How do you GMPC?

How do you GMPC?
Is there a right way?

Really, really doesn't work in voice games. Text, it's manageable.

You don't. No. If you want - you should find a game where someone else GMing.

Half as strong as anyone else in the party.
Speaks only when spoken to.
Ugly.

I've seen one or two which were fine. The pointers I'd give are the following:

- Give them a use. Dragging along someone who can't do shit is just frustrating.
- Don't make them OP in any sense.
- Don't treat them like a PC. It's an NPC and treat it as such.
- Don't insert it where it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be the face of the party, for example.
- Give them a clear mission. They're with the group for a reason. Don't make them outstay their welcome; allow the players to help them and ten get rid of them if they want to.

I once had a whole troop of DMPCs made up of different support classes that the party could bring with them to fill in when people couldn't make it or just to make a session easier. Sort of like a 2nd string on a sports team or something. The main thing is to try and have them compliment the already existing party, to fill in mechanical/knowledge gaps rather than to try and hog the spotlight. The players really appreciated having access to a devoted healer for a tough dungeon, a druid to help with a fey wild adventure, and (most often) a meat shield because they were allowed to make the choice to bring the DMPC along. Of course, you have to be careful to not just make the game play itself. My DMPCs always took a share of the loot or demanded payment outright so that it wasn't always just a freebie.

a DM controlled NPC or party member is fine. Just remember they should ALWAYS be second fiddle to the players. They exist to help facilitate in some way, whether the simple warrior bravo whose doggedly loyal to his employers, the heal slut, or the cunning spy master who has no personal ambition and is loyal to the PC's. The DM NPC exists to fill a gap in the party, and toss hints and quest lines to the pcs.

This.

But if you have no other game group, OR if you have a small game group (2-4peps)
This

I require my players to go out of their way to hire a DMPC, It's never simply given to them (No running into a nice druid pal in the woods), it isn't cheap and the players have literally zero control over their actions.

What the fuck even constitutes a DMPC? I often have NPCs that tag along and even fight alongside the group, but the player characters are free to drop them or tell them to fuck off at any moment. They usually just don't, because they like them, or because the NPCs are helpful or connected to the story. I also like to hand them over to the players in combat, because I already have to manage the enemies anyway and it's fun to have an additional one or two or even three (in a small group) characters to play around with.
At the end of the day, they are just NPCs that travel with the party.

I also don't like to run games that differentiate between NPCs and PCs mechanics-wise, so the line is even blurrier I guess.

So..Rage plays Rifts?

One of my player's favourite characters could be considered a DMPC. I run a game of Dark Heresy and the PC's needed to infiltrate a huge trade gathering on Scintilla, held every two years. It was a hugely prestigious event so to actually get the acolytes in there their inquisitor called in an favour from an old friend of his, a rogue trader named Algon Cesario.
The rogue trader's part of the deal was to transport them to Scintilla then just sit around drinking wine up in orbit on his ship while the PC's and the inquisitorial agent with the Rogue Trader (strictly there in an advisory capacity) went down and investigated.

Except fuck that, that'd be boring right? So the rogue trader locked the inquisitorial agent in his brig and joined the party pretending to be the agent. The players loved him and the big reveal at the end was one of the best moments I've had GMing. Throughtout the campaign I made him out to be quite a badass but the final scene he was in was againt the BBEG duelling him up and down a stairway while the PC's dealt with his minions. The Rogue Trader promptly lost horribly and nearly died.

It's a simple trick I like to call 'the Yamcha effect'. Throw a seemingly badass character at an enemy then watch him get utterly destroyed to raise tension. And THAT is the purpose of GMPC's. (Not to mention all the players liked the unassuming inquisitorial representative whispering etiquette in their ear and were quite concerned when he almost bought the farm)

> I also like to hand them over to the players in combat

That's a really good one. I'd add it to my list at with one addendum: don't add strange mechanics or make them complicated to play. You don't want the NPC to overshadow the PCs. Make them as simple as possible while staying true to their narrative purpose.

My group did a Nechronica campaign a while ago with a bunch of tough NPCs on our side, all pretty plot-important.
They were both good fighters but also interesting characters and talking to them was genuinely enjoyable and sometimes humorous. Several of them were pretty damn badass.

Which made it all the worse when the majority of them died.

>It's a simple trick I like to call 'the Yamcha effect'. Throw a seemingly badass character at an enemy then watch him get utterly destroyed to raise tension.

Yamcha seemed like a badass character for a grand total of three chapters in Dragon Ball.

I don't.
There isn't.

What chapter was it when he fought Tien, because that's basically what I'm alluding to, among other things... saibamen

Tbh Toriyama's a hack reusing the same trick so many times. Roshi, Tien, that weird af toilet monster, the saiyans, Dr Gero etc etc etc but Yamcha was still a credible and strong character during the 2nd world martial art tournament arc

I will occasionally have an NPC that makes observations or notices clues that follow the plot when the PC's are being dense as hell.

>What the fuck even constitutes a DMPC?

Well, back in the day when i started RPing in an internet forum, my very first DM had the game end in a giant time-magic-retcon that made the existence of the whole remaining party completely irrelevant, but cleared his DMPC of all his previous sins.

