A few months ago, one of my players had his character leave the party, and since then he's been playing a different character. The party has now reunited with his first character. We like both characters, so we don't want either of them to leave, but we also don't want him to have way more power in combat than the other players. We're considering some sort of structure or mechanic to let him switch between the two characters, focusing on one some sessions and the other in other sessions - but I'm not entirely sure how to structure or implement that. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Make him choose which character he's using at the start anytime the PCs leave their home base. The other character is tending to other personal business. This is the one I'd use, but it assumes that the party doesn't go on long road trips. (and can be made to work even if they do)
If you want to permit session-by-session character swapping, then you can say that both are along on any trip, and the other is just... narratively off-stage. They're doing things just out of frame. If there's a fight, they were in it, but they were fighting enemies who were also just off stage. (This is what I do with players who can't make the session.)
The problem with #2 is that it gives him more resources to work with on extended trips, because he can swap between sessions if his current character is tapped out or badly hurt. It also leads to the inevitable "Well, Fred has the appropriate ability, and we know he's actually here, so can't he just act?" The answer to that must be "No. That is the price you pay for having two characters."
I don't suggest some kind of in-narrative mechanism that prevents the two from being in the same place at the same time. It's not that it can't be made to work, but it puts the weirdness into the focus of the story, and can lead to the inevitable "Can we get rid of the curse or whatever?" question that puts you right back into the situation again.
This is also likely to lead to somebody else, then everybody else saying "can I have a second character as well?" And the answer probably has to be yes. And a game can totally work with that (but you really probably need to be using solution #1 at that point). It even allows stuff that can be pretty fun, such as splitting the party in a way that keeps everybody involved at all times. (I can imagine a scenario where you're switching between the two parties as they operate in parallel, each one indirectly affecting what's happening with the other.) But it does make for more work for you.
(I also think you should keep all characters leveling in lockstep, because otherwise it's way more bookkeeping.)
A few months ago, one of my players had his character leave the party, and since then he's been playing a different character. The party has now reunited with his first character. We like both characters, so we don't want either of them to leave, but we also don't want him to have way more power in combat than the other players. We're considering some sort of structure or mechanic to let him switch between the two characters, focusing on one some sessions and the other in other sessions - but I'm not entirely sure how to structure or implement that. Does anyone have any suggestions?
You could turn his "off character" into an NPC when he is not in control, and play it as the DM. Very simple. This would probably be the easiest way.
Alternatively, you could just let the player control two characters and then you manufacture one of their deaths. While it might be mean, it is also a perfectly normal thing to have a character die unexpectadly once a in a while.
John the Dwarf Fighter ate some bad porrage. He got sick. He died in his sleep. Oh shucks.
Unfortunately, there is more backstory needed to come up with an appropriate answer.
1) Why did the player's original character leave? Was it a plot development? Was it expected? Did the player just get bored and want to play a different character?
2) Why did the party rejoin with the original character? What were they doing in the time apart? Why did the original decide to go adventuring again? Was it expected when they left that they would rejoin? If this was a planned outcome, then the player was expected to either play two characters or choose between them when the party reconnected. If it was just a cool plot choice by the DM then what were the DMs expectations when the character rejoined?
3) Playing two characters does not make the player "more powerful". The player is role playing two different characters that might not even like each other. The main difference is that they have to make twice as many decisions in combat and get to roll dice for both characters. However, they also need to role play both characters which can be challenging if you've even tried playing more than one character at the same time. There should not be any automatic assumptions that these characters will always rescue each other or will help each other before the rest of the party unless this was all part of the back story .. eg maybe the characters are siblings - however, even then, if you look a fictional siblings as in Dragonlance, they don't necessarily get along.
4) There are several solutions if you only want the player to run one character.
a) They choose one character - the other becomes an NPC under the control of the DM and joins the party. This is probably the solution I would use. The player chooses the one they want but narratively the other can remain in the story.
b) After joining the party for a short time, one of the characters leaves the party for their own adventures. The player can choose which one they want to keep in the party. This is also a good choice since the DM doesn't need to run an NPC and the player gets to decide which character to use.
