Good & Evil Split Personality.

[The Shadowdove]

Hey folks,

I have a party member whom has a split personality disorder. One of the personalities is somewhere between neutral and chaotic evil, while the other is neutral good.

I'm sure this has been done many times before, and even those of you who haven't encountered it personally can think of a good way to handle this.

So far the character has been rolling at seemingly random times to determine who is control. I'm worried that this might make it difficult for the DM to remember who was actually in control at the time.

This makes it interesting when things such as alignment targeting spells or truth spells are cast on the player.

My main questions being :

When / how do you determine which personality is in control?

Is a 50/50 percentile upon waking a good way?

How do you make this fair to the DM?


Thanks in advance. I appreciate your superior experience/booksmarts.

-Dove

[Biggstick]

When you say somewhere between neutral and chaotic evil, I'm assuming you mean between NE and CE. Now that that's out of the way, lets get on with it.

I've played in a game not where someone had a split personality, but they would roll for their alignment at the start of the day. I absolutely hated it as a party member to this PC. A different personality on the other hand, might change how a group interacts with the PC you're talking about. Does each personality have noticeable character quirks that differentiate themselves from one another? Something that the party can pick up on should a swap happen? Having a NE-CE member of the party isn't something that most PC's are going to tolerate in their party, and if it is going to exist in the party, your PC's will need to know how to play around it. Knowing who's in control at the time is important to group cohesion.

On to the point of deciding what personality is in control, this aspect should absolutely be controlled by the DM. The player randomly rolling dice throughout the day would make me (as a player in that group) feel bad that I'm playing with someone who could turn Joker at the drop of a hat based on that Player's decision and not the DM's decision. The Player doesn't know what's coming in the story and could be absolutely destroying something the entire party has worked on at the drop of a couple dice. The DM knows what's coming in the story. The DM can plan for a switch in personality and adjust his/her campaign to suit it.

The player trying to pull this off needs to be a great roleplayer as well. A split personality is usually off doing something else while a different one is in control. While the NG is in control, the NE-CE one is imagining himself doing something that would make sense for them to be doing, and vice versa. This means that while one identity is active, the motives and desires of the inactive one aren't known by the active one (recover this ancient relic, save the damsel in distress, burn the city to the ground, etc. etc.). This will usually stand true until the identities become aware of one another, and then how the two identities interact and pass information to one another is up to you as the DM.

TLDR; You need an extremely competent player who isn't going to screw the party. You as the DM control when he flips, as in it's never random. Work with the player to figure out an agreeable trigger. Make sure the rest of the party is on board with a NE/CE party member potentially mucking up their hard work.

[The Shadowdove]

TLDR; You need an extremely competent player who isn't going to screw the party. You as the DM control when he flips, as in it's never random. Work with the player to figure out an agreeable trigger. Make sure the rest of the party is on board with a NE/CE party member potentially mucking up their hard work.

Thanks for the response.

I think the player is more than competent. I was more so worried about the complications surrounding a identify swapping system that doesn't have defined functions / is player controlled.

I agree with the DM and player working together to make it work. Including devising triggers. I also agree with your advice on allowing the DM to control it, not the player.

Thanks again,
I'll make sure to give them some suggestions that are more constructive now.

-Dove

[JeenLeen]

It sounds like player, intra-party conflict, and player-DM issues aren't the issue, so that's good. I'll just stress that all the players should be aware of it OOC and be cool with the vein of CE. There's a big difference between "burn the world" and a conniving yet helpful CE who is loyal to his friends. Also, make sure the CE won't try to screw over the NG and vice-versa; don't have him give the McGuffin to the Big Bad because he's ticked at the good personality. They can dislike what the other does -- maybe CE is a serial killer who is ticked at NG giving gold to charity, while NG is ticked at the killin' -- but they should have the same goals, or similar enough, that they can work together in a party.

As for a trigger, I can see letting the player decide a flip happens if a stressful situation comes up. Not just combat (since combat is common in 5e), but maybe a bad combat situation or a bad trap/social situation. However, I recommend the personalities be at least somewhat aware of what's going on, so they know not to indiscriminately attack or freak out upon 'reawakening'. Perhaps even one personality can 'ask' the other to come to the fore, if they know such would be better.
But I do definitely agree that usually triggers should be called by the DM. A 50/50 chance sounds fine, although he could put a modifier on it if one personality is trying to maintain dominance and the other doesn't really care.

Some food for thought on how they could know each other and be on a similar page:
I had a friend with something like multiple personalities. She told me that, when one of the others was in control of her body, she was 'there' and could be aware of what was happening if she cared to focus, but was generally in a sort of fantasy realm. This realm was where the other personalities lived, and she could interact with the ones not in control, the environment, or just be on her own. Likewise, the other personalities could pay attention if they cared to or live out their lives. They would sometimes manifest as voices in her head. She could ask or let one of them take over if she wanted.

But if the player wants the personalities not to know each other, that makes for fine roleplaying, too. Both personalities should probably trust their allies (the other PCs) a fair bit, though, so they understand if they awaken in the middle of combat or when being interrogated by the guards, whose side they are on.

[Sigreid]

In a super hero game years back I played a character similar to what you described. One identity was a smiling jovial friendly person who literally would not harm anyone. He knew a martial art that was all about defense and incapacitating without leaving so much as a bruise. When he, or those he cared about, were truly threatened though, out came the basket case psychopath known as The Demon that had no regard for the pain and suffering of the offending parties and always struck with lethal+ force. (why use a gun when you can lock him in a closet with a grenade?) When the threat was removed, Mr. Happy came back out.