Amnesia.

I hate it. I hate it with a passion.

The scenario I see it used as a GM, time and time again, is when a player can't be ARSED writing a character background. I award bonus points to players who go to the bother of writing a solid backstory. I also give points for people who actually draw a detailed character sketch. But there's always one lazy **nt who figures that he doesn't have to do a damn thing, and he can also collect the BPs for his own laziness. I ask what is his character's backstory. He raises his head from his sheet, with a smug little smirk on his face. "I don't have a past. I have AMNESIA!"

Well I have an answer to this smug little assholes. I read them the 'hidden' subtext for the Amnesia quality:



The 25BP flaw is a joke. I don't know anyone that would take it to that extreme. But I'm tempted to award more points for the amount of shafting I give a PC with this flaw.

Discuss. Am I the only GM who feels the same way here?

- J.

PS: I'm not trying to be discriminatory above. I just know that a lot of my players find the above scenarios highly offensive to them as individuals, so I'll usually incorporate something they find offensive into their character if they pick this flaw. I'll apologise for any offense in advance, it wasn't intended.
PPS: If a PC actually had a solid reason/story but awarded the flaw as part of that story, I wouldn't really shaft them.

GURPS had a similar flaw a -5 to -25 disadvantage which was a secret. The character holds a terrible secret. The GM could decide on the secret, which meant that the character could be shafted so many different ways since Sunday. Lube was nice, but not necessary.

Sorry, what? I was making the PETA Prime Runner Team because the Amnesiac used to drown puppies in burlap sacks, and worked security in an Animal Research Center...Of course, that is nothing compared to WHY he has amnesia...Really, that Horizon Dawkins Group team is still looking for him!

There's a similar flaw in the companion.

As for the amnesia, I think it can be cool if used correctly. Of course, it means that the character has a complicate past and that this past will come back to bother him. But there's just so much that can be done with that that I don't mind having to write the PC's background, provided the player gives me the character's personality and some elements (such as something special he has/wears, the way he woke up after his amnesia or things like that). I'm used to "fill the holes" or in some way mess with the PC's backgrounds anyway.

I've never had a player create an amnesiac character, but I've had one become amnesiac after an incident involving a cranial bomb. It was really fun to play.

My longest running, most successfull, Shadowrun character ever started with Amnesia. I wrote some short fiction (without unit designations or other details about the job he was on, who it was for, etc) that covered how and why he arrived in Seattle, a "bridge" piece of Shadowrun fiction that showed how he got his one or two contacts...and then I publically asked for anyone and everyone over on Shadowland.org to fuck with him.

I knew what I was getting into, and got into it willingly -- and he turned into a fantastic character. I had GMs giving me flashbacks during certain jobs and situations, I was spending money to contract side jobs in the middle of 'Runs to check databases for more information as he tried to find out his past, I had all sorts of entanglements once his past came to light (up to and including organizing a series of Shadowruns to go get his daughter back, who'd become a ward of the Tir state in his absence)...it was great stuff.

Amnesia, like most flaws, isn't in and of itself a bad thing. It all comes down to how the player and GM handle it.

Jake: I definitely agree that, if used in the way that you mentioned, Amnesia is really lame. However, we on Dumpshock are cooler than your players

I, too, have played an character with Amnesia (mind you, my group thinks that flaws are stupid, and that you shouldn't get extra points for things that flesh out your character, so this was with no extra points). Alexander Cole, like all of my other characters, had plenty of back story, and a short story to accompany him. Sadly, we didn't end up playing that campaign long enough for his past to haunt him much.

More importantly though Jake, how do your players with this flaw ever find out about runs? How do they know their name? I think worse than actually screwing them over would be to let the other players pick a name for him (they would have to call him SOMETHING). Alex had a SIN (well, he had a fake SIN, so that's not actually his real name, he just thinks it is), and his credstick in his pocket which got him some details about his life. He was a lame decker as well, so he ended up looking up info about his fake self, never catching that it was a fake SIN.

