Can it be done in a way that doesn't feel awkward?
>>92730161I did a three-session part of a campaign once where the party was helping escort a DMPC through a dangerous route. He was utterly useless in combat; his role was to talk shit, pull switches if they needed him to and translate from a lost language. The party really enjoyed him as a character, as he helped put a narrative frame around stuff. It helped that he didn't killsteal or interfere; that stuff is truly awful.
>>92730161Yeah easy.Either have them as hypercompetent in support roles, make them a healer dedicated to the party, make them the players superior and constantly busy so they cant directly go into the field.just make sure they dont take the spot light, are supportive(they dont have to be subservient or ass kissing, just ultimately out for the parties success) and its fine.
>>92730161DMPCs are definitionally bad because if they weren't they'd just be NPCs. Rules lawyers are not people who "know the rules", and munchkins are not "combat focused players".
>>92730161If a non-player character is accompanying the party and helps with things, has some fun dialogue, etc. That's not a DMPC. That's just an NPC.An NPC becomes a DMPC when they're getting loot, leveling up, overcontributing to solutions or combat, or the plot disproportionately favors them over the PCs. There is no way to make a DMPC not awkward and terrible because an NPC has to be awkward and terrible to become a DMPC.As the DM, you can give your players a plucky sidekick and join them in their adventure that way - but don't overshadow them.
>>92730161The closest thing I've had to a DMPC was my player's platoon sergeant in a homebrew military sci-fi game.They were pretty new to tabletop gaming in general so he was sort of their 'training wheels' to keep them out of trouble or make sure they didn't get stomped by the first few combat encounters. For a more experienced party I think he'd probably be disliked, but I just viewed it as me interacting directly with the players in-game and tard wrangling them just as I had to constantly help them with playing the game IRL.Later on when their squad was experienced enough to go solo they could also call back to him for good advice for pretty much any situation in the field, but the longer they stayed on comms the more likely it was that the enemy could zero in on their position and either send a kill team or drop artillery on them.Overall the players liked him, especially since if they did their missions well Big Sarge (as they called him) could usually use that as justification for getting them cool new weapons, tools and armors from the higher-ups.
I used picrel as a 5e “DMPC” for one session, players didn’t mind and they appreciated the healing since it was a tough dungeon. She got eaten by a young red near the endThe key is to not think “DMPC” and think “Hireling” instead. Don’t roleplay the character constantly like a theater kid, just play them as quiet and willing to do their job. “Speak if spoken to.” That avoids like 50% of the drama, and you avoid the other 50% if the character isn’t A. Overpowered and B. An obvious self insert
>>92730161This >>92730689At the point where you're making a full blown character with class levels that accompanies the party at all times, you've gone too far with trying to insert yourself as a player, and that's nigh impossible to do well.Having friendly NPCs or sidekicks does not result in a DMPC, and those will often do a much better job if you just want to ensure the party has all of their bases covered.
>>92730161Just make it an NPC...?
>>92730689>plucky sidekickThose are the best characters to play anyways.
It really depends on the size of your group. I've only ever had to do it when we didn't have enough players. Generally I'd say just don't be a dick. Let your players in on things to keep it all fair and just.. well don't be a dick.
I think posting a sentence and leaving should be an automatic 30 day ban when OPs do it. It's shitposting. This board has been around for almost two decades, and this hobby for three generations. The question has been asked and answered. There's nothing to discuss and the opening poster has no skin in the game.
>>92731149I am thinking of making distinctly PC statted characters that will accompany the party up to a point, but only when it'd be story appropriate for them to do so. Partially as a way of bridging the gap between DM and players, being able to have an in-character guide to do some of the exposition that'd normally be required for the DM to do out of character.
>>92730689>getting loot, leveling up, overcontributing to solutions or combat,None of these things are a problem
>>92731580Anon, I...
>>92731597If the players want to let their hirelings do all the work this is a long accepted method of play, and it makes sense for them to accumulate experience in addition to a portion of the loot
>>92730161I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, but it's for your own good, nerd. You need to ask one of your players to run. Firmly approach, place a hand on a shoulder, and ask to run a game. That's all there is to it. Otherwise you'll be a GM forever and there will be no escape.
>>92730161Literally all it takes is not being awkward about it
>>92730161Fuck's sake.DMPC, by definition, is a bad thing to happen at the table. If it's not awkward, not forced, and/or doesn't overshadow the PCs, it's not a DMPC. It's just an NPC, which DMs play all the time.
>>92730423This. The only good dmpc is just an npc that the party keeps around so much you're role-playing him all the time anyways.
