So I have 2 players who have a very fun character concept, they are 2 people who were cursed and merged into 1 body, so pretty much multiple personalities. They have a great backstory that I won't go into but I a super excited to see how this plays out. However, I am a little stuck on how to build the rules on which personality is in control, we have brainstormed a little bit, and here are a few of the rules we have come up with. I just want to make it fair for both players and they each have their time generating with the other players and world.
Ideas
At the start of each day (or after a long rest) they roll-off
If the person not in control feels strongly and a situation they can roll to see if they can take control and depend on the situation can have advantage on the roll.
In combat, they can not switch but I feel like they should be able to aid each other in some way.
I'm not sure this is a good discussion for the Rules & Game Mechanics forum. Might be better received in DM's forum as this doesn't appear to have a RAW application and might be strictly homebrew.
Still a great idea and if you can make this work with the rest of the table, have fun with it.
I might suggest the use of Contests to sort out who gets to drive the PC for the day. With the caveat that consecutive losses are granted a bonus (+1 or 2 per consecutive loss) to their ability check until that player "wins" control. This might make it harder for either player to control the PC for longer periods. I agree that the idea of granting advantage/disadvantage on the check if it is something that might fall under the individual personalities' Bonds, Flaws, Ideals or Traits.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
This seems like it could easily turn into conflict between the two players (not their character, the players). What if one of the players has a string of bad die rolls and goes a long time without being in charge? What if you don’t have a long rest during the session, so only one person is in control for the whole game day? Seems like you’re setting things up for someone to end up pretty bored, and just messing around on their phone.
About the only way I can think it might work, is if the two players will rarely or never be there at the same time, so they share the character.
Though, as you get it in the post, the change should really happen only at the end of a long rest. There are too many powers that only recharge then. For example, what if they’re both casters? The wizard starts the day and uses all their spell slots, but then the cleric takes over at lunch. How many spells can they cast now? It’s not fair to the second player that the first used their stuff, and it’s not fair to everyone else if suddenly this one character gets to recharge. Or if the second character is a fighter, do they still have their second wind? If they are a monk do they get all their ki points? What happens to their hit points if the change mid-day?
And all that is to say nothing of multiple personalities being a serious condition that really shouldn’t be made light of.
It can work in a story, but that doesn’t mean it can work in a D&D game.
So...fiddling around with the idea in my brain...what if the person not in control of the main body was shunted to something else so they still had some autonomy. So in the example of the caster...what if the off person had full control of the familiar in a "Freaky Friday"-almost sort of way? Still gives them a little bit to do RP wise, but doesn't impact the balance of combat.
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Founding Member of the High Roller Society.(Currently trying to roll max on 4d6)
1.) The foundation of this character is literally PvP in its most reduced form (opposed rolls), but like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde or the Hulk and Banner, both halfs are highly likely to become the permament being, so what happens if one aspect starts finding magics or technologies or whatevers that can greater contain the other passenger?
2.) Disjoined play. One a swap happens you could have very inconsistent actions, which will become a PITA to the rest of your party.
3.) What about the rest of the party? It's an accpeted issue or social norm in play to allow for some "umm" deliberation, but on top of that you're layering what's basically a conflict resolution mini game between two players so they can then integrate their actions into the rest of the game. It's self-absorbed and preciosu and outside of a one shot where maybe every character has such a duality will become annoying to other players fast.
4.) Is one of the players really going to be content doing nothing for the duration of a session if they never roll well in the control challenge?
This is not an original brainstorm, it's a classic "whoa, wouldn't it be cool if" moment that doesn't consider the rest of the game in favor of one characters literally unstable interior. At the end of the day, you already have one entity, the party, through which multiple personas, the players' characters, are challenged to collectively resolve its actions through the interaction of those characters. This mechanism puts in a further stumbling block which isn't so much innovative as it is insufferable. It's privileging two players mini game where have two stable characters at the table would be what's actually best for the party.
