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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Goblin

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    Default Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters like Susannah Dean/Detta Walker from Dark Tower

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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    I think mechanically you could do it either way, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both. The simplest way would be to treat it as a single character (probably multi-classed) and just roleplay the appropriate personality for whatever that character is doing at the time. The advantage of this is that, despite the unique roleplaying hook, the character is built with the same set of rules as everybody else and advances at the same rate. The disadvantage is that the mechanics don't really reflect the split personality, and being scrupulous about not mixing the skillsets could gimp the character because you're not getting any of the synergy benefits of multi-classing (unless they're passive).

    The alternative would be to create two separate character sheets, one for each personality. The advantage here is that you're really locked in to only having access to the skills of one personality at a time (and things that you think should bleed over, you can just have both characters take). The disadvantage, aside from added paperwork, is that it's hard to balance this with the power level of a party. If you split XP between the two "characters," they'll fall behind the other party members. If you give each "character" full XP, they'll be more powerful, or at least more versatile, than the other party members.

    My opinion is that this concept works better for a fictional character or NPC than a PC, because the balancing issues are hard to resolve. Also, the table dynamics could be a problem - a unique character like this is going to tend to steal the spotlight, which might not be okay with everybody else.

    Edited to add two thoughts. First, when you see this trope in fiction, it's usually a setup to either a reveal that A was actually B all along, or to a character arc that resolves whatever issues led to the split personality, neither of which is ideal for a PC. Obviously you can't do a reveal, and the personalities are already united by the player and only artificially separated so I don't think you can get a satisfying payoff there. For an NPC, you might do a reveal, but I'd ask myself whether this is really better than just a disguise, or if it's just self-indulgent.

    Second, if I were the GM and a player came to me with this idea, I wouldn't make any special rules or separate character sheets. I would just point them at the multi-classing rules and tell them how they play their character is up to them.
    Last edited by TheStranger; 2018-04-26 at 10:52 AM.

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    Troll in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    Sort of. I guess it's kind of similar to creating a couple or a pair of Siblings. They're characters who share a bunch of features (where they live, what they're doing tonight) and that will be associated with each other.

    RPG wise, should you create two different stat blocks and skill sets for them? Depends on the character. More realistic cases maybe to probably not. The Hulk definitely.
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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    Mostly yes, and the previous responses about the difficulties of making it work at the table are dead on. I wouldn't do it, but if you really want to, here are my thoughts. They're not perfectly aligned with the reality of MPD, but they might be close enough for jazz and they might work at the table.

    Make two character sheets. Start with physical traits (race, ability scores, appearance, age, and so on) which are the same on the two sheets.

    Mental traits (ability scores, personality, attitudes) can be different.

    Rule out some options, such as classes for the two characters that require different backgrounds. By that I mean if, for example, you have a setting where only elves can be sorcerers and only humans can be clerics then you can't have one personality a sorcerer and the other a cleric. That's a really blatant and obvious example, but you should think through potential conflicts that are more subtle, as those will direct subsequent steps.

    Pick (in D&D 3.P terms) classes, feats, and skills (or corresponding things in a different system) separately.

    For D&D:
    The two characters both get full shares of XP and, therefore, both advance in level at the same rate. This is hard to fluff, and depends a lot on the fluff-of-choice for experience points and character levels in the first place, but I think it's the only way to make this work. It seems unbalanced on its face, since the one person gets all the advancement of two, but since only one is ever present at a time that doesn't hurt anything; you're always playing a character of same level as the rest of the party.

    For Other Systems: Take the approach described above adapted as necessary to the system's advancement rules.

    Hit points (or equivalent) would be the real sticking point (if your system has them and they advance). I'd go this way: Generate hit points for the two characters separately. The actual, physical person has the greater of the two totals. If the other character takes damage exceeding his/her own total, s/he falls unconscious.

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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    Quote Originally Posted by Cap'n Gravelock View Post
    Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters like Susannah Dean/Detta Walker from Dark Tower
    For D&D, don't bother writing up a separate character sheet for the alternate personality. Just RP it out in game. If there is anything about the other personality that would affect gameplay, come up with a few simple house rules with your GM.
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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    Quote Originally Posted by Durzan View Post
    For D&D, don't bother writing up a separate character sheet for the alternate personality. Just RP it out in game. If there is anything about the other personality that would affect gameplay, come up with a few simple house rules with your GM.
    How do you house rule a character who one day is Elan and the next day is Inigo Montoya?
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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    Quote Originally Posted by jqavins View Post
    For D&D: The two characters both get full shares of XP and, therefore, both advance in level at the same rate. This is hard to fluff, and depends a lot on the fluff-of-choice for experience points and character levels in the first place, but I think it's the only way to make this work. It seems unbalanced on its face, since the one person gets all the advancement of two, but since only one is ever present at a time that doesn't hurt anything; you're always playing a character of same level as the rest of the party.
    I disagree that this is balanced with the rest of the party - even though they're the same level, the character is much more versatile. That's especially true if the player can choose which personality is dominant at a given time, as they'll have the option of bringing a relevant ability to bear on almost any situation. But if they don't have any control, that's going to be frustrating to both them and the rest of the party - "No, I could easily pick this lock when I'm a rogue, but I'm a cleric today. Sorry, guys." It's also harder for the GM to plan encounters if you don't know what abilities that character will have.

