Ok, so here is everything I have so far, ouch, me head hurts.
What is this game about?
You awake to a buzzing neon sign and the crackle of the bug zapper claiming its last victim .The feeling of cold steel in your hand and bodies strewn across the room cater to your sense of horror. Numb to the chaos that surrounds you, not knowing who you are, yet shocked at what you may have done. The others left standing look every bit as pale and shocked as you. Across the room you notice a white bag in the midst of the blood and gore, strange enough, it is unstained. As you pull the zipper, you hear the sound of screaming sirens getting closer. Your mind races, trying decide what to do...Remembrance is a game of lost identity, a mysterious package, and murder. The characters are thrown into a desperate situation not knowing who they are or how they managed to get into their situation. Players slowly piece their characters memories together; sometimes the memories are sweet, sometimes they are less than pleasant. One thing is for sure, the characters are always harried by the law and those who oppose them. Every person they come in contact seems to know something. With each conflict comes a new remembrance.
The characters awake in a strange place each with a weapon in their hand. The room is completely unfamiliar and they have no memory of who they are or how they got there. A large bag of drugs and cash surrounded by dead bodies complicate things even more. They have no form of ID and no direct knowledge of who they are.
Each character has something that draws them to the bag of money and drugs (the package). They can be drug addicts who upon seeing the drugs start craving the next hit. Maybe the character is a greedy gambler who can’t resist the money.
Beyond knowing their connections to the package, each character also has a personal item in a pocket or something they wear that connects them to their identity. An engraved lighter, a wedding ring, a picture, or any other small object, is the only hint of who they are. The characters try to find out who they are and reclaim their memories. Each time they encounter people with a connection to the package, they flashback and remember a little bit more.
When the characters hit the street, they find that they have no friends. Few people know them and that those that do are the most likely ones to do them harm. Going to the police could be a hazardous affair, with the bodies you left behind. That’s assuming the police are on the straight and narrow, which they most certainly are not. Do you ask a stranger for help? What would a stranger think if you told them your story? Would they call the police or maybe they are the eyes and ears of those who did this to you?
If your characters can fight through the opposition, paranoia, and their connection to the package they will earn their remembrance.
Title: Remebrance
Ingredents: Currency,Drugs, Memory
What it's about: The characters awake in a strange place each with a weapon in their hand. The room is completely unfamiliar and they have no memory of who they are or how they got there. Complicating things are the large bag of drugs and cash and dead bodies that they also have no idea about. They have no form of ID on them. The characters don't know if they they know the other players, but if they did they have no memory of them. Each has something that draws them to the bag of money and drugs, some are addicts, some are greedy, and some owe people money. Characters are free to make up their own conections to the drugs and/or money. Beyond knowing their conections to the drugs and money, each character also has a personal item in a pocket or that they are wearing that contects them to their identity. Players can choose this item, though it should not be something that directly reveals their ID.
So the characters try to find out who they are and reclaim their memories. Each time they encounter people with a connection to the package, they flashback and remember a little bit more. So in the begining of the game each player gets to assign a new clue. Funny thing is, their connection to the package is so strong they cannot and will not give it up, one character is always carrying the bag. The intial clues tend to be a bit more revealing than the rest, giving the characters a place to start.
Begining clues might be: a note with an address and name on it, a phone number, a receipt, or whatever it may be. The GM decides the starting clues, but the players get to decide their personal item which will also include some sort of hint. Maybe their wedding ring, photo, or whatever elso the player could think of that may hint @ something about them.
Four main antagonist will be:
the package: they can't leave it, its like they are addicted to it and some are literally which may cause conflict on its own.
Police: At some point or another they make an appearance @ the site where the chacters awoke and find the bodies. If they PCs stay around to long after awaking they may run into them right in the begining, which would certainly cause problems. Of course carrying around large amounts of drugs and money are not good when dealing with police, not to mention they (the PCs) are not totally sure in the begining if they killed those people or not.
