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WISH 78: Two Characters, One Game

Do you think allowing one player to play more than one character in a game is a good or bad idea? Does the style of the game make any difference? What about the format (FTF, PBeM, etc.)?

I don't have personal experience on this one, but I do have a few things to say.

I think whether it's a good idea or a bad idea will depend heavily on the player in question. I know one of my players wouldn't be a good person to do it - she's almost incapable of separating OOC and IC knowledge, so putting her in charge of more than one personality would be a trainwreck. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that I could handle it - I know I'm capable of doing things like play a completely fair game of Monopoly against three inanimate objects and having the inanimate objects win, or playing a multi-player game like Worms 2 or the old QBasic gorilla game and not cheating. (As a personal note, I think a lot of that stems from being an only child with few friends my own age growing up.)

The format would matter, though. I don't think I'd be comfortable playing more than one character in a game more complex than a dungeon crawl or a combat-heavy, RP-light format if it's FtF. PBeM, to my mind, wouldn't be a problem - because you have the opportunity to sit there and answer any emails for one character before you move on to another. IM gaming would be more complex than I'd want to deal with - I'd want more than one screenname, which means all kinds of shenanigans. One screenname for more than one character is... not quite a nightmare. I've been doing it as a GM. I end up resorting to shorthand, like the following:

Chetwin: "Hey, Julian."
GM: j: "Hello, Chetwin. I spoke to Kaylana earlier. She assures me that it is not your fault that Arwen is missing." He waits for a response.
GM: thorne: "Hey, Dy. Hey, cat." (to Tabby)
GM: t: *looks up at him* "Hello, meat."
Dylana: *stifles a smile at Tabby's response* "How goes the shady side, brother?"
GM: th: "Not bad. Pretty quiet the last few days, at least on my end of things."

As you can imagine, it gets kind of... interesting... to keep track of who is what abbreviation - and abbreviations sometimes change from session to session, depending on which NPCs are active in the game at a given time.

I'm straying from my point again.

As for game style... I really do think that if the player is capable of playing more than one character fairly - and by that I mean compartmentalizing character A's knowledge from character B's, and all OOC knowledge from both characters - that the genre and style won't make a difference. The only real constraints on a player capable of that would most likely be the format of the game (depending on the player's favored multi-PC format) and the other players' comfort level.

All that said, it would probably behoove a GM whose players don't mind Player A playing more than one character to have a trial run for Player A - say, something along the lines of, "If you can successfully run NPC Q for [x amount of time, or x number of sessions, or whatever], I'll let you have your second PC." It'd be a little more work for the GM during that trial period - s/he'd have to keep an eye on Player A to see if there's significant leakage going on between A's PC and NPC Q - but it's probably better to not just let someone free with more than one PC unless you know them well and know they'd be capable. Just my 2 cents, though.
posted by sandrayln at 1:39:00 AM ( )

 
Like I talked about in this entry, I made up that evil-looking critter that inhabits the other side of the seepage. This is what it looks like - a little bit rabbit, a little bit turtle, a little bit wolverine, and a little bit komodo dragon. It's about cat-sized, and fast enough that it got away from Random, and Benedict had to stop it before it squeezed under a door and ran amok in the Palace. *grins* Gotta love those spur-of-the-moment inspirations.
posted by sandrayln at 12:58:00 AM ( )

 
Whee... This may be interesting. I'm now running 2 games. Lost and Found, and now I'm running a game in the future of L&F, with just Chetwin for a PC. We started tonight, with me doing my usual low-preparation, head-first jumping into a session. It was fun, though.

I basically set up the problem: there's some sort of seepage into Shadow going on, and no one knows what it is. There are assorted seepage points, about 30 of them, and they've started releasing strange blobs, stranger critters, and stray magic currents - and a few are draining color out of the area directly around the seep point. All the animals and blobs are greyscale.

The critter Chet saw was kind of fun - it's greyish-white in places and greyish-black in others, and it looks a little like a rabbit, a little like a turtle, a little like a wolverine, and a little like a komodo dragon. It radiated huge amounts of magic when Random took it out of the pet carrier he had it in. It's extremely fast, and had already almost succeeded in creeping under a door. And when it was inside the (warded) pet carrier, it made beeping noises. Oh, and when a similar one was put into the same area as a blob, it made a nest out of the blob and had babies that looked like gerbil babies. And finally, the body, when one is killed, disintegrates.

The blob, on the other hand, was... a blob. A black, gelatinous mass.

So... yeah. Some Family members will be in Amber, but most of them will be off in Shadow, either stationed to watch a seepage or exploring the inside of a seepage point. I've put Chet stuck in his Shadow to watch the seepage, with Bleys stationed nearby and Flora sent into the seep Chet's watching.

There are so many ways I can go with this. The reason Dust and I wanted to do this was because we want to see how Chet matures and what he'll be like when he does. It'll be fun.

Train of thought is now long gone. Ah well.
posted by sandrayln at 3:23:00 AM ( )

 
I just posted three sessions worth of L&F quotes (sessions 60 to 63).

I'm actually rather pleased with Random at the moment. Amber just annexed Eregnor. *chuckle* Random got tired of listening to Kashfa and Begma arguing over it, and he had this convenient opportunity where Dalt's two daughters split Dalt's army and ended up fighting each other in Arden... So he captured the girls, called Dalt, and worked out a deal. So there's almost all of the family at a meeting, and Random gets someone to bring Dalt in, and Dalt has to swear fealty right there after Random reveals that Eregnor is now a Dukedom of Amber, Dalt will be getting what's left of his army, one of his daughters, and the dukedom, and oh yeah, if Dalt tries rebellion, he'll be summarily stripped of his title and declared a traitor, with all the attendant punishments awaiting him.

That was one of the few times recently I've wished I was face-to-face with my players. I would have loved to see their expressions, 'cause this came totally out of the blue and some time after Dalt's daughters threatened Dylana...

Not that the family present didn't have stunned expressions - since the only ones to know about this were Random, his kids, Dalt, and the person who called Dalt.

That was fun. And we're only halfway finished with the meeting.
posted by sandrayln at 2:10:00 AM ( )

 
Term paper hell. That's what I'm in the middle of. Ye gods. A 10-pager was due Monday, a 4-5-pager is due Friday, and another 5-pager (I think) is due next Tuesday. Not to mention finals next week.

And of course, my brain is Elsewhere.

I want to reread Merlin's books, because I've got a vague idea or two I need to map out when it comes to Logrus.

I'm going to run a game for my boyfriend, using his L&F character and kicking the setting forward half a century, since we both really want to play out Chetwin settling down and maturing somewhat. I've got to plan that out somewhat - 'what's seeping in through the fabric of Shadow?' is my current sticking point. Once I've got that, and once I finish setting up where the rest of the Family will be, we can start that.

We're finally at the Family meeting in L&F, although it took us something like a month and a half to get there. And then I'll have to decide what piece of the tangle gets to be revealed next as we approach the end of the game.

Then there's the completely non-Amber-related list: programming for fun, reworking the homepage on my harddrive so that my bookmark list is less unwieldy, playing computer games, messing around with the 3d software I acquired, cleaning my room somewhat...

A week and a half. I keep telling myself that.
posted by sandrayln at 4:19:00 PM ( )