I’ve been working on a game lately that I’ve come to call “Forgotten” (although I think that I might need a new name seeing how common the one I’ve picked is). The game originally started as a thought exercise to see if I could come up with an RPG about The Game (you know, the annoying one where you lose when you think about it.) and eventually ended up in its current form of a game about a group of people who wake up with no memories and have to participate in a series of challenges of ever increasing difficulty as they restore their past and try to escape the nightmare world they find themselves in (kind of like weird a mix of Lacuna, Don’t rest your head, FATE, zombie movies, and the Nintendo DS game “The World Ends with You”). I’ll be posting some more details on the game later.

Anyways, one of the main “gimmicks” so to speak is that the players start with a blank character sheet and go through the process of getting a back story and choosing skills and such things usually done during character creation in the midst of play by “recalling” them (for example, a character presented with a sheer cliff face might recall being a rock climber, add the climbing skill to their sheet and proceed up the cliff).

Well, for the most part I’ve got the mechanics, setting, and flow of the game down and I’ll probably be ready to run my first play test in a week  or two but there’s one main thing that’s been giving me problems: why bother recalling your past? In normal character creation, you might write a short back story for your character in order to give them motivations or a more defined place in the setting, but that doesn’t really apply to what I’m doing, since the game is more meant as a one-shot deal and the characters would already be in the midst of a situation so that potential plot hooks wouldn’t have time to be used. I know that many games just skip with the character’s past entirely, but seeing as the focus of my game is on regaining memories, it seems like it’d be a good idea to have the players regain at least some memories that aren’t immediately useful in overcoming a challenge.

I’ve considered giving players a reward for recalling a non-skill memory such as a bonus in a situation that relates to the memory or just a flat bonus after recalling the memory, but these solutions don’t really seem to solve my problem really, because they just make the whole process to mired in mechanics. But on the other hand, just allowing players to freely recall memories without any sort of mechanical thing tied to them kind of robs from the whole idea that the characters have very little memory.

I apologize if this post is incoherent; the concept is something that I’m having some trouble dealing with myself. Anyways, ideas or feedback would be appreciated. Also, general musings on the role of character history in games with mostly simulationist agendas would be welcome as well.

Why choose between useful and important memories?

When I was a child, my dad taught me how to climb. He explained to me that it wasn't about strenght or agility but patience and endurance.

In this case, not only the character has recalled a skill (climbing), but also an NPC (father) and mental traits (patience and endurance) as well. I think a valid solution would be, then, not just providing a skill but also tie the memory to other aspects of the character. You get a mechanical advantage and revealing background at once.

Hmm... mental attributes might be something the player should know in advance, where memories become explanations for having them ("oh, that's why my character has Resolve 3").

I'm not that knowledgeable of your sources, but they seem to be the kind of games where mental attributes are very important.

And those NPCs would be psychological Flags just waiting to be used by the GM.

(ok, now I want to run a Silent Hill game using this)

You make a good point. I suppose that looking back on it there's really no reason to distinguish between the two, but I'd been doing it for whatever reason without much justification. This is exactly why I posted the idea: to see if someone else's viewpoint would shake things up for me. Thanks. Anyways, if anyone else wants to comment feel free, but for now I think I'll run with something similar to imago's idea, as it seems to be just what I'm looking for.

If you create the right framework during a recall you lay claim to mental and emotional traits that may serve you well later. Like courage, patience, a way with kids, attentiveness to details, and so on.