Problem PC

[DontEatRawHagis]

So one of my players has created a character that is a cleric with Multiple Personalities.

Now I don't mind this in theory, but he became a liability for the players. So much so that they have rope at the ready in case he switches personalities. Two of them are alright, but one is a murderer and the other is very "affectionate".

So I took control of when the transformations occur. Here are the problems I've had so far:

* Personalities don't know anything about the world. In the setting there has been an apocalypse going on for a significant amount of time. The PC only had 5 personalities, to think that one of these personities doesn't know the apocalypse is occurring is ridiculous. Especially when they switch every 30 minutes.
* The other PCs have to baby sit him. With 50% chance of him going insane I don't blame them. He tried slaughtering a dog.

So now I've taken control and they are complaining they aren't switching enough. So far I'm limiting it to taking damage and not time based. What do you guys think am I handling this correctly?

[Eighthling]

Well, the other personalities should know what's going on. Since he's a cleric, are the personalities affecting his connection with his deity? If the deity isnt evil, he/she probably is not okay with murder. Your taking control of it was definitely the right move, though it should probably me more things than taking damage to cause it, becoming angry or sad could also cause the switch. And if the personalities are inappropriate for your campaign (murder is definitely evil, and I get the idea that the 'affectionite one' isn't suited for your campaign), it's a problem that you need to talk to him about.

[jaydubs]

Character concepts are not an excuse to cause problems for other players (unless that's the type of game the group wants to be playing). Take him aside, and have an honest conversation about it. Note how the character is causing problems, and then offer him some options.

1) The character changes in such a way to no longer cause problems for the group. This can be done through character development, retconning, divine intervention, or simply being played a different way. Maybe run a storyline along the lines of Identity (2003 film) where a less problematic personality becomes dominant. Find something you can both agree to, etc.

2) The two of you can come up with a way to retire the character, and he can roll a new one.

[Gracht Grabmaw]

Have you thought about talking to the player like an adult before consulting strangers on the internet?
If he is disrupting the game so much that nobody except him has any fun, tell him to tone it down. If he refuses, point out that he if his character keeps being a burden, the other party members may just decide to leave him with someone more capable or willing to take care of a mentally ill person, or maybe just simply leave him behind to die if there are no such people or institutions in the game.

Also offer him a chance in-game to redeem his character. Since he's a cleric, maybe let him have a vision from his god telling him that he can be cured (I assume he's lucid enough to understand what's wrong with him) through some special rite, a pilgrimage or something or other. That can be a great quest for the entire party if they're still willing to put up with him.

[Sebastrd]

Your problem isn't the character, it's the player.

Reposted from the Giant's article Making the Tough Decisions (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/tll307KmEm4H9k6efFP.html)

Decide to React Differently: Have you ever had a party break down into fighting over the actions of one of their members? Has a character ever threatened repeatedly to leave the party? Often, intraparty fighting boils down to one player declaring, "That's how my character would react." Heck, often you'll be the one saying it; it's a common reaction when alignments or codes of ethics clash.

However, it also creates a logjam where neither side wants to back down. The key to resolving this problem is to decide to react differently. You are not your character, and your character is not a separate entity with reactions that you cannot control. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a player state that their character's actions are not under their control. Every decision your character makes is your decision first. It is possible and even preferable for you to craft a personality that is consistent but also accommodating of the characters the other players wish to play.

When you think about a situation, ask yourself, "Is this the only way my character can react to this?" Chances are, the answer is, "No." Try to refine your character so that you can deal with situations that conflict with your alignment/ethos without resorting to ultimatums, threats, etc. This will often mean thinking in terms of compromise and concession to your fellow players, or at the very least an agreement to disagree.

Here's another example: In a campaign I DM'd, the party's bard lifted a magical sword behind the back of the party's Lawful Good monk. The monk had basically decided that the bodies of several fallen knights would be buried without looting, and rather than argue, the bard just grabbed the sword. The bad news was, the sword was cursed; it was the blade that had belonged to a ghost that roamed the castle, and whenever the bard drew it, the ghost materialized and attacked him (and only him). Eventually, the bard 'fessed up that he had stolen the sword. The monk (and the monk's player) became furious, and declared that he could no longer travel with the bard. Either the bard had to leave, or he would. It became a huge argument between characters and players, and it was entirely unnecessary. The monk did not have to react with an ultimatum; the monk did not even have to be angry, no matter what his alignment was. The bard had already suffered the misfortune of having his Charisma drained by the ghost repeatedly; the monk could have chosen (for example) to lecture the bard on how his theft had brought him nothing but misery. He chose to create player conflict when it was just as easy to not.