But yeah, amnesia, used as a flaw for free points and extra laziness is really not cool. You could always say "Amnesia is off-limits unless you have at least a 3 page (MLA Format) story about your character's background to accompany it which much be in the Hands of the GM by the time the first session starts. Otherwise, expect the extra 25 point you have to come out of your skills and Attributes at the GM's Discression". Also, with the exception of cyberware, I would limit the amount of gear that a character with amnesia can have. It's kind of difficult to have posession of a Panther Assault Cannon, or even to maintain lifestyle, if you don't know where you live or where you keep your stuff. Nor should the character be allowed to start with contacts, as they don't remember who they are. Knowledge skills? pretty useless if you don't remember them.

A friend of mine had temporary amnesia once. It was pretty strange, very unreal. He fell down some icy stairs and hit his head. Luckily it was between where alot of people who knew him lived. We had to show him where he lived and he didn't know his name. He couldn't quote bad webcomics during that time either. It really IS a flaw worth 25 points when you take all of the other things into account, laziness aside.

Here's a thought that just came in. Never tried it, but maybe some will find value or bring better ideas:

If the player chooses the Amnesia flaw, use the bonus BP as 'held abilities'. What I mean is, if the flaw gives 25BP, the player has to select 25BP worth of skills/contacts/deactivated cyberwares (must not have external access/visibility) and whatever makes sense and doesn't have access to it until he regains his memory.

Now, since this is suppose to be bonus BP and to 'regain' his memory, the player would need to pay back in karma, I would probably double the BP amount worth of 'forgotten' skills/contacts/etc. The player and GM could even agree to regain part of his memory, in chunks of 5 BP/karma for instance.

Let the player come up with a background story (should be mandatory IMO), let him pick the 'forgotten' points, have both the players and GM agree, and let the GM fill the holes (to keep some surprises). The GM now has to bring elements in the game to give the player hints that something sounds familiar.

Example: Jason Bourne in the Bourne movie trilogy. Perfect example where the character suddenly discovers skills and contacts.

Like that.

And here I thought it was "Borrowed Time".... (or as I like to call it, "Not long for this world") everytime I jokingly bring that one up the GM gets a deer in the headlights look of terror. It's almost as if he expects that the character will HAVE to be eliminated w/ extreme prejudice. (he's probably right)

I know how you feel, Jake, because I've run into a lot of things like that in my past campaigns. Some people take a "dark secret", amnesia, or something I saw in many of my World of Darkness campaigns, a "Dark Fate" (somthing along the lines of "Borrowed Time", but horror-themed, à la "demons are gonna eat your soul!") for the bonus points, telling me they'll flesh it out "eventually", and then conveniently forgetting all about the flaw.

For the past several years, I've grown quite impatient with it. I'll tell the players something like: " If you think you need this flaw, you probably don't. If you know you need it, I need an explanation before the character is finished." No, I'm not even willing to wait until the start of the first session, because then they forget about it and come to the game a week later not even remembering about the flaw. There's no taking a flaw "just in case" any more, and the same for merits. I'm more lenient with minor qualities, mind you, and I don't expect a whole lot in terms of justification: even a brief one-or-two-sentences explanation will do, as long as I have something to work with. And of course, the less detail, the more room I have to mess with the character.

Even with low expectations, it works, if only because it forces people to think, even if just a little. My players are great apart from that, but sometimes, they need a soft little push to flesh out their characters. Don't give your players too much time to think about it. If they take any quality at all, it should be because the character obviously needs it. If they don't know why they take it, it was probably just for the bonus points. I know it may sound really harsh, but then my players don't often complain about, say, not getting their soul eaten by demons, regardless of the bonus points involved!

Wanna see himsweat REALLY hard?
Borrowed Time with Amnesiac.
You are going to die. Spectaculously so.
And you don't know why. But you will.
And for the points you get cool stuff that will make sure it happens sooner or later. probably sooner ^^

You walk through the door of the building and get a flash of memory: you're not supposed to be here.

