Theme: Amnesia

Considering that lately two of my projects involve complete amnesia as a major starting plot point, I figured it might be good to talk about amnesia and why I like using it as a device, as well as some of the issues with it.


Toybox
In my upcoming Toybox campaign, using a system of my own design, the player characters will wake up with no knowledge of who they are or how they came to be in the mysterious location where they start.


Looking Glass Moon
In the Looking Glass Moon setting, the default for player characters is that they are humans that have come from another world. These humans arrive with no knowledge of the setting of Looking Glass Moon other than the sense that things are very wrong. The people of the setting are aware of this issue and provide some guidance, but there's much that has to be learned by the characters themselves.


1. Motivation
Some players are very good at finding things to motivate their character. Others are less so. Starting out with amnesia provides an automatic motive for your character: Find out who I am.


In my Toybox campaign, I expect some of this will revolve around discovering the past and putting together the pieces of how the players got to where they are. This mystery is inherent and different clues can lead the players down varying paths to more answers.


In Looking Glass Moon, there's no apparent way for the player characters to return to where they came from, so determining who they are isn't so much about the past. Instead, Looking Glass Moon focuses on how characters will choose to fit into the world where the story is taking place, and who they are as people. Are they kind? Are they selfish? What do they care about? The setting will test all of these things, especially if the players travel on the "Path of Truth", a literal and symbolic journey that teaches the players more about the world and about themselves.


2. Setting Discovery
Tabletop games often focus a lot on exploration. Still, characters are generally a product of their setting and are expected to know certain things about it. Having a player start their character with amnesia allows the player and the character to explore the world together, with everything being new. In this way, a GM can inspire wonder and surprise through things that would be less wondrous to natives to the setting.


3. Simplicity
While some players like writing out long complex backstories for characters, others find the process tedious. Starting a character with amnesia is a way to simplify the process by stopping this requirement.


A warning: there is a danger with this that players will become more focused on the game as a game. If that's the sort of thing you want to encourage, it's fine. However, if it isn't, then it is important to encourage the players (in advance of the game as well as through it) to focus on their character's personality and, as the game develops, their motivations all the more because of their lack of backstory.


4. GM Control/Adaptability
I'm a big supporter of working in player backstories in campaigns. However, it's not always easy to do. Especially if players form their backstories independently and they contain widely disparate events taking place in far separated parts of the setting. When characters have amnesia, the GM has control over their backstories and, therefore, can work in details from them more easily and relevantly as the story progresses.


A warning: One of the advantages of working in backstories is that they help the players feel ownership over the game. By inventing the backstories for the players, you're taking some of this ownership from them. If you are going to do this, it is important to establish a connection between the player and their character's past. This might be done through introducing NPCs the player/character like from their past, or other plotlines that make the player excited when they can learn new things about who their character used to be.


What are your thoughts on amnesia as a storytelling device, either in RPGs or in written fiction?