Hi.

One of my Players want to play a character with total amnesia, so I have to Build bis character.
I have a few ideas, which are not very innovative. So I wanted to ask here on dumpshock ist anyone has some nice ideas for a character concept.
I'm Open for any Input, especially if the ideas are innovative or rather unconventional.

I'm very thankful for every idea

Best regards
Murray

P.s: we are a Group of non-powergamers.

Have him slowly turn into an infected.

my first suggestion for a group of non-power gamers is to generally not ask Dumpshock for build ideas...

Beyond that, you have a few directions to go:

You can create the character to challenge the players typical playstyle.

You can create the character to compliment the player's playstyle

You can create the character to compliment the party Dynamic & fill the needs of the party.

Does he have a role or archetype he'd like to play?
If no, is there a role that needs to be filled within the group?
If yes, build towards it, unless...
Does he always play this archetype?
If yes, what has he never played? Build towards that.

You could also have a lot of fun with something like shifter or drake. If you did go that route, I wouldn't charge him the full BP cost (i.e. doing something like "latent drake") until he remembers/figures it out. Then drop his karma gains in half until the debt is paid off.*

*This is so that instead of screwing the character over at the beginning by charging him for a whole slew of abilities he can't utilize AND not screwing them over all at once when the ability is realized, they instead go into a bit of karmic debt. They end up "slightly" more powerful than the other PCs for a little while, but it's not overly noticable.

You could go crazy and start with a blank character sheet, randomly assigning stats the moment they first come up until you've spent 400 BP.
Maybe print out 100 D6 rolls beforehand so your player doesn't hear you rolling and figure out what's going on right away.

Ask questions and go from that...
Like:
Why does he have amnesia?
what caused it? was it purposeful or accidental? his doing or someone elses?
What are his relationships?
Who was his friends? foes? can he trust them? do they know of his condition? do they take advantage of it?

Continue to ask questions as they come up and form an idea of who this character was, or thought he was. Maybe he even left clues to himself.
After that assigning abilities are much more natural.

Amnesiacs are a pain as they're completely dependent on how much effort the GM want to put in, but if all parties put their minds into it. It might just turn out great.

Or, you could be REALLY lazy, and pick an archetype from the book the party needs, then give HUGE negative mental and social disads, and spend the rest on silly items and skills!
Is the player looking for a roleplaying challenge? Or, is he too lazy to be bothered making a player? Or is he new to roleplaying and feels overwhelmed by SR's character build process?
These are critical questions to answer so everyone has a good time.

Hi. Thanks for the responses.

The player is
a) not that familiar with SR
b) want to try something new (roleplay challenge)

I like to build this chars and I dont wanna be lazy I wanna give the player (and the group) a good experience.

Alright then. What has the player played before (archetype, any game or genre)?
And what game system are they most familiar with?

The 25 BP in negatives for amnesia only leaves you ten more points of negative qualities, so make sure it's a good one like judas or cranial bomb.

Day job, dependent, or in debt might be entertaining for them to find out, though. People don't like being kept waiting for a month or more.

For actually useful advice: a character who is decent at everyday things (perception, ettiquette, etc.) with a few useful hidden abilities/cyberware would make for a character who is enjoyable more than stressful. Having deliveries or automatic comlink reminders should work as clues or just to make the character wonder. "Remember, 8:15 at the usual spot."

He played more "intelligent" chars (Mages for example). I think he can learn every system really fast, but the last time he played in my D&D4e Group a Warlord and a Warlock.

I do not want to make him a "dumb" character, or a character who is only good at fighting.

One of my recent ideas include a character which is kind of a sherlock holmes type:
A private detective. Maybe he's last mission was to get information about one or more of the other PCs and then he gets the amnesia. Just an idea.

But at the moment i'm not very creative...

@Iduno:
Your advice is good! Thanks!

Perfect.
An infiltration specialist / thief would be great for him.
I'd also suggest a face (the charasmatic talkers), although I will readily admit that playing a charasmatic character takes some natural Real Life charisma as well.

