My take on MCing Amber is as follows. This is intended for an Amber hack using the AW system, but I see no problem using this with Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game
Replace "There is no status quo" with "The status quo can always be threatened".
Replace "There is never enough" with "Someone always wants what you have".
The MC's Agenda is ...
Make the Amber multiverse seem real
Make the player characters' lives not boring
Play to find out what happens
Always Say ...
What the principles demand
What the rules demand
What prep demands
What honesty demands
The Principles are ...
Make Amber seem real on top of being Real, solid and constant
Make Chaos seem Real yet mutable, solid yet chaotic
Make Shadow seem real yet ephemeral, vivid and varied
Address yourself to the characters, not the players
Make your move, but misdirect
Make your move, but never speak its name
Look at shadow and the things from shadow with an eye toward their eventual destruction
Name everyone, make everyone a person
Ask provocative questions and build on the answers
Respond with frequent contrariness and interference, and with intermittent blessings
Remember that threats are threats, but that threats are not all they are
Be a fan of the player characters
Think offscreen as well
Sometimes, disclaim decision making
Unless a specific move allows it, never allow a player's subsequent move to be the same as that player's previous move.
The MC's Moves are ...
Separate someone from others
Capture someone
Put someone in a spot
Announce off screen trouble
Announce future trouble
Inflict harm as established
Separate someone from his valuables
Make them expend Respect
Make them expend material wealth
Activate the downside of valuable objects and places
Reveal the possible consequences and ask
Offer an opportunity, with or without a cost
Turn the move back on the player
Make a threat move (from one of the factions)
After every move, ask, "What do you do?"
Threat are as in AW. They are gathered into Factions, each based around a fundamental ambition: creation; destruction; favor; influence; might; pleasure; position; revenge; rule; security;
The threats are as follows.
Doom
Compulsion (impulse: to assert obedience)
Construct (impulse: to assert its nature and function)
Curse (impulse: to make the accursed suffer)
Delusion (impulse: to dominate people's choices and actions)
Disaster (impulse: to cause grief)
Legend (impulse: to eclipse history)
Plague (impulse: to afflict and to spread)
Rumor (impulse: to be believed)
Threat moves for dooms
Conceal a truth from some or from all
Reveal a truth to some or to all
Press someone physically, according to its nature
Press someone psychically, according to its nature
Cause a fortuitious event to happen, according to its nature
Cause an unfortuitious event to happen, according to its nature
Strengthen someone, according to its nature
Weaken someone, according to its nature
Grant or withhold shelter, comfort, or solace
Item
Item of Power (impulse: to have been used to its utmost)
Keepsake (impulse: to be cherished)
Monstrous Item (impulse: to behave like a monster)
Stolen Item (impulse: to be restored to its rightful place)
Thinking Item (impulse: to behave like a person)
Tool (impulse: to be needed)
Treasure (impulse: to be coveted)
Threat moves for items
The item is lost
The item is found by someone
The item is noticed by someone
The item is revealed to all
The item is used against someone
The item is used to help someone
The item changes hands
The item causes a problem
A problem happens that the item could solve
The item makes a threat move according to its desired behavior, if any
Monster
Beast (impulse: to survive and be dominant)
Breeder (impulse: to bring more of its kind into existence)
Collector (impulse: to amass precious things and/or people)
Creature of Legend (impulse: to be an object of wariness for those who have never seen it)
Demon (impulse: to gain power and recognition)
Devourer (impulse: to consume and destroy)
Doppelganger (impulse: to share someone else's reputation)
Parasite (impulse: to drain vitality)
Thinker (impulst: to behave like a person)
Threat moves for monsters
Reveal the true nature of its world
Reveal the contents of its heart
Attack someone indirectly: from behind, by stealth, or otherwise
Attack someone directly, without warning
Insult, affront, offend or provoke someone
Offer something of value or a valuable service to someone, with strings attached
Put it in someone's path, part of someone's day or life
Threaten someone, expressly or by implication
Steal something from someone
Take and hold something or someone
Ruin something: befoul, rot, desecrate, corrupt, adulter it
Make a threat move according to its desired behavior, if any
Person
Architect (impulse: to remake the world / ambition: creation)
Avenger (impulse: to see the object of his hate suffer or be destroyed / ambition: revenge)
Follower (impulse: to serve someone powerful / ambition: position)
Libertine (impulse: to enjoy things and people thoroughly / ambition: pleasure)
Loyalist (impulse: to uphold and protect his own / ambition: security)
Mendicant (impulse: to have his needs met by others)
Monstrous Person (impulse: to behave like a monster)
Pretender (impulse: to become and to remain a potentate / ambition: rule)
Puppeteer (impulse: to control events behind the scenes / ambition: influence)
Reaver (impulse: to pillage and destroy / ambition: destruction)
Slave (impulse: to behave like an item)
Sycophant (impulse: to be well regarded by the powerful / ambition: favor)
Warlord (impulse: to have a warband and to be dominant within it / ambition: might)
Threat moves for people
Outmaneuver someone
Attack someone directly, committing resources to the attack
Attack someone cautiously, holding back reserves
Seize something or someone, for indirect gain
Make a show of power, authority or solidarity
Negotiate for concessions or for obedience
Stake a claim to territory by blockading it, assaulting it or occupying it
Subvert someone's allies by threatening them or by buying them out
Analyze where someone is weak and attack him there
Make a well planned attack against a clear objective
Inflict violence chaotically, without a clear objective
Rigidly follow, or else defy, authority or reason
Tell stories: true or false, allegorical or otherwise
Demand consideration or indulgence
Ask for someone's help or participation
Make a threat move according to its desired behavior, if any
Place
Hell (impulse: to be a place of torment)
Home (impulse: to provide shelter and comfort to its rightful residents)
Paradise (impulse: to be desired and sought after)
Place of Legend (impulse: to be known beyond its bounds)
Place of Power (impulse: to be at the center of important events)
Prison (impulse: to frustrate potential escapees)
Treasure Trove (impulse: to draw treasure to it)
Threat moves for places
Reveal something to someone
Display something for all to see
Conceal something or someone from others
Bar the way to some or to all
Open the way to some or to all
Provide a way in, out, or through to some or to all
Shift, move or rearrange things and people within its bounds
Offer up a guide
Present a guardian
Send something or someone elsewhere
Take something away, rendering it lost, used up, or destroyed
A place is a location within a shadow, a shadow, or an amalgamation of any number of locations and shadows. A person subsumes all those who serve that person and who aren't distinct threats of their own. Monsters are inhuman; at least one thing about a monster must make it unsettling to most humans. Items are objects that do not, or would not, normally have a personality. A doom can be concrete or abstract, as physical as Ghostwheel or the Black Road, as insubstantial as a death curse, as abstract as an idea.
Charles