Games - Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game

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	Games - Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game

The Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game is a role-playing game created and written by Erick Wujcik, set in the fictional universe created by author Roger Zelazny for his Chronicles of Amber. The game is unusual in that no dice are used in resolving conflicts or player actions; instead a simple system of comparative ability, and narrative description of the action by the players and game referee, is used to determine how situations are resolved.

Amber DRPG was created in the 1980s, and is much more focused on relationships and roleplaying than most of the roleplaying games of that era. Most Amber characters are members of the two ruling classes in the Amber multiverse, and are much more advanced in matters of strength, endurance, psyche, warfare and sorcery than ordinary beings. This means that the only individuals who are capable of opposing a character are from his or her family, a fact that leads to much suspicion and intrigue.

History

The original 256-page game book was published in 1991 by Phage Press, covering material from the first five novels (the "Corwin Cycle") and some details - sorcery and the Logrus - from the remaining five novels (the "Merlin Cycle"), in order to allow players to roleplay characters from the Courts of Chaos. Some details were changed slightly to allow more player choice - for example, players can be full Trump Artists without having walked the Pattern or the Logrus, which Merlin says is impossible; and players' psychic abilities are far greater than those shown in the books.

A 256-page companion volume, Shadow Knight, was published in 1993. The supplemental rule book includes the remaining elements from the Merlin novels, such as Broken Patterns, and allows players to create Constructs such as Merlin's Ghostwheel. The book presents the second series of novels not as additions to the series' continuity but as an example of a roleplaying campaign with Merlin, Luke, Julia, Jurt and Coral as the PCs. The remainder of the book is a colection of essays on the game, statistics for the new characters and an update of the older ones in light of their appearance in the second series, and (perhaps most usefully for GMs) plot summaries of each of the ten books. The book includes some material from the short story The Salesman's Tale, and some unpublished material from Prince of Chaos, notably Coral's pregnancy by Merlin.

A third book, Rebma, was promised and pre-orders were taken, but it never arrived, leading to accusations that it was vaporware. Wujcik also expressed a desire to create a book giving greater detail to the Courts of Chaos. However, the publishing rights to the Amber DRPG games were acquired in 2004 by Guardians of Order, who took over sales of the game and announced their intention to release a new edition of the game, but since their restructuring no further news of the new edition has been forthcoming. The two existing books have been made available as PDF downloads (see External links).

Setting

The game is set in the multiverse described in Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. The first book assumes that gamemasters will set their campaigns after the patternfall war; that is, after the end of the fifth book in the series, The Courts of Chaos, but uses material from the following books to describe those parts of Zelazny's cosmology that were featured there in more detail. Briefly, the Amber multiverse consists of Amber, a city at one pole of the universe wherein is found the Pattern, the symbol of Order; The Courts of Chaos, an assembly of worlds at the other pole where can be found the Logrus, the manifestation of Chaos, and the Abyss, the source of all reality; and Shadow, the collection of all possible universes (shadows) between and around them. Inhabitants of either pole can use one or both of the Pattern and the Logrus to travel through Shadow.

It is assumed that players will portray the children of the main characters from the books - the ruling family of Amber, known as the Elder Amberites - or a resident of the Courts. However, since some feel that being the children of the main characters is too limiting, it is fairly common to either start with King Oberon's death before the book begins and roleplay the Elder Amberites as they vie for the throne; or to populate Amber from scratch with a different set of Elder Amberites. The former option is one presented in the book; the latter is known in the Amber community as an "Amethyst" game. A third option is to have the players portray Corwin's children, in an amber-like city built around Corwin's pattern; this is sometimes called an "Argent" game, since one of Corwin's heraldic colours is Silver.

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