Have you ever done this........

[Giant2005]

I have played two characters silmutaneously within one game before. As long as you don't let it be an issue, it won't be.

Also from what you described they are already a team working with the same goals. It is no different to if the two were being played by serperate people.

[Dunia]

I try not to have my players do this, and i do not think my players would want to do it either.
I think its a bit of being a kobiold/munchkin.

[Jorel]

Nothin wrong with havin a player NPC, to support your main PC, which can be used as a PC occasionally.

[Grinning Demon]

I've GM'd Rifts (and other games) and I wouldn't allow two characters just for the fact that other PC's would then want two characters then it'd just get out of hand. I also agree that two characters in the hands of a munchkin can be game breaking and not fun for the other players or the GM. So for simplicity's sake I just limit all my PC's to one character, which is how 90% of the people I know play anyways.

Having said that I think if all the PC's and the GM are fine with it....AND you're not a munchkin....then even still it'd be a maybe. Rolling Bear you even admitted that it'd be hard to not have both characters working toward the same goal. For everyone's sake, I would maybe just play one character?

[Dr Megaverse]

I've never been allowed to play two characters simultaneously before in any game I've played. Most of the GMs I've played for have instead pushed the idea of simply hiring an NPC. Most of our groups hired out muscle, healers, and support units like TWs, Operators, etc. It's more expensive, but it also means you have to go out adventuring more often!

[Nightmask]

Only game setting I've seen where they treated it as acceptable to have multiple characters was the Dark Suns setting for AD&D. There was a character tree and you had 3 characters you created. They didn't have to really know or be connected to each other at all, they just seemed to always be in the position to take the place of one that was killed or otherwise unavailable and as the active character leveled up you could level up one of the two back-ups. This doesn't seem much different, the player's only using one at a time working towards related goals, and the GM doesn't have to handle NPC versions of the characters so the player's taking some of the game burden off the GM.

[Nether]

I have had and seen ALOT of players and not a single one (myself included) have been able to play 2 or more characters without it strongly detracting from thier ability to rp any of the characters compared to when they just play one. Some people don't get into thier character or rp the greatest to begin with, and allowing them 2 characters just means you have alot of cardboard cutouts with no personality, goals, drive ext.

I consider myself a good rp'er and i find that my attention to the characters details, personality ext end up getting watered down when i try to play 2. Maybe someone out there can do it but i've yet to meet that person.

Now one thing that can work which is the style that we use for our high adv games, is we have 2 main characters that we can switch out at the beggining of a adventure. This usually requires the group to have some type of base of ops and the multiple characters need to obviously know each other and be working togather toward mutaul longer term goals. We also allow a player to bring in other characters for the odd adv here or there which adds to the groups organization and can be used for additional plot lines though we have no shortage of those. Every character in my games has much more that they want to do and they have to decide what they want to go after or do. The current groups characters for that adv will dilineate some tasks off to better suited characters in the organization, but it is only given lip service and is not focused upon as not to slow down the adv.

This has worked great for us, and also having a base of operations it is a fun time doing enemy x assaulting the players base for x reason which the players prolly caused, lol.

[Dunia]

Well, in my eyes it is munchkin, I understand why others may not think so.

In all RPgs I have played with my group, we have at some times, when a character is away, a player may play a temp character. But that player is often story-driven or some kind of tool for the GM. Most because it is not fun to sit out on lots of gaming sessions. But we have never had characters that are related, through blood, business or that will help eachother which belongs t 1 single player.

If you want a TW to help you, why not just RP against the GM and it will hopefully work out for the best, if it does not, then you will have a session or three where you must rectify that mishap. better rp in my eyes. And less munchkinism

[Jorel]

I have been a GM since the mid 90s and have never had a problem with any of my players having multiple or backup characters. Never. As long as people are having fun, and none of the other players has a problem with it, I see absolutely no problem with it. It sounds like people have a problem with their play style, and their ability to accept other people's play style. I have even had groups where people are playing multiple characters at the same time. One of these went for many years. I think it is acceptable, and can even be fun for the GM to not have to play all the NPCs. I tend to do it when I play, and I don't think there is anything remotely Munchkin about it. It is like a supporting actor in a movie, and if it doesn't directly affect the plot, the GM shouldn't care who runs the NPC.

[Rahmota]

I have a Phase Wolrd game wher ethe players each have three seperate characters. Theya re all aboard a CCW "battlestar" basically. They have a Command staff character, a pilot character and a lower decks character. That way we can run several different levels/styles of game. And no we have not had any degree of favoritism as the Ship CO ordered his own lower deck marine intoa rescue mission against some sploogie horros that was essentially a suicide mission, and then played said lower deck character into the mission which barely managed to survive (A few weeks in a regen tank and he got better)

My group has done this before in other games where one character is for the political/background/stuff aqnd the other is for the grunt/combat/lower class tuff. Generally having a small enough group where we can call out the BS is a good thing in this regards too.

[Kagashi]

Ive done that before. Makes sense because support personnel are supposed to support and adventurer personnel are supposed to adventure. It just sucks when you are the support person working on a project and the GM will not let you do anything because you are working on a system, meanwhile everybody else is in combat and you might as well go home and play Halo.

Having secondary characters is good because it keeps folks engaged. Its a game after all and we game to play. Not watch others play.

[Nightmask]

Ive done that before. Makes sense because support personnel are supposed to support and adventurer personnel are supposed to adventure. It just sucks when you are the support person working on a project and the GM will not let you do anything because you are working on a system, meanwhile everybody else is in combat and you might as well go home and play Halo.

Having secondary characters is good because it keeps folks engaged. Its a game after all and we game to play. Not watch others play.

That would make for an interesting set-up, two effective campaigns one of the support characters the players have and one of the front-line combat adventuring sorts.

[Jorel]

I might allow this in my current setup. One player wanted to do it. He wanted to play a Dumb bruiser character, with a Mystic Kuznya as a backup/support character. He ended up scrubbing the Lenny and played the Kuznya, though I never said he couldn't do it. I think I would allow everyone to have one support character, and limit it there. Rifts is unbalanced as it is, so why worry about making it more or less unbalanced.

[Balabanto]

I try not to have my players do this, and i do not think my players would want to do it either.
I think its a bit of being a kobiold/munchkin.

I agree. Even in my superhero game, where the same players play multiple characters in different cities, sometimes these characters don't get along and are played by the same player. And that's a superhero game, where it's kind of expected that aid is forthcoming.

As an example, a friend of mine, Ryan, plays a couple of characters. One is named Gideon, and he's kind of a roguish gambler/western legend type. His other character is Mesa, one of the super strongest, toughest men in the world. Gideon dumped a character who Mesa feels kind of like an uncle to.

Result from the player: If these two characters meet, Mesa would try to beat the !@#@!!@#$ out of Gideon.

That's good roleplaying.

But you can't expect that from every group or every player. Every GM needs their own yardstick for their own players.