Wednesday Night Amber
The gaming actually started Wednesday evening with a session of Erick Wujcik’s Amber game; this is based on the Amber novels of Roger Zelazny. Amber is a game that stresses roleplaying above all else; as such it can be very straining and demanding of its players. The session this night revolved around the killing of one of the elder inhabitants, Julian, of Amber by another, Bleys. A tribunal was held to determine the victor’s guilt or innocence, and assign appropriate punishment if necessary. The question involved many aspects: the fact that fight was actually a duel, the relative skills of the two duelists (one, the victor, was much more proficient than the other), under what terms was the duel performed, what happened after one received a fatal but not immediately lethal blow, and what the mental state of both combatants possessed.
A group of about twenty players gathered in Erick’s suite, playing their characters (I played Damarian) for over four hours before finally determining that, according to the principles of the kingdom, dueling was not illegal and the results were unimpeachable. The vote was close, though, 10–6; four players could not vote because they represented the Courts of Chaos, Amber’s traditional enemy. I voted to convict Bleys of murder, reasoning that the killing of one of the elders of Amber weakened the kingdom as a whole, leaving it less defended against its enemies, and that such could not be tolerated; I advocated imprisonment as a punishment, so as to not weaken the kingdom by any further bloodshed. Excellent performances were presented by the man playing the prosecutor who was also the son of the deceased, the consultant to the tribunal, the defendant, and the principal investigator. A fine time was had by all present, as evidenced by the hearty discussion of the results and the question of morality or lack there of evidenced in the milieu.
The game Wednesday night proved to be a precursor of the entire convention: every day involved some aspect of Amber. Thursday evening I ran an Amber scenario, Friday I attended the Amber gamemasters workshop and promotional party, Saturday I met the other GEnie Amber players for the first time at the convention, and Sunday the next chapter of the continuing adventures of the GenCon Amber players continued. This GenCon was most definitely Ambercon as far as I was concerned.
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