*Lets assume that no actual changes are made to the character, such as each player retaining there characters mental ability scores, since that would just be annoying for the fighter, but cool for the wizard and an all round pain in the ass for most.
As the title says, if the Dm decides that some curse causes your PCs "souls" to swap, and you ended up playing one of your friends' characters*, would you play along, or ask the DM to not do it?
Absolutely.
If you would play along, how long before you got bored of it all and wanted to regain control of the character you rolled up? A gaming session? Two fights?
Like anything D&D, it all depends on how enjoyable the situation proves to be when played.
Also, how would you like the new characters to be assigned? Random? Choice?
In whatever manner is most likely to create the most enjoyable play for that group.
First of all, they need to be at least somewhat experienced with the game and each other's characters. If you have a level 2 party swap out character sheets and play a character totally new to them, it's going to grind the session to a halt.
Secondly, you need to look at the maturity level of your players. Some of them might cause grief to others at the table by messing with their characters. This could range anything from rushing rashly into battle with a squishy character just to scare someone, to stripping down naked and dancing on the tables in a tavern. Your players have to have at least some trust in each other for this to not cause more problems than fun.
Finally, you have to look at your group's comfort level for such things. For example, some people feel very uncomfortable playing a member of the opposite gender. If you stick one of these people in the 'wrong' body, they could get upset or reserved, and won't enjoy themselves.
Personally, I've been a player in one of these scenarios. It was reasonably fun, but I actually found it somewhat stressful because I was paranoid about hurting another person's character. I ended up being overly cautious and wasting a lot of time.
It's one of those things that can be very successful, amusing, and fun, but make sure you put a lot of thought into it first.
I think, with 4e, though, and roles, it might work out better. It gives the players a chance to play a different role without having to do new characters.
I'd say to limit this to 1 or 2 combat encounters.
We only had one battle in our new bodies, but it was larger than usual, with a couple waves of enemies. The battle went much slower due to the fact that everyone had to get used to new powers and fighting styles, but it made us work more as a team, especially strategy-wise.
One of the effects (I don't know whether this was planned or not by the DM) was that it gave us an appreciation for how the other person played their character, both mechanically and from a role playing standpoint.
Why would you switch alignments? Since that's part of the person, not the body, it would stay the same. For that matter, if a whackjob nutcase who murders people 'for the lulz,' essentially, gets switched to a Paladin's body and murders in it, is the Paladin still a Paladin (3.5 rules Paladin)? By your rules, he isn't, because someone else comitted a murder he couldn't stop, while wearing his body.
Like any experiemental situation you may want to install some safeguards - just to make sure player A doesn't permanently screw up player B's character.
if the Dm decides that some curse causes your PCs "souls" to swap, ... would you play along, or ask the DM to not do it?
No, thank you very much. When I'm at the table I want to play my character, not some stupid bard. And I'm not particularly keen on other players controlling my character's body, either.
Overall, this whole premise is dripping with problems. The DM will basically be unable to deal out killing blows while bodies are swapped since I can't imagine any player approving of getting their body killed while they have no control. A premise as bizarre as this will reasonably only have one solution (magic wand in evil wizard's tower), which raises railroading redflags. And finally we all know the bodies will be swapped back at the end of the session, meaning said session didn't really accomplish anything except a half-dozen sub-standard fights and a some attempts at fish-out-of-water humor.
But hey, that's just my opinion.
How to keep it fair for the player? Have him roll up two characters, ask which one he likes better. Take that one and use it for the original NPC. After all, he'll be controlling those stats after the NPC dies. It's not a perfect representation of a body swap, but I think it would work for this bit. Also, now you have a handy recurring ghostly NPC, the angry enemy that wants his body back. Wishing no harm to come to his body while the PC is using it, he may even serve as an in-story helper, maybe even his familiar if the PC becomes a wizard.
(Alternately, they could be friends who trigger the incident while goofing around. Rather than haunt the PC, the ghost could be a guiding spirit or a helpful annoyance, especially if only the PC can hear him.)
(PC is taking a whiz)
NPC: Dude! Get your hand off my junk!
PC: It's not your junk anymore, dude. It's my junk.
NPC: Trust me, you got the better end of that deal.
PC: Shut the hell up!
The handful of people that i know that would hate it are the meticulous character creators that take hours to make their first level character. Carefully calculating each power and and how they stack together, especially in 3.5.
To be honest I would be a tad peeved that the character decisions I made were essentially meaningless
To explain this, the wizard is swapped into a body, and feels a crushing headache. The mind he is in seems damaged or underdeveloped and he is having a terrible time concentrating. While the fighter is nearly overwhelmed with how clearly he can understand everything all of a sudden, his mind feels awake and and more exercised, but he can't carry his old axe anymore.
