By Tony Mitton, reproduced with Permission
The PCs will be all the non-Corwin children of the Elders. (Except Martin. Oh, and Simeon). They can be any age from 17 to 26 and will have walked the Pattern at age eighteen - provided they swore loyalty to Corwin first (this is not necessary for a child of Benedict - Corwin doesn't push his luck in that direction).
You can choose your character's parent from the list below. Each parent may have more than one child. The bracketed figure is the points cost of each parent - being a child of Benedict means people are less likely to mess with you, while a child of Dierdre and Lucian won't be Corwin's favourite kid.
All the PCs will be Lords/Ladies. Favoured ones might be promoted to the rank of Duke/Duchess or - possible but very unlikely - Prince/Princess. This means that you'll be technically outranked not only by Corwin's children (oh, and Simeon) but also by some of the top-ranking Amberite nobility (even with them not being family members).
PCs will be built on 100 points plus Pattern. They must be the same sex as their player. The only two powers available at the start are Trump artistry (normal cost and powers - but the PC who has it must be a child of either Caine or Fiona) and Shadow Sorcery.
This last costs 5 points and gives largely unlimited power - dependent on Psyche - in shadows where magic works. When new to shadows it takes at least a week to fully attune (depends on Psyche). The user can attune to specific areas in a day (or more - depends on Psyche) for each area.
There are no advanced powers, no power words, no shapeshifting, no allies and the like and no items allowed. None of the advanced powers exist as in the rulebook, although it is possible through concentrated study to learn to do things out of the ordinary. A few of the Elders may have such abilities.
Points can be assigned freely to the 4 attributes, save that a) the minimum rank is Amber, and b) the points put into the best power may be no more than 50 greater than the points put into the second-best power. (This limitation is only for character creation - it ceases to hold when development points are assigned to improve attributes).
Psyche will be used to decide ability at shadow-shifting, trump use (and creation) and at sorcery. It is also empathy (including an element of lie detection), basic danger sense and the like. Psychic combat can only be initiated by trump (either by forcing a contact or by initiating combat during a contact), physical touch (skin to skin) or eye contact at five feet or less range (this may be longer for people with really high Psyches). There's a little more information on exactly how difficult this all is in the Appendix. After establishing mental domination the victor can hold the loser immobile, read surface thoughts or (only at higher levels of superiority than you're likely to possess initially) implant certain minor(ish) suggestions/commands. No mind-raping, -wiping etc. Users with a Psyche advantage will be able to pick up some surface thoughts when in ordinary trump links - the amount that is picked up depends on the range, the length of the contact and the level of advantage. Users must concentrate to do this - i.e. if you want to try, you have to tell me - and there's a chance that the person you're trumping will notice (if their psyche is better, the same or only slightly worse). Psyche is not intelligence. That's up to you.
[Non-family Amberite NPCs will usually have Amber plus Psyches. A number of the nobility will possess trumps - and trumps will exist of them. Anyone with Amber plus psyche can use trumps - albeit they're worse at making calls than family members with similar Psyches. All PCs will be given full trump decks on walking the Pattern and may have a few trumps before then.]
Strength is damage-dealing and -resistance and the ability to crush the life out of people once you've got a good grip on them.
Endurance measures the duration for which you can do just about anything, as well as healing speed.
Warfare is all forms of armed and unarmed combat and man-to-man tactics (defined as anything that doesn't involve command of troops). It is also basic quickness and reaction speed. It also covers all the traditional skills (such as game-playing, lockpicking and generalship) that Warfare usually details. But these can be SIGNIFICANTLY improved upon (see later).
My 'quick' combat-resolution method is to compare both Warfare advantages and Strength advantages. If he's vastly stronger than you then you won't beat him if you're only significantly faster than him.
Stuff is going to be just luck. Good stuff won't do you much good. Bad stuff won't completely screw you over until you get up to about five points worth.
Contributions will be completely different. If you do one or more contributions after a session then, at the start of the next session, you'll be awarded one development point. I will also award roughly two development points per session 'free' to everybody. Development points are pooled separately.
In addition, everyone has 10 'skill' points to spend. These can go on just about anything you like that isn't covered by the attributes. Examples would be Musicianship, creative writing, acting (although a high Psyche will make this pretty unnecessary), knowledge of technology, hunting, tracking, etc. These skills are largely up to the players to choose but will be pretty broad. I'll look at them and try to ensure they're reasonably balanced and all include what we both think they include.
The more points you spend on a skill, the better you will be. No more than 5 points can be spent initially on a given skill. This isn't any absolute measure, just an idea of how good people are relative to each other. Not putting any points into an area doesn't mean you're ignorant - just that you know less than someone who did put points in.
The exceptions to the above are skills that historically have been part of warfare. Here, your skill points will serve to increase your effective warfare somehow. I haven't worked out exactly how yet, but I think that you will probably be able to raise your warfare by up to a hundred points.
