wellcome | Memory mechanics

Entry tags:

Memory mechanics

Memory Loss

The core of Well's memory loss mechanics are two questions:

What parts of you are core, and what are learned?

What changes when you don't have evidence for your beliefs about yourself?

When entering Well, characters remember basic skills (walking, talking, counting) as long as they had those skills in canon. If the character is from a species who has other basic skills, like if they tend to communicate through telepathy, they can also start with that skill.

Mental illnesses can also stick with characters if you choose. If a character has depression, they will still feel depressed, but not have context for that feeling or experience.

General impressions and beliefs of the self can also stay. For example, if your character has a deep-seated belief that they are a bad person, they may still think that, but have no context for why they're a bad person.

Aside from that, they remember the memories that you chose for them to regain in your app. They don't necessarily know anything is wrong, and will most likely be accepting of their situation and location until they can put together the pieces that something is amiss.

How will I keep my character IC without their memories?

You know your character: boil them down to their core parts. Who are they without their memories? What are their core personality traits? If they usually hide their feelings, but are a generally emotional person, they may not remember that they should hide their feelings, and show more emotion than they do in canon. If they are an inherently cruel person who has tempered themself to be palatable to society, that cruelty may come out more. How you play them is up to you.

Try to be true to your character, but since they are without many impactful experiences, your interpretation is yours. Make sure that you're having fun, and that your interpretation isn't impacting other people's ability to have fun in the setting.

How does memory loss manifest in my character?

Memory loss manifests inconsistently across characters, meaning that you can take it in the direction that works best for you and your character. The only limit is that your character can't know specifics about their life or canon without allocating memory points to those memories.

Your character could be a blank slate, with only the memories you allocated to them, or they can have ideas and opinions about how the world works, but simply not know why they think that way. For example, Luke Skywalker might assume that the universe has many planets, many with their own cultures and societies, while Frodo might assume that there is only one world, and on that world there are different types of people who are separated by their own cultures.

Characters can also keep associations and feelings about ideas or institutions. For example, Luke Skywalker might have negative associations with imperialism and empires, but not know why.

What happens when my character tries to remember something they've lost?

If your character tries to put together the pieces and think about something they've lost, they'll experience shortness of breath, intense headache, and, if they don't stop, bleeding from the mouth, eyes, and nose. If they persist beyond that, they may simply tear themselves apart, ending in character death. They will wake back up in the usual character death way in Well, feeling placid and having lost another memory.

What happens when a character is told about something they should or could remember?

If your character is told about something that happened to them by someone, but you haven't allocated memory points to that memory, the character can't remember it themself. If they try, they experience intense headache and nose bleed. However, they can know that someone has told them this, like being told a story about yourself as a child that you don't remember yourself, so they have a memory of the story, but not of the experience itself.

What happens when my character regains a memory?

When you first app to Well, your character starts with the memories you give them in your app. These feel like normal memories that have always been there.

If you regain memories post-app, your character's regain will be triggered by something in their environment. It could be something familiar on a book, a shape of a cloud, or the NPCs pantomiming part of the memory. Feel free to use the NPCs for this. They won't play our the exact memory, but may do a special handshake or gesture, or say a particular word that triggers the memory.

Once the memory is triggered, your character experiences excruciating pain, like a horrible migraine, as they remember for the first time. This last for about a minute before it goes away like the pain was never there.

How can my character remember a relationship and not the experiences related to that relationship?

Choosing to remember a relationship will be accompanied by some less-impactful memories about the other person. Your character may remember their favorite color, or that they used to travel to school together. They won't remember major fights or declarations of feelings, etc. Those major memories will need to regained through a major memory regain.

How do I trade in memory points for memories?

You can trade your memory points in on the memory points page. In your top-level, include your initial application memory points.

Can I change how I want to allocate my memory points after I've submitted them?

No, once submitted, memory points have been used. If you want to remove a memory, you can do that through your character dying in-game.

Will I be able to regain memories beyond the ones in my app?

