In an upcoming campaign, two of my players will have to take turns participating in my game sessions.

To handle this issue, we came up with an interesting proposition that they would both play the same character. A mind cleansed Arbitrator with a split personality disorder.

Now, granted, I know that in the real world, split personalities don't really work this way, but.. you know... Space Orks, the Warp etc.

The character's mind was split in half by the Mind Cleansing because each half has buried memories that are too valuable to their Radical Inquisitor. Unfortunately, this knowledge, when put together, is very dangerous. So keeping both sides intact is very important.

So yeah, each half has inherited different personality traits. One side is aggressive and flamboyant, the other conservative and reserved. The personalities wouldn't be too drastically different, just a form of the Good Cop / Bad Cop scenerio.

These players are married and live together, so they can share their experiences regularly on what happened at the last session.

Even so, a bit of forgetfulness on specifics will be welcome and whimsical for an insane character.

Do any GMs out there have any suggestions on handling this concept?

It might not be the BEST idea ever (I think that it is cool, albeit a little cliché), but let's pretend that I have NO choice and I have to work with it.

I think it's an interesting idea... But remember one thing though:

... Don't ever, EVER have any character say:

-" This is Madness!"

During the session. Chances are you'll have a loud nerd crying: "THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAA!!" In your face for it.

This sounds like fun. I'm all for finding new creative ways of sotrytelling. Sometimes I've had a character that was on loan to whoever happened to be hanging around when it was time to play, it usually gave much more hilarity and comical relief than any serious storytelling. Let us know how your dual playing works out.

Thanks!

But I'm actually looking for suggestions and/or advice on running insane characters, especially ones that are quite mad at the beginning of a campaign.

Any advice?

Necrozius said:

Well according to wikipedia, Dissociative Identity Disorder is described as:

a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a condition in which a single human displays multiple distinct identities or personalities (known as alter egos or alters), each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment. The diagnosis requires that at least two personalities routinely take control of the individual's behavior with an associated memory loss that goes beyond normal forgetfulness; in addition, symptoms cannot be the temporary effects of drug use or a general medical condition. The condition first appeared in current medical classification in the 1980 publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) classification, as multiple personality disorder (MPD), which is the term still used by the ICD-10.

There is a great deal of controversy surrounding the topic. There are many commonly disputed points about DID. These viewpoints critical of DID can be quite varied, with some taking the position that DID does not actually exist as a valid medical diagnosis, and others who think that DID may exist but is either always or usually an adverse side effect of therapy. DID diagnoses initially appeared to be almost entirely confined to the North American continent, but later surveys found cases on other continents but at significantly lower rates.

Signs and Symptoms

Individuals diagnosed with DID demonstrate a variety of symptoms with wide fluctuations across time; functioning can vary from severe impairment in daily functioning to normal or high abilities. Symptoms can include:

* multiple mannerisms, attitudes and beliefs that are not similar to each other
* headaches and other body pains
* distortion or loss of subjective time
* depersonalization
* derealization
* amnesia
* depression
* flashbacks of abuse/trauma
* unexplainable phobias
* sudden anger without a justified cause
* lack of intimacy and personal connections
* frequent panic/anxiety attacks
* auditory hallucinations of the personalities inside their mind

Patients may experience an extremely broad array of other symptoms that resemble epilepsy, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders, and eating disorders.

Diagnosis

The diagnosis of Dissociative identity disorder is defined by criteria in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The DSM-II used the term multiple personality disorder, the DSM-III grouped the diagnosis with the other four major dissociative disorders, and the DSM-IV-TR categorizes it as dissociative identity disorder. The ICD-10 continues to list the condition as multiple personality disorder.

The diagnostic criteria in section 300.14 (dissociative disorders) of the DSM-IV require:

* The presence of two or more distinct identity or personality states, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self.
* At least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person's behavior.
* Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness.
* The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or a general medical condition (e.g., complex partial seizures). In children, the symptoms are not attributable to imaginary playmates or other fantasy play.[2] A patient history, x-rays, blood tests, and other procedures can be used to eliminate the possibility that symptoms are due to traumatic brain injury, medication, sleep deprivation, or intoxicants, all of which can mimic symptoms of DID.

Diagnosis should be performed by a psychiatrist or psychologist who may use specially designed interviews (such as the SCID-D) and personality assessment tools to evaluate a person for a dissociative disorder.

The psychiatric history of individuals diagnosed with DID frequently contain multiple previous diagnoses of various mental disorders and treatment failures.

