Anyone Ever RP Dual Boxing?

I have two accounts.

Most of the time, when I dual box it's either to level a character that's gotten stuck or because I have a concept that would work well with matching toons.

About the only time I team with dual boxed toons is when I'm with friends who know that I'm dual boxing. A recent Baby New Year mission where someone asked to join me when I was dual boxing is the only time that I think I haven't volunteered I was dual boxing and even then I didn't make a secret of it.

However, I just got an inspiration several hours ago ...

Basically, the idea that I have is the concept of one mind running two bodies. Either the accident that gave him or her their powers split his body into two while not doing so for his mind or having one person's mind overwrite that of another person's in an accident.

I can see this character going either way in terms of being a hero or villain.

The hook for me, the thing that makes it intersting, is the idea that he's somewhat distracted because the human mind isn't meant to direct two bodies at once or process information from two bodies at the same time. He can put one of the bodies on autopilot, so to speak-- follow in game parlance-- but he's always dealing with the fact that he's seeing the world through two different sets of eyes.

(Storywise I can see really interesting ideas if he had bodies of differnt gender, but I don't know if I could play that really convincingly.)


Has anyone else ever done something like this? Would you be interested in teaming or interacting with someone who was using dual boxing as a RP hook?

I can see a few concepts it'd be perfect for, but really it's just like all other RP. I might be interested or I might not, depending on the specific character and the person playing it.

dual box RPed mastermind army!
14 people rped in one.
(i'll be shocked if anyone can actualy manage it)

*bids triple-boxed masterminds*

All I need to do is level them

I know quite a few people who dual-box RP in order to let two of "their" characters meet. Mostly these people don't dual-box on teams. it takes too much effort.

I often dual box, either for teaming with myself or for RPing.
I got a mercs mastermind who represents generic security guards of one of the VGs i'm in for example, i often use him/her (go science pack!) when something comes up that requires a security presence, either with my alt or with other people - or sometimes just plain parking it somewhere with all mercs in /a atease

I've dual-box RPd before. I also have 2 accounts, and on several occasions I've played two completely separate characters on each one, at the same time.

Just so you know - it's not easy. My preferred method has been to have two PCs running side-by-side, one with each account on, using one to read all the text and only hopping to the second keyboard to type something. I'm sure it's possible to do it running two accounts on one PC, but that offers the risk of failing to alt+tab.

Even so, I've made mistakes, with the wrong character saying something meant for the other one, but that's the price of doing business.

It is, however, an awful lot of fun. It's easiest if the characters are engaged in different conversations, because then you can keep the discussions completely separate (though for your concept of one mind, two bodies that wouldn't matter as much), but it is possible to have two fully engaged characters in the same discussion at the same time. It is a lot of work, though, and something that I would suggest people do only sparingly, and if the characters involved are sufficiently different.

My most common dual-boxing RP situation involves my main and his younger sister, at the same place at the same time. I keep them separate by ensuring that they have clear and recognisable vocal mannerisms (my main tends to call women "My dear" and men "Old chap", "old bean" or "old boy", while his sister calls everyone "Sugar") and being able to include those mannerisms in almost any sentence allows me to keep them distinct. It's also useful that they tend to disagree a lot, at least on the surface, meaning that one of them will often take the opposite side in a discussion to the other, further allowing me to keep them apart.

For the record, though, I have also played the following combinations: Main plus his mother, main plus his android servant, main plus a friend, main's sister plus android servant, main plus a completely unrelated character (in separate conversations).

When it works, it's brilliant. When it doesn't, it just looks silly.

I don't use dual boxing in CoH, due to not having my other account running, but I do in WoW. Usually for Isarven and his older brother Marathel, a colourful pair if ever there was one. Isarven is my main on Hordeside, and sometimes Marathel is replaced with the other brother, Marashi, or one of the sisters, Kaeshi or Isathel. Or Isarven's apprentice that he acquired through some guild RP.

Plus it makes powering yourself through instances a breeze. Goooooo Death Knight Boost!

I've dual-boxed RP, though never in CoH. I used to do it in Neverwinter Nights, where I didn't have to pay for a second account.

You can generally tell someone's doing something like that because both their characters appear to be 'distracted.' You get the same effect when someone is RPing in party/tell at the same time as trying to RP 'live' with others. It isn't necessarily the best idea in the world. As Shadowe said, it isn't easy. It's especially hard to do it well.

Well, the one mind in two bodies thing should help me keep from totally going nuts trying to run two separate characters. ;-)

I am starting to get into the concept. Still need to figure out what I want the powersets of the two toons to be ...

Just today I got his origin figured out and one and a half of the possible power sets.

He was a brilliant young scientist working for Longbow, studying the work of Dr. Aeon. Believing he had discovered how to duplicate Aeon's temporal cloning process, he recklessly experimented on himself.

Unfortunately for him, he was wrong.

He wound up with two bodies that could not act independently of each other. In essence, he was one mind trying to operate two bodies. He would have fallen into madness if Aurora Borealis had not taught him how to focus so he could concentrate on operating one body at a time. He finds it very disorienting for the two bodies to be separated for any length of time, so he puts one body on autopilot as he operates with the other.

Unfortunately for him, he is no longer capable of the intense concentration necessary for his research, so he is not capable of finding a cure for his condition. This left him quite bitter, but he has recently begun to develop metahuman powers as a result of his unique situation.

With the hook that his condition is a result of time travel, I decided that one of his bodies is going to be a Gravity/Kinetic Controller. Using his ability to influence time, he can slow someone or freeze them in place. He can accelerate his friends or he can steal speed from his enemies. He can steal chronal energy to speed up his friends' health or to restore their endurance. The singularity will essentially be a sort of mobile time warp ...

As for the other character, I'm thinking that he should be a Super Reflexes Scrapper of some kind. Essentially, he's able to perceive attacks before they happen so he knows the best way to dodge.

I haven't figured out his primary powers, though. Martial arts could work, but I have had that set on a few other toons and I just don't like it enough to use it again.

Anyone have any ideas as to a power set that I could use for his primary that could be written as involving time?

Maybe Dark Melee...

Now to figure out what color combination screams "I'm stealing time" ... ;-)

Ever since the last episode of the first season of the new series of Doctor Who, I have always thought of time travel as being that pale gold colour.