Yes, memory points will be offered in specific events, generally once per event. You can trade in an event thread for memory point(s) once per event (ie. if you thread a prompt multiple times, you can only get the memory points for one of those times).

Can my character experience a memory in an event prompt without regaining the memory?

Yes, a character can experience a memory without regaining it. They will only remember the experience of the event prompt, and not the memory itself as they initially experienced it.

Does my character have to regain a memory in the event prompt they get the points from?

No, not necessarily. If you don't want to use points to regain a memory in a prompt, you can bank those points for later.

Can my character regain items from home?

No, items can't be regained.

Can my character regain a pet?

No, animals, creatures, or sentient beings can't be regained.

Memory points

Memory points are an OOC mechanic to regain memories or skills. Memory points are available on your application, and will be given out during certain events. You can trade in your memory points on this page for regains.

Memory points are applied to regains. Regains cost between 1 and 3 memory points. Use your best judgement for where your regain falls, with 1 point regaining less consequential memories, and 3 regaining the most consequential.

Memories can be as: minor memories, major memories, relationships, or skills.

Minor memories: 1 point

Minor memories are memories that wouldn't be considered to be turning points in a character's life. Minor memories could be a routine they had, a nice day they had, a low point, etc.

Major memories: 2 points

Major memories are important moments in a character's life: a big breakup, an award, a big battle, meeting someone important. These are moments that define your character, the things that they might mention as things that made them who they are.

Relationships: 2-3 points

If you choose to regain the memories of a relationship, you can choose to have your character remember: the core of the relationship, what it means to them, minor moments relating to the relationship; or who the relationship is with and that that person is important, but not the context about why.

To fully remember a relationship, you would need to put points toward the relationship core, the trappings, and any major moments in the relationship through memory points. This means that your character will most likely never remember the full context of any relationship they had in canon.

Relationship cores
The core of a relationship is all of the feelings, minor moments, and context around a relationship. Choose the core of a relationship if you want your character to feel all the warm fuzzies / angry fuzzies related to someone, without them knowing where to direct those feelings.

Relationship trappings
The trappings of the relationship is the outer trappings: who the person is, their name, your character's relationship to them, without knowing all the context. Choose the trappings of the relationship if you want your character to know someone is important, but not quite know why. They could remember how the interact with the person, but not know why.

Skills: 1-3 points

Skills are things that your character worked to be good at. The cost is dependent on how impactful the skill is, and how good your character is at it. Regaining a skill regains your character's mastery of that skill, up to their canonpoint.

For example: Luke Skywalker could regain his mastery of the Force, up to his mastery level at his canon point. He wouldn't regain any skills he hasn't perfected past that point. If Luke's canonpoint was the end of a New Hope, this would cost 1 point, based on his mastery. If his canonpoint was the end of the series, it would cost 3 points.

Non-magical/powerful skills will top out at 2 points, but powered or supernatural skills may cost 3 if your character is a master at it.

Using points

Create a top-level on this post for your character using this form:

Reply to that comment with this form filled out to use points. Proofs are for proving you participated in an event that offered points as a reward.

Deaths

If your character dies in Well, they lose one memory point and the memory allocated to that point. It's up to you which point they lose. If you only have 2 or 3 point memories, you can choose to make one of those memories foggy, or make a power or skill less potent.

Respond to your character's top level on this post using this form:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Reply to this comment with questions.

Apologies if these questions are weird—I’ve never played a memloss game before and don’t have a good sense of what’s “standard” so there is a very good chance that I’m just not aware of obvious things!

1) How much basic cultural/technical/social/geographical knowledge would a character hang onto? Examples: Would someone from Earth in 2022 know what a car or a computer is? Or, to piggyback on your Star Wars example: would Luke Skywalker recognize that Tattooine is a planet, even if he doesn’t remember anything about it? Would he at least understand in a basic way that people live on different planets in his universe? Would references to empire give him bad vibes even if he doesn’t know why?

