What should be the limits of the DMPC? I've been thinking about this, and I think it's fine if it's needed as long as the DMPC is not the party leader, meta knowledge and all that.
I might have to be a DMPC because my party doesn't have a cleric, and they literally might die without one in game.
>>47536498
Beats me. I've always treated my NPCs as NPCs. Just keep it real and it should be fine.
The most important rule for a DMPC is that it's not about them. You get together with some friends to roll some funny-shaped dice and tell a story, but the story is about the players' characters and their interactions with the world, not the DMPC's story. You can use a DMPC as a support character, means of exposition, and can even offer hints. As long as the vast majority of solutions come from players, you should be fine.
>>47536498
Cleric is probably the best kind of DMPC to have, because you literally just throw buffs and heals around without really needing to do that much direct work.
>>47536498
A "GMPC" is technically an NPC that sticks around the party with some kind of interest: not much more. This means the term is somewhat redundant.
The buffer-healer bot is an old trope, so you're not really going to surprise anybody by using one.
I guess people have seen so many immortal half-fae half-catgirl half-minotaur gods unceremoniously entering the midst of level 4 adventurers that this concept of "upstaging NPC cunt who singlehandedly shoves the plot around" had to become a word.
>>47536498
Here's a thought: don't.
GMPCs is generally used as a derogatory term so you should stick with Bro-tier NPCs instead.
>>47536498
There's a good amount of space between NPC and DMPC, and that space is largely the "Mary Sue" zone. Just don't be attached to or show any favoritism towards the NPC, and you'll be good.
>>47536498
The point when you can distinguish between a DMPC and an NPC is the point at which it no longer becomes oka.
Why not just make healing items/scrolls more available? If the players made characters not taking a healer into account that's the challenge I'd think they wanted. Don't let them be lazy.
>>47536498
I ran a beauty as a deliberately op commisar in an only war game.
Used him as the tip of the spear into the worst fighting so they had to look like they were in there wothout being as stupid as him.
Did it since the only one who played woth drive and direction left.
Worked wonders and the players seemed to like it too.
I made a whole list of BS rumours about him and dripped them out since he has a 0% squad survival rating.
Once they had some direction pulled him back until he was in the background and not in their face.
If you want to just play with yourself, you dont need your group to watch you do it, so retire them asap.
Maybe cleric gets a beau in town and so cant really do much adventuring?
But maybe can still brew a few hp pots if they find the right formulae for her....
And fund it...
And get this rare ingrediant.....
>>47536498
Have the cleric character be a nameless hireling, or tied back into the story somehow. Perhaps they have the ancient knowledge to open the tomb the players are going to. Or they are sent by the quest giver to make sure these untrustworthy murderhobos don't take the mcguffin for themselves.
You could also make said hireling drastically under leveled, and have them cower in the back unless someone needs their bars filled.
Oh! Or it's an animal that follows the players around and can cast the same number of healing powers as a cleric but literally nothing else.
>>47536498
Keep the npc as much in the background as possible. If its a cleric, say he took a vow of pacifism and refuses to do any harm even under threat of death.
NPCs should never actively take part of combat. Pure healboting. Nothing else.
>>47537437
Pacifism.
Love that shit.
Zombie come at him/her
Cleric throws arms wide for a hug and sings peace songs
>>47537437
See i dissagree. The npc can do some fighting but don't make it anything like how the players fight. Give it a simple, one note, attack that it can use in a lot of situations (holy blast spell, ranged weapon, or something of the like). Make the attack useful but not flashy or something that can be majorly depended upon. If the npc just stands still in a fight, players will forget about it. If it upstages them they will hate it. If it HELPS then but only in a minor way, they will think of it as a pet and love it.
>>47536498
>I might have to be a DMPC because my party doesn't have a cleric, and they literally might die without one in game.
Well that seems to be a self correcting problem, when they die they'll have chance to roll class the can heal.
>>47536498
Don't make them interesting. If they're interesting, do not try to make them more interesting than any player character. I hate grandstanding DMPC's. I want to kill them. If you want an interesting PC, be a player.
I get NPC's, don't get me wrong, but if you have an NPC that is contributing to the adventure in a significant way, they better be a straight guy taking a backseat or a minimally invasive character.
Honestly, PC's are often so weird and dramatic, straight-guy DMPC's usually translate the best in juxtaposition.
Once again, we're talking DMPC's, not NPC's or baddies.
DMPCs are crutch for poor GMs. Stop using them, and your games will be better for everyone.
>>47537529
Idk how much I agree with the first part of your post but I think that the last section is a good rubric for how to use party-bound NPCs.
