I am about to run just my second campaign of dungeon world and was looking for some help with ideas. The idea I have is that the party wakes up in a cave as a group but don’t remember how they got there. I was going to do more with the amnesia in that they only know the other people in party but not sure why or how (but may not because of the bonds mechanic).
Is there anything else I could do with this amnesia? Maybe have them not know what class they are? Ask questions at the beginning of each of them that really is one clue or memory of what happened to them but they have to piece the different memories to figure out what happened and what to do going forward? Just throwing ideas out there.
Do you already know what caused their amnesia? Or are you going to discover that during play (the route I’d go)?
Brian Holland I think it would be fun to play out. I may have an idea ahead of time but am flexible of changing it. I think I was going to go with some curse or some magical spell on them.
I did this once – it was a beach that they woke up on, though. The party couldn’t remember the past two days, because the Dream-Feaster (a monster from one of Johnstone Metzger excellent books) had stolen their memories, sort of accidentally. They were travelling on a ship, on their way to retrieve a powerful artifact from a Master Wizard (who was secretly the former teacher of the party Wizard). The Master Wizard sent the Dream-Feaster after them, but its hunger was interrupted by a storm (hence the lost memories).
I dropped clues here and there along the way as they wandered around this strange island; the taste of sea air, a shining creature, etc.
Also, if you’re interested in reading how this played out, I wrote post-game notes I think.
That’s cool. Having an idea but not setting it in stone will help you craft your questions. I was thinking spores on their clothing or something, which can still point to “how they got here” if not what caused their amnesia.
First: are your players on board with this? Just based on the pitch, I wouldn’t be.
My biggest concern, specifically in DW, is that it limits your ability to ask the characters questions. “What brought you to this cave?” or “What dangers are said to lurk in the Whitehorn Peaks?” or “It’s an owlbear pellet… hey, how did you come to know what owlbear pellets look like?”
Instead, it seems like there’d be a lot more of you’d end up with a story to tell as the GM, and you’d be revealing the world to the PCs/players, because they don’t remember anything. And that’s largely against the grain of the game.
You could maybe do some careful crafting of your questions and even rules design to get around it. But I’d be careful with it.
Yochai Gal that would be cool to see your notes on this.
Jeremy Strandberg yeah I was worried that it would be more of GM creating story than the players. A part of it is I like the concept of amnesia as starting of story but also I saw a post on Facebook about D&D group and how DM had people roll and told them their bonus so this kind of led them to write down more about their character and figure out what they were good at or inner abilities that others couldn’t.
Is there a way that people start out as peasants or other mundane jobs like they do in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay like rat catcher. It would be cool to have them work their way up to being an adventurer etc.
Real quick here’s the Front/notes section post session 1:
drive.google.com – misery beach.pdf – Google Drive
I’ll try to find my notes
Check into Funnel World, Russell Engel, it should take care of making ordinary peasants into adventurers.
Did your group do the suggested Session 1 from the book? That should take care of where your characters begin and why.
Matthew Everhart thanks! I ended up purchasing that. I think I have another group that would love to use that.