And then your head explodes.

If it's an Area Bomb combined with something biological or chemical, or maybe something nanotechnological, it's totally worth it ^^

And what, kill the rest of the party too?

I'm quite sure no one who has had me for a GM leave much of the way of anything ill-defined in their backstory unless they want to live in interesting times. Sure they have to do more thinking and writing but at least they KNOW how I can screw with their characters.

Total amnisia... where to start -
You are actually a Fleshform insect spirit or shedim with notably impressive masking. Your hosts memories were shattered along with your own during the merge, your summoner (or queen) is looking for you as is a hit squad of magical threat hunters. In any case your fomer lover has become aware you are back from the dead and is trying to help you back into a "normal" life as a corperate wage slave.

The cortex bomb you think is in your head is covering a personality override chip - you were a deep cover operative for Aztecnology infultrating Denvers underground to get close to Ghostwalker. He became aware of your double nature, had your chiped personality wiped to blank memories and loyalty and tossed you to the street for the dogs. Your continued survival amuses him as it permits you to continue being tortured from afar: he will kill you later, once he bores of this. Who do you think had the cortex bomb put in. <EDIT> Aztecnology has relized "something" has gone wrong but does not have enough to risk acting directly yet, once it is clear you are no long on mission spec. a hit team of Jaguar warriors will be dispatched to "clean up loose ends". good luck with that.</EDIT>

You are not really a mage or are really a lousy one/ a burn out: you have entered into a power pact with a very powerful free blood spirit. To renew the pact once a year you must bring him a virgin sacrifise for him to drain the essence from. You amniesia was caused by a botched mind probe from someone looking for the real threat backing you. The spirit thinks you have betrayed it but is unsure for now. The sacrifice is in 4 months at which time you will start lossing magic at a rate on 1 per month. You are being followed by the mage who botched the mind probe.

I'm not sure what Amnisia does mechanically aside from the obvious but anyone that lets me run one of these plots can have the damn 25 points

Look, to be fair, I don't hate the flaw entirely. What I do hate is the 90% of usage cases which demonstrate that it will be used by a lazy player.

I have one player now who has it. I don't put him in the 'lazy' category. He basically came up with a decent background but didn't have enough info.



As its played out, between the cyberware and his amnesia, he's starting to realise he's been a double agent (triple agent even), often for so many different parties he's having problems understanding what is going on. Until he pays off the Amnesia flaw, he will never know the truth.

- J.

Actually I started agreeing with you that its lame and then started typing and found myself going down a different path by the end.

Ars Magica awards you for giving the GM story hooks: many of them are even advantages (heir to a title, fairy companion) that give you more points for your character - you are getting the points for making the GM's job easier. I really wish more games swung that way. I like my job easier.

<Edit>
By not defining their characters background I don't have to come up with a believable way to shoehorn in the crazy to their background, I have all the space in the world...

But I rather agree, as a shield for the lazy, lame!
</Edit>

Generally speaking, the gentlemen's agreement of screwing their character into the next oblivion without a good background story has served me well.

The only time a player has taken it since I implemented the above rule was this ex-spy PC of mine and it was part of his character's history (and as you said he needed it).

- J.

How about instead of Amnesia taking -25 BP for Amnesia (Tempo addiction)?

Anyways there are always lazy players. There are people who come to play for the beer and then there are those who seem to spend all week preparing for the game. Then you have the players who take amnesia because they don't know anything about the Shadowrun world and can be the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court.

I need a new hobby, these pick-nits are getting on my tits.

Wow, remind me never to game with any of you. Writing a background is in no way necessary for roleplaying, I prefer not to screw my players, and anyone who isn't interested in a backstory won't be particularly interested in any of this stuff you're giving them anyway.

I like Borrowed Time. I have a player in a campaign I'm just starting who's playing a Lovecraftian Tradition mage with the Borrowed Time negative quality. There are SO many delicious ways I can kill that character off...



