Multiple characters per player

A quick and dirty solution to the high lethality in my modern warfare game is simply to increase the amount of characters per player. Now let me be clear. The character's skill and training should be enough to give a good fighting chance, but let's face it with grenades flying around, mortar rounds dropping from the sky and machine guns spitting 1000 rounds a minute something is bound to go wrong and I don't want a player to be kicked out of all the remaining fun. Specially payback fun for killing one of his or her characters. (grin)

I initially took the idea of a squad per player from DCC's funnel, but have since come to see other benefits, albeit with some drawbacks. When players have whole squad under their control the characters are more coordinated as to what they do in the game. More like real life.

Usually players don't train together day in and day out. So getting them to coordinate four characters in a game is hard. Which comes to explain the lengthily hours of combat as players take minutes to figure out how to enter a room, kill the rats and take the copper. When one player controls four characters all this unnecessary chit chat doesn't occur. The characters act more like a team and their skills stack up adding to even more survivability. Which brings me to the first question. "What slows down game, too many players or too many characters? Personally I haven't see too much of a slow down with three players managing twelve characters.

A concern I do have is that characters may not mature and be developed as much is a player controls more than one. With one I tend to cherish it, develop it's personality, and flesh it out over time. With many this might get a bit harder. Creating and role playing four different personalities at the same time can be tiresome and may lead to similar characters if the player isn't in the right mind set just then. Thoughts? Can you manage different personalities as you play with many characters at the same time?


Photo credit

Nick Jensen
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45272606@N02/8307027081/in/photolist-dE4FJR-8eLXva-96YtRr-7RE7Ks-cSwg6q-7Lahfe-9fE82y-9EyYej-7NNDqA-fxi87b-bkmsnu-c927uj-7Zgx7s-d7K1Cw-7YH6Da-876Nai-epPDDA-9wTrHe-7KbN7d-7RBgUt-bvit9h-evw14g-8P8ayT-9v7WYm-ekVVqs-8SU1k3-986RDD-86HThC-7CxBQG-dd6uAz-dd6w73-dd6udc-dd6ufB-dd6xdo-dd6umt-dd6wam-dd6vF1-dd6v4X-dd6uRr-dd6vQS-bMLwb2-9WvZg4-drQMAo-drQMBb-9radyV-aPtm5a-aPtfdc-dwJedV-94zqs1-fcWQcQ-7P5dRc