Sim-ed if you do; Sim-ed if you don't...

[unseenmage]

You awaken to conciousness in D&D-verse with your eyes open. Your first sight accompanies your first sounds. You see yourself lying, dying on the floor. The magical writing on the scroll clutched in your other self's hands finishes fading. Their last words tell you that you are a Simulacrum and that you have free will. They then revert to snow and melt instantly into nothingness.

You are yourself as you are in our world, your metaknowledge of the gameworld remains intact. All 3.x compatible materials exist, each product identity is just a custom Plane Shift, Spelljammer ride, or Deep Shadow Plane journey away.

Your first problem, clearly, is that you are the Sim of a Sim. What do you do?

My friend and I could only think to maybe hire a skilled TN or lawful plane denizen to write a carefully worded Wish for us OR Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk shenanigans. Are there any other options?

[Celestia]

Simulacrums don't go to the afterlife, do they?

Sin, sin, sin!

[Mr Adventurer]

Probably be curious as to how a Simulacrum of myself was able to use a scroll when the original me can't read magical writing.

Also, probably not a huge amount as, being at most one quarter the level or Hit Dice of original me, I'd have probably 1 NPC level, tops.

With what I could do with that - philosophically accept my status as a non-real creature, and do something fun before I melt.

[Inevitability]

Offer a few morally flexible adventurers 10 GP for every living kobold they can bring you, buy a potion of Guidance of the Avatar, sacrifice the kobolds in rapid succession until you get a result of 30, use the resulting Planar Binding to get an efreet, proceed to Wish-chain yourself into infinity.

[Fizban]

Loot my body, and try to figure out how the previous version of me managed to die just slowly enough to finish casting a 12 hour spell. 'Cause the main reason I'd expect them to be dying dramatically right in front of me is that the guy who killed them is right there and I'm screwed.

[KillianHawkeye]

Loot my body, and try to figure out how the previous version of me managed to die just slowly enough to finish casting a 12 hour spell. 'Cause the main reason I'd expect them to be dying dramatically right in front of me is that the guy who killed them is right there and I'm screwed.

Unless it was retconned somewhere, using a scroll is always a Standard Action.

[Fizban]

Updated in Rules Compendium- though srd.org doesn't incorporate those changes. Same for wands.

[unseenmage]

Loot my body, and try to figure out how the previous version of me managed to die just slowly enough to finish casting a 12 hour spell. 'Cause the main reason I'd expect them to be dying dramatically right in front of me is that the guy who killed them is right there and I'm screwed.
Hahaha, honestly in our theoretical discussion when I'd first asked 'What would you do?' he'd answered with murdering the agent of his Sim-ness to test that free will.

So, for my theoretical the thing that makes you a Sim is a Sim and was commanded to kill itself right after granting free will just to obviate the murder test of free will angle.

[Wraith]

Buy a ladder, sell two 10ft poles and a small pile of firewood, become filthy stinking rich overnight.

And then buy Castle Greyhawk, because... well, I don't need a 'because', it just sounds cool.

[Bronk]

You awaken to conciousness in D&D-verse with your eyes open. Your first sight accompanies your first sounds. You see yourself lying, dying on the floor. The magical writing on the scroll clutched in your other self's hands finishes fading. Their last words tell you that you are a Simulacrum and that you have free will. They then revert to snow and melt instantly into nothingness.

You are yourself as you are in our world, your metaknowledge of the gameworld remains intact. All 3.x compatible materials exist, each product identity is just a custom Plane Shift, Spelljammer ride, or Deep Shadow Plane journey away.

Your first problem, clearly, is that you are the Sim of a Sim. What do you do?

Whoa! I hear the words of this guy who looks just like me, and see him dissolve into ice and snow. I have knowledge I have now?

After freaking out a bit, I realize that he must have been lying.

Why?

-I don't have any hit dice, so neither would the sim who just claimed to make me.

-I don't have any memories of being able to cast magic of any kind.

-I'd be pretty sure simulacrums can't make simulacrums of themselves, so If anything I'd be the sim of the original... and I still don't have any useful memories.

After that? I guess I'd loot the place, and figure out what killed that simulacrum. Was he lying, not lying, following orders? Was it really an ice assassin? Where am I?

Then I'd start to wonder if he was right, and I remembered the rules incorrectly. First, I'd look in the mirror. I'm a terrible artist, so if I was truly a copy of a copy, my face should be way off. If I looked okay, I'd try to figure out if I had any extra knowledge I didn't know I had, try to learn a skill to see if I can get any better at it, test my limits, that kind of thing. With any luck I'd be at least an 7th level Wizard or an 8th level Sorcerer, since the sim who made me could use a scroll of a 7th level spell. Better that than a rogue with some UMD levels, anyway.

