Amber™

The Cycle of Amber, written by Roger Zelazny lasts on ten novels. In fact, Amber is the main world and the shadows of Amber are thousands of parallel dimensions. By subtle thougts, the Princes of Amber can walk through these worlds. But this is not the main story of Amber because the cycle deals with intrigues between the members of the royal family, each one trying to deceive each other. The connected Role-Playing Game is similar since the Players are sons grandsons of a Prince and must intrigue first to discover who is his father or mother! The resolution of actions is done without dice. This is the great originality of this Roleplaying Game. Magic is divided in two categories : Trump Artistry and Pattern Imprint. trumps Artistry consists in drawing people or locations on a card. By concentration, the drawer can speak or go the place where the represented person is. The Pattern Imprint is a global manipulation of the world.

Our Opinion

Advantages :

When a Roleplaying Game is based upon a novel, the Game Master has got many references and that's a great advantage. In Amber, the Game Master can play his scenarios wherever he wants, even on Earth because the Earth is just one of the numerous shadows of Amber. The major difficulty is to prevent the Players from leaving the world. The Magic System is quiet interesting because totally different than any other Roleplaying Game.

Defects :

With Ambers,  designers tried to create a new rule-system without dice and a bare Character sheet, it's globally a failure! Indeed, the Combat Scores are fixed and consequently, ends of fights are without surprise (the greatest score wins!). Then the Roleplaying Game loses the excitement linked to the rolls. Besides, Court Intrigues are fun during three or four scenarios, but after, it becomes boring. In the novels, the Princes intrigues to intrigue and in the reality, an intrigue is done only for a specific goal. as a conclusion, we'll say that it was a nice try, but not enough for a viable Rolelaying Game.