What amount of involvement, level of power, depth of character, and range of attacks that entails largely comes down to where the party is and who the players are. But you've nailed how the NPC should perform /compared to the players it is bound to/, imo
>>47537546
Or even better, while they live they can hire a NPC healer.
>>47539268
I disagree that the rest of the world needs to intentionally take a backseat to the pcs in case the players don't feel special enough.
If there is a dmpc, I will treat them like anyone else in the game, and expect them to have a personality, hopes, dreams, fears, regrets, like everyone should.
>>47536923
Honestly, this.
If your DM wants to play, let him find somebody else to DM for himwhich is hard, we all know that feel, but keep it together. Otherwise if he's not playing favorites with NPCs, there will be no problem.
All of my groups games have dmpcs. We typically just refer to them as followers, and what not. They usually are part of the party, a fellow guild mate or what not. Predominantly used when someone didn't show.
I try not to make a DMPC whenever possible. Closest to a DMPC I ever made was a retired veteran warrior who helped the level 1 PCs out. His purpose was to provide the inexperienced players a meat shield to stand behind and to provide exposition. I had him killed off by one of the BBEG's lieutenants once I felt that his purpose was fulfilled, which also served as a way to tell the players to get away from that guy.
>>47537546
This.
Its the only way they will ever learn to play the game.
Stop with the handholding. The only good DMPC is a dead DMPC killed at the beginning of the story for plot hooks.
I DMPC and do whatever I want. That's what they get for not taking the reins when this is supposed to be a rotating DM group. You leave me DMing for 3 fucking years in a row and I'm gonna bring out my character I've been waiting to fucking play.
>>47543493
Have you considered quitting? Soon enough you will be sending them into you magical realm and then nobody wins.
Pic related: its mine.
>>47543551
I don't quit on friends. They've been in my magical realm from the start.
>>47543584
>>47536498
The ONLY time I have ever seen a DMPC done well (and even this is a very loose definition of DMPC) was this one time our GM saddled us with a pain in the ass, officious, good in a fight but otherwise bumbling character who was quite literally a lodestone, because his stick in the mud attitudes would get in the way of the dirty work we often needed to get done.
He would give us XP for coming up with ways to either mollify him or keep him in the dark about what we were up to until it was too late.
>>47544180
that sounds more like a very loss definition of "well"
>>47544233
No, it was pretty cool. He was a traveling source of XP, and the game as a whole was one of these weird semi dystopian black comedy. Having a guy around that was a net negative but we couldn't get rid of, but the game system as administered by the GM would reward us for circumventing the same as any other obstacle, was great.
why does the party "need" a cleric to survive?
give them extra healing potions scattered around dungeons, or an enchanted harmonica that one of them can play to double their healing during short rests, or something that helps them stabilize/bring up their unconscious allies.
Otherwise you're just adding a new character to heal damage that you've inflicted, making combat take longer for no reason and giving players even less to do.
If you are calling it a DMPC, stop. A DMPC is an inherently negative thing. It's what you call an NPC that's grown too big for his britches.
An NPC in the party is fine. NPC's are tools the DM has in his bag to move the story in different ways. a DMPC is an NPC the DM loves too much to let die. An attempt by the DM to play the same game the players are playing, from a position of power that makes any attempt to do so inherently unfair.
>>47536871
No. DMPC or GMPC are not about 'in the party' vs 'out of the party' NPC's. Both of those are just NPC's. They're characters controlled by the DM and not the players. A GMPC is an inherently negative term for the DM's personal pet character that's super awesome and often is used to show up the party.
Litereally the only time a 'DMPC' situation is okay is when you're round-robin or co-GMing and you are a player at least some of the time. Then sure, have your character. You aren't able to favor it all the time because you're not the sole GM.
>>47536730
Underrated post. If you're going to do it, this is how it should be done.
>>47536871
>I guess people have seen so many immortal half-fae half-catgirl half-minotaur gods unceremoniously entering the midst of level 4 adventurers that this concept of "upstaging NPC cunt who singlehandedly shoves the plot around" had to become a word.
I think only about 10% of /tg/ play RPGs in a real, regular group that they're in by choice. Another 25% mainly play with randoms on Roll20, a site filled with people who are either too socially inept to get a group, too unpleasant to be allowed to stay in one, or both. The other 65% have little to no firsthand RPG experience, so most of their exposure comes from reading fa/tg/uys' Roll20 horror stories.
When I came to this conclusion, /tg/ started to make a lot more sense
>>47536615
First post best post. "DMPC" is a contradiction in terms.
To be honest all I do when it have a NPC/DMPC on the party of my players is controlling them outside of battle and letting my players control it inside a battle.
And in cases where my players ask about a solution to a problem to my NPC, I simply make he says some tips that I use as plot hook or to get them out of a completly wrong route or if they are stucked on what to do.
