Total Amnesia, for the entire group!

[Fortron]

I need some help with this setting.
Its going to be a short mystery campaign. (10-25 seasions).

These are the road blocks I am coming across:
1:How to run the Amnesia
2:What setting would work the best
3:How powerfull the setting should be to best complement this campaign

For the Amnesia, they would get a blank piece of paper and they would write clues that they got on it, however how they get these clues is were I am having problems.Also how to run the Amnesia in the first place!

The setting, is another problem. I know alot of you are going to say that its just my tastse In what I want to run, but I would like to choose the best setting to run this type of campaign and I need some opinions on this.

as for how powerfull the campaign its the same as the setting, opinions.

how would you run it Forum?

`Fortron~

[Nymdok]

I gave my entire group Total Amnesia for our first Campaign.

I gave them BLANK char sheets and as they did stuff, I let them make an IQ roll. ON a success, they remembered their skill and how many points they had in it.

THis was also a good excuse for me as the GM to build the chars from back to front, no based on what the players THOUGHT they wanted to do, but how they actually tried to handle situations. For example, the first player to say 'Let me pop the hood on the truck and see if I can fix it', I let her be the mechanic. The first one to try to administer medical assistance I gave First aid, Doctor and Surgery etc.

Mystery Games are tough to run. My advice is READ GURPS MYSTERIES*. In additon to that, keep the point totals low (about 100), FORBID mindreading and leave yourself multiple 'paths' to the resolution. NOthing worse than the Chars missing a crucial clue that grinds the game to a halt.

Setting really is about what you want to do, but I think the Shelock Holmsian era (Late 1800 early 1900s) is as good a place as any to start and something people will be at least slightly familiar. 50's -60's USA can also be great for that Mcarthy era suspicion.

Good Luck and have fun!

Nymdok

* It should be noted that this book is not just for mysteries, and has in fact, changed the way I reveal plot to my players forever.

[CousinX]

By the book, Total Amnesia means that you create the characters, you make all the rolls for the players, and you keep track of their disads to make sure they're role-playing them correctly. They have no idea what skills or traits they have, so they'll be shooting in the dark as to what they can do, and you'll have to give them a lot of guidance about their actions. This gives you total control of their abilities, but also means a lot of work for you.

As for settings and power levels, it depends on exactly what you have in mind for the plot. A few ideas off the top of my head:

Cyberpunk: The PCs are a group of freelance operatives who were fitted with some kind of amnesia-inducing brain implants by a former employer. The 250-point templates in Action 1: Heroes are good for cyberpunk characters, with an extra 50-100 points for cyberware and the like, making them 300-350 points total.

Supers or Psi: The PCs are a superhero team who were mind-wiped by a telepathic supervillain (or some kind of comicbook superscience device). Supers traditionally start at around 500 points, and go up from there if you want more powerful heroes... 1,000 for PCs about on the level of the X-Men or other Marvel characters, or 2,000+ to get closer to JLA / DC heroes.

Fantasy: The PCs are an adventuring party who was hit with some kind of curse (e.g. Forgetfulness spells) by an evil wizard. Dungeon Fantasy templates come in at 250, which makes for pretty powerful heroes ... lower-powered fantasy PCs might be 150-200 points.

[Edges]

Total Amnesia campaigns are the easiest campaigns to get started because the players don't need to make characters and the GM doesn't need to negotiate to be sure the characters fit into his vision. And they're easy to run because everything that the players are basing their actions on are things that have happened in-game. It's very "in the moment."

I've run more than I can count... well over 100. I'm even running one currently. It features PCs that are clearly not from around here. They're high fantasy/sci-fi guys in an ancient, low fantasy world. Finding out where they came from is one of the big goals of the campaign. Others are: Learning local languages, deciding who to favor (if anyone) between warring nations, should they conquer?, try to get home?, etc. It's great fun. It's been going for a couple years now.

I tend to favor a few more props in amnesia games as players like something to hold onto.

