This is a wonderful RPG.
The Good:
- There are no limits to who or what your character can be.
- There are no limits on the action that your character may enjoy.
- The system is easy to learn, easy to change and very resilient.
- You don't need to know the Amber books, but it helps.
- Character Generation is just as much fun as the rest of gameplay.
- You can be as good or as evil as you like because this setting and the system makes it easy for the GM to cope with it.
The Bad:
- The game can be hosed by someone with far more knowledge and savvy than the rest of the players.
- It tends to encourage far more backbiting than is healthy for any RPG.
- If you're not there for character generation, you'll never be better than everyone else at anything. (This assumes that you'll be let in at all, and most Amber GMs I know don't do that.)
- Someone like the guys in "Knights of the Dinner Table" can run amok and it would take railroading with bullet trains to stop them.
- Unless the GM is more sadistic than the worst Paranoia GM, it's damn near impossible to separate PCs from their items. This allows players to create PCs who couldn't move through Shadow unassisted, and their high stats make it impossible to take the items away without another round of railroading.
The Ugly:
- There is a major fantasy bias. Players who move away from straight fantasy will have problems reconciling their assumptions with how it is in Amber. (Chthulu is nothing to an Amberite.)
- It is impossible to surpass your PCs' elders in ability. Don't even bother.
- Unless you're knowledgable and savvy, you'll never win a fight when your stats don't hand you the victory. (Remember, there are no dice or any other randomizer involved.)
- There is no such thing as a viable Amber campaign that doesn't involved a direct (and usually personal) threat to the PCs *or* a plot to destroy the whole of existance somehow.
The end result? Sure, it's a great game. Just don't go into it without reading Sun Tzu and The Prince first.
Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)
