Gamer Gal
29-Mar-02
Well, I just sent out an evite to the people I’m inviting to play in my “Tabula Rasa” campaign. This is an idea I had, based on movies like Memento, a Buffy episode (titled “Tabula Rasa”), and the computer game Planescape: Torment. Basically, the characters wake up with no identifying equipment or clothing, with no memories of who they are.
The characters start at at least second level– I might actually make it even higher, so that they know they have a history, just not what it is. In 3rd edition D&D, you can take on a new class pretty easily, so they would be able to take whatever class they wanted when they go up to the next level, or continue to advance in their starting class, provided they could figure out what that is (shouldn’t be too hard).
After the initial adventure, which is designed to help them identify their ability scores and skills, the campaign really begins. In addition to the “standard” adventures that a group of PCs might go on, the campaign’s overarching structure is designed around mini-campaigns in which individual PCs learn who they were before their memories weer wiped. When they reach a high enough level, if they are still motivated to pursue this goal, the PCs will be looking for the source of the mysterious amnesia (which has afflicted others, not just themselves), and hopefully stop it (although I guess if they’re sufficiently evil, they might want to help it continue– I don’t know.)
Many people have already commented that this campaign has the primary difficulty of being too easy to figure out character class, abilities, etc. But I have to remind them that that’s not even close to the main challenge of the game. In fact, I’m counting on the players to be able to figure out the class and abilities before the end of the second game night. I mean, how hard is it to figure out if you know how to cast a spell? The characters themselves will have the kind of cultural knowledge that comes from reading the PHB– they know roughly how much magic is in the world, and what a barbarian is, etc.
The real challenge, however, is trying to find out who they were before. Locating family members, for example. Tracking down what tiny clues they might be able to find. Meeting and knowing NPCs will become important, as those NPCs will not only be allies, but will also be valuable sources of information. Learning what roles they played before, and how those roles have collapsed in their absences (all of these are PCs who had some sort of special role in the world– their sudden disappearance has been the cause of chaos and trouble for their former friends).
Finding out who or what caused this to happen is an even bigger fish to fry.