At first my question was "Can you have a single Exemplar character with multiple Exemplar relationships to another single character?"
Illustrative example:
I create Max Millions and convince my buddy Steve to share an exemplar. For his character, Peter Pauper, he takes Love: Sally Stone. I also take Love: Sally Stone, for a love triangle. Then for Max's one free Exemplar, I take Justice - Sally Stone.
Once I worked this out, I realized that my question was phrased wrongly. I'm almost certain you can do this. I just have a feeling that you might not want to do this. So my question changed to "Is this a bad idea?"
Then I realized that this scenario probably isn't intrinsicly a bad idea. It's going to produce a specific result and if that's the result you want, it's a good idea. It's exactly the right idea. I'm just not sure what that result will be because I don't have enough experience with Exemplars to predict it. It seems like this setup will result in using one character, Sally, to bleed off a lot of resources from Max and (to a lesser degree) Peter all at once, so whoever takes Sally will reap serious benefits. If I really like seeing Max and Sally played together, by doing this I encourage people to play her. I think.
So my question really is this: What do you see in this situation specifically and in the double-Exemplar setup generally? Have you tried it in play? How did it work out?
P.S.: This is the crap that happens when I don't get to play as much as I'd like. :p
Hmm. Good question.
I lean toward thinking of Exemplars as part of the whole process of communication between other players. You put a whole bunch of debt tokens on your Love drive. I view that as a flag ... sort of "Yo! This is what I'm interested in." I then choose to play your Love Exemplar, and that's a flag back to you, "Roger, Wilco." Doubling up conflicts on an Exemplar will probably make that communication fuzzier.
On the other hand, it gives you room for more severely conflicted relationships (every time Commissioner Gordo is in the scene there is both the tension between his duty to the law and his desire to help Nightstalker, and the simmering man-on-man sexual tension of two macho men who can't accept their attraction to each other).
On the gripping hand, it steers you a little bit away from drawing connections between the exemplar relationships posited by different players (Commissioner Gordo is torn between his desire to help Nightstalker (even in breaking the law) and the simmering sexual tension between Gordo and Nightstalker's partner and fiance, Crimson Harlot). The more of such exploration you can do within the bounds of your own character, the less you are pushed to see the combinations with other people's work.
Sounds like it could use some serious and ongoing playtest, to figure out what happens in actual play!
You can tell it's Spring ...there is a lot of "simmering" going on *L*