c) The character joins the party as an NPC but the player can choose which one they want to play each session. This makes it harder to for the player to focus on the development of the character they want to play the most and could result in the player choosing to play whichever character might be more effective for the adventure expected that day which isn't fair to the other players (eg one character is charisma heavy and the other intelligence/wisdom - the player chooses the charisma character on days they expect heavy social interactions and the intelligence/wisdom one for a murder mystery where investigation/perception will be important ... or one character is a rogue and the other a sorcerer ... the rogue is chosen for heist missions while the sorcerer gets played more on combat encounters perhaps. This isn't especially fair to the other players who don't have a choice. )
5) Talk to all the players - ideally 1:1 so that their feedback remains private and anonymous and they can freely express how they feel about the situation .. should the player have more than one character? Should all the players get a choice of more than one character? How do they think the situation should be handled? Ultimately, story decisions are in the hands of the DM, so if people don't want the player to have multiple characters to play then the DM can resolve it narratively using one of the solutions mentioned. However, it is important to get the player feedback without peer pressure since some folks will feel that they can't say that it isn't fair for one player to have multiple characters without someone else calling names. (Mature, not, :), but that doesn't stop it from happening).
1) It was an unexpected plot development. The 1st character teleported away with an artifact to stop someone else getting their hands on it, which then led to an arc where the party had to go find him. Eventually they started communicating via Sendings back and forth, and the party has now reached the town he's in. They've regrouped and he's got a good reason to stick with the party.
2) We didn't have specific expectations on what would happen when the 1st character left, or whether he would rejoin the party when they met back up.
3) Yeah, it's more roleplaying both at once that the player isn't super into doing every week. But as I said, we like both characters, both have story arcs and good reasons to stick around.
4) What about switching every month or arc, does that make sense?
The party I'm currently DMing for has 2 characters each. That also developed from a story event, where the original party was trapped in a demiplane, and created new characters around a side-story branching off of an event earlier in their adventure. Eventually (like 4 levels later) their story reconnected to the main story and they rescued the original party. But by that time they'd had their own adventures and the players were attached to the new characters as well.
Now they have the option of switching when they return to the castle where they live. It's just a basic, "you were about to go to (destination). Which characters are going on this one?" And then the others stay behind, because sometimes we the story has a good spot for a "meanwhile..." kind of thing. Otherwise we do a quick "what are your other characters doing in the meantime," check-in. Of course, that relies on every player having 2 characters, and all players accepting that their choice will last until the next convenient story break (no mid-dungeon roster changes). We also don't follow very strict "you can accomplish X during Y amount of downtime" rules, so there isn't much to exploit in terms of things like, "I spent 1 full month doing nothing but scribing spell scrolls," or whatever.
The only question for us, was how to handle XP. We decided that as long as players were actually switching every so often, then both their characters get the XP for each session/adventure. It just seemed like the easiest option, although it might not be fair if not everybody has 2 characters.
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A few months ago, one of my players had his character leave the party, and since then he's been playing a different character. The party has now reunited with his first character. We like both characters, so we don't want either of them to leave, but we also don't want him to have way more power in combat than the other players. We're considering some sort of structure or mechanic to let him switch between the two characters, focusing on one some sessions and the other in other sessions - but I'm not entirely sure how to structure or implement that. Does anyone have any suggestions?
There are two simple ways to do this
The problem with #2 is that it gives him more resources to work with on extended trips, because he can swap between sessions if his current character is tapped out or badly hurt. It also leads to the inevitable "Well, Fred has the appropriate ability, and we know he's actually here, so can't he just act?" The answer to that must be "No. That is the price you pay for having two characters."
I don't suggest some kind of in-narrative mechanism that prevents the two from being in the same place at the same time. It's not that it can't be made to work, but it puts the weirdness into the focus of the story, and can lead to the inevitable "Can we get rid of the curse or whatever?" question that puts you right back into the situation again.
This is also likely to lead to somebody else, then everybody else saying "can I have a second character as well?" And the answer probably has to be yes. And a game can totally work with that (but you really probably need to be using solution #1 at that point). It even allows stuff that can be pretty fun, such as splitting the party in a way that keeps everybody involved at all times. (I can imagine a scenario where you're switching between the two parties as they operate in parallel, each one indirectly affecting what's happening with the other.) But it does make for more work for you.
(I also think you should keep all characters leveling in lockstep, because otherwise it's way more bookkeeping.)
You could turn his "off character" into an NPC when he is not in control, and play it as the DM. Very simple. This would probably be the easiest way.
Alternatively, you could just let the player control two characters and then you manufacture one of their deaths. While it might be mean, it is also a perfectly normal thing to have a character die unexpectadly once a in a while.
