Have you ever ran a game where an NPC was the protagonist or the most important character in the story but are...

DMPC is supposed to be character who is overpowering and taking over the plot. A simple farmer girl or camp follower can't be a GMPC right?

I've always made a female PC Tatyana instead. They've always, always ended things by fucking Strahd.

even the virginal ones? Or is Tatanya always in love with Stahd?

No, see. Tatyana is supposed to be dead, but the Dark Powers always ensures that she's reborn to taunt Strahd. You know, she shows up and either dies or banishes him, leading to endless frustration.

The PCs, however, NEVER GET THIS. I blame Twilight, personally.

I'd add that Strahd was turned down the first time because he was an old guy. But as a vampire, he's a powerful, virile young man or attractive older guy. Female PCs are usually flattered by the attention and see no reason not to reciprocate.

...

Our team's record:
1. Death by drowning
2. Failed Heal Check
3. Fuck Shambling Mounds
4. TPK with one conscripted survivor: Strahd wins... As much as he normally does

Whoops, I'll also add that her name is not literally Tatyana. She's someone with a similar look (black hair, dark eyes) and the same soul. Hence, your party's sexy sorceress or Rogue could be her.

All Ravenloft modules featuring her have her as an NPC, however.

Will there be a Tatyana to break the cycle? One that will make Strahd kill himself?

Technically the module is about breaking the cycle and killing Strahd for good.

Players will always be the protagonists and most important characters, it's the law of first-person writing.

I did have a part of a campaign involve an escort quest and that was fun.

Oh shit. I head that manga years ago! Its an anime now!? I got something new to watch.

yeah but have there been PCs who didn't try the murder hobo approach and try to tackle with his morality? I mean I would guess Tatyana could be his Morality chain?

He's an evil, selfish shitbag. That's why he's the villain.

I have a few GMs I play with. This is basically the only kind of plot my GM who does mostly Pathfinder knows.

That was the shtick my quest, Dead Gods Quest. Elsa was a potent fighter by the end, but she was the smallest member of the divine group, and she was only the one doing the legwork because the weapon the enemy had could only kill her, it could end the world if it were used on somebody higher up the chain. It worked out pretty well, though she got shot or stabbed a lot.

yes.

To be fair however, they were a corpse.

LITERALLY Maid RPG.

I'm pretty sure OP didn't mention focus not being on the PCs, just that they weren't the big movers and shakers of the setting.

And that's not to say they are unimportant to the story. Best example I can come up with is a large battle in generic fantasy is about to go down when suddenly a message boy from a couple kingdoms over runs into one side's command room to deliver details about it all being some elaborate trap. No history isn't going to remember him, but what he did has helped alter events forth coming and he has his own side to the story about how he went through hell to do his job.

Point is I'm sure a campaign based around this concept could be great as another a one shot like what I mentioned above or even a longer thing where the party all works for a local lord/guild/family and do the dirty work. Hell, you even have a nice starting point that isn't meeting in a bar or prison and the party has reason to trust each other.

Cinematic Unisystem given "Main Characters" more build points but gives "Supporting Characters" more of the local Brownie/Fate Points/Hero Points equivalent and more ways to replenish them. Sounds like you just need to reverse the roles.

I did.
Modern world, magical underground consists of three factions. Knight guys, exorcist guys and polymorphs guys. Each hunts different kind of shit, immortals, psychics, apparitions. They also hate each other because they consider anyone but their own a bunch of crazy heretics/psychos/cultists.

A foretold kid is said to be able to learn from all the factions, which is a pretty big deal since once you're attuned to one school of thought, you can't even understand anything else.
Everyone agrees that the kid should learn a little everything and each factions gives him a guardian. Enter PCs.
Also, each faction had the same secret idea. Should the kid favour any school aside from our own, we kill that fucker.

The kid soon had to deal with the appearance of the fourth faction. He had no idea what kind of shit the PCs were going through.

There was no friendship at the end of this

I feel that has its own error in execution aside from having an overly important NPC, and that is having the players all against each other from the get go.

Yeah, we got defeated by the BBEG and forced to serve as his minions. It turned out that he was part of a council of top villains of the world who were supposed to convene to decide on regulated acts of villainy. However overtime the purpose had become corrupted, and in practice all it really was, was a chance for the council members to show off their ill-gotten gains and try to one up each other in petty evil squabbles.

It turned out our BBEG was kind of a loser on the council and forced us to be his minions because he didn't have any yet and was made fun of for it, and he didn't have any friends so we were his only option. So the game was working for the guy and trying to help him with his schemes in order to look good on the council, and the game was really more his story than ours.

Came to post this.

What you're describing is the entire premise of Maid RPG, OP.

And you know what? It works. A lot of people in this thread are saying things like, "What player would have fun standing on the sidelines while the DM's dumb character takes the spotlight?" And "We don't want to watch your shitty movie; we want to play a game."

But in Maid RPG, the premise works, because the system is designed around it.

If you are playing the Knot of Thorns campaign in Pathfinder you are like that for a while.

The closest we've had to that was half the party being hirelings for the other half. I think our DM could make something like that work, but I can see how most groups would find it suspect.

Two seasons, senpai. It's comfy as fuck.

>not even posting best boys

The only players with any right to complain about the longterm planning being turned over to an NPC are players who actually engaged in longterm planning to begin with. This is such a minority group that any given party of four is fairly likely to not have even one such person among them. Leaving geopolitics, theological conflict, economic warfare, and courtly intrigue to the quest ATM while the players get pointed at monsters and told to bash their faces in for reasons they don't even have to bother listening to if they don't want to is the default mode of a TTRPG campaign. Having the quest ATM come along for the ride isn't a big difference.

What show is it?
Or was that the name in OP’s filename?

Never mind, TV Tropes has come through.
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/SnowWhiteWithTheRedHair

Sounds like a shitty TES game.

Probably because it is

>escort mission: the campaign
Cute
No