When is a DMPC a good idea?

Only when you want to have a really cool and powerful guy around to impress them by rescuing them often from hopeless situations deus ex machina and then defeat the final villain.

Some people like to have weak guys like girlfriends, lackeys, generally friendly harmless blokes tagging along. This is a red flag. Players don't want to hang around weak, underpowered losers and will quickly get bored of them. Players want to be in the company of powerful, authoritative figures like Gandalf or Aragorn. (But Gandald and Aragorn are boring, your DMPCs should be at least half dragons and weild a katana)

When your playing Ryuutama.

I almost thought you were being serious until you got to the katana part. Well played user.

Are you playing with friends? I think this is a huge contributing factor. My group, like yours, is only three people but we've been friends and gaming together forever so we never mind if whoever's dm'ing has a dmpc.

Never, if it's done well, it's not a dmpc, it's just an npc that hands around the party. The latter has many situations in which they can work, from filling out an absent role to simply providing them an interesting character to travel with.

Never. Give them an NPC hireling, cohort, or companion. DMPC = DM's Player Character = the DM is playing with himself while everyone else has to watch. Don't do that. Players run Player Characters, DMs run all the Non-Player Characters.

Looking back, that could have been a factor. We weren't friends when we started, but we got really close during that time.

Also, I have a particular talent for creating and writing characters. My games tend to be character driven drama on a platform of fantasy adventure.

This.
Also, it's nice to have a stable of more-or-less permanent NPCs on hand so you don't have to make up a one-use character every time you want to deliver some information using in-character dialog.

DMPCs are a formless meme. It's an oxymoron, any character controlled by the DM is by definition an Non Player Character, because the DM is not a player.

The DM is not a fucking player and if he tries to act like one, it'll always end shitty, because he's not a fucking player. He has information that the players do not have, he has control over the world that the players do not have. In a regular RPG, you cannot be both player and DM at the same time.

If you are asking "When is it a good idea to have an NPC of varying power or importance around", that depends on the game and on the skill of the game master.

When you're forever DM.

When its designed to die for the party.

Addendum: Players often get attached to weaker, but generally helpful persistent NPC party members, especially if you can give them distinctive behaviors, voices, or speech patterns without getting annoying. This is basically like running your own PC, except that the character should start weaker and/or advance at a slower rate than the real PCs, and if possible, specialize in something the party lacks (or just be a willing and able gopher).

Characters of this sort can be great when you want to provide motivation or make a thematic point by having someone wounded, taken captive, or killed. It's always rewarding to get a "Hey, I liked that guy!" from players rather than a shrug or a laugh.

>When is a DMPC a good idea?
When you all want to play, but you need a DM, so instead of making your friend sit out, you let him play a DMPC.

As long as he's not more powerful or important than the party.

I gave my party a ranger tag-along whose only motivation is purging goblinoids and orcs. He fills in some skillmonkey gaps in the party but otherwise just follows the gang and requests opportunities to kill goblins.

He's not even with them all the time, he tends to be a filler if someone can't make the game that week.

I co-DMed a while ago where both DMs had their own characters, with whoever wasn't DMing that week controlled both

>DM
>Sit out
Literally what

Ok then, I guess what I'm asking is..

Explain good ways to utilize important in-party npcs without making the players miserable? If anyone has good and bad examples and what to do/not to do that'd be helpful. I'm having trouble finding any meaningful discussion on the matter though it sounds like everybody agrees that 'dmpcs' are bad- though people don't necessarily agree on the definition.

DMPCs are never good.

You already play all NPCs, why do you need a DMPC in the first place?
In a normal game, the GM takes the "stage" 50% of the time

Pretty much never IMO

Like others have said, have them help out in small ways. For example, our group has three NPC's that follow us around. One is a walking macguffin while the other two were picked up for other reasons. Technically we have a fourth but he's a spirit stuck in a sword so he doesn't come up much. Anyway, what our group does is "macguffin gives a one time bonus to X skill rolls, if you want to use it. Other two NPC's are guarding the back door while you kill the BBEG." If the macguffin gets involved in combat it uses a crossbow, just shooting one bolt a turn and generally staying out of the way unless we want it to do something cool. The other two are just ignored until we are done being super awesome heroes.

How often do they talk? Do they help with puzzles and decisions?

Do they engage in roleplaying with the PCs or are they just skill/combat monkeys?