As for your questions:
1: I usually start by having them wake up. Then they look around and learn what their immediate environment is. They usually try to ascertain their race and gender pretty quick. Mirrors are good (but not of much use if you're describing what they see when they look at each other). Then they just go from there. I usually give them some kind of "residual memory." They pretty much know what things are from whatever culture they're from. By this I mean if they're from 1985 NYC, they know a car when they see one, they know water is wet, and when they see skyscrapers, they expect them to have people working inside of them (and not hibernating godzillas or whatever), etc. But they still don't know who Michael Jackson is. I don't give them purely knowledge skills (at least not that can be used while amnesia is still in effect) like Area Knowledge, History, and Current Affairs. But they can use other skills if they try or are exposed to their equipment. So if they have a Guns skill and they pick up a gun, I'll say, "You feel like you know how to use this." But they don't remember that guns exist until they see one (or even a picture of one). But of course, I roll on their skills until they figure out their skill level. I also give them the ability to read and write (if appropriate to their origin) at native proficiency and they still remember how to walk, eat, etc*.

2. Just about any setting works. Just go with whatever you think is fun. There are a few types of campaign that don't work so well with amnesia (like some court intrigue game where knowing all the gossip before-hand is crucial). But these are easy to spot and avoid. But since "whatever you want" is exactly the answer you weren't looking for, I try to narrow it down.... Actually, you know, I can't. Just about every setting can have a great amnesia game in it.

There are some themes that are goo to favor though. Amnesia itself should be a big theme. It shouldn't be a coincidence that the PCs have amnesia, it should be what the game's about. How they got it, who else has it, why they got it, etc. These are the big questions to build around.

One of my first amnesia games when I was a kid featured the PCs as ultra-tech, "skin job" androids in a modern world. They had amnesia because they just came on line for the first time. Naturally they escaped from their torturous captors (the engineers that built them and were running preliminary tests) and hunted by swat style guys trying to take them "alive" for much of the campaign. It was many session before they realized they weren't human (even though they clearly had super abilities).

3. Again, any power level works.

Since you said you wanted to play a mystery, I would suggest reading GURPS Mysteries 4ed. It's got some great pointers.

I could go on and on here (finally a thread I have expertise in). But I don't want to be the "wall of text" guy at this point.

*I've known at least 2 people IRL who got amnesia in adulthood and had to learn to walk, chew, speak english (their native tongue), etc. all over again. But this isn't so fun in a RPG.

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Fortron

I need some help with this setting.
Its going to be a short mystery campaign. (10-25 seasions).

These are the road blocks I am coming across:
1:How to run the Amnesia
2:What setting would work the best
3:How powerfull the setting should be to best complement this campaign.

From playing in this kind of campaign I can say that the other posters have got the bulk of how to run the amnesia covered just present them with a blank sheet, the physical description of a pregenerated character and roll with it.

Where I would differ with some of the other comments is that rather than the 'roll IQ to identify if you have a skill' approach, I would treat learning your characters capibilities as an RP element. Idealy the player should learn by interacting with the setting normaly (or at least as normaly as they can) i.e. the player describes what they want to do and rolls and the GM works out the effect and describes the result. Detailed character knowledge should be the result of player deduction or points expenditure (if you are willing to permit it) not a single sucessful roll.

Nymdok's sugestion of building characters based upon players in game behaviour is interesting and certainly worth considering. There are however possible issues with book keeping and campaign managenment that may need some attention.

Setting wise anything goes, there simply isn't a single 'best setting' for this kind of game. Personaly I would go with SF Horror largely because it offers a degree of unfamiliarity for the players as well as the characters in addition to making the most of the sense of confusion disorientation created by the amnesia.

As for the points value, again anything goes although if in doubt aim low. The campaign concept requires a lot of work anyway and lower value characters (50-150 points) can require less effort to generate, should be easier to chalenge and require less book keeping making your job a bit easier.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Frost

From playing in this kind of campaign I can say that the other posters have got the bulk of how to run the amnesia covered just present them with a blank sheet, the physical description of a pregenerated character and roll with it.

I give them their attributes but no ads/disads or skills.

Where I would differ with some of the other comments is that rather than the 'roll IQ to identify if you have a skill' approach, I would treat learning your characters capibilities as an RP element.

Me too. I can't see how having a high IQ lets you recover from amnesia more quickly.

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Me too. I can't see how having a high IQ lets you recover from amnesia more quickly.

Yeah...but it was simple and gameable and a more suitable fit than say DX or ST or HT.

Nymdok

[Fortron]

Ok, I think I know how I am going to run it now. Thanks for the ideas Forum.

`Fortron~