So running with the infiltrator idea, the archetype excells at breaking and entering--which is important in any Shadowrun--which definitely comes down to smarts, even if it's not modeled by the system well (but a smart player will find it intellectually challenging!)

Here's a template drake infiltrator. It's got some basics already, just knock off the "drake" part and add the amnesia, and then play around with the remaining points.

Hold up... Are we making Jason Bourne here?

On a serious note as a snoop induced amnesia makes a lot of sense did he find out something he shouldn't had and paid the price or is he just very very deep undercover?

Thanks. I will take a look at the template. Maybe I make him an adept with latent drake. I thought about specializing him in weaponless fighting and light pistols. So he could be a very sneaky infiltrator. What do you think?

Given that that template was based off a character I actually played--drake mystic adept infiltrator--sounds about right. ^..~

The goal of that original design was "I am making a drake. What archetype would benefit most from the dracoform?" I.e. how can I make these advantages advantageous, rather than quirks that make the character weaker.

He ended up not wearing armor in human form, at all.

(Note: this post will be helpful when it comes time for him to shift forms)

Drakes. So terrible. You spend gajillions of BP on useless abilities to make a colorful quirky character, and depending on the GM, you might be killed within a day or two of gameplay from anyone with astral vision and a desire for money.

I actually have a whole bundle of half-complete characters I've built up on herolab. PM me if you want me to throw you a couple.

I'd have him be a SINner who knew too much - I like the idea of a PI or corporate spy who got too deep. He was memory-wiped and written off instead of dissapeared, but has something really really dangerous hidden behind a (now-forgotten) deltaware datalock (Mysterious cyberware).

He'd have basic B&E skills, technical skills, social skills, and a slew of contacts who all know him by different names, none of which are his original one.

So a fun way to do would be to get him involved with another player.

Maybe in an old, cliche way: long lost relative or childhood friend. That would make introducing him easier, also would bind the team together.

Maybe in some harder way: other player was somehow responsible for amnesia (honest to god accident? deliberate action?). That could lead to the other player trying to help or actually stop the amnesiac from recovering. This plays on emotions: guilt, fear, (lack of) trust.

I'll give you a story. Let's say amnesiac is Andrew and other player is Bob.

Andrew and Bob are old friends. For some reason or another they don't keep in touch. Andrew became a shrewd hacker, Bob is a Shadowrunner. Andrew tries to make a datasteal on Aztechnology. Someone alerts Bob about this and he decides to intervene. Unfortunately, he arrives exactly when Andrew's brain is being fried. Andrew looses his memories. From here you can add story layers. Who alerted Bob? Another friend? Maybe spontaneously compiled sprite? Maybe Azzies cut a deal with Bob to actually pull a plug on Andrew and erase his memories? When that's solved there can be another layer. Why did Andrew try this hack in the first place? What data was he trying to get?

Or maybe Bob was not alerted to rescue, but hired to clean up (presumably) dead hacker and he decides to take pitty on him. Now they both have a secret that will get them a powerful enemy should the Bob-the-Lazarus appear on local crime channel?

Best thing of all is that you don't have to do *anything* up front, you can build up story as you go. I love players that take amnesia, because that says "Hey MG, I'm here to have a nice story and not to freak out over stats".

If you go that way talk to the other player, to be sure he wants to cooperate

Well, once thing I've done with the 25-pt amnesia flaw and amnesia, is state that a massive overdose of Laés can, in addition to its listed effects, sometimes trigger general-onset movie-style amnesia. (The past beyond the Laés dose isn't gone for good, as with the normal Laés stuff, but it's gonna be hard to remember.)

So make the character a shadows investigator who was hired by some party (megacorp, Great Dragon, Draco Foundation,) to investigate something very hot, and after they presented their findings, that group realized they knew too much, and gave them an offer they couldn't refuse: they could take a dose of Laés strong enough to erase the last year of their life, or be force-fed a dose of hot lead strong enough to erase the rest of their life. They went with the forget-me-now juice.

They are. Which is why I went through the exercise of finding a way to make them viable.