Well the most important thing to keep in mind is that you don't want this NPC to control them. Now it could be some noble who's their employer and he could try to assert his will with physical or monetary threats but you should never ever actually stop the players from doing anything they want. If they decide that they don't like this npc and they want to dump him or kill him let them and have them face the consequences.

If this NPC is there to fight an evil menace that happens to be his arch nemesis or something like that then make him fail or give him an injury that incapacitates said NPC. Of course that relies on the players to want to finish the story but you can help that path by making them like the guy.

If you just want them to have an NPC along with them just make it a likeable side character. Never take the spotlight, never center any encounter around that guy, never have him solve stuff without the PCs. The only exception to this is if the players get stuck at some random non puzzle as they tend to in my experience.

Roleplay is fine. Actually that is the way you make the players like the npc in the first place. If you do it right they will like him enough that they want to keep him.

>How often talk/engage in roleplay
Macguffin does a bit, but there's more reason for it too. It's been with the party since we started the game and has backstory with one of the PC's. The other two not so much. One is mostly kept around for one of the PC's to make jokes about fucking it and I'm not even sure why we have the other. I think we hired it for some reason. Sword dude is barely relevant. IIRC he's another macguffin but he can only talk to the person holding him, so I think the DM doesn't bother using him most of the time so everyone can be involved (more or less). Reason we had him was due to my backstory, which was pretty convenient way for the DM to put him in.

>help with puzzles/decisions
Like I said, the macguffin will give us one time bonuses to rolls which we fluff as them giving us a critical piece of information or possibly doing something awesome. Definitely helps with puzzles as my characters has autism stats (high INT, low WIS). Decisions not so much. Sometimes they point out useful information, which is the DM's way of reminding us of stuff IC, but otherwise they are irrelevant to our decisions. Outside of macguffin status that is.

When PCs, in-game, choose to recruit one, without any kind of nudging or coercion. My PCs did that once in a Shadowrun game.

They needed brawn. The troll they hired was fairly incompetent, but still a troll. It wasn't that bad.

Depend how you define 'DMPC': if you define it as loosely as 'NPC who follow the party around and can be useful' then this gives you a lot of leeway and it doesn't need to be done poorly. Of course, DMPC is generally used for those godawful spotlight-stealing NPC played by horrible DM. That said, here are some situations where it is a DMPC and can arguably work:
-The PC work for an employer of some sort, who sometimes stays at their base (whatever it is) but can sometimes investigate things on his own or assist them if they need the extra muscle. This work best if their boss give them enough leeway to do things their way but also has a reason to not be around all the time. An Inquisitor in Dark Heresy come to mind.
-The NPC is an ally or a retainer who does things for the characters. This work best if his job is useful but does not impede on the player characters. Servants, retainers or maybe some tag-along-kid are examples of this.
-The muscle. This one is pretty rare but I've seen it in politics-heavy games. This NPC is a variant of the retainer and he's basically a bodyguard of some sort. He doesn't do much but his job is to keep his boss safe when something goes horribly wrong and a fight ensue and it's a game where you shouldn't be fighting.

Does the Storyteller stop whatever the players are doing, describing what the troll is doing in detail so that they can all admire and bow in awe at the greatness of their brawny comrade? Does the troll look down on the PCs and generally knows better than them? Does he often do things that no one of the other PCs have a chance to do at all and that are very probable to fail without breaking a sweat? Do enemy attacks plink off him or never hit him, as though he had some out of character armor protecting him because of how important he is to the plot?

If you answered yes to any of the above, the troll is a DMPC. If not, please describe in more detail and point out exactly how he is a DMPC.

Aren't you fucking original

This retarded idea is from the cancerous notion that the DM is there to entertain the players and further facilitated by systems that are shitty and tedious to run.

A DMPC is by definition when a DM uses an NPC as way to make the session, at least partly, about himself: his roleplaying, his decisions, his characters growth, etc. Demanding a share of the party's spotlight as a hero within the story.

If it doesn't meet that definition it's just an NPC and a DM doing their job.

That's the joke.

>make the session, at least partly, about himself
Let me clarify this, actually, before someone gets the wrong idea:
"...about himself more than the group:"

As a player (because the GM is also a player of the game, just in a different capacity) they should also be having fun along with the rest of the group. And if a GM's not getting anything out of GMing, they should probably see about someone else taking the wheel.

dm plays the pc's loyal-ish henchman
combat too hard- henchman and player both suffer
combat too easy- henchman starts messing up
combat ridiculously easy- player quits

I was in a campaign once that had a paladin tag along as a DMPC.

