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In the group I play with regularly, each player has 8 - 11 LFR characters.  The person who DMs for us frequently "only" has 7 LFR characters.  I personally have 9 LFR characters (plus 1 character in a campaign): levels 14, 13, 11, 9, 9, 5, 4, 2, and 1.

(We play once a week, occassionally twice a week.  Once or twice a year we might have a marathon weekend where we just play a ton of D&D all weekend - like our own personal mini-convention.) 

We call it our "stable" of characters.  We've even almost given up using our characters names when we pre-muster online.  People will say "I'm bringing Bob (level 11 Fighter/Dreadnought)" or just "I'm bringing my 10th level paladin."

I think it's unfortunate for everyone to have so many characters.  It's hard enough for me to remember what each of MY 10 characters can do, much less what anyone else's characters can do (or what their names are).  I've also given up taking unusual items/feats for my characters that only work in certain circumstances (even if it's a great item that would work well with my build) just because I have so many characters that I'll never remember I have it.  I had had enough near-the-end-of-the-session moments where I said "Shoot!  I have Resist 1 ALL!  I've forgotten that this entire time!!" or "Oh yeah!  This is the character that can reroll their damage dice on 1s and 2s...  I wish I had remembered that 3 hours ago!" 

And forget about personality...  In the beginning of LFR I wrote a detailed backstory for each of my characters and tried to figure out what their personality was and how to roleplay them.  Now I frequently have to look at the Alignment line on my character sheet to remember what "Character #7" thinks about the law.  (That's a little bit of an exaggeration - my characters aren't all without personality..., but still.)  I've found that myself and others I play with usually come up with a memorable personality quirk or one-line phrase for each of their characters just so they're not totally boring, but that that's about as developed as their personality gets.

And not to mention all the jumping around you do from region to region in LFR...  It's hard to keep a storyline/personality/backstory straight.  A lot of times a session will begin with "So, who played MOD X-X with this character?" with the response from everyone being "Oh! I definitely played that mod!  Wait, you mean with this character?  Oh, I have no idea.  Hold on, let me check.  Yup, it says my character played that mod.  And I have the emnity of [random NPC X].  Huh, I must have pissed him off, whoever he is." 

This is only exacerbated by the fact that many people (at least those who play LFR as much as we do) replay mods over and over.  Since we have so many mods available to us now at least it's not as bad as when the campaign was brand new (there are some early mods I've replayed 5 or 6 times).  But it's still hard to remember how Character Y experienced Mod X-X versus that other time you played Mod X-X with Character Z or Character Q.


Is anyone else experiencing LFR-Character-Overload?

Jan 29, 2010 -- 5:22AM, lorika wrote:

It seems to me that LFR is suited to a style of play where each player has a multitude of different characters.

It's no different than other living campaigns.  LG was the same way (even though you did have some individuals who doggedly played their one character until they retired it at the level cap).

The real question is: do you want to know how many PCs we have or how many we actually play?  I have built enough PCs to kill half a forest in character sheets, but I currently actively play a small handful of them.  6 I think.

I've got 4 main characters that see a lot of play. 2 defenders, 1 leader/controller, and a striker. 12, 12, 6, and 2. I'll probably do a hybrid character once PHB 3 comes out in March - but I wanted to see what the hybrid options for some of the new classes were(if any)

For me, it is important that each character have a strong hook, something that people at a convention can easily get in seconds. My Paladin is a pathological liar, claims all other PCs are his hirelings, but other than that, a generally good guy. My Tiefling Bard thinks he's a human under a curse and often makes odd comments where he clearly thinks he's human. My Fighter uses Charisma as her primary attack stat and has unusually good odd skills for a Fighter(Streetwise, Intimidate, and Heal in particular) - she's mean, don't get in her way. My Barbarian is this noble who clearly went through some kind of traumatic experience - he's dressed in once-fancy clothing that is mostly rags, is a hypochondriac, and has anger management issues. And he wields a short sword and broadsword as his primary weapons.

Each of them can do little actions that quickly establish who they are in terms of personality and people don't tend to forget them.

7 (levels 14, 11, 10, 7, 5, 3, 2) played, though two aren't really likely to see much attention and one is slightly trapped in MINI Limbo. I've DMed a bunch and I've actually not played as much since Gen Con or I'm pretty sure I'd have at least one more on there.