John the Dwarf Fighter ate some bad porrage. He got sick. He died in his sleep. Oh shucks.
Unfortunately, there is more backstory needed to come up with an appropriate answer.
1) Why did the player's original character leave? Was it a plot development? Was it expected? Did the player just get bored and want to play a different character?
2) Why did the party rejoin with the original character? What were they doing in the time apart? Why did the original decide to go adventuring again? Was it expected when they left that they would rejoin? If this was a planned outcome, then the player was expected to either play two characters or choose between them when the party reconnected. If it was just a cool plot choice by the DM then what were the DMs expectations when the character rejoined?
3) Playing two characters does not make the player "more powerful". The player is role playing two different characters that might not even like each other. The main difference is that they have to make twice as many decisions in combat and get to roll dice for both characters. However, they also need to role play both characters which can be challenging if you've even tried playing more than one character at the same time. There should not be any automatic assumptions that these characters will always rescue each other or will help each other before the rest of the party unless this was all part of the back story .. eg maybe the characters are siblings - however, even then, if you look a fictional siblings as in Dragonlance, they don't necessarily get along.
4) There are several solutions if you only want the player to run one character.
a) They choose one character - the other becomes an NPC under the control of the DM and joins the party. This is probably the solution I would use. The player chooses the one they want but narratively the other can remain in the story.
b) After joining the party for a short time, one of the characters leaves the party for their own adventures. The player can choose which one they want to keep in the party. This is also a good choice since the DM doesn't need to run an NPC and the player gets to decide which character to use.
c) The character joins the party as an NPC but the player can choose which one they want to play each session. This makes it harder to for the player to focus on the development of the character they want to play the most and could result in the player choosing to play whichever character might be more effective for the adventure expected that day which isn't fair to the other players (eg one character is charisma heavy and the other intelligence/wisdom - the player chooses the charisma character on days they expect heavy social interactions and the intelligence/wisdom one for a murder mystery where investigation/perception will be important ... or one character is a rogue and the other a sorcerer ... the rogue is chosen for heist missions while the sorcerer gets played more on combat encounters perhaps. This isn't especially fair to the other players who don't have a choice. )
5) Talk to all the players - ideally 1:1 so that their feedback remains private and anonymous and they can freely express how they feel about the situation .. should the player have more than one character? Should all the players get a choice of more than one character? How do they think the situation should be handled? Ultimately, story decisions are in the hands of the DM, so if people don't want the player to have multiple characters to play then the DM can resolve it narratively using one of the solutions mentioned. However, it is important to get the player feedback without peer pressure since some folks will feel that they can't say that it isn't fair for one player to have multiple characters without someone else calling names. (Mature, not, :), but that doesn't stop it from happening).
1) It was an unexpected plot development. The 1st character teleported away with an artifact to stop someone else getting their hands on it, which then led to an arc where the party had to go find him. Eventually they started communicating via Sendings back and forth, and the party has now reached the town he's in. They've regrouped and he's got a good reason to stick with the party.
2) We didn't have specific expectations on what would happen when the 1st character left, or whether he would rejoin the party when they met back up.
3) Yeah, it's more roleplaying both at once that the player isn't super into doing every week. But as I said, we like both characters, both have story arcs and good reasons to stick around.
4) What about switching every month or arc, does that make sense?
The party I'm currently DMing for has 2 characters each. That also developed from a story event, where the original party was trapped in a demiplane, and created new characters around a side-story branching off of an event earlier in their adventure. Eventually (like 4 levels later) their story reconnected to the main story and they rescued the original party. But by that time they'd had their own adventures and the players were attached to the new characters as well.
Now they have the option of switching when they return to the castle where they live. It's just a basic, "you were about to go to (destination). Which characters are going on this one?" And then the others stay behind, because sometimes we the story has a good spot for a "meanwhile..." kind of thing. Otherwise we do a quick "what are your other characters doing in the meantime," check-in. Of course, that relies on every player having 2 characters, and all players accepting that their choice will last until the next convenient story break (no mid-dungeon roster changes). We also don't follow very strict "you can accomplish X during Y amount of downtime" rules, so there isn't much to exploit in terms of things like, "I spent 1 full month doing nothing but scribing spell scrolls," or whatever.
The only question for us, was how to handle XP. We decided that as long as players were actually switching every so often, then both their characters get the XP for each session/adventure. It just seemed like the easiest option, although it might not be fair if not everybody has 2 characters.