Interesting House Rule Idea, "Supporting Cast"

[EvilPeppah]

When I play D&D with my group, there are often a lot of times where the party splits up. The DM usually expects this, and adjusts the challenges accordingly. Typically speaking, at least 1 person is missing from just about every fight in the game. For games like this, I have thought of an interesting house rule.

Upon character creation, each player will make 2 characters. One will be their "main" character, and the other would be part of the "supporting cast." As a rule, the supporting character would be considered, for all intents and purposes, an NPC throughout most of the game. The character would be built at a level or two lower than the main character, but otherwise would level up as the main character does. The supporting cast character could essentially be changed out at anytime and could easily be explained away (leaving, dying, or whatever your imagination allows), if the player chooses to roll a new supporting character. The character would remain an NPC (if still alive) and may still play an active role in the storyline.

Now this would be where the twist comes in. At any point, during an encounter (unless the main character is in the encounter also, or any other special circumstances), the player may spend a hero point, action point, or whatnot to activate the character and send it into the encounter. This character comes under the players control and can act normally on the main character's behalf. This achieves two things: 1. It allows players who want a change of pace from their character to try out something new, and 2. it allows players to actively participate in encounters which their characters are not actively involved or incapable of getting to. It's a relatively simple idea that would be easy to implement and would allow the party to split up without having to worry about getting dead all over their face.

Keep in mind that this is not intended to make the game easier, necessarily. However, it gives the players a bit of peace of mind that they don't have to worry so much about splitting up from the party (since the party usually follows the leader, sometimes turning the game into a large game of "Yeah, I'll do that, too."), and they can go do their own thing from time to time.

Thoughts? Suggestions? If this idea has been mentioned already, I'm sorry, but I had to get it out xD.

[BWR]

Read up on Ars Magica. Their system of mages, companions and grogs is what you are looking for.

Personally, I've tried it with Star Wars to rather failed effect. The problem was trying to keep some realism in how the support characters show up and are used. It ended up with two different campaigns stuffed into one.
You really don't want to have the Pokeball effect. If you are all centered in one place and decide to send one guy instead of another when the adeventure begins, fine. Otherwise you have to account for how one guy who wasn't with you at the beginning of the adventure is suddenly there now, and one guy who was there isn't. Tag teaming adventuring just makes a bunch of headaches.

[avr]

If someone wants to send their main character and backup into an encounter is that OK? If not, how do you justify it in character? If so, is there potentially a problem with player turns taking up too much RL time?

How many hero/whatever points are you thinking of per session on average, say?

[EvilPeppah]

If someone wants to send their main character and backup into an encounter is that OK? If not, how do you justify it in character? If so, is there potentially a problem with player turns taking up too much RL time?

How many hero/whatever points are you thinking of per session on average, say?

I would say no, for that very reason. It would simply take up too much time. If the supporting character ends up in the same fight as the main character, then the main character is played and the other is an NPC.

Think of it like how a supporting cast works in TV shows. They tend to show up right when they are needed. Otherwise, they are really just off doing their own thing. Because of this, you could simply use Schrodinger's Cat to explain it (i.e. If you don't see the character, then he can be everywhere and nowhere at once, then you can fill in the details later).

For example, maybe the character was heading there because he heard of an ambush that was being set up there, and went to help out whoever. If it's a stealth character, maybe he was just following very sneakily, making sure the guy had backup in case things went south. Maybe it's a wizard, with his scrying and teleporting spells. There are any number of ways you can explain how a character learns of a plot and subsequently arrives at the scene "just in the nick of time."

In addition, this could lead to having a more realistic type of game by having characters that are in the front lines that are also very expendable. These characters are not main characters that are necessarily essential to the story. Oftentimes, they will also not be characters that players are particularly attached to. In fact, if you really wanted, you could basically have them die in nearly every battle they fight in. That might be going a bit overboard though.

I would expect maybe 1 or 2 hero points to be spent per session in this way.