Intersting problem, for me I'd go for something like a Ghost possession ability, when one is in charge the other 'player' is a ghost and uses the ghost stats in the monster manual and they can 'tag' in and out. For flavour and a little more variation you could then have them with different classes when in charge of the host body, for example, Player A might be a Fighter type when in control but Player B might be a more Rogue type. Either way when they are not in control they default to the appearance, abilities and stats for a Ghost...which includes being Turned, not being healed by Cure Wounds etc.
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The usual premise for this is one player wanting t ocontrol 2 characters, so yours flips that on its head, and as such is less powerful than if the 2 players had one character.
I'm curious as to how you will engage the player who is not in control, and as to how you will run the two classes in one body, particularly referencing hitpoints. If one player has a barbarian and the other a wizard, then you either end up with a tank of a wizard or a weed of a barbarian, or something in the middle which is good for the wizard and bad for the barbarian. What about stats, do they change as well?
One option would be to make it function in the same way as the Druid wildshape, without a time limit, but where you track the 2 characters HP seperately instead of using temporary hitpoints.
I would make the change be triggered by the person who is not in control, at any time. I would also make them take control if the other is knocked unconscious. The one in control can choose to auto-fail, allowing the two halves to work together.
As for the check, I can see two "fair" options:
Option 1: The two players roll a straight roll. This stops one player from having more gametime if they are higher on wisdom.
Option 2: The non-player can "help" at any time by rolling a dice as well, for any check or save (not attacks). If they roll higher than the other, or if the other opts to lose, then they take control.
Option 2 opens more roleplay options, as it would represent the second character saying "oh move over!" when the first character tries something which the second is clearly better at. It also lets a player who wants to take control for a bit just keep rolling to try and take the helm. This will mean that if the active player wants to keep in control, then they are going to have to be careful what they are trying to do, and so won't just spam checks at everything (In the classic "I'm also looking for traps!" method).
I'd have a cooldown for when the change occurs and for when you have 3 failed attempts within a minute, so they don't just change back and forth all game, taking the spotlight from the other players. I would also have them sort it out amongst themselves, and not make people wait for it, so they don't have the spotlight. The other players might sudenly find themselves working with Mr Hyde instead of Mr Seek.
I think others covered why "having two people play one character" is a bad idea and is just a lot of drama waiting to happen. Having played--individually--this archetype once, I wanted to point out that the archetype was fine, but still had a number of gameplay problems, all of which would get worse with two controllers.
1. We were in a party that leaned heavily toward the neutral on the Good-Evil spectrum, so having a character alternate between Chaotic Neutral and the new Lawful Evil persona was not overly problematic--the new Lawful Evil character still wanted to save the world for his own ends, so there was no party conflict. However, this was also carefully curated and was mid-campaign--I knew how the other players and their characters would react to various personalities, and carefully ensured both sides of the coin were something that would not create party drama.
With two players, you are running the risk that one of them might misread the party or might purposefully try to distance themselves from the other player's persona in a way that creates a problem.
2. Your two halves have different goals and motivations and those might be in conflict with one another. For example, the new personality on my character was an immortal soul fragment fused with my regular character--he did not care what happened to the body and took a number of huge risks with their shared body because it was just a temporary and fleeting vessel.
That was fine by me--the only person whose character I was hurting was my own, and it was a source of amusement when my original character would wake up and find property sold off, an eye missing, etc. You are going to have a likely resentment issue with two players--Player A is going to be annoyed that Player B did something that interfered with Player A's plans or the story they were trying to tell and vice versa.
3. Your DM and other party members are inconvenienced by never knowing who they have to prepare at any given moment. This problem is going to be exacerbated by the fact that, not only will the character be changing, the player would also change.
Overall, based on the experiences I had doing this single-player, I would HIGHLY recommend against doing this with two players.
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So I have 2 players who have a very fun character concept, they are 2 people who were cursed and merged into 1 body, so pretty much multiple personalities. They have a great backstory that I won't go into but I a super excited to see how this plays out. However, I am a little stuck on how to build the rules on which personality is in control, we have brainstormed a little bit, and here are a few of the rules we have come up with. I just want to make it fair for both players and they each have their time generating with the other players and world.
