"I trusted him like a brother, that is to say, not at all."

Edwin Voskamp and Amber, a Diceless RPG

Introduction

Amber is a Diceless Role Playing Game based upon the two series of five books that are commonly referred to by the same name: the Amber series by Roger Zelazny. Erick Wujcik like the books so much, he didn't want them to end and designed a diceless roleplaying game in the Amber setting, called Amber. By design philosophy he adds to a game only what is needed, and found he didn't need nice. Unfortunately no gaming company agreed with him, so he started his own company, that does just Amber stuff: Phage Press. It published a book centered around the second series, called ShadowKnight and a magazine, called Amberzine. Amberzine has 9 issues out, a tenth is in the works, as is a sourcebook on Rebma, due out in March. Also a book on Sorcery is undergoing serious thought.

Apart from the publishing, Phage Press organizes AmberCon, every year around the middle to the end of March. It's a small con, with a family feeling, playing in people's hotel suites. It is an excellent con if you like roleplaying. Of course it is exclusively Amber gaming.

There's a mailing list run by Sol Foster: here's the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) To subscribe to the list, send e-mail to majordomo@logrus.org with 'subscribe amber firstname lastname' in the body of the e-mail.

My Amber History

I played a lot of D & D in the Netherlands, then A D & D, back in England. When I came to the States I was looking for a good roleplaying group, but couldn't find a GM that I liked, having been spoiled by a really good GM in England, Nick Homden. I then saw the Amber sourcebook and bought it. A bit later I ran into a few folks that were about to run their second Amber game. I played in that and was hooked. After that I started my own campaign, several short games, and went to AmberCon. I think it was Ambercon 5, but it might have been 4. This year (1997) we're up to AmberCon 10, where I'll be running the ongoing Amber campaign 'Careful What You Wish For' and the ongoing Underworld Test-Play Campaign (more a sequence of loosely connected scenarios with recurring and new characters).

Sadly, the Play By E-Mail game run by Chris Bickford, called The Second Coming, died a long time ago. I played Garwyn, son of Llewella, and, at the campaign's demise, Regent of Rebma.

I also play in two campaigns at AmberCon:

1. ShadowKnight by Erick Wujcik, in which I play Psyche-monster Zen, born (in September 1993 in San Fransisco) in the center of a Broken Pattern without memory.
2. Iconography by Felicia Sutton, in which I play my oldest, most dear character, Caeleron. Caeleron is close to my heart, a son of Oberon's elder brother and not descended from the Unicorn, but a Beyonder rather, with some unusual limitations. He's also a through-and-through, true Amberite, with a feudal Shogunate Japanese attitude, and a blast to play.
3. Honor They Father and Mother by Ben Ekdahl and Mike Deneweth, characterized as a 'high-powered soap opear', in which I took over the one-time eldest son and Warfare monster Aaron. After a few goes I got a good feeling for him when he became a Borg, then swapped places with their God.

At AmberCon I have run an Amber campaign: 'Be Careful What You Wish For', a far future Amber, where Chaos won the war and executed the traitor Brand. Amberites are a despised second-class citizenry and the Amber Royal Family is hunted throughout Shadow. It became defunct after a few tries, but it was great fun, very, very weird.

At AmberCon US, I run an Underworld campaign, which is more a set of linked mission-based sessions with a number of recurring characters, and some new ones. We have played sessions of this "campaign" at GenCon and, this year, for the first time, at AmberCon North

I have played a number of characters, but here are my loved ones:

• Caeleron, son of Melgen, Elder brother to Oberon in Barry's face-to-face campaign "The Last Chance".
• Vlam, son of Brand in Bernie Hsiung's excellent on-line Dark Amber campaign "Blood's Price".
• Garwyn, son of Llewella in Chris Bickford's on-line campaign "The Second Chance". He was actually created as he stands now for the first instance of it.
• Zen, ? of ? in Erick Wujcik's campaign "Shadowknight". He's not what I expected, then again, with 52 points of Bad Stuff it's hard to expect anything in one of Erick's games! He started out naked, without any memory, in the center of a Broken Pattern. An omen, if there ever was one. Playing Zen is the most challenging roleplaying I've ever done and an interesting study in problem solving vs. memory.
  He may not be anyone's descendant; Fiona claims "a short time ago you were not human". He's not a spikard, but he can turn himself into a ring or a sword.

I have run a number of campaigns:

• All Is Well, a face-to-face campaign I ran up till a year ago.
• Careful What You Wish For, a face-to-face campaign I've been running at AmberCon for three years running, with Chris King as co-GM.
• The Second Chance. an Play By E-Mail campaign that I played in. When Chris Bickford, the GM, stopped it to look for a job, I took it over for a few months. It was a lot of work and I enjoyed playing in it more than running it, so I hired Chris and convinced him to start up the game again: it is The Second Chance.

And currently I run an Amber campaign, up to two Saturdays (afternoon, evening, night) with seven players:

• Pattern Genesis, a face-to-face campaign I've been running for over a year that started with Dworkin waking up some of his family members (aunt, sister, Oberon's twin sister and younger brother) and they later found out he forgot to mention he took the Serpent's Eye and most of the Courts of Chaos' crown jewels..

I have run a few of one-shot games at Ambercon:

• The Beast That Is The World, a one-shot based upon the background of "All Is Well", with one of many possible outcomes.
• Guns Of Avalon, a.k.a. In Difficult Ground, Devise Strategems, a Classic Amber, set after the end of the second book of The Corwin Chronicles.
• Pattern, What Pattern, a Classic Amber, set near the very begin of the first series in Amber, in which the players are children of the Elders, brought to Amber by Eric 'to protect them'.

I have got a few ideas under development:

• A Cross-Shadow Internet, a serial campaing universe reminiscent of the early days of the Internet, but set in post-first series Amber in which Merlin, and a number of other Trump artists from Amber and the Courts, have built a first generation Internet between the Courts of Chaos and Amber.
• Mean Guns Of Avalon, a Throne War to end all Throne Wars, based on the movie Mean Guns.
• To Reign In Hell, a Classic Amber, based upon Steven Brust's "To Reign In Hell" and of course its predecessor John Milton's "Paradise Lost".