The players will choose one class to make as their characters out of these selections:
Fight/WLord
Cleric/Pally
Rang/Rogue
Wiz/WLock
No pair can be chosen twice. Once a pair is selected by the player, they are to make one character of either class in the pair of classes selected. Each pairing will have predetermined attributes, backgrounds, allies, enemies and schemes half completed. They will have roles in a small valley community as Governor(Fight/WLord), Church Leader(Cleric/Pally), Celebrity-esque Mage Trainer(Wiz/WLock), and Steward of Villages outside the main city(Rang/Rogue).
For the first run they will only use the predetermined attributes(Str, Con, etc) and not fully created characters, as they have no memory of their previous skills or spells. The first run will include an escape from the location where they lost their memory (a hideout of illithid who created a ritual to gain nutrients from thoughts/memories rather than physical brains), and a return to civilization.
Once returning to civilization, NPCs will already know who they are (great adventurers/leaders) and will act that way. They will be welcomed back as heroes, and be thrust back into their roles in the community. At that point, they will make 1st level characters.
The Governor was a man who liked to handle things himself, and had the other PCs as his assistants in such matters, as they are experts in their field. Problems will be given to the Governor from his aides, and he will decide what, if anything, needs to be done. This is how the core "adventuring" will be done. Things like Goblin problems to the east, Lizardfolk in the marshes to the south, political upheaval in the west, and suspicious activity at the boarder to the northern kingdom are general concepts. Most of those types of problems will lead them back to how they lost their memory, and who did it. My plan is to run this up to level 10, where they will defeat the illithids who took their memory and choose their paragon path and destiny.
My question is regarding ideas about the backgrounds of who these characters used to be before amnesia struck.
Some ideas I've had:
-Stewart of Villages had gotten the Governors wife pregnant, and the wife died during childbirth. The Governor is left to raise a child that, to his knowledge, is his own blood.
The player will figure out something is amiss when he and his child are re-introduced and he looks nothing like him. The child seems to enjoy more of the things that the Stewart enjoys, rather than the Governors interests. Certain people in the community know about the child, and will talk if the circumstances (or price) is right. People working for the Stewart know as well, but it is assumed to never be spoken of.
-The Church Leader is actually a Goblin who got polymorphed into a human to relay intelligence and help sew the seeds of an invasion by the neighboring goblin tribes.
The player will figure out something is amiss when goblins speak in a familiar language, try to help him, and he finds a shrine dedicated to Bane in a secret room of his abode. I was also thinking that he could turn into a goblin for a certain period of time a night/month/year, and believe it to be a curse. When someone magically removes curse, either nothing happens(cause it's not a curse, its a polymorph type ritual) or he turns into a goblin outright.
-The Mage Trainer is an arrogant man who feels he can accomplish anything. He constantly challenges himself with experiments and such, and doesn't care to clean up after himself when things go wrong.
The player will have to figure out how to resolve some magical issues he caused and never fixed before his amnesia. Some ideas include destroying warmachines created, undoing curses, magical residue pollution(think radiation).
If anyone has any other ideas they would like to suggest or comments/questions please post. It would help a lot, even if it's to clarify something that doesn't make sense.
Thanks!
You could always have the Rang/Rogue have been a crime boss, running a group of highwaymen without knowing it. Have him receive money from people randomly on his doorstep, and random winks.
Also, for skills, let the players figure them out as they play. Go ahead and let them know their two passives (as they are passive and they should know them) but leave the trained or not slot on all other skills blank until a player goofs around with it. It would be amazingly fun for the Cleric to be doing his thing, then feel like he's gotta lie about something (his altar maybe?) then suddenly find out he's trained in it. That would be VERY fun.
Perhaps have one of the group actually have traded them to the Illithids, and the group finds out ONE of them did, but not which one. That could lead to some great things. I have found that players will fill in holes like that if you tell them things.
It would be great if after awhile (maybe two months) an actual God shows up to reclaim something, or a demon. Like, have the Warlock find out he made a pact with a demon, though his powers make him think he is a Feylock.
This is again a really cool idea I might steal, and if I can think of more things, I'll post them up.