I should note that NONE of these warfare-related skills will ever help you directly in a sword fight or using a missile weapon etc.
During play, you can improve skills etc by practising them (i.e. I award extra points here when you hassle me to and if you can persuade me they're deserved). Having said that, I have two caveats: a) Do not hassle me DURING A GAME, and b) do not bore me by saying "here I am practising" all the time.
Three points about skills.
First, they were introduced just to round out the characters (and to avoid all the "I'm best at stamp collecting/writing poetry/piano playing" stupid arguments).
Second, and notwithstanding the above, they are a way for certain NPCs to be good at stuff like Generalship and Spymastery without being able to chop PCs in half. This applies especially to elder NPC generals. Ganelon would be a good example (assuming you subscribe to the "he's not Oberon" theory.
And I guarantee that he is NOT Oberon. Or Brand - probably).
I'm aiming for a game where you're not much better than non-family Amberites your own age and not vastly worse than the Elders. The maximum point scores NPCs will possess are shown below. The 'maximum difference' number is again the maximum difference between the highest and second-highest attribute at the start. All NPCs will improve at an average rate of 1 point per session. (The administration on this will undoubtedly kill me).
The game will initially be set almost exclusively in Amber. All PCs must have grown up there (at least until aged 16 or so) and will have known each other well. In fact, they'll all have formed a 'gang'. The first session (maybe two) will cover a number of short episodes played from an early age.
I intend things to be episodic, not serial, and will start by running a number of distinct scenarios. These all have a fairly high investigatory content and a couple of them are some of the nastiest things I have ever written. You have been warned. Having said that, a 'happy ending' (well, sort of) is almost always possible. (You may not believe me on this after playing the first one).
The genre is gritty, perhaps darkly cinematic (with the odd heroic touch). Certificate fifteen. If there is any filmic inspiration we're talking modern noir rather than fantasy. Say, The Usual Suspects, The Last Seduction, Red Rock West.
The episodic intention requires player co-operation. First, I would very strongly discourage PCs from keeping secrets from any/all other PCs. If you do keep secrets I will be annoyed - part of the 'gang' and growing up together setting is to discourage this. Second, I will make little or no effort to get PCs together. If I introduce a PC to a plot/mission/storyline then I fully expect that PC to include the others. Do not be selfish. Third, players who insist on having their PC go off to talk to NPCs (eg parents) privately on a regular basis will not be popular with me. I don't mind this from time to time but - in general - will describe what happens rather than role-play it out. There are exceptions to this, and one-on-one roleplaying with NPCs will occur. But it will normally be initiated by me. Similarly, if you believe that another player is hogging the limelight, please do not try to compete with them. Instead, ask them not to or ask me to stop them.
There is, of course, a difference between a secret and a stupid secret. A secret is something like Lorraine telling you that her lover Ganelon is plotting against the throne. It has an effect on the game. A stupid secret is like "my favourite colour is mauve". I do not care if you keep this sort of secret even from me. Some secrets (such as "I'm pathetically - or hopefully - in love with Flora") are indeterminate. They're probably unimportant - but there might come a time when they're not.
I've already said you will all have grown up in Amber. Other than this, you are free to write any background you want - provided a) you understand that I may refuse to allow it, b) that if I do allow it I may later ignore some or all of it on a whim (well, hopefully not a whim - I would hope that I will successfully exclude at least 99% of unworkable backgrounds at the very start by saying "NO!". But if I prove to have made a mistake and let a background through that proves - in my opinion - to be bad for the game, I reserve the right to get it changed), and c) it is no more than a hundred words long.
Basically I want short, simple backgrounds.
Now, it may prove that you pick a background that you later decide you hate or is unworkable (or come up with something you prefer). There are three things to do here. First, live with it. Second, change the background. I'm perfectly happy to go along. Third, add something. This works considerably better if there are 'blank' areas in your character's background that can be filled in this way. When creating the background (or telling me) just leave a section empty. Then you can decide later that something you want happened. (This is a semi-televisual or cinematic thing. We never find out everything about a character when we're first introduced to them).
(To be pedantic, I exclude character description and attitudes from the hundred word limit).
Instead of long backgrounds, I'm going to combine the episodic play-in from an early age with a new (at least to me) idea.
Everybody may list up to three things they want to be in the game. This can be as broad or as specific as you wish. Some examples - all perfectly valid - are:
I won't guarantee to fulfil every desire - but will have a go. The more reasonable the desire, the quicker it will (probably) be fulfilled. When the list of (15) desires has been produced I will circulate it - anonymously - round all the players. Every player can then exercise one veto. This veto can be applied to one of the desires on the list or cover something totally different (note that some of the desires listed above - such as the last one - are 'negative' desires and so effectively like vetoes).
In addition, then everybody can submit AS MANY DESIRES THEY LIKE for things that occur during the play-in session(s). They should probably be listed in order (and/or by ascending age of your PC). I will try to fit some/all of them in. I may fail.