Criterion City Pt. 1: Big O Inspired by Godot

I was listening to an old episode of The Master Plan and it mentioned A Penny For My Thoughts. This got me thinking about Big O. To be fair, I have only watched a couple of episodes of it. I really liked what I saw. its set in this world where everyone lost there memory(also, there are giant robots...yeah). Also I just had finished reading through Waiting For Godot, which has a great deal to say about memory and life and death. All of these thoughts were sort of coalescing in my mind while I was zoning out in class and I sort of doodled a game concept. It is not done yet, and I would like thoughts on it, but here is what I have so far:

Last year everyone within Criterion City awoke with no knowledge of who they were. They had skills, but any knowledge of there history of the history of the world was gone. A few of them became something more. They became the Arete.

The Dome surrounds Criterion City. All that is known is that it cannot be breached. We cannot leave the city. The Wraiths are the only beings to enter or leave The Dome. The Wraiths come to attack the city. We seek our past. And in finding that, we may know our future.

We live in the city of now, the city of here. there is no tomorrow, for yesterday is a void.

The game is set to have two kinds of stories intermixed. The first is over the top super-powered action. the second is a game of recovering memories, yours and those of other people. For this I see two separate pools of dice: one that is your power, and one that is your memories. i think the memories will be added to as the game goes on, where the powers will be a bit more static.

You will play one of the Arete. you have power and something about you stands out from the crowd.

Your memories will be represented by a series of images, decided by the other players. they represent those things which resonate with your character's soul. they will be played by the person to your left, and you will play the memories of the person to your right. Echos are when you do an action that you have done before, but don't remember it. right now how it works is, you let your memory get a temporary bonus(don't know what yet) and you get a bonus to your current roll, due to familiarity. I don't have a whole lot more than that about it at the moment.

The powers will be dice that you can add to your actions that allow you to do the impossible. I have been playing a lot of cortex plus recently so I am kind of loving having multiple kinds of dice and the concept of steeping up dice has been interesting to me since I read the first iteration of Deadlands. When you help another person get a memory back, you can step up a power. If you defeat a Wraith permanently you gain a memory and step up a power.

When you make your character ask these questions:

• Where did you wake?
• What were yo wearing?
• Who were you with?
• How old do you appear?
• How did you react to that?
• What skill, or skills became immediately apparent?

I want these questions to be mechanically important as this is about all the character's know of themselves. I am still working on it. These are the things that they will cling to.

This is crucial: The Wraiths know your history. The know who you are.

There are no history books. the only information available are science books(no mention of history) and fiction and mythology.

I will need to define the city a bit more, though I would like it to be fairly minimalist. also I think there will be some sort of Pro Tem government, though I have not worked that out yet.

Here are some of the random thoughts that influence me about this game, maybe they will help you understand what I am trying for:

• Without a past experience, we are doomed to repeat our actions.
• Without a past the present has no meaning.
• Life becomes circular.
• The things you do remember take on incredible significance.