns. This element characteristic of the novels makes sometimes epic the parts, because the players gathered around the same table can have strongly divergent interests.

A first singularity of this play is that it makes it possible to the player to move in any conceivable shade , and this at any time, since Ambriens and the inhabitants of the “Courses of Chaos” have a control on the space times. All the possible worlds exist in Ambre, and their aspects depend on the infinity of different “proportionings” between Ordre and Chaos. The possibilities of this play are thus potentiellements infinite. One will be able to play there of the very different campaigns, according to the orientation chosen by the Master of play, the specific desires of the players, etc

Rules

Amber is practiced without any system of dice or random jets - contrary to the majority of the other roleplays. The players must refer to the decisions of the Master of play, which interprets their actions: the role play , or art to incarnate its character, is the Amber main motor. The magic is very diversified and the system without dice which governs it proves rather functional. A player beginning appreciating the role play will find his marks quickly while an experienced player will be able to make profitable the richness play to develop the scenarios in a way freer than in a roleplay with rules " figées".

With regard to the method of pulling of the characters, which freed it also from the use of the die, Erick Wujcik conceived a system of bidding where each player has a hundred points, that he will have to distribute between various attributes ( Force , Psyché , Combat and Endurance ). The points are also used to buy weapons, capacities, guards or Karma .

Example: for the attribute Combat , each player makes a starting setting, and the biddings continue until the abandonment of the one of the last two enchérisseurs. The player who will have the maximum of points in Combat will be able to beat all the other players on this attribute.

Generally, the parts of Amber rest especially on conflicts inter-shades or many conflicts between Ambre and the Cours of Chaos , because the characters of the players have physical and magic capacities much more important than those of the inhabitants of the Ombres (to which belonged Earth). With the wire of the parts, the quantified characteristics of the characters vary simple indicators with values referees: so most of the time, Ambre makes the good share with the dialogs, it may be which is born a conflict situation where a stable reference mark becomes necessary. The experiment of the players increasing, confidence between these and the Master of play becoming complete, these situations become rarer and the parts can proceed entirely without sheet of characters (or for simple memorandum).

Bonds

The books of rules are findable only of occasion, however a numerical version as well as the last number of Amberzine can be bought on the site of Phage Press:

A French and alternate version of the system of play:

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