I read this idea somewhere, but it has to be repeated here.
Ever watched the movie The Hangover? What if you adopted it to a Dungeons & Dragons session?
The party decides to partake in a night of revelry before going on an adventure. They wake up in the middle of a dungeon complex. The eviscerated remains of monsters are all over the place, the party cannot recall anything that happened last night, the Wizard's missing a finger, and the Cleric has a mysterious golden ring on his finger. Even worse, the great treasure located deep within the dungeon is missing, and their only lead is a note left in the Fighter's pocket!
While trying to recollect the events of last night and finding the relic, the party meets an interesting assortment of characters, such as the Hill Giantess the Cleric married, a naked and frenzied Dwarf stored in their Bag of Holding, and a horde of angry cultists demanding the return of their relic.
Don't tell me you've never considered the idea...
My current Ptolus campaign used this as the hook: The PCs all woke up in an inn in Ptolus with anywhere from 3-9 months of memories missing. 80 sessions later they're still trying to figure out everything that went down during those missing months.
I've found that this "missing time" conceit is a lot more interesting and engaging than the typical "total amnesia" approach. But it does require player buy-in. And the GM needs to have a really rock solid understanding of exactly what happened to them (and the ability to seed the clues necessary for them to figure it out).
As a game premise, it could be totally awesome OR suck ass. If you use the previous events as a way to railroad the players into a "story" it is going to suck. If you use it as a kind of murder mystery in the dungeon where the PCs find out what they did and how and have all kinds of variations of choices along the way to choose how they want to deal with the resulting situation it can be totally AWESOME if done right.
The Hangover: AD&D style is called A4 In The Dungeons Of The Slave Lords.
One of my favourite Midgard adventures has this kind of set-up: The heroes awake in a dungeon complex with about two weeks of their memory missing.
They have to "backtrack" a dungeon adventure that they (the players) never played.
You can start a campaign like that without having to do much setting exposition but the effect is greater when it happens in the middle of an ongoing campaign, when the players know their characters inside out and have to deal with lost equipment, new and unfamiliar equipment, items that hint at encounters they had in the meantime (letters).
Our group really had fun with "Rache des Frosthexers".
Quote from: thedungeondelver;599683The Hangover: AD&D style is called A4 In The Dungeons Of The Slave Lords.
Or "Planescape: Torment"
I think its a great idea, I'll have to use it sometime, but it would really have to be at a time where no player character could possibly claim "yeah, but I wouldn't have drunk that much or partied that hard".
RPGPundit
Never saw the Hangover, so didn't realize it was a rip-off of Dude Where's My Car? 's plot.
Thanks for posting this! I used this for the set up for an Elric game I ended up running last night. It went pretty well, I think.
Quote from: RPGPundit;600016I think its a great idea, I'll have to use it sometime, but it would really have to be at a time where no player character could possibly claim "yeah, but I wouldn't have drunk that much or partied that hard".
RPGPundit
You could just have a mentally unstable dwarf slip something into their drinks like in the movies (though I would at least give them a chance to detect the deception).
Waking up with missing (or no) memory is a tried and true plot device.
I did that with my Vampire game. Everyone woke up naked in liquid filled plastic bags, boxed up in the back of a FedEX truck - and missing 6 months of memory. Also, right in the middle of a gang war in East LA.
How it could happen even if everyone was paying attention/no drinking/whatever could be part of the plot. Maybe even the first clue.
Random idea: due to wild magic or such, physiologies were exchanged, so the party ends up with the hangover that should have afflicted another (NPCs) party.
Quote from: TristramEvans;600024Never saw the Hangover, so didn't realize it was a rip-off of Dude Where's My Car? 's plot.
Which is a rip-off of
Corvette Summer's plot.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;600056You could just have a mentally unstable dwarf slip something into their drinks like in the movies (though I would at least give them a chance to detect the deception).
Yeah, that's possible.
RPGPundit
That reminds me of one of my favourite NPCs from a Warhammer campaign. He was a dwarf who was essentially a mafia-type crime boss of a city. but the thing is, he got hit on his head at one point and now is under the delusion that he's a giant.
The players first encountered him after having their drinks drugged at a bar and then dragged in the back room and tied up, only to awaken to this dwarf standing on a table looking down at them telling them how he was going to crush their puny body's with his big foot. When they tried to speak, he cupped his ear and said "WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOUR PUNY SOUNDS WITH MY GINORMOUS EARS!"
I would probably have them wake up in the middle of a dungeon, where they've already (drunkenly) hacked their way through part of it; have them missing a bunch of stuff, also having a bunch of stuff they didn't have before and have no idea where they got it from, and maybe one of them is missing and/or there's a guy there no one actually knows and who no one (including said guy) can remember when or how he joined up with them.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Lynn;600072Waking up with missing (or no) memory is a tried and true plot device.
I did that with my Vampire game. Everyone woke up naked in liquid filled plastic bags, boxed up in the back of a FedEX truck - and missing 6 months of memory. Also, right in the middle of a gang war in East LA.
Sounds great!