Bourne Traveller

[BP]

I'd have rather had a 'straight' modern conspiracy setting, ... Jason Bourne, ...

Hey - that sounds interesting -
- Your characters start without names.
- They have no history and no visible possessions (except clothes).
- Your players have no idea what skills they have.
- They do not know where they are.
- They do not know what they are to do.
- They have a small high-tech number projector device embedded in their person.

Oh - and they're shot full of holes...
:lol:

 

[Mithras]

Yes, nice way to start an RPG, in any setting!

Particularly for newbie players (who might indeed have seen the Bourne Ultimatum - the first film??)

EDIT: Googled Bourne Identity as the first film.

 

[alex_greene]

No, sorry. I can only see the Team America: World Police version.

Maaaat Daaaamooon.

I'm so very sorry, but I could never take him seriously after TAWP.

Actually, come to think of it, I didn't take him seriously before TAWP either.

 

[BP]

Yes, nice way to start an RPG, in any setting!

Particularly for newbie players (who might indeed have seen the Bourne Ultimatum - the first film??)

EDIT: Googled Bourne Identity as the first film.

As I was writing it - I thought it might make a good adventure/campaign at that - but can't see it as a 'setting' - its just a plot.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I actually ran a campaign like this once before I had seen any of the Bourne movies.

The characters woke up from Low Passage berths with no memories at all. THey discovered that their ship was under attack and a power surge had activated the emergency revival protocols in the Berths.

Off they went, knowing not their names or skills.

In one scene, they were hiding in a storage closet and found a monkey wrench. They passed it around to see if any of them had Mechanical skill!

As they encountered different things, I would tell them that they had an understanding of it, such as Mechanical when picking up a wrench, but I never told them the skill level.

It ran for several months as they tried to figure out what was going on with the 5FW raging in the background.

Before the game started I had each of them roll up 3 characters and then "merged" them together so that the players didn't know what character they were using.

 

[SnowDog]

I like the Bourne series and I like many movies with Matt Damon. For some reason he is quite convincing as Jason Bourne but that is a matter of taste

While I like a contemporary setting without paranormal aspects I have to say that this amnesia thing is a pretty hard thing to run. I have done it with one character and while he had already gotten his skills back, he didn't remember his past or name.

Like someone said, it's a good idea for one campaign. But to make it a setting, then I would do something along these lines (if I would do it using Traveller system).

- PCs form the operative team of covert operatives
- The character generation includes terms before joining the project but also the conditioning (and what can go wrong in that, some insanities etc.). Then throw in a term of actual missions if you want with again a possibility to have nice problems or even better standing in the organization.
- Have a chance to work for the organization as is if you want. Or you can have the unsanctioned project found and someone pulls the plug and the operatives are left on their own in the aftermaft of a very tough mission. Or of course they botch an important mission and the organization send in the cleaners.

No reason for this pesky amnesia

 

[alex_greene]

It could still be done, if the characters all begin with blank character sheets, and chargen not for themselves, but for the other players in the troupe. The Ref can also chargen a few extra characters and throw them in, just in case any give player lands a really sad character he didn't want just because the guy next to him rolled really bum dice at chargen.

"Whaddaya mean, Dwayne Dibbley? I ain't Dwayne Dibbley!" *glances in mirror* "Ohmygod, I AM Dwayne Dibbley!"

 

[BP]

Ha - I actually posted this more as a joke - I wanted to use the punch line of 'the characters being shot full of holes' (kinda like using this theme as a 'setting')...

Great responses and ideas!

(Oh - and for the record - I'm the real Dwayne Dibbley!)

 

[zanwot]

I tried one of these with a group.

What I did was give the sheets of the characters pre career to the players (with basic stats and background education skills). Players wake up from cold berth in a room: They discover they are prisoners of a group of mercenaries/pirates, through a screen their employer sends them a message telling them she managed to sabotage the mercenaries systems but had to retreat without picking them up, then she gives them an rendez-vous on another system.

Then as events unfolded, I made players roll for terms of their career as they gain their memory (choosing them their first career): first their older memories, at the end the memory of the latest events.

It was a disaster.

I did it so players could start playing quickly and still create their own characters, thought my system had potential. However they seemed unsatisfied with their characters stats and careers, frequently changed careers because of failed survival rolls or just wanting to change careers, etc.
We did not go far because character generation took up pieces of time, and also I spent extra time and effort to keep a character alive who's player seemed to have decided he wanted his character dead.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Personally, I've seen quite a few games start with waking up from cold sleep with either limited knowledge of where you are and how you got there or complete amnesia. It seams to be a standard tool for GM's.

I don't care for playing a character with amnesia because I feel like a robot. I have no background for creating a personality and role playing the character.

Chargen is a lot of fun, especially in MGT. I can understand players not being enthusiastic about playing a character they did not generate themself.