Ideas
At the start of each day (or after a long rest) they roll-off
If the person not in control feels strongly and a situation they can roll to see if they can take control and depend on the situation can have advantage on the roll.
In combat, they can not switch but I feel like they should be able to aid each other in some way.
Sounds reasonable to me. If you feel it's appropriate for your campaign, go for it!
If you wonder which check to use, i suggest a Charisma check contest like Sentient Magic Item use to take control of creatures.
I'm not sure this is a good discussion for the Rules & Game Mechanics forum. Might be better received in DM's forum as this doesn't appear to have a RAW application and might be strictly homebrew.
Still a great idea and if you can make this work with the rest of the table, have fun with it.
I might suggest the use of Contests to sort out who gets to drive the PC for the day. With the caveat that consecutive losses are granted a bonus (+1 or 2 per consecutive loss) to their ability check until that player "wins" control. This might make it harder for either player to control the PC for longer periods. I agree that the idea of granting advantage/disadvantage on the check if it is something that might fall under the individual personalities' Bonds, Flaws, Ideals or Traits.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
This seems like it could easily turn into conflict between the two players (not their character, the players). What if one of the players has a string of bad die rolls and goes a long time without being in charge? What if you don’t have a long rest during the session, so only one person is in control for the whole game day? Seems like you’re setting things up for someone to end up pretty bored, and just messing around on their phone.
About the only way I can think it might work, is if the two players will rarely or never be there at the same time, so they share the character.
Though, as you get it in the post, the change should really happen only at the end of a long rest. There are too many powers that only recharge then. For example, what if they’re both casters? The wizard starts the day and uses all their spell slots, but then the cleric takes over at lunch. How many spells can they cast now? It’s not fair to the second player that the first used their stuff, and it’s not fair to everyone else if suddenly this one character gets to recharge. Or if the second character is a fighter, do they still have their second wind? If they are a monk do they get all their ki points? What happens to their hit points if the change mid-day?
And all that is to say nothing of multiple personalities being a serious condition that really shouldn’t be made light of.
It can work in a story, but that doesn’t mean it can work in a D&D game.
So...fiddling around with the idea in my brain...what if the person not in control of the main body was shunted to something else so they still had some autonomy. So in the example of the caster...what if the off person had full control of the familiar in a "Freaky Friday"-almost sort of way? Still gives them a little bit to do RP wise, but doesn't impact the balance of combat.
Founding Member of the High Roller Society. (Currently trying to roll max on 4d6)
FYI: It is spelled “Mr. Hyde.”
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But what if he has reliable talent and expertise in Stealth...maybe he is Mr. Hide...getting 35 and 40s for his stealth checks. :D
Founding Member of the High Roller Society. (Currently trying to roll max on 4d6)
I'd hard nope this here's why.
1.) The foundation of this character is literally PvP in its most reduced form (opposed rolls), but like Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde or the Hulk and Banner, both halfs are highly likely to become the permament being, so what happens if one aspect starts finding magics or technologies or whatevers that can greater contain the other passenger?
2.) Disjoined play. One a swap happens you could have very inconsistent actions, which will become a PITA to the rest of your party.
3.) What about the rest of the party? It's an accpeted issue or social norm in play to allow for some "umm" deliberation, but on top of that you're layering what's basically a conflict resolution mini game between two players so they can then integrate their actions into the rest of the game. It's self-absorbed and preciosu and outside of a one shot where maybe every character has such a duality will become annoying to other players fast.
4.) Is one of the players really going to be content doing nothing for the duration of a session if they never roll well in the control challenge?