Personally, I blame the paladin for this. The original paladin class created the precedent for one player thinking he has the right to dictate the morality of other players. That drives me nuts. Ever since, players who select a Lawful Good character automatically assume it is up to them to police the rest of the party, and too often, the rest of the party lets them. As far as I'm concerned, no player has the right to tell another player how to act. Lawful Good is not the "right" way to be, and it is unacceptable to push your character's ideals on other players whether they want them or not.

Another useful application of this concept involves accepting story hooks your DM gives to you. Try to never just say, "My character isn't interested in that adventure." A lot of people mistake this for good roleplaying, because you are asserting your character's personality. Wrong. Good roleplaying should never bring the game to a screeching halt. One of your jobs as a player is to come up with a reason why your character would be interested in a plot. After all, your personality is entirely in your hands, not the DM's. Come up with a reason why the adventure (or the reward) might appeal to you, no matter how esoteric or roundabout the reasoning.

If the paladin is to blame for the last problem, this one belongs to the druid. Druids have such a specific set of principles that players often mistake them for being a free pass to demand that each adventure revolve around their goals. Raiding a dungeon for gold doesn't appeal to the druid mindset, so what are you to do if you play one and are presented with that goal? You improvise. Maybe the gold will enable you to purchase magic items that will let you protect the wilderness. Maybe the ruins contain unnatural monsters that need to be killed regardless of the treasure. Maybe, just maybe, the other PCs are your friends and you are willing to help them just because. Too often that last part is forgotten; I don't think anyone reading this has never spent the night doing something they'd rather not because a friend asked.

So if you're really paying attention, you may be thinking, "Hey, don't those two points contradict one another? First he says to separate what your character thinks from what you think, but then he says your character doesn't have its own reactions." Well, no. Separate your character's thoughts from your own thoughts, but don't forget who is in control of both personalities. The division between your personality and that of your character only goes so far as it helps the game; once it begins becoming a disruption, a player has a responsibility to alter his or her character's decisions in the interest of the group. In the end, your relationships with the people you are sitting in someone's living room with are more important than your character's internal consistency.

[Gracht Grabmaw]

^^^ Even if that whole essay is drenched in horrible close-minded gamist "all character conflict is disruptive and bad for the game" bull****, I love that point about paladins.
'I am right because God says so' doesn't mean anything in a world where your god is just one of many.

[jedipotter]

So one of my players has created a character that is a cleric with Multiple Personalities.

Now I don't mind this in theory,


You need to be careful with ''theory''.

First off you should not allow a ''crazy'' personality. Second, a ''murderer'' one. And third an annoying one like the ''affectionate'' one.

Why not a ''law abiding citizen''? Or a ''helpful person''? Or a ''good person''?

[Segev]

^^^ Even if that whole essay is drenched in horrible close-minded gamist "all character conflict is disruptive and bad for the game" bull****...

No, it's not BS. It's a bit of an oversimplification (because a nuanced discussion would have detracted from and lengthened an already-long essay), but it's rooted in a simple truth: if you're causing IC conflict that is spilling over into OOC disruption of the game, you're causing a problem.

Nowhere in the essay does the Giant say "always do whatever the group is doing without any IC complaint." What he says is, "it's your responsibility to make sure your character has a reason to be present in the game, and to make sure that the party has a reason to include him and continue to travel with him."

One only has to read OotS to see this philosophy in action. There's plenty of character conflict, but there are reasons for them to stick together and keep working towards a common goal, and none of them take a "why should I stay?" attitude. (Well, they do for a while, when they split up, but it's pretty clear that their choices to come back together are basically choices to rejoin the game and keep it manageable. The hypothetical players could EASILY have said "no way is my PC going back; he has his own goals out here now" or some such. They chose to value the things which bring their characters back together.)

