You Can't Go Home Again
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Basic Information

You Can't Go Home Again is when one or more of the main characters is displaced from their home, and unable to go home again for some reason - perhaps because travel there is impossible, the route back is unknown, they are hunted by the Powers That Be back there, or (in extreme cases) their former home doesn't even exist any more. Sometimes they are resigned to their fate, while in other cases finding a way to get back home is their main motivation.

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Game and Story Use

  • If the player characters all suffer from this - and come from the same place - then it can give them a strong reason to stick together despite clashes of personality. After all, all they have now of home is each other.
    • This arcanist once started an Exalted campaign this way - all of the initial characters were originally from modern-day Earth and found themselves in an unfamiliar world while manifesting the powers of demigods. The culture and personality clashes are and were… spectacular.
    • Make sure your players are cool with this. The angst of never being able to return home may provide some entertaining role-play, or it could become an exercise in frustration as the character bangs his head against the wall trying. And if the player is getting frustrated, that's bad.
  • Other possible reasons you can't go home:
    • Jabba the Hutt put a price on my head the size of… well… Jabba the Hutt
    • I've been disowned by my family for dishonoring the clan
    • I never had a home town because my family travelled a lot; now I've lost track of my family and don't know where to find them.
      • Something somewhat like this happened to me. Long story. — quark
    • I've kind of been exaggerating in my letters home and everyone back there think's I'm an astronaut and if I go home they'll find out the truth!
    • All my exes live in Texas.
  • Fantasy games often have a good hook for this trope in the form of interplanar travel. Being stranded on a different plane, usually by accident, provides an obvious motivation and a long-term goal, as well as an excuse for bizarre species/abilities if the game permits it.
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