"Tahiti. It's a magical place." --Agent Coulson, Agents of SHIELD
False Memories are class of Delusion common in psychological and conspiratorial horror. False memories usually result from alien abduction, brainwashing, telepathic manipulation, or good, old-fashioned “hysterical amnesia” in which the mind crafts its own “screen memory” to block out something too horrible to recall.
A PC may begin the game with False Memories, which the GM might wish to handle similarly to Amnesia. Point value depends on the importance of the real memory the false one covers up. Unlike other Delusions, False Memories don’t include a reaction penalty – nobody knows you’re delusional, and they might not believe it if they did!
Levels of False Memories[]
- Trivial Memory: The memory of a single, relatively minor incident; e.g., you missed a test, your third-grade teacher’s name was Ms. Weishaupt, or you owned a tin model of the Roswell saucer as a kid in 1937. Recalling the truth may make some things snap into place, or confuse the issue further, but it won’t involve a major trauma. -1 point.
- Meaningful Memory: The kind of memory that could affect your life; e.g., you fell asleep once on guard duty, you own a different car from the one on your title papers, or you had a brief affair with a necromancer. Recalling the truth will likely affect your behavior (drink more coffee on guard duty, check your car for other changes, stay out of bars near cemeteries), but it won’t keep you from functioning normally or derail your “normal life.” -5 points.
- Significant Memory: Memories like these deal with major events or people in your life; e.g., you were abducted by UFOs, you had a best friend who served with you in ’Nam, there was no Gulf War, or your job or college career was vastly different from your recollection. Recalling the truth will change your life if you let it, but won’t shatter it completely. -10 points.
- Crucial Memory: These memories go to the core of your being; e.g., you’re actually a robot, you have another personality who’s a serial killer (or a werewolf), your wife isn’t who you married, or you sold your first-born son to Moloch. Recalling the truth will radically rescript your existence in almost all respects. -15 points. Once you discover a false memory, the GM will replace your Delusion with disadvantages worth as many points as the Delusion (Guilt Complex, Obsession, and Sense of Duty seem like good starts).
Examples[]
- A vast majority of the characters in We Happy Few (2016) have either blocked negative memories or have false memories paved over things that happened during the War.
References[]
- Horror, p.23-24