>DMPCs ARE ALLOWED TO DO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING FOR AN ADVENTURING PARTY: (Only if not a single player wants to do this)>Serve as a damage soak>Use uncool skills like reading French>Be a healbot>Carry Shit
*Makes this guy the DMPC*
>>92731544Nothing about having an NPC guide really requires them to have a PC statblock though.
>>92730161Sure. You let the party gravitate naturally to who they'd like to conscript into their troupe, play them on the supportive side with the occasional pop-off if it seems like they're in a bind, and have them offer the group some paths of alternative progression via training or pursuing personal quests.
>>92730361>>92730383These aren't dmpcs. They're just NPCs.
>>92730161Yes, it's called being an Npc
>>92730161Xellos in Slayers (really just its second season, NEXT) is a fictional example of good DMPC behavior. He follows the party and gives them clues to some powerful artifact that the one serious role player really wants. The other munchkin PCs are along for the ride because "lol powerful artifact." But he has his own agenda and doesn't directly help the party unless they get completely in over their heads out of their own stupidity. Like they time they all got themselves turned into dolls. Or lets the one main PC borrow his magic items because she can't use her magic because she's on her period. Who then proceeds to buy them from him because despite his wacky price of 3 million gold, it turns out she had over 3 million gold worth of shit in her inventory.And various villains of the week recognize him and fear him but it's never explained until his big reveal in the final act of the story.
>>92730161You can't.Teehee Maccaroni is the bane of my fucking existence.Every fucking campaign that my GM runs inevitably at some point involves running into an NPC named "Teehee Maccaroni," who the GM affectionately describes as "an epic level sorcerer who's also a retarded nudist gnome."Teehee Maccaroni wander the countryside with a unique Rod of Wonders powered by "retard magic" shoved up his anus, and he casts the Rod of Wonders by diddling his penis. He says nothing but his own name in different inflections and the phrase "I like-a the goodberry, gimme gimme the goodberry." The GM thinks it's hilarious to have this character show up during the middle of encounters we're struggling at and start jerking off magic everywhere.But the worst part is his chant. He wanders around chanting his name, so when he's about to show up the GM will start low;>Tee-hee-hee, Maccaroni Maccaroni>Tee-hee-hee, Maccaroni MaccaroniAnd then get louder and louder until he's fucking shouting>TEE HEE HEE, MACCARONI MACCARONI!>TEE HEE HEE, MACCARONI MACCARONI!And the table loves it! The other guys I play with think this is the best shit! Teehee Maccaroni has been our table's de-facto inside joke, our signature "running gag" for six years now. When that chant starts up, everyone else joins in like a ritual; the whole table is expected to start chanting "TEE HEE HEE, MACCARONI MACCARONI" by the end, and every fucking time I refuse because this is some embarrassing circa-2002 Penguin of Doom shit, it's always the same thing; "There goes Anon again! No fun allowed around Anon! Anon's just a big grouch who's getting angry because we're making him touch Teehee Maccaroni's penis again! Why won't you just let us have fun with this character, he's just here for dumb fun, you stick-in-the mud!"These motherfuckers are all over 25 years old.Teehee Maccaroni is going to be the death of me.
>>92735120Ah, haven't seen that pasta in a while.God, it's at least 15 years old now, isn't it?
>>92735104That's an NPC.
>>92735193All NPCs are DMPCs.
>>92730161>DMPC>DMHave you tried playing literally anything other than Dragqueens&Dogshit?>Can it be done in a way that doesn't feel awkward?The problem was never that GMPCs "feel awkward". It's that it creates natural incentives for the GM that conflicts with good gaming practices. The GM and the players exist in a naturally adversarial partnership, and the GM should not be pretending to be one of the players at the same time, or have a player-character relationship with any of the characters in the game in the same way the players do.
>>92735219DMPCs are PC the GM creates out of a mistaken belief that you can be a GM and a player at the same time. I know language changing is inevitable but I really wish people wouldn't corrupt succinct terminology that we don't have an alternative for. An NPC that travels with the party is not a DMPC.
>>92730689>An NPC becomes a DMPC when they're getting loot, leveling up,Do you know what a henchman is retard? Those aren't DMPCs, they're NPC allies with the potential to become new PCs. As for "plot favour", there shouldn't be a plot like that to begin with
>>92735131My group still regularly references it lol at least once every 5-10 sessions>captcha: XPMAN
>>92730161Nope.
Yes: as lambs to the narrative slaughter. Have them accompany the party for a short bit being super competent in a combat encounter, then kill the DMPC off immediately in the next fight and leave the party stranded alone in an extremely dangerous area.