    Also, and this is my bigger argument against this, giving one character this kind of special treatment is going to make them the center of attention far too often for my taste. That's already a big issue with this concept, because a disproportionate amount of table time is going to be taken up with this character's issues regardless of how you handle it. But I wouldn't enable it by giving them special mechanical treatment. I'd just point them at the multi-class rules and tell them that if they want to talk in a Cockney accent whenever they cast cleric spells, that's up to them. Also, that saves the GM the headache of keeping track of which character is in play at any given time and adjudicating whatever rules you come up with for switching back and forth. Basically, don't make more work for yourself on top of everything else.

    Besides, I strongly suspect this is going to get old fast once it's in play. The player is going to want to use whatever abilities are most relevant to the situation at hand, and once the novelty wears off it's not going to be fun to only have half their skillset available. If they're already a multi-class character mechanically and it's just roleplaying, then you have two advantages. First, you as the GM don't have to care when they inevitably start applying skills or knowledge from the "wrong" personality to solve a problem or switching personalities whenever it's convenient. Second, if they decide to pull the plug on the whole idea, a mini-arc that unifies the personalities is easily implemented or handwaved.

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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    First, let me restate that I don't like the whole gimmick, and am just coming up with what I think is the best way to handle a poor idea.

    My assumption was that the player absolutely has no control whatever over which character is operative. Flip a coin at the start of the adventure, take out the selected sheet, and the other one stays in your notebook until the next time an adventure is starting and the coin comes up the other way. Period.

    The operative character has no access to knowledge or skills possessed by the other (unless they both explicitly have it, of course). The player has to be trusted to play this right or it falls apart. "Well, if we wait until my rogue self comes back then I'll be able to pick the lock" should bring a swift and certain end to the experiment.

    So there's no added versatility there, just a lack of reliability. There are lots of problems with this, but balance isn't one of them.

    I also don't see extra table time as a problem in this scenario, after "Which character have you got today?"

    But I still wouldn't do it, myself.
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    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    AssassinGuy

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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    That makes sense, I agree that there's less of a balance issue if the player has no control. On the other hand, neither personality should fill a vital party role unless the other personality also fills that role. If the GM doesn't know whether the party will have a healer from day to day, it's hard to plan encounters. But yeah, that's probably at least a toss-up with a straight multi-class as a solution. And we're in agreement that it's probably a bad idea no matter how you implement it.

    My concern about table time wasn't about mechanics, just the possibility that the player will want a lot of roleplaying around his unique character conceit. It's the same potential problem as the brooding loner with a tortured backstory - one player hijacking a cooperative game with their character's issues.

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    Bugbear in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    Another option that might make it a little more practical is to have both personalities have the same class, but different or opposite themes/archetypes. For example, side A could be a Cleric of Pelor and side B a Cleric of Nerull. Both sides will have their own thematic choices that differ from eachother, but could ultimately fill the same role. Combine that with jqavins' suggestion and it might make it work a little better

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    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    When you're doing this you have to decide a specific thing first: is your split-personality character one person with a serious mental illness, or they are functionally two people. In most systems the answer is clearly the first and you have one character sheet with a single set of abilities. However, in some systems it might be the latter. For instance, in D&D you could hypothetically have a being with two souls (there are creatures in D&D that can absorb and split life forces such the Void Wraith, making this sort of thing explicitly possible by the rules) in one body that would behave as having split personalities. You can even test this by killing the person and seeing if two petitioners show up in the outer planes. In this scenario you'd have two different character sheets - with the caveat that they have to possess identical attributes (or whatever other method your system uses for physical stats) since they share the same body - and each person would gain experience separately. Note that in D&D this would rapidly make the character terrible because they'd be effectively half the level of the other members of the party and would be splitting their WBL over two characters.

    Also worth noting that in D&D the two-souls-one-body problem is explicitly solvable with magic, you just isolate one soul and resurrect them into an appropriate body. In other situations it may prove less tractable. The Marvel universe has indulged a number of plotlines around trying to separate Bruce Banner from The Hulk, which is a similar situation.
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    Default Re: Is Creating 1 Character With A Split Personality 2 Characters

    But Bruce Banner and The Hulk are two sides of the same soul, much like Jekyll and Hyde. A better example would separating Gene Grey from the Phoenix. At least, that seemed to be the case the last time I read these things with any semblance of regularity, which was three decades ago.

    (I think this forum should be renamed "Trigonometry in the Playground" because of all the tangents.)
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    “Shared pain is diminished. Shared joy is increased.”
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    And shared laughter is magical

    Always remember that anything posted on the internet is, in a practical if not a legal sense, in the public domain.
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