Split Personality and Shared Memory

[JCurwen3]

Some cases in fiction (and, I believe real life) of split personalities involve one, several, or all personalities not being aware of the actions of the others.

So, for example, Bob (also the "core personality") has a Split Personality, John with some serious emotional problems.

Let's say Bob doesn't know what the potentially dangerous John does when he "comes out to play". He may not notice anything is wrong at all, until Bob starts noticing lost time, things out of place, or even gets accused of things that he knows he didn't do. Other than the lost time, especially if John knows of Bob's existence and knowledge and wants to remain a secret, then he may be able prevent much of this (and if Bob's a heavy drinker or drug user, or the episodes happen at night, even lost time may not draw Bob's attention).

It seems like that state should be a bigger disadvantage, where the split personality knows about you and your actions (can even pretend to be you with Acting), but you know nothing about them, and even if you do come to find out you have this whole other personality you still won't remember what they did or said or were thinking.

Thoughts on pricing?

I know this sort of gets into borderline mixed Enemy + Ally spectrum territory here, at least to me (with more Enemy: Evil Twin for more hostile personalities and more Ally for personalities that generally mean you well or want to protect you). But that seems like a complicated build, and the idea would be to allow the player to roleplay all their personality/ies, plus I'm not sure what sort of modifier I'd place on an Enemy or Ally that had the same body as the player with shared mental pieces too.

[Langy]

I had a character like this up until recently (one of the personalities recently 'died' and is now a ghost, while the other still inhabits the body). I dealt with it by giving the personality that can't remember what the alternate personality does Partial Amnesia, with a big limitation.

[the_matrix_walker]

The problems with amnesia for this are two fold.

First, it doesn't discriminate between memory sets, and second, it has hidden disadvantages (if your GM chooses) that you don't know about.

Split personality already says they "may interpret their memories differently" this should be sufficient. If you really want to be sure that those pesky memories don't cross over, then I would consider a custom modifier. "Non-Reciprocal Memory" sounds like a nice name for it. Memories are a big deal, so I'd call that 60-80%, good for almost double the disadvantage points, but that's a GM judgement call

[Langy]

Originally Posted by the_matrix_walker

First, it doesn't discriminate between memory sets, and second, it has hidden disadvantages (if your GM chooses) that you don't know about.

The discrimination between memory sets is what the limitation I included was about. The hidden disadvantages are the PC's choice, not the GM's choice - the GM simply chooses what they are, but they don't get to randomly assign any number of points to hidden disads that they feel like.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

Some cases in fiction (and, I believe real life) of split personalities involve one, several, or all personalities not being aware of the actions of the others.

So, for example, Bob (also the "core personality") has a Split Personality, John with some serious emotional problems.

Let's say Bob doesn't know what the potentially dangerous John does when he "comes out to play". He may not notice anything is wrong at all, until Bob starts noticing lost time, things out of place, or even gets accused of things that he knows he didn't do. Other than the lost time, especially if John knows of Bob's existence and knowledge and wants to remain a secret, then he may be able prevent much of this (and if Bob's a heavy drinker or drug user, or the episodes happen at night, even lost time may not draw Bob's attention). The AF could even be an Enemy, although not of necessity.

It seems like that state should be a bigger disadvantage, where the split personality knows about you and your actions (can even pretend to be you with Acting), but you know nothing about them, and even if you do come to find out you have this whole other personality you still won't remember what they did or said or were thinking.

Thoughts on pricing?

I know this sort of gets into borderline mixed Enemy + Ally spectrum territory here, at least to me (with more Enemy: Evil Twin for more hostile personalities and more Ally for personalities that generally mean you well or want to protect you). But that seems like a complicated build, and the idea would be to allow the player to roleplay all their personality/ies, plus I'm not sure what sort of modifier I'd place on an Enemy or Ally that had the same body as the player with shared mental pieces too.

This looks similar to a question you asked some time ago. I think you might be able to do it the same way, as a Disadvantageous Alternate Form. It seems reasonable that if you don't remember actions taken while a certain personality is active, that it can be treated as a separate character.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

This looks similar to a question you asked some time ago. I think you might be able to do it the same way, as a Disadvantageous Alternate Form. It seems reasonable that if you don't remember actions taken while a certain personality is active, that it can be treated as a separate character.

Ah, yes, I remember that! I didn't see the comparison when I wrote the post because I had an entirely different angle in mind, but they definitely overlap.

Disadvantageous AF or even separate character both seem like good ideas for how to approach this.