>>47536498
what happens when a player is so absent that you basically have to keep playing their character and you end up characterizing them differently than the player on accident
>>47537503
There's a difference between a dirty hippie who complains when the players kill anything and a respectable man of the cloth who has no fighting skills anyways.
>>47536498
Always roll in the open, give the character enough weaknesses so that they can be beat but aren't a total waste of space, and possibly most importantly, make sure they play off the PC's personalities and abilities. They don't have to take a total backseat, but make sure the players feel like they can use this character to exercise their roleplaying and rollplaying muscles, and not feel like the character is solving their problems for them
>>47536498
Don't play an edition/game where a certain class is mandatory, that is utterly horrible game design.
>>47536498
The DMPC is 100% shit, no exceptions. This is role-playing, and you have full control over encounters, so the whole "a role needs filling" excuse is bullshit. You can run a campaign for three peasant boys if you want to, there is absolutely no reason the group needs character x to complete it.
This leaves the real reason why it's often included, to be the DM's direct line to the party to make sure they always do the right thing, essentially railroading with it's own character sheet.
You have full control over difficulty and encounters, and the party is free to enlist some npc cleric or hire twelve men at arms if they feel like it.
The entire setting is your character, you don't need a specific DMPC on top of that.
>>47546558
You realize that you are enabling a disruptive element and rewarding them for not making an effort to show up.
>>47536498
The DMPC is smug, more skilled than the PCs, and generally unlikable.Then they get one-shotted by something you want to scare the party with
>>47550649
The only correct use of a true DMPC.
>>47551066
I don't know, I think motivating your PCs to do shit is a good way to use a DMPC
>>47551066
I once had a solider protege half assist/half escort the lower level party through a dungeon, only to come upon a door which could only be opened with lifeblood, which they needed to get through very quickly or risk losing the trail of a really bad dude.
The solider immediately attempted to execute the party member he considered the least helpful, and thus served as the dungeons mid boss. After his shit was sufficiently smacked by TEAMWORK, he limped over to the door and eviscerated himself in front of it, allowing them to progress
That okay?
>>47551295
Sounds like it would be really intriguing to go through. I definitely wouldn't complain if I was a player
>>47551087
Good story, I love a decent tale of a bro tier npc.
But I have the same definition of a true DMPC as this anon >>47536923
>>47551295
Was he an npc or a DMPC?
Sounds like an npc with motivations that confuse me.
But that was a cool encounter.
>>47551708
>Was he an npc or a DMPC?
Well he was effectively part of the part for most of a session. I guess the question is, how long does an NPC have to travel with the party before they cross the line?
>Sounds like an npc with motivations that confuse me.
He was sort of an in universe murder hobo, a highly skilled mercenary who retired to "treasure hunting" when he realized that running around and finding things to quasilegal murder on his own was more profitable than working with plebs who weren't 6'6" super soldiers.
>>47536498
Well, you can either make potions, cure wands, or other healing available, or you can make a character/minion who heals them.
I've run games where the party needs someone to fill a niche role that they left out---like a pilot for a spaceship or an NPC with special knowledge (exoarchaeologist). I try to stick to 2 rules: 1-Stick to the job the party needs done, and 2-Don't overshadow the players. It's their story, and as the GM I'm usually rooting for them to succeed.
>>47536498
Step 1.) Don't make a DMPC.
Step 2.) Make an NPC Cleric. They are a hireling. They get a 1/2 share of the treasure and XP. If the players don't like this, then have the NPC leave them to their adventuring.
Step 3.a) If the players die because they didn't hire a Cleric, well, now they know better.
Step 3.b) If the players do hire the Cleric, then the Cleric is fair game to be killed by monsters, bandits, traps, and etc. They should also react to danger like a normal person, fleeing or fighting as the circumstances and the character of the NPC demands.
They are not special. They are not more important than the PCs, and they sure as hell aren't the "chosen one" who will right all the wrongs in the world.
I designed a dmpc once for a campaign I ran. She was an npc who got promoted to full character and basically tagged along as both a support character and a way for me to roughly guide the PC's, like pointing out key details they forgot and advising them against plans that were suicidal or doomed to failure, but ultimately she'd go along with whatever they decided, even if she (that is to say, I) knew their plans were stupid.
The players hated her as an npc because she was a bitch, but rather liked her as an dmpc because she proved quite useful. Also she was there to encourage roleplaying. Having an npc whom they interacted with constantly and consistently proved useful in moving them away from "go here, do the thing, go there, do the other thing"
There's only two real rules to follow to make a good GMPC: they can't be more important than any of the PCs, and they should abide by the party's decisions.
You can safely ignore most of the posts in this thread, many people on /tg/ seem to equate GMPC with the worst case scenario.
