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In The Strange RPG, you can change your focus whenever you translate. One thing that isn't clear to me is if you always should use the same focus on repeat visits to a given recursion. For example, if you travel to Ardeyn, can you have Abides in Stone the first time you visit, and then Works Miracles another time?

If you can choose, suppose you return to your native recursion (or Earth). Can you have a different focus then? That seems weird. It means that people may change professions or even species when you see them on different occasions.

Related: I am already aware that, if you have a draggable focus, you can choose to drag it, or not, on each trip (if I'm reading the book correctly). So there is some precedent for changing your focuses on different visits, but again, some odd things can happen if you extend this too far.

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Page 20 in the corebook states

Once you’ve selected a focus for a particular recursion, it doesn’t change

Contrariwise, as Caleb points out, a sidebar in page 55 offers

Each time you return to a recursion, your GM might offer you the choice of picking a focus that’s different from one you had last time you visited.

As for draggable foci, page 52 states

Some foci are draggable. This means that if you start with a focus in its proper context, you can keep it when you translate to another world. You’re “dragging” your focus with you. If you have a draggable focus but decide to change your focus when you translate, you cannot regain the draggable focus again unless you return to the original world to which it is tied. From there, you can drag it again if you wish.

Which is not for or against reassigning a focus.

So, those are the RAW, and the suggestion for houseruling. Apart from bookkeeping, I don't see a problem with doing it.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Okay, missed that. Although, two counter examples: 1. The draggable focus contradicts this statement. 2. I just saw on page 55 in the sidebar that "your GM might offer you the choice of picking a focus that's different than the one you had last time you visited [the same recursion]." \$\endgroup\$
    – Caleb
    Commented Oct 18, 2014 at 21:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ I've incorporated this in my answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adriano Varoli Piazza
    Commented Oct 18, 2014 at 21:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ Page 360 says: "The next time the PCs visit that recursion, they can choose a different look and focus if they want." \$\endgroup\$
    – Frames Catherine White
    Commented Oct 18, 2015 at 4:03
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Oxinabox That's an optional rule, and the context of that sentence is important. The suggestion is that if your players don't know the recursion, you just give them some focus on their first visit, and the next time -- assuming they have gotten a feel for the place by then -- they get to choose their "real" and final focus. \$\endgroup\$
    – Raphael
    Commented Apr 16, 2016 at 14:26

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