Background
Players were typical guards of mixed classes guarding a regular wagon train up the side of a mountain to a dwarven mining encampment. Trips were regular and pretty dull.
On one trip there was an earthquake. They took shelter in the side of a mountain, a halfway point between the encampment and the village below. There were some food supplies and common mining supplies. During the earthquake a section of the cave split open to reveal an underground dungeon.
The place was ancient and haunted, the spirits of those who lived there were trapped inside. The area was also hit by the spell plague as we were moving from 3e to 4e it seemed like a good idea for a story. During the adventure the players encountered the previous inhabitants of the dungeon, who for the most part ignored the players.. walking right through them at many points. Any time a spirit moved through a player I told the players...
"as the spirit of the drow guard moves through you, you remember his childhood, you recall the smells sights and sounds of his early years. you also feel the rage of first battle and can still hear the cries of the fallen. As the spirit leaves the area you can still feel your heat pounding in your chest and it takes 10 minutes or more before you can fully understand those near you who are speaking in common"
Throughout the adventure this happened over and over again until in some cases the group had to work together using hand signals as many of them could not understand each other as the effects were taking longer and longer to leave.
When they left the dungeon they found that many years had gone by, a warp in time caused by the spell plague. They also found that there were unsure of their own past. Each of them were left feeling the lives of those who had passed through them during the adventure.
I used this as a method of moving them from 3e to 4e without having to spend days reworking everything. I told them that they could change class to anything that suited them and reroll stats as well. They would keep level and equipment and from the treasure in the adventure they could restock and change what they needed.
After it was all over I thought it would be a great story hook also for another game, give the characters false memories even class abilities that did not mix and essentially let them RP their way to a final determination as to what class they really were. Over time the extra abilities would fade out of mind and they would be settled into who they truly were.
Over all it was well received as ideas go and we had a blast. Anyhow just some additional thoughts on how amnesia like ideas can be fun to play out.
You don't think I would force this kind of thing on players do you???
I ran with this idea after talking with the players and telling them straight up that I had a unique idea and wanted to try it.. heck I went so far as to tell them that if the session was unacceptable to them I would just wash it away as a dream session. Hey if its ok for the soaps to do why not D&D :P
Everyone playing thought it was as good an idea as they could come up with besides scrapping the current characters all together.. true they lost this and gained that but the flavor of the characters was maintained and that's what they were looking for.. so no power crazed DM here..
News Flash! Power-Crazed DM Dictates PC Stats and Backgrounds! Read all about it in this afternoon's Railroading Times!
Stats and backgrounds are not a character make. They've all agreed that this would be fun to try. Don't hate.
LOL :D
You don't think I would force this kind of thing on players do you???
I ran with this idea after talking with the players and telling them straight up that I had a unique idea and wanted to try it.. heck I went so far as to tell them that if the session was unacceptable to them I would just wash it away as a dream session. Hey if its ok for the soaps to do why not D&D :P
Everyone playing thought it was as good an idea as they could come up with besides scrapping the current characters all together.. true they lost this and gained that but the flavor of the characters was maintained and that's what they were looking for.. so no power crazed DM here..
Sorry, I meant the OP, not you.
News Flash! Power-Crazed DM Dictates PC Stats and Backgrounds! Read all about it in this afternoon's Railroading Times!
Why the hate?
There is nothing wrong with new concepts and people trying stuff like this. I once played in a game that was very similar except it involved a shipwreck. We turned in the ideas of what we would like as a concept and a general background to the DM and he made the characters. He even had different versions of them printed out that he would hand out to you as the character began to get their memories back.
It was a lot of fun.
@ChuckyD
You have a good idea here, go with it. As a player that has been through one of these games I can attest that when it is done well it is a very rewarding experience.
I like your ideas, I think creating some kind of mechanic by which their memories begin to come back or by which certain things seem familiar might be a good idea. I am not sure that I would make the mechanic stat dependent but maybe a challenge based on the amount of time the character invests in trying to recover their memories, or when they engage in certain actions that would be very familiar to their characters. :D
Good Luck!
