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View Full Version : DM Help Excuse me kind sir, have you seen my memory.



deathwolf669
2017-12-07, 02:16 PM
Hey guys, I'm looking at running a game in the future where all of the players have suffered memory loss. They will be given a blank character sheet with no stats and no skills.

Problem is I don't know which genre to base the game in. I have considered fantasy, modern and sci fi settings. So what I want to know is your suggestion of game that would be easiest to accomplish this.

Between myself and my group of friends who DM I have access to just over 100 games and versions of said games.

I have so far considered d&d 3.5/5th or warhammer fantasy 2nd ed for fantasy, James Bond or d20 for modern and starship troopers or stars without number for sci fi.

Also what warhammer fantasy edition can be used alongside the dark heresy games?

DeTess
2017-12-07, 02:39 PM
Have you considered something superhero or cyberpunky? Cyberpunk in particular enables a lot of intetesting stories around amnesia.

Segev
2017-12-07, 02:39 PM
I think a better question is to ask: what kind of story do you want to tell with this? That will inform system/genre. What is the cause of the memory loss? How do you want them to be recovering it, if at all? If not at all, what will they learn about their pasts and how? You need more than "a party of amnesiacs" to base a game on, and you might be asking us for help with that, but if so, please specify. I don't want to start making suggestions that trample on your ideas and don't help. But if you have ideas, then those will inform genre.

deathwolf669
2017-12-07, 03:02 PM
Have you considered something superhero or cyberpunky? Cyberpunk in particular enables a lot of intetesting stories around amnesia.

That depends on the game, shadowrun is a nope as we are playing that at the moment but anything else is fair game if I can get the books.


I think a better question is to ask: what kind of story do you want to tell with this? That will inform system/genre. What is the cause of the memory loss? How do you want them to be recovering it, if at all? If not at all, what will they learn about their pasts and how? You need more than "a party of amnesiacs" to base a game on, and you might be asking us for help with that, but if so, please specify. I don't want to start making suggestions that trample on your ideas and don't help. But if you have ideas, then those will inform genre.

The cause of the memory loss will depend upon the game, fantasy setting might be a wizard causing it, modern could be (using bond as an example) an evil villain released a nerve agent or something similar, the 2 sci-fi options are psycher caused.

The recovery will be the main story which will be hidden by side missions and sub plots.

Basically I have several ideas based around the games I mentioned above but I can't narrow down which to play, so I have opened it up to everyone here to help me narrow it down to at least a genre. This is my problem when I get a rough idea that could fit half my collection.

Segev
2017-12-07, 03:26 PM
That depends on the game, shadowrun is a nope as we are playing that at the moment but anything else is fair game if I can get the books.



The cause of the memory loss will depend upon the game, fantasy setting might be a wizard causing it, modern could be (using bond as an example) an evil villain released a nerve agent or something similar, the 2 sci-fi options are psycher caused.

The recovery will be the main story which will be hidden by side missions and sub plots.

Basically I have several ideas based around the games I mentioned above but I can't narrow down which to play, so I have opened it up to everyone here to help me narrow it down to at least a genre. This is my problem when I get a rough idea that could fit half my collection.

For your game-setting decisions, you should discuss it with your players. Find out what kind of game they'd like to play that in. Because the people here aren't (for the most part, at least) the ones in your game, and will have different preferences.

Jay R
2017-12-07, 04:58 PM
I suggest a background with cloning, because I think that they are renegade clones. Perhaps someday they will meet the originals, who do have their memories.

deathwolf669
2017-12-08, 12:48 AM
I suggest a background with cloning, because I think that they are renegade clones. Perhaps someday they will meet the originals, who do have their memories.

Now this might be a useful plot for at least one of them :)

Psyren
2017-12-08, 03:11 PM
Starfinder can run some cyberfantasy games nicely. There is even a specific device that can be used to edit a character's memory; it's primarily used as an in-universe justification for retraining, but you could use it to give a character amnesia too. As with Pathfinder, the rules for Starfinder are available free online in its SRD.

