Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game

Erick Wujcik wanted to design a role-playing game based on Amber for West End Games, and they agreed to look at his work. Wujcik intended to integrate the feel of the Amber setting from the novels into a role-playing game, and playtested his system for a few months at the Michigan Gaming Center where he decided to try it out as a diceless game. West End Games was not interested in a diceless role-playing game, so Wujcik acquired the role-playing game rights to Amber and offered the game to R. Talsorian Games, until he withdrew over creative differences. Wujcik then founded Phage Press, and published Amber Diceless Role-playing in 1991.[3]^{: 111–112}

The original 256-page game book[4] 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.

Cover of Shadow Knight

A 256-page companion volume, Shadow Knight,[5] was published in 1993. This 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 collection 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 The book includes some material from the short story "The Salesman's Tale," and some unpublished material cut from Prince of Chaos, notably Coral's pregnancy by Merlin.

Both books were translated into French and published by Jeux Descartes in 1994 and 1995.

A third book, Rebma, was promised. Cover art was commissioned[6] and pre-orders were taken, but it was never published. Wujcik also expressed a desire to create a book giving greater detail to the Courts of Chaos.[7] 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. However, no new edition was released before Guardians of Order went out of business in 2006. The two existing books are now out-of-print, but they have been made available as PDF downloads.[8]

In June 2007 a new publishing company, headed by Edwin Voskamp and Eric Todd, was formed with the express purpose of bringing Amber DRPG back into print. The new company is named Diceless by Design.[9]

In May 2010, Rite Publishing secured a license from Diceless by Design to use the rules system with a new setting in the creation of a new product to be written by industry and system veteran Jason Durall. The project Lords of Gossamer & Shadow (Diceless) was funded via Kickstarter in May 2013.[10] In Sept 2013 the project was completed, and on in Nov 2013 Lords of Gossamer and Shadow (Diceless) [11] was released publicly in full-color Print and PDF, along with additional supplements and continued support.

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. 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 or end 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.

In the June 1992 edition of Dragon (Issue 182), both Lester Smith and Allen Varney published reviews of this game.

• Smith admired the professional production qualities of the 256-page rulebook, noting that because it was Smyth sewn in 32-page signatures, the book would always lie flat when opened. However, he found the typeface difficult to read, and the lack a coherent hierarchy of rules increased the reading difficulty as well. Smith admired the Attribute Auction and point-buy system for skills, and the focus on roleplaying in place of dice-rolling, but he mused that all of the roleplaying would mean "GMs have to spend quite a bit of time and creative effort coming up with wide-reaching plots for their players to work through. Canned, linear adventures just won't serve." He concluded by stating that the diceless system is not for every gamer: "As impressed as I am with the game, do I think it is the 'end-all' of role-playing games, or that diceless systems are the wave of the future? I'll give a firm “No” on both counts... However, I certainly do think that the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game is destined for great popularity and a niche among the most respected of role-playing game designs."[13]
• Allen Varney thought the "Attribute Auction" to be "brilliant and elegant", but he wondered if character advancement was perhaps too slow to keep marginal players interested. He also believed that being a gamemaster would be "tough work. Proceed with caution." Varney recommended that players need some familiarity with the first five "Amber" novels by Zelazny. He concluded, "The intensity of the Amber game indicates [game designer Erik ] Wujcik is on to something. When success in every action depends on the role and not the roll, players develop a sense of both control and urgency, along with creativity that borders on mania."[13]

In Issue 65 of Challenge, Dirk DeJong had a good first impression of the game, especially the information provided about the Amber family members and their various flaws and strengths. However he found that "The biggest problem with this endeavor, and its downfall, is the nature of the conflict systems. First, they are diceless, really diceless, and don't involve any sort of random factors at all, aside from those that you can introduce by roleplaying them out. Thus, if you get involved with a character who's better than you at sword-fighting, even if only by one point out of 100, you're pretty much dead meat, unless you can act your way out." DeJong also disagreed with the suggestion that if the referee and players disagreed with a rule to simply remove it from the game. "I thought the entire idea of using rules and random results was to prevent the type of arguments that I can see arising from this setup." DeJong concluded on an ambivalent note, saying, "If you love Zelazny and the Amber series, jump on it, as this is the premier sourcebook for running an Amber campaign. [...] Personally, I just can't get turned on by a system that expects me to either be content with a simple subtraction of numbers to find out who won, or to describe an entire combat blow by blow, just so that I can attempt some trick to win."[14]

Loyd Blankenship reviewed Amber in Pyramid #2 (July/Aug., 1993), and stated that "Amber is a valuable resource to a GM - even if he isn't running an Amber game. For gamers who have an aspiring actor or actress lurking within their breast, or for someone running a campaign via electronic mail or message base, Amber should be given serious consideration."[15]

Despite the game's out-of-print status, a thriving convention scene exists supporting the game.[16] Amber conventions, known as Ambercons, are held yearly in Massachusetts, Michigan, Portland (United States), Milton Keynes (England), Belfast (Northern Ireland) and Modena, Italy. Additionally, Phage Press published 12 volumes of a dedicated Amber DRPG magazine called Amberzine. Some Amberzine issues are still available from Phage Press.

• Ranne, G.E. (July–August 1992). "Ambre". Casus Belli (70): 22–24. Review (in French)

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