An infiltrator was the best I could come up with. Given the right...other qualities I was able to turn mild inconveniences into serious benefits. SURGE for chameleon skin not only means that the character has more armor when in dracoform, but that because they're naked, they get a stealth bonus too. Oh, and natural weapons of course (Note: Exotic Weapon (Firebreath) is kind of important). Along with the ability to fly. And with Eastern drakes (and only Easterns) they can use guns...at a +2 AGL. And do other things, like operate door knobs, computer consoles, etc.

Wards? Not a problem, dual natured switches off when in (meta)human form (the only race or animal that has this trick--not counting magicians, because that's not actually Dual Natured).

And so on.

It's a very narrow niche, but it works.

if you go the Sherlock style route perhaps his memory loss is induced by his Moriarty & will not return until such time as he has bested him. If the player is not used to the system perhaps allow him to use the Latent Awakening to get used to the majority system then once he's used to that allow him to get the Adept powers & let him learn that when he's ready.

In my opinion Judas isn't a good qualiy - its basicaly a built-in trigger that leads to either the character or the party's destruction without any control from the player. Basically, you can get a TPK by GM fiat 'ok, Juda triggers, what do you do' - oh those yahoos have just pissed whoever planted me enough for a Thor shot, time for sending in GPS coordiantes 'Kaboom, game over'.

At least a mole canchange his mind over time, but the Judas can't - the second the quality kicks in, he (she or it) turns into an ennemy, with no warning signs and precious little ways to se it coming.

A cranial bomb at elast can be detected and removed, but as far as I know, th eJuda's eeep enough that you can't find out.

There are ways of dealing with it that don't result in anyone's death.

Remember Babylon 5?

For a while Garibaldi was a Judas.

This corporate spy Idea is nice and works well with the infiltrator concept.

Yeah! This is a nice Idea for the background story Thanks.


Yeah. That's the point I love amnesia players, too. But I think to get him involved with another player won't work for my group. The whole mystery about the amnesia will be spoiled somehow by the player.


There are many really good ideas idea. Thank you all I will build something in the next few days.

Talia Winters is a better comparison, I think.

Actually both are an equal comparison in that for much the same reason. Main difference is that Talia was programmed by people higher up the Psi Corps food chain than Garibaldi was (which is saying a LOT).

There was also an opportunity to have gotten the old Talia back, that I think the writers forgot about, and never addressed.

Remember the weird negotiation between Kosh and the guy with his brain exposed?

The practically recorded her entire personality.

Not that that solution works in Shadowrun.

That dual natured trick is pretty neat. Hadn't thought of that.

The astral part still just nullifies them unfairly, though, and that's the part where depending on GM, you honestly might never be able to go into a city.

It's one of those things that comes as part of the player-GM contract:
If the world really worked the way the fluff implies, no one would be able to do anything and get away with it.
So drakes--and other weird stuff--should be allowed to walk around town without being assaulted every 20 minutes.

Does it mean the GM can never pull that card? No, but when he does, the PC shouldn't auto-die because of it, nor should it be pulled all the time.

IMO the PCs should be utterly immune to that crap. Let it stay in the background where faceless NPCs on the trid suffer through it.

Sort of. I see nothing wrong with having a story arc revolve around some NPC recognizing the PC as a drake and trying to "get the bounty reward."

But it definitely shouldn't be a common occurrence.

I just look at it as having a fine line right at the edge of a slippery slope, so better to avoid it entirely.

This was due to the other Commitments by the Actor.
Would really have liked to see her come back, though.

Ah. Didn't know that. It was just something that stuck out in my mind on my second time watching the series.

This little turn of tangent reminded me how much I want a game of the B5 system I have, though a lot of the people here on DS have hatred for the system it uses...

There's nothing inherently bad about d20...er, maybe there is.
There's nothing wrong with running a d20...er, maybe there is.

Still, I'd be interested. Don't know how much time I have for it though...

I just know I wouldn't be running. It's something I wanna play, not run.

SAD FACE.

Not having seen that serie beyond a few teaser and bits along with soemreading, I can't tell how relevant it is - because there's one big difference there : a Shadwrunner team's hitting power (and resiliency) is way, way beneath what a corp can bring to bear it it's motivated enough. If there's a judas to pinpoint their position, they can get wiped faily fast, especially if they have no warning the judas as leaked their hideout/real identity/whatever. It's also dubious the party has the ressources and contacts to treat that sort of mindbending without ressorting to lead-based brain surgery.

