Shipping in the Alternity-Verse.... Same-player vs Multi-player

[gwendolyngrace]

Aliethen asked:

With the cast list coming out, it was revealed that a lot of characters who played opposite each other in storylines were in fact played by the same person. How did you balance that? Was it ever hard?




I felt that deserved its own thread. Discuss!

Comments

[gwendolyngrace]

For my part, I will note that I don't think we wound up with any relationships that formed during Alternity who were played by the same player. The same-player relationships were the married couples: Alice and Frank (Linny), Arthur and Molly (Peg), Lucius and Narcissa (me), Rodolphus and Bellatrix (Rene).

Except for Rod and Bella, none of them started as same-player (you'll see when we show you the wiki, boy, I feel like we're totally cock-teasing about the wiki but we're just not quite ready to open it up yet), but when we lost players for various reasons, it just made sense to reassign the orphaned character to the player who already controlled the other half of the couple.

By contrast, I think almost all of the other played relationships - except for Terry and Luna, which only came to being in the codas - were among two different players. I think this was deliberate in everyone's case? But I couldn't say for sure.

The thing is that when you're playing a couple who can finish each other's sentences, it's a little easier to play both sides. Though IMO that's less easy to do when they're squabbling because there's a temptation to craft the conversation so that you hand one character or the other a perfect setup for a line, and honestly, I don't think that even old-marrieds are that considerate of one another all the time.

The advantage with another player being the other half of your relationship is that you can't predict or dictate what that person is going to say in response to your statements. That can be stressful, especially if you're not coming across the way you intend, and conversations go sideways, but it can also be really really fun, because you're in a position where you really have to work to get to the place you want to be.

[lapin_agile]

There was a while where Daphne and Draco were (pretending to be) a couple. Rene played them both. But otherwise, yes, you're right.

I suppose another type of relationship was like Lana's with Ned, a PC and NPC. Or Daphne and Barny Bole. There were a few others. There one player controlled both sides and had to bring the second character to life in negative space.