>>92737331This. GMPCs are supposed to die to scare the players.
>>92732608https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaZXPx1kdtg
>>92730161No.
>>92740248This sucks.
>>92737331>>92738641Guys, THOSE ARE NPCS. There is no "good" GMPC, because the very premise is flawed. A recurring character isn't a GMPC, a henchman isn't a GMPC, a healbot because no one wants to play the cleric isn't a GMPC. The very phrase "game master player character" implies something that is inherently shit. See >>92735457
>>92742457Fair enough.
>>92735193Nah, he's part of the travelling party.
>>92742457I think it's more about how spotlight stealer they can be.Dmpcs travel with the party but they're also way cooler and more capable than pcs.That includes Xelloss from Slayers and Gandalf from LotR
>>92743845That doesn't matter.
>>92743878Trying to map characters from media as gmpcs is fucking inane because they aren't the same thing. A gmpc *requires* bad faith on the part of the gm making it.
>>92743878Gandalf is not a GMPC because LotR is a novel. There is no GM. You fucking idiot.
>>92730161not really, while it is a normal thing to allow the PC party to pick up NPC help, actually playing your own game quickly devolves into a form of masturbation, and last I checked people generally play TTRPGs in the hopes of having their characters do interesting things, not for front-row seats to the GM's wank session.
>>92743888>>92744046Compare with the nigger paladin from the latest d&d movie, who was very obviously intended to parody gmpcs, and you'll see the similarities
>>92730383this
>>92744332Anon. Gandalf isn't from a game. He is not a GMPC. Just because he has some vague similarities to some different character doesn't mean he is a GMPC. A GMPC is a structural problem, not a narrative sujet. Saying a character from a novel is a GMPC is like saying a self-driving car is a bycicle. It doesn't make sense.
>>92744399>/tg/ discovers metaphors
>>92740248I like Young Scrolls but ZOOM is better.
>>92745749I genuinely think that you have no idea what's the difference between a metaphor, a comparison, and an allegory.In any case, neither of those are applicable to the example at hand.
i technically had a dmpc in a game i ran for three years, as in there was a 5th member of their party i played that used class levels. what separated it from the horror stories is that fact that it was all player initiated. they wanted the npc to come along, they wanted to train the npc in combat, they wanted to bring the npc into battles, they wanted to give the npc loot, etcbecause the players liked this character and they had "earned" their place in the group and story, it also meant they didn't mind when that character had spotlight moments in roleplay or battle (though the former were very rare)my only regret is actually using player character rules for them; it became a lot of mental overhead during the game to try and run a PC in addition to everything else i was juggling
>>92730161Much like some characters, if you have to ask, you probably can't.With some confidence and empathy all is possible.
>>92748653I've had this situation as well, and a similar learning experience.Group was helping some understaffed border patrol (weird post apocalypse setting) interview people and one thing led to another, they ended up insisting on helping out a small group of NPCs and recruited two into the party (though at different times).
>>92748246>”Gandalf is a DMPC”Obvious meaning:>Gandalf’s role in the fellowship is the same as a standard DMPC’s role to a DND party Or alternatively :>Gandalf interacts with the fellowship as a DMPC would interact with a DND party./tg/:>um actually a DMPC is a player character being controlled by the DM, and Gandalf is a character in a book not a ttrpg so he can’t be a DMPC.
>>92748931>>Gandalf interacts with the fellowship as a DMPC would interact with a DND party.No, he doesn't. If we're going to try and pull this shit, he was an NPC in The Hobbit and a PC whose player missed some sessions in LotR. But even that is dumb, because they are characters in a book. Watch:>Obviously, the actual party is Legolas, Aragorn and Gimly, and Frodo is just a GMPC.That makes just about as much sense.
>>92730161I did one once which was fairly successful. Some friends of mine wanted to try out Dark Heresy, so I ran them through the three-part pre-made they had for second edition. The problem was that there was only two players, and even with giving one of them a pet, they were going to struggle with the combat encounters.As such, I made a Krieger GMPC who would accompany him. I told them up front that he would almost never speak, would never ask questions, would never get involved in investigating details and so on. All he was there for was to act as an extra gun in combat, and all of his XP would go toward that purpose.Of course my players ended up loving him and attempting to get him involved in story moments as much as possible, but he never overshadowed them.
>>92748662Why is there a dick? Is there a vagina version? God fucking dammit.
>>92750683Anon... I'm sorry, but... that character always had a schlong.