As for Amnesia, NOTHING in the quality description states that the 10 BP version absolves the player from coming up with a character background. If you're letting people get away with that as a GM, that's YOUR fault.

Never underestimate the homophobic player. Anyone that disinterested wouldn't even bother playing.

- J.

Yes. If you're a complete ass who directly confronts a player with something they're incredibly uncomfortable with as a petty act of vengeance, you'll get them to roleplay the exact opposite of the way the character is established in the universe.

Boy, everyone's a winner there.

Agreed. Personally, I hate writing backgrounds. No matter how interesting they are, they are a constraint on your character's actions. I prefer to give characters personality and motives, perhaps a cursory background, and then set him loose. I find that some people use background as a short hand for the previous, and it is one way to flesh out a character, but not the only way. I, for one, like fleshing my character out in play, for the whole group to see, rather than write an essay that only myself and the GM will see.

Besides, I thought the worst flaw was Astral Hazing, which does nothing but give your sammy F-U power to every mage in existence.

Sure they are.

If I'm uncomfortable with a player picking Amnesia (when it is a lazy player per se) and I tell them as much, and they still pick it, there isn't much of an alternative.

I could ban the quality, but that would prevent its intended use - which is for a player to pick a quality in line with their backstory.

I don't see a need to ban a perfectly valid flaw. I do however see a need to shaft lazy players who use it to get out of a little effort in their character design.

- J.

Every time it's come up in my games, it's either been in the hands of an awesome player, or in the hands of a total newbie who honestly didn't know how to write a decent Shadowrun background.

Most of the time, munchkins will avoid this flaw, since it gives the GM free rein to mess with them.

IMO, you're doing it wrong. Backgrounds should be available to the whole group to read, in my experience. For example, my group have our own domain, wiki and message board with which we keep tabs on all of our characters for all of our games. Entire histories exist for characters and universes that we've played in. Granted, this spans multiple systems and has information from the past several years, but it's still awesome having that stuff there. I always enjoy reading other character's backgrounds to see what they've come up with. It's fascinating at times, and it can often lead to a jumping off of ideas.

The only time we have super secret squirrel backgrounds is when there's something in the past that it's better the other players don't know about.

This is your problem. You feel a need to shaft someone. Your other option is to let them have a good time, which is your job -- to make sure people are having a good time.

Possibly, but I think his point was more about how the way a character's played is more important than writing an essay.

I have no idea how a character is going to turn out until I've played him a bit. It might turn out that the guy who was going to be a stony faced mercenary actually plays better in the group as a fast talking ex-commando who's trying to go straight.

Or whatever. Writing reams of background before you've even taken the car for a drive has always struck me as odd.

Whenever I write backstory I tend to keep it very personality light and focus much more on the characters history. It gives me a time investment into the character (That keeps my constant need to play new characters at bay ), and also helps me define how I intend to play the character. But I wont actually decide how he might actually act ingame untill I have interacted with the other characters at the table.

An example is my Starwars D6 Jawa Engineer. At first he was going to be played as an irritating little brat who stole every bit of tech he could get his mits on. Instead he ended up being a stoic little bastard who stole every little bit of tech he could get his hands on.

It is interesting you've had that experience. Mind has been that munchkins and combat wombats flock to this Quality like flies to shit.

Your logic is sound, but I think the old adage of "laziness pays off now" is what's driving them. They can get 10BP for no thought whatsoever. It doesn't change their skill allocation, attributes, etc. It just means their past is a blank slate. "Yeah man, sure I just want to shoot guns and blow up shit."



Ahh you're from the "GM-is-not-a-person-so-his-enjoyment-does-not-matter" camp. I see.


- J.

Munchkinism is a Darwinian world. Many have learned that if you have a flaw the GM can screw you with, they will do so, especially if they don't like your character. Their tendency is to go for flaws that can't turn around and bite you, like Incompetent: Spellcasting on a mundane.