Also since the Juda's programmers are expelictely mentionned as hostile to the party, the odds for them taking fairly drastic action once their plant manifests itself are fairly high. Heck, in some cases the Judas doesn't even need to involve his sponsor - merely misplacing a spell during a difficult fight 'oops knocked down our front line fightersguy with that stunball - got to leave if i want to save my skin, too bad for you buddies' or leaking info the current run's target (and making sure he's the one doing overwatch from behind if he's suited to the role) can be enough.

There's hostile, and then there's hostile.

The plant could be after something the party stole at one point, or after other information they have. The programmers aren't necessarily interested in the party's demise.

Hell, I played a Judas in a 3rd edition game. Well, less programmed and more "looking out for my own health" but I totally betrayed the party.

Long story short, we were escaping a facility that we accidentally installed Deus onto, and Deus was quite unappreciative of the fact that we didn't want to become his little meat puppets. Nearly in the clear my character takes a bullet and almost dies--talking 1 box of physical before overflow kind of almost dies--and being the hacker, I contacted Deus and said, "I relent. I will serve you, but you've got to stop shooting at me." Due to bullets no longer flying in my general direction, the party escaped. And I didn't reneg on that either.

And one of the things I took with me when I fullfilled that promise was this anthroform drone/tank thing we'd stolen from the facility.

I also got killed by an orbital laser when the corps came in and retook the facility.

Interesting. I'd add on Astral Chameleon also, to help with avoiding detection.

That aside, playing an augmented character who's augmentations are mostly bio or non-visible cyber would be interesting. Maybe a face/infiltrator who has like six+ decent-rated SINs in his headlink would also be interesting - which one is the real him, or are non?

I had a game where all the players were full amnesiacs - the game was a shipwreck in a manastorm, so due to shipwreck and manastorm all characters had lost their memory. They had to repair the ship and stay alive (other shipwrecks in the area had oilspils/toxic leaks, leading to a number of toxic critters and toxic spirits), all while conserving fuel and ammo and while trying to remember who they were and what they were doing. There was a troll mage, a dwarf street samurai, a human rigger, an elf TM, and a human cyborg who was semi-Judas. The backstory was that the rest of them were a bounty-hunter team who were contracted to retrieve a rogue cyborg. The cyborg infiltrated the team to throw them off her trail but ended up getting ousted while they were following a lead. Shortly after they shipwrecked and lost memory.

It was set up in such a way where people would slowly remember things, especially when trying to figure things out. Each of them checked their 'links, which had some info (favorite books, journals, ect) but not full SIN information. I also had it set up in such a way that the players could keep the characters (each came to really like who/what they were playing) and decide what to do once off the island. The cyborg was going to join the group as a bounty hunter and send back that the cyborg was destroyed at sea, an unavoidable consequence of attempting to recapture her.

For even more fun, the cyborg was a female named Samantha, but was in an androgynous case with the name "Sam" on its armor. Oh, and Sam had Hallucinations. It was really fun watching everyone's reactions when Sam, who wasn't feeling very sleepy, got a warning overlaid through AR on her vision that said "Battery Low."

All the players had when we started that campaign was a stack of character sheets to choose from that had gender, metatype, and basic equipment listed (two pistols, body armor, sword, assault rifle, ect.). It wasn't until play started that people even had a rough knowledge of what things were or what their names were. Everyone had uniform armor with names, so that helped (although Sam was deceptive and at least one person had a nickname), and the dwarf started naming all the weapon types (gun trivia knowledge skill).

'Twas fun, and I really would have liked to finish that campaign.

Sounds Interesting Neraph, if not a little complicated for the GM.

Well, I was the GM in that one and I spend a good amount of time setting it up. The reason I explained it was to give this thread's OP some ideas based on my experiences with full amnesiacs.

The hallucinatory cyborg was a very interesting plot twist - she kept wasting ammo shooting at things that weren't there.