The Invoked Memory Stimulator from M&M is primarily used to help cyberzombies "remember" that they're alive. However, I got the idea that a character with amnesia who knew he would lose his memory might arrange to have this little device implanted, practically ensuring that he would eventually recover his past.

My only question is... would this actually work?

here's a cool idea that would never, ever work in a regular gaming group: run a game in the style of Pulp Fiction or Max Payne 2, where the scenes are all jumbled and out of order. the guy's got amnesia, but his IMS is working overtime and plunging him into crazy flashbacks, so he's never sure if he's actually doing something or just remembering something.

otherwise, yeah, it'd work. you'd have to be careful, because this character could hog the spotlight. but an amnesiac who has occasional jarring, cyberware-induced memories of his past isn't outside the realm of playability.

I think the way it works for the cyberzombie is that it triggers a memory that the cyberzombie would normally "have access to". Something to remember his life in this world.

For a character with amnesia, I think the IMS would be more akin to hallucinations. They would be getting flashes of these "memories", but have no idea that it was their own life they were experiencing.

If the player were to specifically get the IMS to help him remove the amnesia flaw, i would certainly change the point value of the flaw by 1 or 2.

Here's an idea though, convince a player who has selected the amnesia flaw to also take the Mysterious cyberware flaw or give it too him without telling him. Then have that mysterious cyberware be the IMS, and when the flashbacks come he'll have no clue what is going on. That could really mess with a players head.

Funny thing is, you don't need IMS for this necessarily. Personally, I'd only have the IMS if you wanted them to have intentionally wrong memories.

Pulp Fiction or Max Payne 2? Nah more like drop him periodically into the same mode as Guy Pearce's character in Memento.

But not all the time because that would hog the spotlight on the PC and cause my brain to pop a vessle or 4. My head hurts right now just trying work out the concept of how to run that for just a few minutes of ingame. Definately would have to watch a better part of the movie right before each session to get into the wacked frame of mind required.

Assuming I could be bothered I would make a good set for the amnesiac, flashbacks, mysterious cyber wear combination. And you can avoid spot light hogging buy righting up the back story flashes on cards and just handing him one at random when you think the IMS will trigger.

No need to change the point value of the flaw, as the memory is retriggered the value of the amnesia flaw drops, and is replaced by some other flaw of the GMs choosing, I would go with dark secret or enemy myself

Edward

I think enemy is a requisite there.

One idea that's interesting that I really dug from Babylon 5 was the death of personality. The idea that a telepath would verify after that your personality that's nasty is rebuilt and reconstructed from sratch into a remorsefull one where the individual spends they're life in some sort of altruistic job. For folks who commit very nasty crimes like serial killers and sociopaths this could be an interesting punishment.......What memories are they're to retrieve if there are no memories left so that the player gets flash backs ect. from time to time.

In some countries in 2056 this might be a viable punishment. I would think if something like this were to happen and your memory was wipped you might be able to download memories into chips for later retrival from headware? What if you could put you childhood on a chip, teen years on another ect. Then you leave yourself little clues about where they're located like tattoo's and stuff on the net...An example of this is a Cyberpunk Itallian Film called Nirvana. It's an okay watch but kind of fun overall. (Just don't expect alot. Lambert is in it.)