D&D General Am I the only one who plays D&D with more than 1 character per player???

[LuisCarlos17f]

My advice to play with two PCs simultaneously is at least one of both with some power of telepatic contact to explan the reason because one knows what the other is doing.

 

[Imaculata]

I let my players control whatever followers and npc's they bring along during combat.

 

[TerraDave]

I have also done main character + support character. It can work quite well.

 

[Imaculata]

I have also done a variant of this. In big naval battles, I handed out small cardboard cards for every allied ship, to the players. I let them control the movements of their entire fleet this way, and let them roll attacks for those allied ships.

I didn't want my players to wait very long between turns, so I figured, why not give them more turns as they also play out the actions of other ships? No one wants to wait for the DM to roll dozens of dice as he fights with himself.

 

[GMMichael]

If I'm the only player running more than one character (as GM), then I'm the only player who's allowed/expected to portray one-dimensional characters. Since no one at my table is a professional actor.

Also, two or more characters per PC means twice the misery when the TPK hits.

In late 2e and certainly 3e, the game became very complex and "analysis paralysis" became an issue, along with speeding up game play.

This (is the issue). Most D&D groups in which I've played take a - reasonable - amount of time to pass a combat round. More brains per PC means more computing power.

 

[The Green Hermit]

We do it, along with having a DMPC, because of having only three newish players and needing 5 PCs to avoid regular death. They are high enough of a level now, though, that if my PC dies, we will try without adding a new one and see how it goes, possibly also with my player that is running 2 PCs.

 

[ccs]

I will say that on occasions where I've played more than one character, I tend to not "inhabit" either character very deeply. The roleplaying tends to be pretty sparse.

That's why in both my PF games where I've done this I've made two completely different characters.

In one of the games the two characters weren't even allies, let alone friends. PC2, being a legally convicted criminal was legally enslaved to PC1 (well, his order anyways), had zero love for #1, and (until late in the campaign) had zero choice about being involved in the events. PC1 was only concerned with #2 in that she was a useful tool to be used in pursuit of the goals.

 

[Lanefan]

I have not seen 1 player running more than 1 character (other than the rare aberration) since the old school days of having parties of multiple hirelings and henchmen and such. In late 2e and certainly 3e, the game became very complex and "analysis paralysis" became an issue, along with speeding up game play.

Not to pick on you specifically as I've seen similar sentiments given by several other posters, but:

Wouldn't this analysis-paralysis suggest there's an argument to be made for generally simplifying characters down by quite a bit, both in generation and in play?

 

[Lanefan]

(And the stipulations given in AD&D against players with multiple characters sharing magical items between then are strictly observed: that way, Bob can't just heap three characters' worth of magical items on whichever one character is going on the adventure that week.)

This is vital.

That said, sometimes PCs of different players share items around e.g. Bob's Fighter Falstaffe isn't going into the field this trip but Joanne's Ranger Arilan is, so Falstaffe loans Arilan a +2 shield on the basis of "You'll get more use out of it out there than I will sitting here. Bring it back in one piece, if you don't you'll owe me; and may Artemis smile on your ventures.", so it's not the end of the world if PCs of the same player do this at about the same frequency.

 

[Lanefan]

I have also done a variant of this. In big naval battles, I handed out small cardboard cards for every allied ship, to the players. I let them control the movements of their entire fleet this way, and let them roll attacks for those allied ships.

If I may ask, was this in D&D and if so, what rules or system did you use for said naval combats? (I've tried designing a homebrew system for this and I'm not sure it's the least bit any good, so I'm always on the lookout for ideas)