Plot-Twist; I had a good GM who was skilled at storytelling signalling so right from the very beginning we all were picking up 'THIS IS A REDSHIRT, HE WILL DIE TO UP THE STAKES WHEN YOU GET TO THE TOWER' right from his introduction.

He tagged along for one or two sessions, he got to do the whole "I am a no-fun allowed DMPC Paladin joining a circlejerk of murderhoboes" schtick, but because we all knew he was a redshirt, we all organically played around him instead of loathing him.

FURTHER Plot Twist: When the third-to-biggest bad bullrushes DMPC Paladin off the edge of the volcano summit to certain doom, I dive off the edge after him to save him. I succeed, but it takes me the entire encounter to do so. Because our party's down a guy, we're not strong enough to completely defeat Third-To-Biggest Bad, so the rest of the party fights to a stalemate and TTBB gets away.

A great time was had by all.

This is the worst time to have a dmpc.
No one wants to carry around Annoying Sex Magic Princess if all she does is advance the plot. That just turns the game into watching the GM masturbate over his super cool plot.

Princess escort mission is rarely good.

Wizard escort mission is rarely bad.

Whats the difference of an npc and a pc?

Other than the npc one being played by dm or non players

If it's a character that was built by the DM for the express purposes of being a party member and is built in a way that makes them greater than or equal to the party's power, they're a DMPC and the DM fucked up royally.

If it's just some dude who power is less than or equal to the party and is only around to either fill a gap in the party's makeup (such as providing heals or unlocking chests) or for a quest, then they're just an NPC that happens to be traveling with the party.

So close
Anyway, it depends on execution. We have a walking macguffin but they aren't butting their heads into everything. It's more like carrying a large book that sometimes talks to you.

Usually power level and depth of abilities. A NPC might be stronger, stat-wise, but not have as many abilities as the PC's. Or the NPC could be much weaker, such as commoners are.

know you trolling but Gandalf in the hobbit is a perfect example of how you should be running at a DMPC.

He's the old mysterious old man who gets the level one party together. Clearly powerful and wise but also quiet and humble. He's a authoritative advisor and guide, but will let them The rest of the party make their own decisions and most importantly knows when he is not needed and to quietly excused himself from the story.

when they dont overshadow the party

GMPC is good when there aren't enough players.
But as we know that you can have a perfectly good rpg with just one player and one GM, then only time for GMPC is when you only have GM and no one else.
And at that point it's not roleplaying anymore, but masturbation.

Excellent post, I completely agree with this definition.

What if they are exactly equal in power?

Take care user, he'll kill goblins without letting you roll dice

Not a DMPC

...

The best DMPC's are NPC's.

When you have a low number of players and they need backup firepower in order to avoid getting shredded. The DMPC should have very little purpose outside of combat to avoid railroading or Mary Sue-ism.

No, he's not. He is a good character for a fantasy-book, but if you step back and consider what makes ttrps fun for the players, playing the party from the hobbit would've made for an extremely railroaded adventure, with very few power-moments for the players to do something interesting.

When its a henchman or a hireling of one of the characters. The player controls 'em most of the time, unless they exceed the bounds of good leadership.

this
and this

I like characters, I like to play lots of characters.
So I DM, now I get to play all the characters.

When they're actually the BBEG. And a lot more evil/stronger than the bait BBEG.

>Whats the difference of an npc and a pc?
>Other than the npc one being played by dm or non players

If you are playing with a decent dm that is not lazy, NONE

I'm a very new dm and one of my players couldn't come, we went ahead and played anyways since there were four other players so I played as his character (a cleric) for the session. Dunno if that counts.

Other than that, having a legitimate pc played by the dm that follows the party around sounds like it could pretty easily become awful. Maybe a dmpc for a session or arc? They would need to be at the pc's level or lower though, and preferably in a role of helping (as in buffing the party, tanking, or being a skill monkey, not stealing the thunder of the party)

Stealing the thunder is the main issue dmpcs have.

We have a DMPC healer, because no one in our group wanted to heal.

They don't offer suggestions, they don't do anything crazy. They more or less just reply and are like a hireling. I like it a lot.

When the party asks for one.