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TempusCCK
2009-01-07, 04:47 AM
So, my friend has expressed a great amount of interest in playing an Amber game, from Roger Zelazny's excellent series. So, naturally, I looked into the system itself and decided that I thoroughly didn't like it, however, what I do like is the magic system, and I'm thinking about porting it into a D&D game based on the setting...

For those of you who don't know Amber or the Diceless game, the magic system works like this- You have very simple spells that can be cast instantly, if you buy them with points. Since I'm doing away with the points altogether, I'll probably just make it skills or a feat. Everyone can use these minor spells. Major spells have a particular set of rules where you must have a target, the area of Shadow and the resident magic identified, and other such things that function as "lynchpins" and the number of Lynchpins left out determines the casting time of the spell.

The ability to cast spells is determined by psyche and endurance, roughly Will and Constitution in the D&D system.

Be aware, this would be a very customized game, with very customized enemy sets, nothing that would be in the MM applies, obviously caster classes would be cut significantly and saves might be negated all together from the system, depending on how I work it.

So, I'm calling on you, Old School Gamers, if you know the system and the setting, help me out...

Riffington
2009-01-07, 05:34 AM
So are you playing Amberites (but want a dice-based system), or are you trying to play D&D with a new magic system?

bosssmiley
2009-01-07, 05:41 AM
Diceless? DICELESS!?! What blasphemy is this? :smallconfused: ( :smallamused: )

Seriously. The Amber RPG is great for ideas, even if you never play the game as is. It has some (very slight) elements in common with the old BECMI D&D Immortals system. I'm not sure whether you might want to look up the latter as an example of an immortals manipulating the lesser worlds, multi-scalar magic system in D&D.

Kurald Galain
2009-01-07, 07:06 AM
I'm somewhat confused by your proposal. The "power words" (which are bought individually) in the DRP are the one thing from those books that doesn't have any relation to the Zelazny series. There's also several equivalent mechanics in D&D because they're so simple, but the conflict is that everything in D&D is strongly defined mechanically, and everything in DRP by defintion isn't.

So what is it you're trying to accomplish here?

TempusCCK
2009-01-07, 02:17 PM
I want to use those mechanics for magic, with a really really altered D&D based system, and I want some opinions on how this might be achieved.

The power words are just kind of neat, what I want is to integrate the real spellcasting system, with the lynchpins, the "hanging" of spells and everything.
Mechanics are what you make of them, and I'm just wondering if there is anyone out there with some prior experience with the systems or the books who might be able to offer some advice.

@Bosssmiley- Thanks, I'll look into that if I'm hard for ideas and can get my hands on a copy. These old books are difficult to drudge up.