>>92748931>>um actually a DMPC is a player character being controlled by the DM, and Gandalf is a character in a book not a ttrpg so he can’t be a DMPC.This is correct. Your point is utter dogshit. Gandalf is not a GMPC nor is he "like a GMPC" no matter what you feel about him.
DMPC: Bad, always bad. The DM is already every single character in the game, making one the token tag along for all things is a sign of wanting to tell your group a story, not make one with them.NPC Tagalongs: The good shit right there. Allow the party to cultivate their own little merry band of chucklefucks to come along with them on adventures, the little sidekicks who do shit like make the camp at night, fulfill a niche skill, or be a happy little deus ex machina to pop out at an important moment to do something awesome and then get kicked to the crib in some heroic sacrifice way. Do NOT kill them off randomly to get an emotion reaction. Give the players a chance to save them.
>>92730423>>92730689Yeah, these guys had it from the start. It's only a "DMPC" when it's bad. It's a pejorative.
>>92750683Because in the videogame she has a curse that gives her a dick. In the Japanese it's even implied she has to make it cum on occasion to prevent the curse from spreading.But that's not really relevant to the conversation.>>92752492Isn't that a failure in definition? It's only a DMPC when it detracts from the game experience for others could mean just about anything.
>>92750660I made a healbot Apothecary NPC for my Deathwatch group of three, and I think I did it well enough. In roleplay he is not talkative beyond the occasional comment, and in combat I would let the players control his actions if they wanted, the only caveat being that they would need to make a Command check if they were asking him to do something out of character.A problem arises, however, because our group rotates DMs. I very adamantly did not want to turn the character into a PC with his own sheet, and so I was promised that he would have an RP reason to partially detach from the larger party-- unfortunately circumstances in game have occurred such that this is no longer possible (or at least the current GM doesn't want to do it for some reason) and now I effectively have one and a half PCs under my control. I don't know how to feel about it.
>>92730161One of the best things about DMing is being able to play unlimited characters. My attitude is that every NPC is a DMPC.Infact, forget the term NPC. As a DM, I'm a player too. They're just one of my many PCs.
>>92730161>Can it be done in a way that doesn't feel awkward?Just make your GMPC the main villain. That's basically the best option since it allows players to interact with the GMPC constantly without overshadowing the player characters. If anything the players will feel more satisfaction after they beat the main villain. Hell you could even start out with the GMPC as a helpful non player character, let the players get to know him before doing a heel turn and fighting the party.
>>92760711Retard.
>>92730161No, because when it's not shit it's an NPC.
>>92730161Sure, make them a support character.
>>92750660That is just an NPC.You people are bad at terms.
>>92762212>I'm a bit of a rules lawyer when I help people find the rules in the book, and sometimes I act like the DMPC. But in the end they know I'm the power gamer so they still think I'm a good addition to the team, I gave them the 3 clue rule for my good attributes and I always make sure the GM gets to spotlight when someone does something cool.I literally can't take this any longer.
>>92730161The only time we ever have NPCs with us is because we like them and want them to help us. Our old game we had two guys join us for most of us because we liked them. Then of course our next GM completely missed the point was just made half of party DMPCs we weren't allowed to tell to fuck off because any attempt to do so was met with "no you don't". After about 2 sessions of the GM basically role-playing with himself for about 5 hours each we decided we were having someone else GM.
>>92730161As long as it's done transparently, with the consent of - or, even better - at the behest of the players, and for good reason - such as not enough players - then maybe.
>>92762276>After about 2 sessions of the GM basically role-playing with himself this is the core of the problem with GMPCs.it's already awkward enough when a GM ends up in a situation where they RP with themselves, engineering that situation by making a GMPC makes it structurally impossible for such a thing not to happen.note that NPC helpers avoid this problem by their inclusion and actions generally being player-driven, and that those NPC helpers also generally don't drive the scene when the PCs get up to something.
I made one who was thereainly to provide exposition on the world hive some combat back up and my ultimate plan was to kill him off to motivate the part against one of t he enemy factions, they ended up quite attached and have used every resource they can to protect him and made it clear they want to keep him along, they even said if he dies the campaign will just become the story of bringing this dorky wizard back
The way I'd go about creating a DMPC, I'd make them a quest giver or a McGuffin who guides players to the next objective and provides a support role in battle. Call it railroading, but that way they always get the campaign back on track when it starts drifting for too long and they assist in battle without ever overshadowing the PCs. If anything, they could have particular skills and become a game mechanic the players would have to manage strategically to make the most out of it.
>>92730383>hypercompetent in support roles, make them a healer dedicated to the party, make them the players superior and constantly busy so they cant directly go into the field.I like to have them be a support healer who the party has to escort.