>>47537034
This. I recently started a new dnd campaign and when asked if I was going to enforce any kind of party balance I told them that was not my problem it was their problem.
If they don't want any ranged options fine.
If no one wants to be a healer fine.
Don't force fill gaps. If the group has any sense they will find a way to deal with it (hirelings being the most simple answer usually)
>>47536498
have your non combat healer stay outside the dungeon and phone the heals/infodumps in
>>47554184
Are you suggesting to make a GMPC as annoying as Rise? Because that's a terrible idea.
>>47536498
DMPCs are like playing William Tell with five of your friends, five of your favorite fruits, and a compound bow with explosive arrows. Sure, there's a chance that something really cool will happen and everyone will enjoy it IF you're REALLY talented and lucky. But for the most part, someone gets unproportionately fucked over and nobody is having fun.
Just give the fuckers more healing items and call it a day.
>>47554197
teach the shitbags not to bring a healer
>>47554197
As I like to tell my players, I"m not getting exp for this shit, I'm doing it for my own entertainment.
>>47536498
>when is a DMPC fine
When the party grabs an NPC to take along with them, and resists all efforts to let them leave.
Have NPCs join the party and then get called away, don't have them permanently join the group. Have them as contacts or people to help out on occasion, but don't ever give them a reason to stick around permanently. The players will hold onto the ones that they like, and go back to them and use them as a resource.
Your NPCs can be powerful or weak, but what matters is that they're folks that the players want to be there.
>>47536498
There should be no limits. The PCs should step up and do what they want to do and if the DMPC has other ideas, he can do it on his own.
Stop being a beta fuck, grow a pair, and play the fucking game. Stop wanting rules to handle the GM for you.
>>47536498
I like having an NPC in the party to occasionally state the obvious, give a rational reaction to things when the rest of the party becomes ungrounded, or point out something the player's overlooked (or more likely, make an inquiry that leads them in the right direction). Like, if the players think they're trapped when they're not, the NPC can nudge them along with "what about that oak door we passed in the corridor?" (The players would've eventually remembered it on their own, but only after a half hour of frustration.)
The key is not to outshine the PCs or take away player agency. Don't drown out their voices or solve everything for them. Nudge them in the right direction when necessary, but don't railroad them. Their fate should ultimately be in their own hands, and the NPC should have a smaller impact on group decisions than the average PC. Err on the side of an NPC who is a bit too weak and a bit too background.
Oh, and it's an NPC, not a DMPC. They're not your fucking character anymore than any other character in the world is. Sure, their role in the adventure and importance to the party may be greater than anybody else's, but they're still just another facet of the universe you control, and you shouldn't be thinking "What should *I* do now?" That leads to all kinds of trouble.
>>47536498
The DMPC should be a utility character whose role nobody wants to cover. It should be a Cleric who takes nothing but healing spells, a Wizard with just the basics to identify magic items and make knowledge checks, or a Rogue who's great at finding traps and picking locks.
It also helps if you make them a couple levels lower than the party and have them act as a non-combatant a lot of the time.
>>47554663
So you want the DM to blow the players and carry all the loads in his mouth for them too?
>>47551817
>how long does an NPC have to travel with the party before they cross the line?
If the NPC is part of the party (like hireling or as a follower) then it don't actually have a time before the cross the line, it's basically only how long the party will accept them on the party.
If the NPC is with the party because it's useful for them, (like a cleric that needs to go to X, and the party will also go to X) then it's until their objectives and reasons to be with the party ends.
>>47536498
for a cleric, it's simple
basically make him a super humble doormat healbot
He's just here to fill in a support role and while he can have a personality and be involved in RP, he mustn't be a driving force.
>>47554763
Are we not meant to do that?
>>47554763
the DMPC will blow the PCs, we're not degenerates
>>47554763
How did you get that from what I said? Is that really that unusual?
Everyone comes up with their character concepts. Nobody really feels like playing a healer. The DM can make a DMPC to fill that role if he wants. Otherwise, he shouldn't make a DMPC.
DMPCs should at best be a tool used to help the game run more smoothly. They shouldn't be the DM trying to make a full-fledged character that gets spotlight time, since that's just the DM jerking himself off.
>>47555159
You should always make the players cover roles they aren't interested in. That way, they'll be as miserable as possible.
>>47536498
This, be the heal bot/ moral guidance counselor, goes along with everything even if the pc go bats hit crazy trying to tell you hey buddy it's OK you can turn it all around with the smallest good act.
>>47555159
>Nobody really feels like playing a healer.
The worst think about /tg/ is that it's rammed full of people who always have to be combat-specced and at center stage. Just look at any Shadowrun thread.
I love playing healers.
