When I was at university – a very long time ago now – a rather interesting role-playing game came out: the Amber Diceless RPG. Based on the works of Roger Zelazny, it allowed the players to play Machievellian demi-god-like characters, who would spend a fair amount of time scheming against each other as well as dealing with the latest threat to whatever they held dear.

The campaign we set up lasted about three years (of which I played in a couple of), and involved from 6-13 players each session. We swapped over GMs throughout, as the game was *very* GM-intensive, and some sessions would have a couple of co-GMs just to deal with action in several places at once.

More than any other RPG, Amber taught me about story-telling and role-playing, and about how dangerous DM Fiat is. D&D has always been my first love, and I’ve very rarely played Amber since my university years, but the games of Amber I played and ran have informed my D&D play since.

On occasion, I get out the Amber books and run a Throne War – a one session game where the player characters attempt to overcome each other in a contest for the Throne of Amber. I’ve done it twice in the past decade, and I’ll be running another such session tonight (in celebration of my birthday). I’ve got 5 or 6 players lined up for the action, and it should be a lot of fun. Unlike many other RPGs, Amber rather likes having more players, just because it causes more conflict, plotting, cabals and the like. Difficult to DM well, and the way I run Amber today will not be the same way as how I ran it 17 years ago.

Although I learnt a lot about DMing from Amber, running multiple D&D games for the past decade has also left its mark.

Back when I first ran Amber, it was in a very sandbox, freeform style; the players would drive the action. When I ran Serenity recently, I was more structured about the action: dividing the adventure into acts and scenes that I thought would occur. Though I was amenable for the players running off the rails, I gave them a lot more guidance as to how the adventure could unfold.

So, for tonight’s session, although I expect it’ll be mostly player-driven, I’ll have a back-up plan for structuring the action. 

In addition, I’ll be keeping the players (perhaps not the characters) in one group, so there won’t be so much “secret” knowledge… which is entirely due to me not wanting players to get bored while waiting for their turn to come around with the DM and just sitting in a corner. Secret plans and splitting up the group? Yeah, leads to some boring times. Better to have everyone there all the time, being entertained by the plotting (and failures) of the others. There’ll be some secret information, certainly, but not at the expense of engagement.

At least, that’s the plan. Whether it will come to pass is another thing entirely!