If I did turn out to be a simulacrum or something like that, I'd try to figure out what happened to my original. Am I in trouble? Worse? If I was dead and in Faerun, I'd have to make sure I wasn't stuck in the Wall of the Faithless, for example.

While I was doing that, I'd also try to become real, either through using the God Trap, or maybe selling off some loot (or becoming a merchant for a while, or maybe a self help guru for adventurers) to procure at least one wish to become an outsider (body is a soul) then another to become... maybe a LeShay or something (body becomes soul), to see if that works, because it seems like it would be less dangerous that way than to try messing with gods. The second one would definitely be easier to try as a simulacrum, because if I didn't have a soul, I wouldn't feel too terrible about using a triple Pazuzu call for my first wish.

If I turn out to not be a simulacrum, but just summoned there somehow and lied to, I'd do most of the same things. Look for danger, then loot the place, figure out where I was, see if I couldn't wrangle up a heal spell or three, then see if I could get home. If I couldn't, I'd try to bring family and friends over too. If I couldn't do that, I'd procure a wish to become something cool (Dragon? LeShay? Tulani Eladrin?), then go adventuring.

Oh, and if I found danger, then I'd probably declare myself a player who had taken the Wedded to History feat, but who hadn't started playing yet, then just walk out and hang around for a few millennia amassing wealth as best I could. Using the various metagame shenanigans should always work, even without having a high skill at haggling and so on... and they should work so well, being tied into the very fabric of the universe and all, that no one should ever be able to second guess me. My other plans would be on hold for a while, but I'd only start adventuring when I was good and ready.

Edit: Getting home:

First, the wish spell should work.

If not, there's the Infinite Staircase... I could walk up and down the stairs until I find the landing with my personal door, the one that sends you to what you most desire. Either way, should be a win.

There's also the possibility that I could get a message out to the real world by trying to get inserted into a story or adventure. After all, I'm literally in a story and game world! I'd have spies out looking for interesting adventures and happenings, figure out who the main character is, then pop in and say, "Hey there, Insert-Name-Here. Here's my personal info... help! If you are a game designer or novel writer, write in the end of story that I go home safely! If you do, I'll send you X amount of money, or however much gold and magic items you write for me to be carrying at the time!"

[flappeercraft]

Buy ladders, sell 10ft poles and get 8,400 GP. With those I would buy a Candle of Invocation (Evil) and summon an Efreet, have the Efreet use its 3 wishes to cast Simulacrum and replicate himself and have him hand over the control to me. Use one of those wishes to do the psionic sandwich trick but with a real body, use another wish to make that body look like me and use the rest of the wishes for more Efreet Simulacrums. Now I would have those wishes used to create unlimited use items of Beastland Ferocity and Delay Death and another to create a candle of invocation to bring an allip. Now fight the tarrasque, hit it once and the allip finishes it off with which I have enough XP to gain a crapload of levels and become a level 20 wizard in a day.

[unseenmage]

Simulacrums don't go to the afterlife, do they?

Sin, sin, sin!
This amused me to no end. Earned a skeptical look from the wife I chortled so abruptly.

Also brings up a very good point, if Sims don't have souls then no Wall of the Faithless for them.


Loot my body, and try to figure out how the previous version of me managed to die just slowly enough to finish casting a 12 hour spell. 'Cause the main reason I'd expect them to be dying dramatically right in front of me is that the guy who killed them is right there and I'm screwed.
Probably disease. Or really slow poison.



...

-I don't have any hit dice, so neither would the sim who just claimed to make me.

...
Without HD you're an object. This fact made me chuckle. Thanks for that.

[Bronk]

Without HD you're an object. This fact made me chuckle. Thanks for that.

I know, right? I'd be like some weird, DnD, 0 level baby or something. It would put a definite hamper on my prospects! Unless I was some kind of advanced computer from the Barrier Peaks stuck in... a simulation? :)

Edit: Or some kind of uppity rock! Maybe someone used 'Nybor's Psychic Imprint' on my original and I'm just a mind in a gem somewhere?

[Yahzi]

You see yourself lying, dying on the floor.
Shades of Snow in Solaris:
Kelvin and Gordon then discover a dead body stashed away in a ceiling vent in the station's cold room – Snow. The Snow they have been interacting with is a replica. Confronted by Gordon and Kelvin, the Snow replica explains that upon being dreamed into existence, he was attacked by the real Snow and thus killed him in self-defense.

[unseenmage]

Shades of Snow in Solaris:
Kelvin and Gordon then discover a dead body stashed away in a ceiling vent in the station's cold room – Snow. The Snow they have been interacting with is a replica. Confronted by Gordon and Kelvin, the Snow replica explains that upon being dreamed into existence, he was attacked by the real Snow and thus killed him in self-defense.

I love me some Solaris. Clooney bugs me but I enjoy a good mind bending scifi flick so it balances out.