I think this should give any player enough to go on in order to portray a character suffering from some form of DID. Although I would advise not overplaying ALL the symptoms on that list, but sticking to perhaps three to four at a time. It is very rare for patients suffering from mental disorders to actually display each and every symptom associated with the disorder.

The default symptom would of course be supplied by the fact that the character is portrayed by two different players, and the players should go to great lengths in distinguishing the PC's different personalities (like one day, the PC seems to love the colour blue, the next day the PC seems to despise it and rants a lot of how ugly blue clothes are) combined with a few of the other related symptoms.

To make it extra deep and interesting, the players could choose one of the associated symptoms that might seem comical and humorous from time to time, only to suddenly display one of the symptoms that would be anything but comical, like fits of rage and anger, perhaps manifesting in the character not being very discriminating towards which people he/she is shooting at during combat or how about sudden anxiety attacks during the most critical moments? (like when the PC is tasked with having to lockpick a door when the group is being cornered by a mob of warp zombies, and suddenly becomes extremely anxious and unable to focus enough to get the lock open)

As a personal note, im of the opinion that when someone is trying to portray a character suffering from mental disorders it is a lot more fulfilling if you treat it seriously and go to great lengths not to turn the character into a caricature madman. Meaning that insane characters might need a little extra roleplaying/acting effort than sane characters do.

Without wanting to spoil anything on the books itself, I just say: Read Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

http://www.dennislehanebooks.com/books/shutterisland/

Fits your idea like a glove

Well, I don´t think that running a "madman" this way needs any effort on part of the GM.

If I understand you right, the "madness" will surface in

- rapid change of behaviour (due to an other pc playing the figure)
- a partial loss of memory (due to the change between the pc)

So... the pc will and npc might notice...and treat him this way. Giving him funny looks, getting the creeps and simply having an eye on hiim "just for the case he gets worse then this".

Nice idea, by the by. Will try this as an option for "seldom attending players"

Two of them "share" a mad figure.
If one of them attends, the one plays the figure
If both of them attend; they take turn (rapidly change of "surface personality")
If none of them attends, the pc gets catatonic and the other pc have to carry/dreg him a long or find a place to leave him (perhaps the local madhouse!) with a notice where/how to contact them if he "snaps back")

Its a very cool idear, and maby you shoulde give the charchater 2 defrince WP, when the players desagree on what the Chaterchar woulld do they take aposse wilpower test and the one who wins get to decied what action there is going to be made ;D

I have a really wicked idea: Cerebral Implants

You know, those things the priests of Adeptus Mechanicus use to repair brain damages. Well, apparently the best of these things are powerfull enough to replace the brain completely, fully simulating a personality while doing so... Basically a person with high quality Cerebral doesn't even need a brain so his brain is put off-line.

Well... What if you had both working brain and full Cerebral Implant and both were on-line? What if it was done on purpose?

Suppose you had a person who had valuable knowledge but was simply too dangerous to keep free so you decided to copy his personality and knowledge to a Cerebral Implant, mind-wipe his biological brain and install the Cerebral Implant into his head. You would have two (2) different personalities with two completely different skillsets in one body... and the best thing is that they would be mechanically detached from each other (one housed in wetware other in hardware) and thus apart from a bit of overflow with dreams, strange memories etc. you could be pretty **** sure that those two personalities would be physically incapable of melding and fully combining their knowledges and skills.

Polaria said:

That's verging on Technoheresy - transferring a mind fully into a machine is a blasphemy known as the Proteus Protocol (described on page 44 of Disciples of the Dark Gods). A cortex implant can supplement a brain, but a full replacement is a step too far...

Besides, the Mechanicus already do the two-brains-one-body bit. It's called a Binary Cortex (first mentioned in an article about the Mechanicus written by Gav Thorpe, in Fanatic Magazine years ago), and it's where two Tech-Priests working towards a common aim decide to collaborate closely, with one shedding his body and being implanted into the body of the other, where they can communicate more effectively.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

The Inquisitor in this campaign is definitely a Radical, so this conflict is entirely appropriate and welcome.

Awesome ideas guys! Thanks!

How will the other PCs react? Will they notice and what will they do about it? To mask things, how about giving her a seporate physical (and real) disorder such as blackouts, catatonia, catalepsia or epilepsey (grand mal). Have both characters (and other PCs) aware of the secondary disorder/s to explain away continuity lapses and keep the tension high. The disorders could have the same cause as the radical proceedures or be part of a pre-existing condition.