Use of Powers in Amber
So I’ve been thinking about what constitutes excessive use of powers in an Amber game, what constitutes “flashy” use of powers, whether some powers are inherently more flashy than others and so on.
I think this all partly comes out of the fact that I’m used to rather (read extremely) paranoid sorts of Amber games in which everyone is very suspicious of everyone else and doesn’t want to overplay their hand or demonstrate how much they’re capable of. This is sometimes a little more confusing because as a player you know better what the other players are capable of than you do as a character, but that’s sort of a different matter. In any case, Amberites often keep their powers somewhat hidden. Well, some of their powers, in any case. Certainly, in our game, it is no secret that Rosarian is very skilled at crafting and forging items of great power. Nor is it a secret that Tristifer is very strong, only slightly less strong than Gerard. Howevever, it has not been publicized in, for instance, that Dominick is a Trump Artist, nor is it widely known, although it is not precisely hidden, that Tristifer is a shapechanger. And this has led me to wonder why exactly this is. It is in some ways his defining characteristic. I mean, it’s obviously something I’ve sunk a lot of points into, looking at it in those terms. So I’ve tried to come up with a few options.
I’m not sure whether I just feel like there’s ought to be some sort of general stigma in Amber associated with the idea of someone being able to change their shape more easily than other people change their clothes. This is probably a bit inspired by the extreme prejudice there was against shapeshifters in the Hard Lessons game I played in a while back. Maybe it’s my natural paranoia that means that I don’t want everyone to know just how much Tristifer is capable of. On the other hand, Tristifer is not generally a character that is particularly good at keeping secrets. Not to say that he blabs openly about everything and anything, just that he’s not the head of the secret police nor does he have any particular desire to be that.
Another option falls back on one of the first things I was instructed to read when I started roleplaying in an Amber game, but I’m not sure whether I’m sort of taking this too far. This article on Roleplaying An Amber character is probably also the source for the above-mentioned points, now that I think about it. But it basically says that you shouldn’t use your powers unless you have to, as I read it. And Amberites seldom have to use their powers, when you get right down to it. So although you could shapeshift into an eagle and fly around as a faster means of transport, it doesn’t seem to be the thing to do.
Now here’s a somewhat interesting contradiction, because people will use Sorcery and Trumps for that sort of ‘mundane’ purpose without it being considered overly flashy. Using a trump to go from the courtyard to your bedroom, for instance, or trumping someone rather than going to find them is pretty standard procedure in a lot of games. So why does it seem so much more flashy and just sort of… wrong to use shapeshifting for mundane purposes? I can’t really figure it out. Because I definitely have some sort of aversion to it, and I don’t know whether it’s a good or a bad thing.
You’ve got some interesting points there, Dan. I hope that I haven’t horribly scarred you for life with my Amber campaigns.
Here’s a question for you: What is the time factor involved in using Shapeshifting for mundane purposes?
In most cases, using Trump or Sorcery to accomplish mundane tasks is very frontloaded. All of the effort has already been done in advance, either making the Trump or hanging the spell.
Most games don’t allow a shapeshifter to frontload their abilities, so everything has to be done on the spot and, generally, by the time you’ve turned into an eagle to fly up to your room you could have just walked there.
If a Trump artist or sorcerer had to spend ten or twenty minutes doing the work to get up to their room every time, then it would be easier for them to just walk up there too.
That’s my thinking, anyway.
I don’t think of it as being scarred. I just think of it as being used to a particular style of game. I guess I see Hard Lessons as the most “Amber”-like Amber-game I’ve played in. Whatever that means.
As far as the time scale for Shapeshifting, I’m not really sure. It’s something I have to talk to JP about. Although since I haven’t really been using it for much of anything other than healing people it hasn’t really come up. I have done a little bit of speedy changes, although they were pretty subtle. In the most recent session we rescued a woman and she had been imprisoned and shackled with some very heavy inertial dampener wristbands and a collar around her neck. I made her wrists a different shape so they’d come off her wrists, and it seems that I could do this very quickly in a combat situation. I took a little more time to get the collar off by deforming her head in that I waited until I’d got her back to the Castle before trying that.
Anyway, I’m trying to figure out whether those suggestions on how to roleplay an Amber character really are universal or not. They seem far more first series than second, for instance, at least as far as Power use goes.
I think that Tristifer probably could use Shapeshifting quickly if he needed to, since he is ranked second-highest in Endurance in Amber, after Corwin. If he really has to push himself, he can probably do stuff quickly. Since he sees a large part of his job as being Random’s bodyguard, taking Random out of danger would be the sort of situation in which he’d be willing to really push himself and shift quickly.
On a side-note, I really didn’t realize that the amount I’d put in his stats would rank him so highly, to be honest.
One thing about speed of shapeshifting is that the base ability of shapeshifting is “Automatic shapeshifting”, or hulking out, basically. So I guess that will happen pretty quickly, I would imagine. This is basically that I’ll turn into something resistant to heat if I’m put, unconscious, near something really hot, or that I’ll grow gills if I’m put underwater, or whatever.
Tristifer’s level of shapeshifting is pretty fast. Given his skill (the levels of finesse, adaptability and scope of his Shaping ability) and related attributes (Strength, Psyche, and Endurance), shifting his shape is indeed a viable combat ability. Things like narrowing someone’s wrists are a relatively easy task, when the person is incapable of resisting.