At any event, most of the munchkins I've seen do write out their character backgrounds, if only to make sure that there's no wiggle room for the GM to screw with them. The few times I've seen Amnesia come into play, it's been in the hands of a player who trusted me enough. Munchkins usually have an adversarial relationship with the GM, so they don't trust them. YMMV, of course.

No, I'm from the "it's the GM's job to make sure everyone's having fun, and therefore he is no less or no more important than any of his players" camp.

I agree with the first part. Most of the time. A kamikaze build, for example, wouldn't care though. If the basic premise of the build is that you start as fucked as possible and is simply going about to screw the GM's carefully laid metaplot (screw-laid, get it? ok, lousy pun) he's got nothing to lose by using Amnesia. In fact, the more effort you put into screwing with him through Amnesia, the more you are playing into his hands (key in evil mastermind laughter here...)

The line I underlined however, I disagree. They do trust the GM, they trust him to do whatever necessary to make their characters' lives a living hell, they are always looking for the worst case scenario and how to overcome it. Munchkins tend to be the great survivors of the gaming world, if they cannot survive whatever the GM is throwing at them, none of the other player characters are likely to do so.

GMs can have fun without screwing the players' fun.

In fact, a good GM friend of mine ran a Paranoia one-shot. We all had our secret missions and mutant powers and everything...

Come to the end, the Communications Officer was asked to hand over the recordings of our mission, the higher ranked members of the team (Orange? I was still Red) convinced our debreifer that our mission was so awesome all of Alpha Complex should see the tape (I had no say in this). She hadn't made the recordings.

So I handed her this tape I had, said, "Don't worry, I did it for you."*

Debreifer sticks the tape in, hits play.

Victorian music blares out all across Alpha Complex. Communications Officer executed for treason.

Me: "Secret Mission complete."**

*This is the point at which the GM burst out laughing maniacally for 2 minutes.

**I was the only one to complete my secret mission and one of the 5 or so (of 14 players) to still have clones left.

i have a larger problem with the cheap 5 point flaws than the large gm bugger me buttons like amnesia.

Sure your lazy player might use it to avoid needing to think hard, but they get only 10 points and can have no contacts, lifestyle or gear they cannot carry.
The 25 point version lets the GM design the character entirely. If you don't feel like making that effort then just tell your player this, and have them make their own character.

Incompetence is the worst flaw imho. It can be stuck in skills the player has no intention of using, and has a very definite area of application. Far more likely to be preferred by munchkins.

Sure they can. And that can be even more creepy.

Personally, that's why I would even allow the Trust Fund quality.

I noticed there is a sort of "having fun vs. writing essays" dichotomy rearing its head in the discussion, and here are my 2 cents.

Writing a background should not be a literary endeavour. Sure I expect some material to work with, but in over 17 years of role-playing, I've never seen a need for writing more than a paragraph or two. Of course my players can write a fragging novel if they feel like it, but I'm not rewarding them for it, so it's all at their own discretion. I do object to players taking qualities without knowing why, but my players understand my reasons, they know I use their background in my story design, and most importantly, they're cool with it. When they do figure out why they need to be amnesiac, or to live on Borrowed Time, or to serve as Infernal appetizers, they know it will come up in the game, that they will get to hug the spotlight now and then, and they like it!

Of course, this is our table. Yours can play differently, and if you ask me, it's totally cool.

I suppose I might clarify... a bit.
I have little problem with "vauge" backstorys. One of my current players doen't really have one: Raised into the Vory, is a leg breaker, does crime for a living, no family worth speaking of. He's not interested in his backstory and is playing a monster, as a result (which I discussed with him over a beer) we agreed I am free to toss more or less anything I want from a "has a VERY shady past" perspective at him with minimal warning. This over time will range from angry widows seeking vengance (during runs) to old favours cropping up to be payed (giving the group runs or forcing him to be elsewhere during a run) to the hard jawed maverick partner of the Interpol officer he killed in front of his family 2 days before his retirment (while he's in the bath or otherwise inconvinienced). All this can happen becaue he has no back story - he has gamed with me a fair bit and knows what hes getting into when he leaves me with an open field.