Anything that makes the game hard to run or an unpleasant experience for the other players is probably something you need to discuss with them and see about finding a better way to handle. And yes, the default assumption of a game table is usually that there won't be any character conflict so severe that it results in more than grumbling from one party or the other. If it rises to the point of "my way or the highway" or of some sort of (IC) physical violence, it's usually a problem that is better handled OOC.

[DontEatRawHagis]

Have you thought about talking to the player like an adult before consulting strangers on the internet?
If he is disrupting the game so much that nobody except him has any fun, tell him to tone it down. If he refuses, point out that he if his character keeps being a burden, the other party members may just decide to leave him with someone more capable or willing to take care of a mentally ill person, or maybe just simply leave him behind to die if there are no such people or institutions in the game.

Also offer him a chance in-game to redeem his character. Since he's a cleric, maybe let him have a vision from his god telling him that he can be cured (I assume he's lucid enough to understand what's wrong with him) through some special rite, a pilgrimage or something or other. That can be a great quest for the entire party if they're still willing to put up with him.

Yes and that's how I was able to take the reigns of the character, but now he's ticked off that I'm not using in the way he wanted.

[Red Fel]

Short version?

If you are a DM, and one of your players has a character concept that you find thoroughly disruptive, you give the ultimatum: Change your character or roll a new one.

Now, there is a tactful way to do this. Tactful, and, dare I say, fun.

First, as always, the obligatory out-of-character one-on-one talk. Tell him you appreciate that he's worked to make this character concept function, but you (as DM) just can't keep up anymore. Gauge his reaction. If he throws a fit, stop there, and simply explain that he can either lose the multiple personality thing or lose the character.

If, however, he decides to listen and be reasonable, offer him a compromise. Say that you're willing to implement the change gradually. This, of course, means side quests - side quests where his personalities each get their own chance to shine. For example, one of the nice personalities is needed to help rescue some orphans or something; the "angry" personality is needed to fight a troll or something; and so forth. One by one, each personality has a specific use on a side quest, and then - having taught its lesson to the core personality - it fades away. At the end, there is a single personality, having learned a valuable lesson from each. (Maybe give him some sort of extra reward for his trouble if he plays along.)

If he's willing, it can be very entertaining, and doesn't need to detract substantially from the campaign. When you're done, you have a satisfied player and a character who isn't a major pain. Win-win.

And if he's not willing, you're the DM. You have ways.

[GungHo]

Your character had a seizure and died. The Gods were confused who owned him and decided to throw away his soul, rendering resurrection impossible. Please roll a new character.

[Mr.Moron]

Eject the character. If the player won't accept it, eject the player. From what you've described you've been tolerant in the extreme, given warnings and then even moved to a generous compromise. Time to put your foot down.

[Millennium]

Forbidding this character is certainly an option. It should generally be avoided, unless the concept is simply too disruptive to the rest of the group, but that could very well be the case here. Still, it might be a good idea to try a gentler approach at first. There are a few minor tweaks that I believe most players would accept, which should remove the problems you're having.

Let the personalities converse. Although Dissociative Identity Disorder has long been controversial, most accounts of it include at least some ability for the different personalities to converse with one another. Bringing this into play would help to solve your first problem: most personalities are in a "main group" that shares information, such that if one personality in the main group is aware of something, all of the personalities in the main group are. Different personalities might interpret the shared information differently: for example, one personality might dismiss a memory as a mere dream, while another personality insists that it really happened. But they have access to the same general information.

At the same time, some personalities might be "shut away" from the main group. This is also common in the literature, and so it would make perfect sense for one of the personalities to not know things that the others do. It might not even be aware of the others. But this should not be the default state among all of the personalities.

Remove the even distribution. Rework the die roll so that some personalities ("preferred" ones) are more likely to come up than others ("repressed" ones). The maniac personality might even be taken out of the die roll together: it can still come up if it really wants to act, but the other personalities work very hard to keep it shut down. Conversely, the main-group personalities may be content to let one personality have control more often than others, who prefer to only work on specific tasks.

Talk with your player. See if something along these lines would satisfy his concept. If so, it would make a gentler way to reintegrate the character into group play without killing it off. But if the player insists on continuing to be so disruptive, then you have a problem player rather than a problem character, and that becomes a bigger problem.

[Arbane]

If talking to him doesn't improve things, try this 'houserule':
When he switches personalities, have one of the other players run his character for a while. That ought to cool his enthusiasm.