Geek Talkin': Amnesia Campaign

[featherynscale]

Forgive me for a moment, I'm going to descend into some role-playing geeking.

triadruid and I are putting together a D&D campaign. Our first game is this Friday. We're building a house world to play in, which is my favorite part of the process. I have a fascination with building conflicts: religions that disagree with and distrust each other's aims, political factions who squabble for power, races or classes who occupy a preferred status and races or classes who struggle for representation or dignity beneath them, and so on. It's stuff that the average PC may never see, being too focused on their own issues, but it's there, and it's happening, and at some point my players will at least have an opportunity to get involved in some of it. There are very few things that happen in my world that I couldn't (if necessary) explain. Even though there are any number of wizards, the phrase "A wizard did it" will almost never pass my lips as a DM, unless the wizard had a damned good reason for doing it.

The campaign is going to be a bit unusual, in that the players will be given pre-made characters, who will enter the campaign with amnesia. They will have suffered some trauma, and a large part of the game will be the characters trying to regain their identities and learn their own story. They will, of course, also be occupied with the business of heroism, saving the land from Certain Doom, and solving the problems they inadvertently create along the way. In fact, there is quite a bit of backlash coming for them from the act they just completed before Shit Went Bad, bringing them to their current state. So that's fun.

Setting up a game in this way requires us to do quite a bit of backstory on each character, determining not only where they come from and what their family is like, and the usual character creation stuff, but also the things that they have done since beginning their adventuring career. We have to know how they came to be travelling together, what kind of people they are, how they react to danger, who they love and hate, where their loyalties lie, and so on. Of course, they've suffered enough mental shake-up that some of those facts will probably change as the players take over, but that's okay.

The point is that I have come to love this set of characters in the process. Their little portraits begin to look like the faces of old friends. This means considerable trouble for the players. It is a well-known fact that I can't love people without having first discovered the ways in which they are troubled or damaged. In fact, I seem to love them for their flaws as much as for anything else. In this group, there was enough trouble and damage to go around to ensure that I could love each and every one of them. Players: agrnmn, capriciouslass, kittenpants, liquidfun and orcjohn, you can consider this your warning shot. :)

Comments

[zylch.livejournal.com]

See, this is the sort of RPG I might actually enjoy playing.

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to it ... something with a "twist" is always welcome ... something "twisted" even moreso!

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

This sounds awesome.

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

I ran an "Elric" game in college with a somewhat similar notion: the game began after all the characters had seen thir reflection in the mirror of memory, and so they had amnesia. They gradually discovered their relationships with one another (including two characters who were acting as friends, but who actually had good reason to hate each other because of a brother's murder). Every so often one of them would remember a skill or power they had, often at dramatically convenient moments. I encouraged them to purchase flashbacks during sessions with drama points, and depending on how descriptive the player-created narratives were, they earned more drama points.

It was a good time. Have fun!

[celticwhistlin.livejournal.com]

This sounds vray foon!

I appreciate DMs who can do this kind of work. I was never that good of a DM...

[rfunk.livejournal.com]

This sounds like it would be really fun to play!

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I'm a terrible DM, actually. I am an excellent world builder, but I am a terrible DM, because it doesn't take long before I am bored of it and want to wander away and do something else. I am hoping that triadruid, who is a finisher, will help keep me tethered to the game. We shall see.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Fun times. We worked out a memories check system based on wisdom and intelligence scores, with some modification for stimuli in the environment and time since trauma. It's going to be a little less dramatically convenient, unfortunately. (Or maybe fortunately...)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Twisted, my friend, is what I do best.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I hope it will be as fun as I think it will be. All the players seem to be really on board with the concept, which helps. We used the base concept as a screener - "We're thinking that we're just going to give you a character sheet with a portrait on it, and you can go from there...How do you feel about that?".

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Because everything's funner with mental illness. :)

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I hope it will be. If not, at least we have the world (which I'm really fond of), and can place some more conventional stories in it.

[ysabel.livejournal.com]

I am envious.

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

Tease

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

I am also a terrible DM, unless it's for Paranoia. Since that game lets me make up the rules as I go along, I do a reasonably good job at that (assuming I'm not trying to run 15 people in one session).
I prefer being a player and screwing with the DM's plans playing along with the twists and turns.

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about being DM is that when it is important to the story, you can conveniently "misread" the die to get the answer you want. Either direction.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Looking for a game, sailor?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

The other upside of anal-retentive worldbuilding is that it makes it much harder for you to screw with my plans. I'm more or less primed to play out whatever you guys decide to do, because I mostly already know what's down that road.

Paranoia, though, that's good times.

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

I love a good game.

[celticwhistlin.livejournal.com]

I *LOVE* to do the "work" of DMing as in rolling the dice and who's doing what. The actually story development and landscaping, I'm terrible at that.

I hope you guys have fun! It sounds very interesting indeed.

[celticwhistlin.livejournal.com]

harder for you to screw with my plans. I'm more or less primed to play out whatever you guys decide to do, because I mostly already know what's down that road.

That's where I run into difficulties. Also, I usually feel like we are never going anywhere or going along to fast when I DM. There is not good middle ground nor do I *know* like you know.

I suspect a lot of my issue is the fact that I have always had to DM on the fly with no prep time. I never give myself enough time to develop things as they should be.

Check-in...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Before I continue this conversation, am I even still allowed to flirt with you?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I have also been known to judiciously employ some "pushers" in the game -- if the group is dicking around for too long, something will happen that will force them to make a decision and move. Having more of a living world helps with that, too -- you know something of what's happening around, so if it's time for an earthquake, an insurrection, a dragon attack, or whatnot, you've got it ready to go.

erusnoctis is the master of this. We're running in a campaign of his right now that's set in the world of the Wheel of Time books. He's got this massive calendar of events that happen in the books, and calculates out things like when this army would have to begin moving in order to be in a certain spot on a certain day, and so on. He's hellaciously impressive.

[karinablack.livejournal.com]

the players will be given pre-made characters, who will enter the campaign with amnesia.

I LOVE THIS!!!!!

[celticwhistlin.livejournal.com]

If I actually had time to set shit up like that I would *LOVE* to DM again but I keep myself too busy to sit down and do it proper.

He's got this massive calendar of events that happen in the books, and calculates out things like when this army would have to begin moving in order to be in a certain spot on a certain day, and so on.

That is FANTASTIC! I haven't had a good campaign/DM in a long time. Most people who have been DMing of late for me would rather be playing. When I retire. That's when it will happen. When i retire is when I will get to play again... ;-)

Re: Check-in...

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

Yup! mullein haven't gotten too specific about such things, but flirting is definitely on the approved list.

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

It reminds me a bit of a Doctor Who based RPG I read.

When playing a Timelord, if your Timelord dies, the character sheet is given to another player who then takes over after the regeneration.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I totally <3 erusnoctis.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

This is why I'm perfectly happy to hear stories of the game, or float around the edges and observe you guys playing, while not actually playing myself. You've got an awesome group. It's gonna be a great ride, I bet.

[leiandra.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, that makes me wish I was closer to KC. That sounds AWESOME!!

[orcjohn.livejournal.com]

Can't wait to see what happens. See you all Friday.