Amnesia-style game?

[Gahnomen]

I've been thinking of running a game where the players basically just make the physical parts of their PCs, not allowing them to flesh out any background at all. Personalities would be determined by each player of course.

Each PC will wake up in a rather comfortable bed, in a sparsely furnitured room. They'll wake up at the same time. None of them will have any idea where they are, or why they are there.

Now to make this interesting, I figure it has to take a lot of sessions before they even meet an NPC that's willing to talk to them, and that will preferrably be some sort of insane loon that'll only give them slight hints to their nature.

So I figure they'll wake up in a dungeon of some sorts, with hunger and freedom being motivations to start moving.

PC's levelling up means they get some sort of epiphany, recalling that this was the way he had done things before (the warrior getting better at fighting, the wizard remembering how to cast fireball) and perhaps getting a flashback from the past.

What would they find should they make it to the outside though? What would be the consequences of running a dungeon from the inside-out? Would this be any fun at all?

 

[xnosipjpqmhd]

Check out idea #1 in this post: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=164878

I think its a great idea. As a DM, just start thinking backwards to come up with a story. Someone obviously put them there, right? Who? Obviously either (a) they weren't opposed to them (because they didn't just kill them) or (b) they were opposed to them but couldn't outright kill them for one reason or another or (c) they are testing them for some reason or (d) insert your idea here...

 

[Seeten]

Mmmm. Planescape: Torment

 

[ChristianW]

I think that this would be a lot of fun to play. D&D has been around for a long, long time and so very often campaigns are the usual orcs and elves fighting for treasure jazz. Your idea would be a refreshing change.

I once did something similar. The party awoke on a beach and wandered inland to a world that appeared to be covered in vast forest. Within were crumbling ruins and lost, wandering people with no recollection of their past. Terrified and not knowing where they had come from, or why they were there, things got pretty desperate.

Enjoy your campaign!

 

[Umbran]

It would be fun, if and only if you had a good concept and story for what happened before.

I am reminded of the TV show Nowhere Man, where a guy discovers that the history he remembers is a lie. The major problem of the show is that the guys writing it didn't know the main character's backstory. Until the network started telling them to take the darn show someplace, it kind of rambled around without focus.

So, the big thing is - why do they have amnesia? What happened before? Who are they really? And what do you do if the personality the player develops during the running doesn't match the one you assume in creating the backstory? Answer those questions well, and it'd be interesting. Otherwise, it'll likely flop.

 

[domino]

And what do you do if the personality the player develops during the running doesn't match the one you assume in creating the backstory? Answer those questions well, and it'd be interesting. Otherwise, it'll likely flop.

This would be the big thing I'd be concerned about. It'd be a bit much to assume that they're going to follow their history a second time. After all, amnesia does weird things to people. And they'll be having different experiences this time around. It's possible that the theif may find, that instead of being found by the theive's guild, he is brought in by a temple. Thus, rather than steal for his food and clothing, it is provided for him, and he devotes himself to religion.

 

[ChristianW]

I vote for the following: The party was captured by Mind Flayers, then subsequently experimented upon. Brain grafting, exactly. A character may recall his former life as a farmer, but now he has sorcerous abilities, because the Mind FLayers drained his spinal fluid and replaced it with that of a sorcerer. The character also has some of the sorcerer's memories, including some juicy gossip that might provide scenario seeds later on in the campaign.