Since then, that's my personal definition of DMPC: He doesn't tag along with the party, the party tags along with him and plays minor roles in his grand story instead of their own.

Not to mention we were all pissed as fuck and just made our own games without that guy afterwards. 8 years and still going.

I gave my group a buffer character cause a few people were missing and the only people there were squishy classes

In most of my campaigns the party has opportunities to hire or otherwise bring along NPC allies on their adventures. I suppose those would count as GMPCs, especially the few that stuck with the group all campaign long. I don't think there's a perfect way to include such a character in a party, since some players will just despise them, but here are some guidelines I try to follow:

1) The NPC's presence is optional, and the choice of the players. If they don't want him or her coming along, then he/she doesn't come along. Never make NPCs a requirement for the adventure, or otherwise indispensable so they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they left him or her behind.

2) The NPC is lower level, or otherwise less effective or capable, than the rest of the party. If the party levels up, they remain a few levels lower than the party at all times. Adjust for personal taste, depending on whether the NPC has a particularly powerful or useful class / power suite, or a particularly weak one. I found in one D&D 3E game that a pure Fighter of the same level as the party was reasonably weaker than the group, being a Tier 4-5 class when the party was mostly Tier 2-3 classes.

3) The NPC is not a source of great knowledge, reasoning, or decision-making. I've had a lot of games where the group turns to the GMPC and asks them what they know or to do when they're stuck, which is basically asking the GM for advice. I think it's important thus to make the GMPC no better informed than the players are, and to have him or her give generally terrible advice (or none at all) when pressed.

Following these guidelines, I've yet to have any significant problems with a GMPC in my games. In fact, they sometimes end up being the most memorable and interesting NPCs in the campaign, but without being a 'main character' of any sort.

I want to fuck Cestree's NPC.

That actually sounds worse.

I rarely play with more than 3 people, so that often leaves a gap in abilities that needs to be broached.

The key is just to make a likable character, and any DM worth their salt should know what that means.

Look, he posted his shitty autfu with a shitty vague question to justify the thread again. How's it feel being waifushit cancer, my man? Feeling as worthless as your contributions are, I hope.

Why do you insist/persist? Better yet, don't bother answering, because I'm sure you're far too busy with all your worthwhile contributions.

Your obsessive ribbonfag hate is pretty gross.

Well, she is a succubus, and it does look like playing support NPC is a fetish of hers, judging by that blush. So go for it, I guess.

Don't bother. Just ignore him.

I have made NPCs before that are very obviously supposed to be friendly contacts for the party or helpful merchants who get way too roped into the party's business by the members of the party. Unless they are strictly merchants or political leaders, they usually get talked into helping the party for extended periods before leaving, and it feels like they want a DMPC even though I would really rather not spoonfeed them everything.

> Is there a right way?
When PCs insist. Then keep it as a lesser player. Got one in current shadowrun campaign. Players are all rather physically weak (decker/rigger, mage, agi-based physad) conned the guy into their "moving company", hired him afterward.

They hired a mule with a conscience and able to learn to fight.

This user. I like him.

I once ran a mystery-based campaign for a group of three, and they were not the brightest players even though the were good players. I gave them an oracle that they were required to take with them by their religious leaders since they were sent by a church to investigate a cult. They used him exactly like I wanted them to, asking him for lore of the area and for (comparatively) quick communication with their leaders. There were also a few times that they used him to do passive tasks they didn't want to like watching an area or keeping an eye on someone they took captive.
With all that being said, he definitely became a DMPC at some point, as he had to nudge the players in the right direction when talking to an NPC more than once. I didn't like using it, but he was mainly a last resort during conflict and comic relief for them out of it. His name was Java the Oracle.

They serve a role in the party that none of the player characters can provide.

If they are part of the overall plot in anyway, it should be as a plot device rather than an actor.

This sounds absolutely dreadful.

Your samefagging and spamming of your pathetic moeblob OC waifu is pretty fucking gross mang.

>How do you GMPC?
Black guy always dies first.

>They hired a mule with a conscience and able to learn to fight.

>All DMPCs should be intelligent animals

I think I can get behind this.

So, what, you make a black GMPC and have him killed?

Some suggestions from experience:

>Make them temporary or at least sub out different characters in their place.
Nothing's worse than having an overleveled teammate follow you around and generally outdo you in every category.

>Give them a clear, concise goal for showing up.
This might even run counter to the other players. Just make it seem like the GMPC is not another party member, but rather a neutral third party at best with suspicions of it becoming an enemy when it no longer has a use for the party.

>Keep power levels consistent.
The GMPC shouldn't steal the spotlight or be an undo burden on the rest of the party. I find it best if the GMPC is covering ground the PCs neglected, like being an expert in lockpicking when no one else can do it.

Most of this boils down to keeping them separate from the rest of the party in the sense they should never really be a part of the gang.

