Memory Mechanic
A homebrew mechanic for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (2014) designed to capture the fragmented, multisensory nature of memories.
Project Overview
Work Samples
Full document in the works; coming soon!
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Status: Complete
Client: Current TTRPG group
Format & Game Engine: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, 2014
Team Size: solo with peer review
Project Length: 1 month
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Develop a mechanic enabling player characters with amnesia to access memories at the Dungeon Master's discretion.
Link the clarity and completeness of the memory to a dice roll and skill checks, allowing for failure and mixed successes.
Make space for player agency to decide how their characters remember in exchange for the DM’s control over what they remember.
Details
When my turn as Dungeon Master first came around, I wanted to create a short D&D 5e module inspired by this video —>. The premise is the players start with blank character sheets and must learn who their character is through context clues as they roll skill checks and interact with the game’s world. I decided my module would begin with 6 strangers waking up in the burning husk of a village with no idea of who they are or how they got there. I wanted my players to know most if not all of their character’s features by the time they encounter the final boss.
For a 3-session module, I needed my players to discover their stats and abilities quickly. In addition, the characters would be level 5 — the same amount of adventuring experience as the characters in our year-long campaign that the players would have no hand in writing. I did not want my one-shot to boil down to three sessions of my players rolling History checks, grasping for information about characters they have no investment in.
My Role & Contributions
System Design: I developed a homebrew narrative system that allows Dungeon Masters to convey information through player characters’ memories while granting players agency in how these memory surfaces.
Writing: I wrote core memories for 6 playable characters of diverse backgrounds and class builds.
Playtesting: The mechanic debuted at a table of 6 players, 4 of whom have extensive experience as Dungeon Masters. I tested the mechanic over 3 game sessions with this group and incorporated their feedback into the mechanic’s design.
Challenges & How I Addressed Them
#1: Traditionally, recalling information relies on History checks, which are based on Intelligence. This setup disadvantages most character classes, except wizards, as they have less incentive to prioritize a high Intelligence score.
It was clear that to allow players with any stat distribution a fair chance to access their memories, the act of remembering had to rely on more than a character’s intelligence. I took inspiration from a homebrew rule that allows Barbarians to used their strength modifier for intimidation checks instead of their charisma modifier. I love that it acknowledges success in the same skill could be achieved by different means. With that, I took the three mental stats, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma, and connected them to the different ways a memory could resurface:
History checks, based on intelligence, felt most suited to remembering a sequence of facts and events.
Sense memories, muscle memory, and emotional memories require insight into oneself to draw out the full meaning from a sensation. In other words, to understand your feelings in context requires great wisdom.
High charisma characters have street smarts; they are quick thinkers who always know what to say, sometimes before realizing they opened their mouths. I imagine their memories would come out the same way as intrusive thoughts.
#2: The Dungeon Master should be able to apply advantage and disadvantage situationally.
Usually if a playable character should know a piece of information, the DM will call for a relevant skill check with advantage. For example, a cleric might roll a religion check with advantage if there is reason to believe they would recognize a religious text from their studies. This is based on the assumption the information is not core to the character’s work, but tangentially acquired.
Memories, however, are deeper than that - they influence our personalities, morals, responses to the world around us. In addition, memory recall can be strengthened or weakened by factors like stress, alcohol consumption, recent exposure to the same triggering events, even the smells or sounds of the environment.
It was important to me that the mechanic gave players the best chance as recalling core memories by default, and then allowed random chance and situational advantage/disadvantage to sway the outcome. The resulting mechanic has players add their highest of that stat’s skill check bonuses to their roll as a way to represent how we are the most able person to access our core memories.
#3: Players must feel they have some control over how they remember information about themselves, and how they use that information at the table.
Memories in this mechanic have three components:
Triggering Event
The information contained within the memory itself
The form the memory can take: a sequence, a feeling, or an intrusive thought
The Dungeon Master has control over the triggering event and the memory’s information, so it made sense to give control over the form of the memory to the player. Some of the reasons behind my players’ choices:
they wanted to maximize their success so they chose based on their highest stat bonus
they had advantage on a roll so they chose a form where they had a lower bonus
the triggering event suggested a certain form of memory to them
As a DM, I enjoyed the challenge of recasting the information into each memory form.