The Man: This is the person or group that engineered their memory loss and put the players in their situation. As the players go, they will uncover not only their ID, but the ID of "the man" and discover why they were put into this situation. The man could be a psycho who just enjoys tormenting people or could be group like the mafia. The man will typically try to use the PCs for his/her purpose. maybe they are using them to transport the drugs or knock-off a rival, but they could just be doing it for fun. He may periodically contact the players in some way to nudge them one direction or the other via threat or deception.
Third party: depending on where the game goes, there could endup being more anagonists unrealated to The Man or Police. Maybe street gangs and the like.
While the characters have no idea who they are, they do still have the skills they had before losing their memory, though initially they don't know they have them. Players will chose three skill sets to start. A skill set is just a broad term that covers all skills that a person of a proffesion or study may have. When a character gets into a situation that someone of his skill set would be familiar with the player may imediatly write down a skill appropriate to the situation and skill set. An example would be a person with a Law Enforcement skill set is in the middle of a gun fight and picks a fallen gun up of the floor. That character instantly remembers how to properly use the fire arm, though they are not sure why. He takes up the gun a shoots his way out and is totally amazed at how easy it was. This "skill finding" is another way for a PC to piece together who they are.
The endgame is when the players eliminate "the man" and clear themselves with the police (or cover it up). The players are free to go back to their lives.
I see it as a mish-mash of Lock Stock and two smoking barrels, SAW, Uknown, Snatch and Reservior Dogs.
"Who gets to control the clues? Is there a GM who does this, or is it all player driven?"
there are various ways, sometimes the players get to insert clues, sometimes the GM does. Some ways the players insert clues are:
#1: choosing their personal item @ the begining of the game.
#2: When a scene is started the players get to set the stakes, which may include finding new information. The GM frames the scene by describing the setting and situation, the players may insert some things into the scene. The players set the stakes, the GM sets the complications. When a player sets the stakes they must say what their action for the scene will be and say what happens if they succeed. The GM tells them what happens if they fail. then the scene plays out. If player succeed, he gets to narrate what happens, which could include finding a clue. An improtant thing to remember is that a scene will only happen if it is important to the characters and/or antagonist and theer is a conflict, so most of the scenes will involve someone who is involved and knows something or has some sort of clue that drives the story.
#3-Skill finding during play will also reveal info about the characters and players choose if and when they aquire a skill.
The GM inserts clues by:
#1- Setting the initial scene
#2- controling what NPCs are present in a scene.
#3- Direct contact from "the man" or Police.
I like the idea about skill sets, but could you go one step further and leave all characters blank until the player narrates that they have this or that skill?yes, I think I can. Since I plan to use a variant of fudge/wushu this should not be a problem. The mechanics are going to be very simple. Also, it fits better with characters actually being generated during play since they don't even know their names. If they don't know their names, how would they know what they are capable of in the first place? My plan is to have a certain number of points that they start they game with and get reset after each session. During play if they decide that their character "finds a skill" they spend a point or two and write it down, now they have it. For each new clue they reveal they get another point. If @ any time they have no points left, they can burn kismet to aquire the skill. Kismet (which is totally different than "skill points") is the characters ultimate fate, what will be their undoing. Kismet can burned to aquire a skill, to save them from death, to make one cinematic action, or to get an extra clue when successful in a scene. Kismet can also be lost in a failed scene. If you have no more Kismet and fail in a scene, your kismet becomes true.
An example Kismet would be:
"I'm and agent of the Man"- 3
This means that character has 3 Kismet. If at any point he loses or spends all of his kismet and then fails in a scene, somehow he remembers that he is an agent of the man and now plays his character that way. Now he could play the character like Saboteur or maybe he just tries to hide it from the others. The others may at sometime find out though.
Once a kismet is activate and knew one must be written down, and activated in the same way as the first.
Tags are things that are deeply rooted in the character memory and are still there despite the loss of their ID. Players open the game with five remembrance tags, which they define. Tags are activated when the character comes in contact with a sound, sight, smell, or interaction that is similar to a past situation. When a tag is activated the player may immediately narrate a flashback scene, interrupting any other narration, if any, that is taking place. Narrating a flashback scene earns the player one Kismet.