This isn’t meant to be a barrage of specific questions, I’m just trying to get a sense of vibes! I can also get more specific for the character I’m thinking of apping if that would be more helpful.

2) What happens if someone is told about a memory they haven’t regained, or figures out something about themselves or their past via logic? I’m particularly thinking about if two characters from the same universe talk and realize they have complementary memories! I can also see someone deducing, say, that they are a mage if 1) they know what mages are and 2) realize they can do mage stuff. Would things like that also cause nosebleeds and the like?

Not weird at all! Thanks for the questions.

1. The answer to this one is a little vague, but it's: what's most fun for the situation? If you want to play your character not knowing anything about cars or computers, and that's fun for you, go for it! If it's more fun for you to play that they have that background knowledge, like "I know what a car is, but I can't remember my very formed opinions about car models," that's also a-okay. For your example of Luke and Tattooine, Luke wouldn't remember Tattooine specifically unless you allocated a memory point to that. But he could remember that in his version of the universe, there are many planets and galaxies where people live, because this is a basic fact about lives in his universe. Open to him feeling bad vibes about the Empire and not knowing why, too! Vibes are always welcome here.

There's not really a way to do it wrong, as long as you're not having your character remember important things and moments outside of your memory point allocations.

2. Character one can tell character two a fact or memory about character two, but that doesn't mean that character two actually remembers it. If character two tries to access their own memory of a situation, they will get a headache and nosebleed. But they can take that character one says as truth without trying to access their own memory of the situation. For example, Leia might remember that her and Luke are siblings, and could tell Luke that. Luke could try to remember this too, and this would trigger the pain. But he could also just accept this as a new fact he learned about himself and Leia, and that wouldn't cause the pain.

Let us know if you'd like any clarification here!

This is absolutely perfect! Thank youuuuuu!

Would ability to fight barehanded be counted as a separate regain from marksmanship?

Hey there, these would be separate regains if I'm understanding you right. Different fighting styles would count separately, like: marksmanship (guns), hand-to-hand, swordsmanship, etc, would all be separate. Thanks!

If I'd like for my character to only remember the faces of people, but literally nothing else about them and their relationship, would this be considered "Relationship trappings"? And would it have to be one relationship trapping per person's face, or can it be a group?

For more context: Mina has her classroom friends (they are 20 students in total), and I'd love for her to remember just their faces and literally nothing else. So how many points would this be?

That sounds like it could be a major or minor memory, depending on how impactful it is! She could remember looking around at her classmates, and remember their faces, but nothing more about them, through a memory. Or, if you don't want her to remember the classroom, then we're good with her just remembering their faces though a minor or major memory.

So Harold has years old injuries to his neck, spine, and hips that decrease his mobility. I'm *not* giving him the memory of how it happened. Does the general sense that this is 'normal' for him need to be a memory point or can that just be a vibe?

That can be a vibe. You'll only need to use a memory point is he has specific memories related to the injury.

Awesome, thank you!

A question about castmates!

If your character has a castmate in game but no memories or relationship points involving them, is there any lingering sense of old feeling or familiarity? Does looking at them spark a headache? Are they entirely new to each other?

You can take it however is most fun for you. You can keep the vibe of familiarity, or have someone be entirely new, or a mix of both: maybe the castmate does something particularly familiar, and that sparks something, whereas their general existence doesn't.

Quick question as I'm tagging around and (!!!) editing an app! I tend to write Camilla as having certain knowledge sets, and some of those I absolutely am wiping (for now!), but I'm tbh not 100% on my OWN ability to catch things like academic vocabulary/her tendency to visualize things in terms of anatomy.

Do I need to allocate memory points for everything she would have learned in school 😬 or can we safely handwave a certain amount of academia (addtl context: in her app I'm point-allocating her some trained physical skill and also the core nature of her relationship with Palamedes, both of which would require SOME ability to keep up at that level)? Are there specific things you do and don't think are appropriate?