The flaw amnisia used soley to get points for this disinterest in backstory (this charater having amnesia would change very little aside from awarding points and the various curveballs I toss making sence when they start) seems silly to me. Why am I giving him points to make his charaters life this awesome for him?

My problem with flaws like this is not so much the laziness of the player (though I can see why that annoys a GM and depending on player could annoy me too because it undermines my efforts to have fun role-playing). My more recent problem is when players take it knowing full well that they are inviting trouble, but relying on the GM to not provide it. Essentially planting a big "DESTRUCT" button on their character's head and daring the GM to press it and ruin the evening's game. There are too many variants of that, but it's particularly likely in Shadowrun where stats take such a back seat to planning, trust and careful distrust.

Munchkins die because they force the GM to play hardball. If PCs are built to hurl grenades and wield LMGs, then I can't send them on milk runs, I have to send them against tough opposition. Who kill them.

Flaws like Amnesia, or far worse, Incompetent(Etiquette), are too often forcing the GM to either ignore them and thus give the player free BP (which is what the munchkin is after) or press their DESTRUCT button and say "Bang - you're dead". Or something like that, anyway.

Knasser's comment at the end of his post made me realize I wanted to clarify something else. When I talk about messing with players, I don't think it necessarily means going out of my way to kill them. It could just mean an amnesiac character learning mid-campaign that he owes A LOT of money to a crime syndicate, that he's a corporate Manchurian candidate, etc. In other words, if I'm gonna mess with a character's life, the least I could do is make sure the character still has a life for me to mess with in the first place!

Just to be clear, I also like messing with my player's heads, but in a friendly, enjoyable way. What I object to is players forcing your hand by hitting your game with every tweaked number they can, yet expecting you to be gentle with them and give them an ego-stroking power-trip.

It just seemed to me that the sort of player buying Amnesia for "free points" was putting the GM in the same position as mine with their "I'm going to kill Yakuza with an LMG, but live in a squat with no security where the local gangs can all identify me". They want the good stuff without consequence, always looking for a loophole that will let them get it.

QFT.

Again, my lovable GM of awesome upon hearing that one of the players has a junkyard man as a contact (we needed a van) at a high loyalty (5ish) but the player hand't fleshed the contact out--no name, race, or gender.

The GM made it a gay troll, who hit on me (an elf).

I very quickly made myself unseen (yay chameleon gear!).

The troll did not give us as big of a discount as he might've if I'd gotten into bed.

I'm not homophobic or anything, but my character wasn't into that kind of thing.

If someone picks amnesia from me, I'll make them a free spirit who doesn't know they are a spirit...and they don't know who has their formula.

Just get the poor squatters precious LMG stolen by one of the other squatters around... -problem solved-

Depends on your definition of a munchkin though. I'd say that most players with munchkin tendencies would avoid such Qualities, because it is not controllable and is likely to bite them in the ass. When faced with such characters, I run my game normally. Sooner or later, it will come into play and they... will suffer the consequences. They might survive it, they might not.

Why would you possibly take amnesia as a munckin when moderate allergy (uncommon) gold is right there in the book.

Or better yet Geas "Wearing a shirt"

I mean come on.

Incompetent (Aircraft)
Incompetent (Spacecraft)
Incompetent (Seacraft)

Good news... says the face as he comes in after the Johnson talked him into the next set of runs. (and it didn't take much talking to convince him).

Sand Sea and Sun.... we're going to investigate some small islands in the pacific. And the Johnson even threw in some jet skis for everybody.

It can and will come back to haunt you.

Oh, come on now.

The true Munchkin buy is:

Incompetent: Compiling
Incompetent: Registering
Incompetent: Decompiling

on a mundane.