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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 4739954" data-attributes="member: 55271">I have found it almost universally true that roleplaying disappears (or, at the very least, becomes extremely minimized) when players start taking on more than one character simultaneously. Even in groups where high quality roleplaying is typical, I've found that adding that second character usually divorces players from their roles and turns the game into something more akin to resource management.There are exceptions, however. In a recent campaign one of the players adopted a second character when another player had to drop out. The player made it work. But it was really only possible because the two characters (a brash barbarian and a bookish wizard) were (a) radically different in personality; (b) had natural "circles of participation" which only rarely overlapped (the wizard was rarely very active in combat; the barbarian was rarely involved in the non-combat activities of the wizard); and (c) had unique voices, which made it easy to tell which character was speaking.It also helped that the wizard had already been established as having a very reticent personality, so in many ways the barbarian became the player's "primary personality" at the table while the wizard would occasionally poke his head up and make a contribution (much as he had before).But, really, this is notable because it's the exception that proves the rule.OTOH, I've rarely found this a problem. If players with more than one PC aren't routinely announcing their actions as "Lina does X" and "Rayla does Y", then they should be told to do so. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />But not at the same time.Generally I agree with those who say that the better way to handle a shortfall in party strength is through secondary characters: Hirelings, magical companions, and the like.</blockquote>

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