Examples: "Sara's death" "Friday night @ The Rock" "the junkyard" "A deal gone wrong" "
Family business "
Lets say the GM is framing a scene where characters walk into a bar called The East Side, looking for Sal. The GM begins describing the how the bar is smokey and dirty, smells of week old beer.
A player with a character with the above tags could interrupt the GMs narration:
Player: " I wan't narrate a tag!'"
GM: "ok, go for it."
Player: " Friday night @ the rock, I'm in a club named The Rock. Since I'm a horrible dancer i'm standing on the side watching Sara dance, man, she knows how to move the right things the right way. While I'm standing there, drink in hand, a man approaches. I greet him "Hey, Sal". He has a gold Rolex on his left wrist and on the same hand a large gold pinky ring with "Italia" emblazoned on it. "
The player can go into as much detail as they like. They can also wrap more than one tag into a Flashback and get two bonus Kismet for each additional tag included. For instance the player could narrate "friday night @ the Rock", "Sara's Death", "A deal gone wrong", and "Family business" in one scene and get 7 Kismet. Maybe a drug deal the characteer was doing as a part of his family buisness with Sal went wrong? Sara went missing form the dance floor that night, and turned up in the river dead.
Every, fifteen minutes of game time, something is going to happen even if the players don't go looking for trouble.
In fact the game opens with the threat that police will be there any second. This is the sort of pace the game will have to it. The less the players push the game, the more the game pushes the players into action.
Every fifteen minutes, the GM decides if the players moved the story forward, if not he drops a bomb on the players.
Like in the above scene where the characters were going into the bar, one had a flashback, and now knows the guy @ the bar is Sal and goes to talk to him. The 15 mins are up and nothing major has happened. The GM Drops a bomb, " as you sit down, you feel something poke you in the crotch. Looking down, you see Sal has a pistol resting on your sack. He says " Don't say and F'ing word, you little prick.Where's my dope and cash? Don't get any funny ideas either, my boys over there will wax all your buddies before they know whats going on."
Some things will be set such as the police showing up , other times it will be up to the GM to spring something on the players.
The game is frantic, everywhere the characters go, something seems to go wrong.
System to this point:
I'm rethinking the mechanics, and infact looking into goin with a stripped down version of Fate. Keeping aspects and Fate points but ditching some of the other stuff.
Aspects in play would all work like the destiny Aspect. When a character gets into a situation they can declare it a destiny scene, where they suddenly remember something about themselves that is very important. This is ussually triggered by something that happening in the scene that is familiar to that aspect. The player then writes down the aspect and one appopriate skill at the highes level of the pyramid (Great). throughout the game they can discover upto 5 aspects and 13 skills.
1 @ great
2@ good
4@ Fair
6@ Average
Combat will be a simple contested roll. I have more to think on tough, so i'll get back to you later.
I think the Aspect idea you describe is cool, but is it too easy? If I can say any scene is a destiny scene, why wouldn't I just call them all Destiny scenes and get all my skills? Well the key thing here is that it must be destiny scene to get an aspect. The scene must be very important to the character, and if they activate an aspect they must narrate how this is an important memory. When you do activate the aspect, you must choose one skill that starts @ Great and use it in that scene. It need not be a destiny scene to get a skill. generally you are only allowed to activate a new skill once per scene, it must be relavent to the scene.
So lets say the characters spent to much time hanging around after they awoke.A player decides that the sight of the lights and the sound of the sirens from the police along with the gun in his hand, will activate an aspect. "My cahracter was a on the SWAT team"
Player writes down "SWAT Team" as and aspect and chooses "pistol use" @ great for his skill. Choosing Pistol use means he must use that skill now.
Also, I don't want to make it too difficult to gain aspects and skills, after all those are two large parts of how the characters regain their memory.
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While reading up on political science the other day I came across three things that the book claimed make up a good Constitution:
selecting judges for the 2008 awards. For those of you the enjoy my reviews and like my taste in RPGs, I would suggest voting for Zachary Houghton. Zachary and I are online friends (Though we did meet at Gencon 2006) with very similar gaming personalities. Chances are if you like me, you'll like Zachary. Not to mention I think he is also the most qualified of the bunch as well. 
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