This is not an original brainstorm, it's a classic "whoa, wouldn't it be cool if" moment that doesn't consider the rest of the game in favor of one characters literally unstable interior. At the end of the day, you already have one entity, the party, through which multiple personas, the players' characters, are challenged to collectively resolve its actions through the interaction of those characters. This mechanism puts in a further stumbling block which isn't so much innovative as it is insufferable. It's privileging two players mini game where have two stable characters at the table would be what's actually best for the party.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Intersting problem, for me I'd go for something like a Ghost possession ability, when one is in charge the other 'player' is a ghost and uses the ghost stats in the monster manual and they can 'tag' in and out. For flavour and a little more variation you could then have them with different classes when in charge of the host body, for example, Player A might be a Fighter type when in control but Player B might be a more Rogue type. Either way when they are not in control they default to the appearance, abilities and stats for a Ghost...which includes being Turned, not being healed by Cure Wounds etc.
The usual premise for this is one player wanting t ocontrol 2 characters, so yours flips that on its head, and as such is less powerful than if the 2 players had one character.
I'm curious as to how you will engage the player who is not in control, and as to how you will run the two classes in one body, particularly referencing hitpoints. If one player has a barbarian and the other a wizard, then you either end up with a tank of a wizard or a weed of a barbarian, or something in the middle which is good for the wizard and bad for the barbarian. What about stats, do they change as well?
One option would be to make it function in the same way as the Druid wildshape, without a time limit, but where you track the 2 characters HP seperately instead of using temporary hitpoints.
I would make the change be triggered by the person who is not in control, at any time. I would also make them take control if the other is knocked unconscious. The one in control can choose to auto-fail, allowing the two halves to work together.
As for the check, I can see two "fair" options:
Option 1: The two players roll a straight roll. This stops one player from having more gametime if they are higher on wisdom.
Option 2: The non-player can "help" at any time by rolling a dice as well, for any check or save (not attacks). If they roll higher than the other, or if the other opts to lose, then they take control.
Option 2 opens more roleplay options, as it would represent the second character saying "oh move over!" when the first character tries something which the second is clearly better at. It also lets a player who wants to take control for a bit just keep rolling to try and take the helm. This will mean that if the active player wants to keep in control, then they are going to have to be careful what they are trying to do, and so won't just spam checks at everything (In the classic "I'm also looking for traps!" method).
I'd have a cooldown for when the change occurs and for when you have 3 failed attempts within a minute, so they don't just change back and forth all game, taking the spotlight from the other players. I would also have them sort it out amongst themselves, and not make people wait for it, so they don't have the spotlight. The other players might sudenly find themselves working with Mr Hyde instead of Mr Seek.
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I think others covered why "having two people play one character" is a bad idea and is just a lot of drama waiting to happen. Having played--individually--this archetype once, I wanted to point out that the archetype was fine, but still had a number of gameplay problems, all of which would get worse with two controllers.
1. We were in a party that leaned heavily toward the neutral on the Good-Evil spectrum, so having a character alternate between Chaotic Neutral and the new Lawful Evil persona was not overly problematic--the new Lawful Evil character still wanted to save the world for his own ends, so there was no party conflict. However, this was also carefully curated and was mid-campaign--I knew how the other players and their characters would react to various personalities, and carefully ensured both sides of the coin were something that would not create party drama.
With two players, you are running the risk that one of them might misread the party or might purposefully try to distance themselves from the other player's persona in a way that creates a problem.
2. Your two halves have different goals and motivations and those might be in conflict with one another. For example, the new personality on my character was an immortal soul fragment fused with my regular character--he did not care what happened to the body and took a number of huge risks with their shared body because it was just a temporary and fleeting vessel.
That was fine by me--the only person whose character I was hurting was my own, and it was a source of amusement when my original character would wake up and find property sold off, an eye missing, etc. You are going to have a likely resentment issue with two players--Player A is going to be annoyed that Player B did something that interfered with Player A's plans or the story they were trying to tell and vice versa.
3. Your DM and other party members are inconvenienced by never knowing who they have to prepare at any given moment. This problem is going to be exacerbated by the fact that, not only will the character be changing, the player would also change.
Overall, based on the experiences I had doing this single-player, I would HIGHLY recommend against doing this with two players.