Other stats can be reflected as well...
Wisdom: Your vision is sharper, hearing keener, etc...
Charisma: This is easiest explained with the Charisma is appearance standpoint, but you could use the same thing as Int, but regarding social graces.
Skills would be alright to take with the characters... Unless you plan on doing skill challenges they don't play much of a part, and usually you'll at least still have the primary attribute for them. This will likely put almost everyone at an even skill level.
ex/pc1 and pc2 get swaped
Dm: ok now just exchange character sheets
Wizards mind goes into fighters body and vice versa.
- wizard retains his mental faculties and ability to cast spells
- wizard now in body that is stronger and more robust. Better strenght & con
- warrior now in weaker more frail body and his skills train him to be on the front line
- warrior may not qualify for some feats based on his lesser physical stats
If it was another combintion it just seems like a dm would be stretching to justify why the mage no longer has high int while maintaining the premise that the wizards mind was in another body.
Thus the mother of a Teen vs Teen swap.
Since the mechanical aspects of the character, itesm used, spells known, etc dominate the game, I don't think this will work, at least on the level of Livi9ng the other's life for a time, because the PCs are in a party, and experience the same things.
It might serve as a change of pace, i.e. "I've never played a Wizard, now I can play one for a game week."
I wouldn't do this to the people I play with. Too many of them would say "If I wanted to see Freaky Friday on my one game night during my workweek, I'd rent the video. Oh yeah, and that movie was boring, so WTF is up with this BS scenario?"
Your mileage may differ, and I can see groups liking this.
I can see where different players would get different ideas on what gets swapped. I think the worst possible combination is the combination that makes the most sense.
Wizards mind goes into fighters body and vice versa.
- wizard retains his mental faculties and ability to cast spells
- wizard now in body that is stronger and more robust. Better strenght & con
- warrior now in weaker more frail body and his skills train him to be on the front line
- warrior may not qualify for some feats based on his lesser physical stats
If it was another combintion it just seems like a dm would be stretching to justify why the mage no longer has high int while maintaining the premise that the wizards mind was in another body.
Well, I think the easiest way to deal with the mental stats is to just ignore that part of it - stats are just an abstraction of how good each character is at certain things, and it's already been accepted that minds switched bodies.
And so what if the warrior can't pig out for a while. The wizard gets her turn at consequence free binging for a change, and I'm fine with that
Keeping it at a fun, even if it makes less sense, 'personality/mind swap' that leaves stats conveniently unaffected (possibly the characters keep their skill mods?) could work for a while. It would be an amusing quest to find an artifact to fix it. The roleplay could be fun, and it could give someone a session or two in a role they hadn't tried but wanted to. Try asking the players and seeing if only some would want to, maybe?
if my character Edward the Fighter and Abe the Swordmage were to swap places, why is Edward suddenly using Abe's powers & skillset?
what if it was the Wally the Wizard? why does Edward suddenly know how to cast spells? and why does he forget how to do so after the reversal?
if all that happens is an esthetic swap of characters, where all that changes is the character's physical characteristics i wouldn't mind and it might be fun (nothing else is changed, so the 18 str character in the frail wizard's body keeps his 18 str, while the frail wizard in the big barb's body keeps his 8 str. why? because it's magic. so there, nya!). if my character is forced to use his str-based powers with an 8-10 str score... not so much.
As the title says, if the Dm decides that some curse causes your PCs "souls" to swap, and you ended up playing one of your friends' characters*, would you play along, or ask the DM to not do it?
I would so go along with this. I have also been thinking of this further along the road or even having them switch to an older version of DnD (something like a different reality change.)
If you would play along, how long before you got bored of it all and wanted to regain control of the character you rolled up? A gaming session? Two fights?
It really all depends on how it is done. I would imagine as long as the story flows into it and it isn't something completely random because the DM just wants to kill off everybody then go as long as needed.
Also, how would you like the new characters to be assigned? Random? Choice?
I would go with story mostly, but I would go with shear luck so that way the Wizard changes places with a Rogue.
*Lets assume that no actual changes are made to the character, such as each player retaining there characters mental ability scores, since that would just be annoying for the fighter, but cool for the wizard and an all round pain in the ass for most.
If souls go into the different bodies I would change Int, Wis, and maybe Cha or you could go with the Wizard with 8-12 Str keep it and turn into a Fighter all of a sudden. At first it would be a fun day and most likely have spell casting failures or mishaps or feeling uncomfortable in certain armor or with certain weapons and take penalties to atk and possibly AC since they are not used to the new bodies.