the Fierce & the LintKing's Amber Bits

"Well, why didn't my tiger's 4-point psychic sensitivity sniff out the Chaosian in the soup?"

"You forget, my war chicken's claws are deadly damage!"

"I turn my pocket weasel into an elephant with the one-point alternate form I bought."

Admittedly, some of those are also problems with the item system, but every "pet" is an additional set of eyes and ears (if not claws and teeth) to have to account for in a scene. Does Morgenstern eat at the family table? Why would you bring even a bird with Able To Speak And Sing In Tongues And Voices into dinner with you? Not to mention the Extremely Top Secret Negotiations with Chaos?

[Note, the cockatoo walks into dinner at my folks' house by herself. She's not invited. She just opens her cage, climbs up the stairs and keeps walking.]

I have made exceptions. Qarre's PC's "magic ferret." And not just because, "My magic ferret is getting anxious," still amuses me as a sentence. Faolan's kitten [for reasons which will be made evident.] Audrey's Gremlin. Alexandra's Memnon [grin]. One thousand invisible phase spiders. [Long story.] One pet rock.

I'm trying to figure out what the difference is. Chance of player abuse? How much input the pet requires from the GM? I think those are major factors. How well the pet fits in with the character concept. How much impact the pet itself has on the story (do pets get the same 15-minutes of fame the PCs do?) How much I have to run the pet as having PC value, versus the player taking care of things. It's going to be a case-by-case basis, but overall, I discourage it.

...and probably never in a Throne War. ["All hail Mr. Fluffy, King of Amber."]