Bronk
2017-12-11, 09:07 AM
Whoa, blank sheet, no stats? Will they eventually get stats? Will you just wing it until then, or what?

I suggest something like Big Eyes Small Mouth (or something like it). There's only three stats, and you buy powers with points, and you can make pretty much any character, yet it's a lot simpler than something like GURPS (where you can spend weeks minmaxing one character).

You can start by winging it, and have them quickly discover how they stack up with their three stats, and then they can 'remember' a few points worth of their powers at a time.

deathwolf669
2017-12-11, 10:13 AM
Starfinder can run some cyberfantasy games nicely. There is even a specific device that can be used to edit a character's memory; it's primarily used as an in-universe justification for retraining, but you could use it to give a character amnesia too. As with Pathfinder, the rules for Starfinder are available free online in its SRD.

I shall have a look for the rules on that. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.



Whoa, blank sheet, no stats? Will they eventually get stats? Will you just wing it until then, or what?

I suggest something like Big Eyes Small Mouth (or something like it). There's only three stats, and you buy powers with points, and you can make pretty much any character, yet it's a lot simpler than something like GURPS (where you can spend weeks minmaxing one character).

You can start by winging it, and have them quickly discover how they stack up with their three stats, and then they can 'remember' a few points worth of their powers at a time.

They won't have the stats but I will have at least 10 characters with stats skills and backstories written up but I won't tell them anything. Depends on the game system depends on how they will find out their stats and skills but they will have to make notes as they play. I'm not even going to have them knowing their names, or even classes. Might start them all naked...probably in their skivies.

BWR
2017-12-11, 11:08 AM
The Pathfinder Adventure Path "Strange Aeons" has this as the starting point for the story. Character sheets aren't blank, however. The people I know who have played it thought it handled the amnesia bit quite well, as well as the general theme and feel of the story.

Vogie
2017-12-12, 04:37 PM
I've always wanted to do this, but never had enough confidence in my DM ability to pull it off. The idea that I had heard to inspire it was a Jason-Bourne-meets-mutants style campaign that I had heard discussed on Gamers With Jobs- very martial, but with the characters having one or two abilities they have to discover about themselves.

I would have played mine with Pathfinder, mostly because that's what we played, but for the reason the players' lack of memories was:

one was actually a construct, and had no memories whatsoever
one suffered head trauma, and couldn't remember what happened before they were pulled up onto a fishing boat
one had their mind wiped, and only remembered the amulet/pocket watch of the man who wiped their mind
one was reincarnated, and could only remember what their previous life's home looked like.

dps
2017-12-12, 05:57 PM
Run a Western RPG, but make the setting something akin to that of The Wild, Wild West--with villains like Doctor Loveless running around, one of them could have come up with something to cause the amnesia.

For God's sake, though, if you do it, take your inspiration from the old TV series, not the Will Smith movie.

Lorsa
2017-12-14, 06:00 AM
Eclipse Phase is a sci-fi game with elements of existential horror. Memory loss is a very common occurrence in the setting and can happen for a large range of reasons. I would definitely check it out if you want to do sci-fi with memory loss as the main theme.

Grod_The_Giant
2017-12-14, 08:48 AM
They won't have the stats but I will have at least 10 characters with stats skills and backstories written up but I won't tell them anything. Depends on the game system depends on how they will find out their stats and skills but they will have to make notes as they play. I'm not even going to have them knowing their names, or even classes. Might start them all naked...probably in their skivies.
Based on this, I'd go with something pretty light, and without a lot of fancy unique powers like a D&D-derivative might have. If you're running everyone's characters for them (essentially), you probably don't want to be dealing with anything too involved.

Fate actually has rules for starting with blank characters, and filling in skills and suchlike as you go. Something like that might be worth considering? It would be keeping a lot of the character creation onus with the players, instead of having them play a guessing game, but given that this sort of setup already requires a lot of player buy-in...