(Cam and I share a penchant for perfectionism but I am much less confident than she is. Sorry about all the questions!)

(....I'm seeing that this MAY have been answered by your response to Becca re: 'is this still fun for you' -- SOME of her not remembering is INCREDIBLY fun and also just theoretically really interesting for me, but panicking over whether she should remember the word 'coagulate' isn't, particularly -- but also, it becomes more fun if I know what the answer to that is, so please feel free to let me know if there's a standard to this!)

Hello hello! Check out the FAQ question "Does my character remember anything outside of the points I allocate?", as it may help here.

In the Vibes for her: words are totally fine to keep, if those are something that's easy for her to use and do. I'd say anything that you would need to take a college-level course for here on Earth would need points, like if she has a mastery of chemistry or something similar. Basic, general knowledge of these things, even if they are specialized, is a-okay to keep. Like, she can know how things work, but she may not know why, and may not be able to pull the details of why they work the way they do.

Another thing you could do here is allocate 3 points to: academic knowledge. This would give her those details, but no context for them (like she wouldn't remember learning them, but she would know them).

And all of that to say: do what's fun for you! We aren't sticklers here.

Perfect! That works really well -- I can run with Vibes for now for anything general, and then -- maybe on the app, maybe later on, got some tough decisions with points -- buy some more specific recall for her :D

I really like the idea of her gradually discovering competencies, too, so it's not a pain to wait if that's how the numbers crunch.

Regarding death mechanics, (1) is there any particular amount of time that passes before they wake back up in Well (e.g., is dying at the party and waking up at the end of August legal, or would it be the day after when people are stumbling back from the hoedown?); (2) do they wake up anywhere specific; and (3) do they know immediately they lost the specific memory they lost, or would they rediscover this memory loss in the same way as when they arrive to Well?

Thank you! I just want to make sure I get this right.

Added more death deets to the FAQ that should answer most of your questions.

As for knowing what they lost, it depends! Do whatever makes the most sense for the memory you're choosing. It won't be "I no longer know this" no matter what, and instead: "I tried to access this memory and no longer have it". Like trying to remember someone, and the memory slipping away, or trying to do something you know you're good at, and suddenly being terrible at it.

Thank you so much!!

Hey, your favorite question-asker here. This feels incredibly dumb to ask and I thiiink the answer is no, but are there particular times that mem points can be cashed in, or can it be any time (as convenient)?

Yep, you can use them whenever and however you want!

Y’all are awesome and I have been being very silly. Thank you!

One more question, which has to do with the first. Sorry! With the cracks-style memory point regain (1 point for each small memory, up to 3 for a big memory), if you offered up four different scenarios but only one person tagged in for watching:

Do you only get the points that would be allocated for whichever memory gets threaded out actively even though there wasn't an opportunity to play the others? This seems like it's probably a salient question for other people too and has the potential to be in future, since threads can stack fast and unless you're strategically only offering big memories, there's a certain amount of luck involved (and always will be, since some people have more CR than others and that's okay!)
Regardless of regain rules, can I still handwave that Cam herself saw (but does not remember; just remembers viewing, like a movie) the other memories?

Edited 2023-09-05 21:41 (UTC)

No worries! Ask all you need.

1. Yes, you should have proofs for each of the memory points you're gaining. You can fudge it and say that a memory she saw is worth 3 points through one thread, if you prefer. The points don't have to come from your character's prompt to gain the points: you can also count seeing someone else's memory in a crack for a point that can be used later. By tagging into other people's prompts, you reduce that luck aspect for them as well! This is to encourage activity and engaging in the prompts.

2. Yes, you can handwave seeing the memories yourself in the cracks, or anywhere else, and allocate points as you see fit.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Memory mechanics

Minor memories: 1 point

Major memories: 2 points

Relationships: 2-3 points

Skills: 1-3 points

Questions

Re: Questions

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Questions

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Questions

Re: Questions

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: Questions

no subject

no subject

i am just going to be the neurodivergent thorn in your faq forever

no subject