Tell Maj about the Amber Diceless System

[dbb]

That's more me taking a poke at Wujcik than an actual objection. In actual power level, the difference between a starting Amber character with Advanced Pattern, and Oberon, is probably a lot smaller than the difference between a level 1 wizard and a level 20 wizard. It's just that if you play the game the way it tacitly (and sometimes outright) encourages you to play it, you are unlikely to ever realize this.

True story, related by a friend who was present for this: Wujcik's running an Amber game at a con. One of the players, using the Artifact/Creature creation rules, comes up with this pet attack dog who apparently has just about every combat advantage possible -- invulnerable, tireless stamina, the whole bag, paying a truckload of points for it. Player's character ends up on the wrong side of Julian, who (as readers of the series will remember) has this badass horse named Morgenstern. Somehow or other, the player gets it into his head that Morgenstern must be removed, so he orders the dog to attack Morgenstern.

Wujcik looks at the guy, claps his hands together, and says: "FLAT DOG!" Player tries to point out all the stuff the dog has. Wujcik: "Morgenstern is sniffing at the dog's corpse. What are you doing?"

Elder Amberites (the book characters) in a Wujcik game are, as far as I can tell from this and other accounts, are like features of the environment. You don't get to change them, and if you try, you find out that you suck. You can persuade them, you can avoid them, you can send someone else to deal with them, but if you are determined to knock heads with them, you just lose.

--d.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

Sweet, thanks for the links.

Reading the Merlin stuff isn't much of a priority on my list right now. But I'll still keep it in mind.