>start OW campaign
>five players in the party
>at a time a sixth added up
>slowly trickle back to three because of real life
>playing time is now like two hours a week
>lately we've been skipping even those sessions sometimes because someone comes back late for work and can't make it
>could get a DMPC going to play withthe other two but it wouldn't feel right to play without the third one at this point
>in one month I most probably won't be able to DM or even play anymore

It almost hurts. I had so many ideas. We could have done so much more with more and longer sessions. There are still so many campaigns and systems that we would have liked to try out.

>pcs start killing any black npc preemptively because the know the gm's trick
>new player starts off
>games normal until the rest of the party hacks into the first black npc
>"We do this with all black npcs."

>playing a story-driven 5e campaign (group that meets up at the mall, sometimes with extra people in for a day)
>I'm the GM
>using a GMPC, story is an escort quest
>NPC is investigating a legend
>NPC is also very danger-prone and stupid
>all 100 incarnations are random level 1 characters (I have a list) and each character sharing a class shares the same features (spells and whatnot)
>every time the NPC dies, it respawns the next morning

It's a fun campaign so far, everyone seems to be enjoying it. If they lose all 100 incarnations, reality ceases to be from warping too much. As it is, each incarnation warps the world a little.

2-3 players is entirely fine though. It changes some of the group dynamics, but gives the players more time to shine too, so it's all right. With two players the game starts to resemble more a buddy movie or a road trip than a traditional dungeon delve, and that's fun too.

Then it's not a DMPC but a regular NPC or hireling. DMPC means the situation where the GM wants to play as one of the characters in his own game.

I agree that OP is a fag for spamming his OC waifus with pointless thread starters, but you're slightly more faggy for making the effort to shitpost instead of just ignoring the threads.

Please, don't even start. Out of everyone, you're by far the faggiest, because you sound like that faggot replying to himself just to get attention.

Granny "Grizzly" Griselda

Old witch woman whose main purpose was to provide the PCs with cots to sleep in, bake them pies, heal people, and know things. She had her finger on the pulse of the city with a combination of magic, natural wisdom, and a swarm of beggars/children willing to give her info in exchange for pie (or not, she would also just give pie). She also would make and sell drugs out of the back of the bakery "Grizzly's Goodies" often referred to as "Grizzly's Gristle".

What the players did not know that she was not actually 103, but 23. She had the Aged oracle curse and thus appeared and felt old as all fuck. She however didn't let on and the players did not discover it until much later.

Aren't you compounding the fagginess by continuing this drama instead of just ignoring it

I have a few rules about deploying GMPC's.

Follower GMPC's should be either of minimal combat usefulness, or else only a temporary reinforcement to help in mismatched fights; indeed, I encourage my players to seek aid in uneven fights; this is Rune Quest after all, and even if you barely survive a combat, all your arms and legs might not.

More powerful allies should only appear when specifically called in as a favour, or else if they owe you a favour they might appear without warning to pull your ass out of the fire pro-bono; but this is usually a one-time thing per NPC relationship, if you manage to improve your relations with them to even that rank.

The main exception is a dedicated travelling barber-surgeon npc, who is mysteriously always conveniently available a short ways off;

GMs should run NPCs not PCs.

The twist is all the players and NPCs are black too.

That's not a pun, Carlos. You've let yourself go.

Let's look at the image.
Cestree is a succubus. He DMPC is currently blushing and 'dedicated to supporting the PCs'. I smell magical realm.
Rage's DMPC can solve everything himself.
And this is why ribbonfag should burn.

A good example of a DMPC done right is Speedwagon from Jojo's

He dispenses information, gives the players advice, helps in what little he can, and more or less is the cheerleader for the character's exploits.

If your party as a hole in it, the players have complained about it, and it's not a face or social role, then go ahead and fill it.

The only place I've found that GMPCs really click is erp games.

Otherwise, it feels like too much or too little.

>not wanting a healslut
>wanting some dumb mecha to steal all the spotlight

>Cestree is a succubus. He DMPC is currently blushing and 'dedicated to supporting the PCs'. I smell magical realm.

Who cares? As long as she does her job and Cestree keeps the filthy smut-fiction about her fucking everyone in the party to herself or consenting players interested in the material than there's nothing wrong with it.

That's the thing about magical realm, it only becomes an issue when it's something the player is clearly getting off to at the detriment of everyone else.

It's ok, I think he just blacked out for a minute.

A GMPC is always bad. You already control all NPCs in the story, what the fuck would you need a PC for?

>what are these "jokes" you normiefags are always talking about?

>How do you GMPC?
learn from the classics

Kinky shit.

Easy, the DMPC is just a fightbot or following NPC. Do all interactions between them and another NPC by summarizing what was said.
'They talk about the shield until Guy turns away and tells you "blahblahblah"' rather than
'"Hello, guy what do you think of that shield?" "It's pretty nice!"'

Which one of those is the DMPC.

Usually a Wizard of questionable power level. My group tends to have NPC parties, example pirate crews and such, so fitting in my random tag a long doesn't hurt.
His power level is completely up to how he feels that day, if pushed to hard by the group to do anything he'll blow something he shouldn't up but when they need him he'll cast minor illusion and take a nap.
I mainly use my GMPC when they have a crazy idea they want to pull off but can't with their powers, so I give them a sort of movie effects moment every couple of sessions.