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Old 10-13-2017, 10:56 AM   #11
evileeyore
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Join Date: Jul 2006
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Default Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Amnesia

I've played and run Amnesia games a few times... most were just the "lack of past memories"* version.

Each time either the Amnesia wasn't that important (it was a plot lever to get the campaign rolling and was 'solved'** rather quickly) or it wasn't that important in that the past never came back to haunt anyone. I blame my GMs for the last one and myself (mostly) for the first (though I also didn't give the PCs points for the Amnesia as it was a 'setting switch' type thing).


* The only one I've ran that was Total Amnesia was a 'build your PC through their actions' style. So by the end of the third session the PCs sheets were filled out.
** I've made several amnesiacs over the years. Not once has the past ever ended up as an issue. I think the GMs just didn't want to play with it.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
Probably worth pointing out here the closely-related trait of Delusion (False Memories), detailed in Horror. Rather than the usual obvious Delusion where you believe something false or apparently-false that causes people to react poorly to you, you instead don't remember an important event and have false, innocuous memories in their place. It pairs extremely well with Partial Amnesia if whatever you've forgotten will not only affect the plot but also your own character traits.
I did this once in a Horror game. The PCs went to dinner at a local diner (in separate groups as they were a disparate lot, but it was at the same time) and half-way through the meal, they woke up in the Emergency Room at a near-by hospital (along with several other diners). Sketchy looking interns and nurses were asking them and the other survivors what they could remember. A few characters couldn't remember anything, but most remembered a car smashing through a wall into the room and then... well they woke up here. It was a bit of a blur really*.

Except one of the other diners. He distinctly remembered a large furry or scaly thing smashing through the wall and it had bitten and clawed up people and, and... then he was sedated and the 'nurses' were worriedly checking everyone and making sure everyone knew that "trauma scan sometimes do that"...

The PCs eventually checked out a few days later... and compared notes. One clearly knew the "car smashing through a wall" was not a real memory... and besides their wounds were odd and healed too fast... so the PCs decided to go investigate...


* Each Player was given a different note card with what they remembered. The first one to be 'interviewed' had noticed that every NPC questioned had said "it's a bit of a blur really" so when he read his card, he just read it verbatim, along with that line to be funny (each note ended in that line). The second Player decided to play it cute and not read that last line. So I asked for a Will roll. She failed, and I told her to say the line.

Every Player immediately realized what was going on, realized the medical staff weren't really medical staff, and got extremely paranoid.



I did this for another game, more CoC based (but still GURPS) that had a Player who wanted to have magic, when I was explicitly forbidding magic. So I gave it to him. And secretly gave him the delusion that he had magic and it worked... and clued in the other Players of what was really going on so they'd help keep the charade going as long as possible. The Amnesiac/Delusional PC didn't catch on till the end of the game. He loved it. A few other Players weren't as enthused, but it worked. Not sure I'd ever try it again, bit of a miracle it worked the first time.



Quote:
Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
Call the police and get professional medical help. This is actually a bit of a problem with Total Amnesia - characters with it by definition don't remember any reasons why this might not be a good idea, so many of them ought to do something like this. Which isn't going to lead to an *adventure*.
Did this one as well, it wasn't a dumpster though and the PCs did immediately go to the police and then the hospital... and along the way a few PCs overheard just enough to start cluing them in that they couldn't trust all the Police or hospital staff... or other people in general...

It was Secret Alien Invasion Horror game where the Reptilians had successfully infiltrated and taken over, but didn't like just killing people, they preferred to erase and modify memories. The PCs had woken up laid out in a warehouse strapped to gurneys and managed to free themselves and escape before their captors returned. They had distorted fragments of memories, not enough to know what was going on, but enough (that they wisely didn't mention to the cops or doctors) that they knew something was going on.

This also wasn't a 'total amnesia' game, the amnesia wore off by the time they were released form the hospital as they were able to remember who they were, but not how they ended up in the warehouse. The memory implants were not 'taking hold' properly so they had fragments of two sets of memories, which began at first as 'inconsistencies' with what they remembered (the false memories were what they thought were their real memories).

Interesting game, never managed to finish it properly. It just sort of wound down and petered out.
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