From: ericg@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (Eric Chris Garrison)
Subject: Re: Amber: Question
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 14:44:07 GMT

In article <davidc.718433181@mardo> davidc@cs.uwa.oz.au (David Cake) writes:
>	If another Amberite didn't wish to be found, and you used the Pattern
>to send you there, I am of the opinion that it would work, barring extremely
>clever use of powers by the other Amberite. However, is it smart?
>	As others have pointed out, you end up weakened, you arrive 
>unprepared. The most likely outcome as a GM is to take the character away,
>tell them what has happened (most likely capture) and tell the rest of the
>PCs that X has disappeared. Now they have a good reason to work harder at 
>finding out where the hiding place is by conventional means.
>	Then again, it might work. Half the fun of role-playing is big gambles
>like this. And using unknown trumps, and accepting unknown trump calls, and 
>entering unknown passages.

My opinion is that it should not work.  I hate to use the books as
an example, but several things could have been short-circuited if
that sort of thing worked...

- All Corwin would have had to do is get ONE gun with Avalon jewelers'
  rouge bullets in it, walked the pattern in Rebma, zap himself to
  Eric, and weakened or no, he could shoot Eric before Eric could
  draw his sword.

- To rescue Brand, all Corwin and Random would have to do would be to
  have one of them use the Pattern to zap to Brand, while the other 
  stays in Trump contact and pull them both through.  Oh, yeah,
  they'd have to bring bolt cutters too.

- After Dara walked the Pattern, if Corwin really wanted to chase her 
  down, all he'd have to do is walk the Pattern and zap to her (again,
  with a gun to back him up, which he had at the time).

- When Corwin first turned up 'missing', all anyone who was really
  looking for him would have to do would be to walk the Pattern
  and zap themselves to him.  Since practically all the family was
  looking, you'd think at least one of the Amberites would think
  of that.  Of course, some had reasons not to find him, but I think
  Benedict or Gerard would have tried it.  In fact, Oberon was
  looking for him and didn't do that...

All book examples aside, I think if I were GMing an Amber campaign
I'd disallow that sort of thing, since it makes it near impossible
for a character to hide from other characters, and NPC villians
would be in the same fix, which could really hose some plots.

GM: "OK, Lysifer tells you Winona was captured by a masked stranger
   from her chambers.  What are you going to do?"

Mervyn: (yawns) "I walk the Pattern while Lloyd here stays in Trump
   contact, and ask the Pattern to send me to her. I grab her before
   anything can happen, and Lloyd pulls us back."

GM: "Uh, case closed."

Mervyn: "Now what?"

GM: "Well, that was the whole night's mystery..."

You get the picture.  So the example is weak, it's just that it can
throw a real monkey-wrench in a GM's plan to have the characters have
such an ability.  

Eric

-- 
Eric Chris Garrison			      UCS Support Center
ericg@ucs.indiana.edu			      Indiana University
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc