Is it wrong for a GM to have a PC that goes with the party and represents them as a player too?

Is it wrong for a GM to have a PC that goes with the party and represents them as a player too?

From what I've read around here people don't like it and see it as bad practice, but I as a player don't really see what's wrong with it as long as they keep the same rules applied to the rest of the party. As a possible future GM I'd love to have a special NPC who is a part of the party without necessarily babysitting them. As a possible future GM, I'd love to have a character in the party that travels and grows alongside the players, besides the usual "use a few times and throw away" NPCs I've seen used so much, but I don't know how well that thought sits with other players.

It's bad because as much as you may tell yourself they don't, the GMPC will always have advantage over the other PCs due to your knowledge of the campaign.

What could possibly go wrong?

Would a helmet like that even work?

>as long as they keep the same rules applied to the rest of the party
...exactly

As a player as long as the GM doesn't make the character the centre of the story I'm fine with it, and as a GM I have had to do it a few times because we didn't have a lot of players so I made a character that would be part of the group, I'm always careful to keep them out of the limelight, group didn't pack a healer so here comes a healer or, it's a high power campaign and there's only 3 players well here comes an ally with some decent combat abilities.
You just need to try even harder than the players to separate meta knowledge from character knowledge, just treat it as an exceptional NPC who wants to help the players.

I am not inherently against them as a player or GM but they are extremely easy to fuck up, get too attached to, etc. Sometimes the players themselves ruin it by taking far too much advantage of their abilities and making the campaign the "DMPC and the Gang" show. That being said, I game with a small group of four guys, two of which GM different systems, so we often have NPC buddies to fill in for areas that our characters are deficient, so that we don't feel forced to build our PCs a certain way just to succeed.

It's got dangly shit and horns, and the dangly shit is attached to the horns. Plus the front is so pronounced it's basically another horn.
Only a dead man would wear it, but yes, to the extent that a helmet could be made in that shape, it would work.

It's doable, but tricky to pull off well. The players want to play, and the GMPC may seem like you're playing for them, so to speak. The players should be the ones basking in the limelight and coming up with cunning plans, not whoever you have tag along with them. IMO, the best way to have an NPC stick around with the party is as a support character, or somehow limited such that they don't risk overshadowing the main party (child, elderly, etc.).

No. It's usually a good thing. PCs often can't know enough about the setting, especially a new one, that they can act perfectly in setting. A GMPC can help show them the way. Such a GMPC should never really take the spotlight. Therefore he should be given foibles that often take him away or out of the party, but he should be a knowledge based character, like a sage or bard. Also, when acting towards a PC problem, he should wait for a PC to ask him what he thinks and what he would do. This allows the PCs a first chance at solving any problems.

Stick within these guidelines, and PCs should have a reason to bitch, other then being bitches.

It's objectively shit and has never been done well.

I usually have them as faceless NPCs with very minor motivations that do what the party tells then.
[Spoiler] And then the party gets attached.[/spoiler]

Either it's an NPC or the DM has a conflict of interests.

It's ok as long as the GM makes them boring. In a game I'm in now, we just got derailed because of the DMPC's special snowflake secret race. We just committed ourselves to the main story plot and then this sidetracks us for one or more sessions. It's terrible.

There's a significant difference between an NPC that's joined the party and a DMPC. The first one can be fun way to grow the party dynamic, but never assume they're on the same footing as the actual player characters, even if they're a higher level or some bullshit like that. It's the latter that's pushing the concept too far for a a number of reasons, chief among them being that you're effective telling your players that their actions or choices as player characters mean less to you as the GM.

It would be good at deflecting arrows from your face. In melee, you would want to lift up the visor for visibility/defense.

All the advice in this thread is good, even the contradictory stuff.

But specifically to you and your question: you seem to already have the wrong attitude about it for it to work. You said "I'd love to have a character in the party that travels and grows alongside the players." Which implies you want to play in your own game. This almost never works out. A GM has a separate, distinct and largely incompatible roll in the game compared to a player.

GM regularly for a while. Gain some experience doing it without a GMPC for a while. Eventually, when you feel you can GM comfortably, you can revisit the idea. But juggling both roles, as well as having the extra requirement of having to keep your GM knowledge out of your character is a far too heavy burden for a first time GM.

Oh, also, if you need a DMPC to help "guide" the players in the game, you should probably be working on your storytelling ability instead. Players sitting around going "well we don't know what to do now" is a big sign of a problem game.

>t. chronic metagamer

>This

It generally doesn't work out and its better to just have a NPC. That being said, part of it is system-dependent. If you have a system that basically requires X players or you're running a premade adventure and can mostly control your meta knowledge then it can be beneficial for everyone.

It's generally bad practice to include DMPCs as their meta-knowledge of the campaign makes it really easy for them to overshadow the players. Furthermore, whether they realize it or not, most DMs tend to give their DMPCs plot armor to some degree, sometimes even plot armor that extends to the entire rest of the party (if I don't kill the players, they can't accuse me of favoring my DMPC) and killing any sense of tension or serious risk.

I recommend against including DMPCs at all. But if you do end up decide doing doing it, try to give them a "support" role. The players should be the ones shining in combat. The players should be the ones making the major decisions on how to tackle problems or what to do next. The players should be the ones taking the lead. Whatever you do, don't make a "leader" DMPC, unless you're going to start the adventure off with them getting killed or something.

Honestly you're better off just making a normal NPC, the giving them campaign-relevant knowledge the players can ask about or making them a quest-giver or someone to be escorted/protected as they research ruins, ect. Maybe a bit of support magic or healing, but not somebody who's going to be on the players' level in terms of capability.

Any characters I make who are on the level of the players, I tend to relegate to working behind the scenes, gathering information for the players or running missions somewhere else while the party does their thing, rather than constantly being with the party.

Its a good thing if you dont have enough players or as an example of how to roleplay. You can be a teacher, expert hunter, guard, cleric... when in towns, you just leave the party to do your own thing, during the fight just get him his own set of monsters to fight appart from the ones the group is facing. If they finish with their group meybe they can help the gms pc. You can make that pc a villain in disguise, you can make him retire, you can make him die gloriously in battle so your players feel mortality or you can make him die saving the group from a powerful enemy. Every choice can lead to more story lines. You can even have him appear in later campaigns and make the group cherish some memories. You can get him killed and get an npc or another player to join in as the replacement. Nothing is bad in roleplay as long as your dm knows how to handle the situation. 4 chan is so salty about every little topic....

Depends entirely on how the DMPC is run. If you're hogging the spotlight and are super awesome at all things, then you're doing it wrong. If you need a DMPC you should use for two reasons.
A) Fill gaps in party make up
IE, if they need a healer then they just so happen to find a cleric who wants to tag along.

B) Used as an exposition device.
This is the man on the streets who can help the PC's understand the intricacies of social norms in your world.

Anything else is generally shit or an enemy. Remember, all NPC's that you use are basically DMPC's.

It gives your PC God knowledge. He always knows what's up. Give the players multiple characters, or a clan of hirelings. I see that as infinitely better than making a character for yourself to play.

other than the horns its perfectly fine.
the conical shape in the front glances arrows off more easily than a flat or rounded surface would, and there is historical precedent for this

NPCs can become reoccuring characters, even travel companions. But it should be at the request of the player characters.

It's like playing poker against yourself. You can see all the cards. This turns players off immensely, especially if their perceive (wrongly or not) that you're favoring yourself.

That being said, if you're disciplined, having 'long term NPCs' is possible, and I've had generally positive reception to a number of these, provided they follow the same rules the PCs must play by and die if they die. It also helps if such NPCs are weaker or roughly equivalent to the PCs, so they don't get the perception that they're random chumps in the game you're running. I usually 'fade' such NPCs during scenes involving important social discussions or heroic moments unless the PCs specifically engage them during those or the PCs brought along a given NPC deliberately into a socially volatile situation (say, bringing a Dwarf Trollslayer to brunch with a Nuln noble). The NPC is still there and will still respond (if circumstances demand it), but the pivotal scenes and the game itself remain about the PCs.

Another trick I've found is to have the world recognize the PCs generally. If they put out a fire in the ghetto, the locals should like them and the pickpockets not mess with them. If they're known to have a powerful noble friend, in-the-know upper class folks should treat them more civilly. If they've done fantastic things, NPCs should have heard about it and ask about it (sometimes with wrong details, which can be a plot hook itself). It helps players feel like they're part of the world rather than extras in some schlock novel you're writing.

Furthermore, don't force any sort of long-term NPC on the party save out of very, very specific circumstances (if the party is visiting Athel Loren in Warhammer, for example, and are for some reason ALLOWED, they almost certainly will have some sort of escort to vouchsafe for them and keep an eye on their filthy outsider hands). If PCs don't want an NPC around, don't take it personally, and don't force them on your players. If they DO want them around, watch that they're not just trying to get a bag of blood and hitpoints, and always keep in mind that NPCs are people with their own motivations that can and will fuck off if they feel abused, disrespected, underpaid, what have you.

Ultimately I have found that if you have a long-term NPC, it's smart to have them leave occasionally for extended periods. This gives your players a breather from this always-around extra, and when they come back with new stories or scars, you help project to the players that there's a bigger world out there in your game beyond what they're doing.

Finally, resist the urge to make NPCs, especially NPCs who have to spend extended periods of time with the party, all cut from the same cloth. Hyper-competent aloof badasses make for grating companions. Give all your creations foiables, weaknesses, prejudices. You'll get a lot farther with NPCs who players don't perceive as automatically being the best at and right about everything, and their more layered presentation will make them seem like more organic members of the party. Just be careful not to make those weaknesses or prejudices TOO obnoxious, less your players hate the sudden albatross around their neck.

>perfectly fine
>you probably can't fucking see shit out of it

>It gives your PC God knowledge.
This made me think:

What if the GM played it straight?
What if the GMPC literally had "God Knowledge"?
What if the GMPC was a divine seer, and all their metagaming knowledge was justified that way?
Perhaps, you could weaken them in another way to help balance the character out?

Interesting idea or reckless faggotry?

What if the players are dumbshits?

Reckless Faggotry. The players will just turn towards the seer ANY time they have a question about the dungeon. Meaning you'll wind up playing dumb anyways, or they'll steam roll anything you throw at them. You might have something if you're really fucking good at making riddles though.

Not that user, but dumbshits don't need a PC to follow, they'll follow a stray dog.

>You might have something if you're really fucking good at making riddles though.
This is more of what i was thinking.
Plus, there's always the fun of limited visions.

>Well, I said the messenger would make it across the bridge intact, and so he did. You can see his perfectly preserved corpse from here!

>Is it wrong for a GM to have a PC that goes with the party and represents them as a player too?
No, not innately. But there are a lot of pitfalls that come from the DM's inability to keep from bs metagaming or being impartial to themself. If you're going to try you're going to have be self aware enough to know you're not being a fucking idiot

When your wading through a hail of arrows good sight doesn't have to be a priority.
As one other guy already said however, you'd want to pull up the visor when you get into melee.

It's better in small parties to fill in an obvious weakness. I did it for an ASOIAF Night's Watch campaign I was running. I was playing the First Ranger who went out with a scouting party, but he was heavily wounded by an Other, like, seriously seriously wounded, which worked out well, because two more people joined in the next session, so he was happily retired to a desk job.

In my group, we all rotate DM duties but we all play the same campaign with the same characters, so whenever one of us DMs, our characters inherently become DMPCs.
To get around the issues with this, we set a couple of ground rules. As we all know each others characters fairly well by now, the DMPCs take a back seat in action and pretty much do what the rest of the group wants them to do. Also the DMPCs take whatever loot the rest of the group doesnt want.
We've played like this for about a year now and had no issues with the usual DMPC bullshit

Okay then, consider the following:

>Everyone gets a PC
>Over the course of the campaign, players take turns playing the role of the GM

Eh, it can be a player problem too. Sometimes as a DM you have sessions it feels like you are rubbing quest hooks directly in the eyes and then being told "Well, we didn't know what to do" after the session is the closest I get to wanting to put my fucking hands on them just to shake them until their ears bleed.

I'm sorry, but I DM for a group of people that typically only has one go getter-type, so whenever he feels like taking up a more background role the group grinds to a fucking halt of no one making decisions and blatantly ignoring everything I do to try and help.

This would be nice if everyone wanted to GM.

Good luck with that.

Rogues.

Rogues rogues rogues.

Rogues make the BEST DMPCs, in my experience.

They are sneaky types, so them fading from conversations and just disappearing from the party is in character and can become a reoccuring joke.

They usually have a ton of skills. Even if your group has a thief or rogue there's probably still some skills he hasn't picked up.

They can keep their ears low to the ground, giving possible plot hooks for the PCs to chase at their leisure.

Mechanically, Rogues tend to be on the weaker side in combat so you can allow the people who care about that sort of thing shine. In my games our fighter usually develops a positive relationship with my DMPC due to being flanking buddies.

Rogues. I can't reccomend them enough. You can still fuck up with them, but adheer to some of the other good advice in this thread and they naturally solve a lot of the problems people have with DMPCs.

I usually have some sort of character that I play when I DM but it's never anything more than like a hired hand to help out in games with fewer party members. Plus it's nice when handing off DM'ing to other players for a session or two. I think the most involved I ever got with the party was a character who was the apprentice of a druid who was sent to follow the party around and keep an eye on them to make sure they were carrying out their agreed upon contract with the main druid. Not that the apprentice's opinion mattered much but it was fun to be able to cast support spells and whatnot.

As long as everyone is genuinely enjoying themselves, who gives a shit? If someone has a problem with it, you can discuss it with them like two full grown goddamned adults and come to a compromise.

>blind seer with a shitty attitude that the PCs keep around because of his unpredictable connection to a great god of knowledge(you)
>is older than dirt, frail, and borderline useless in a fight
>PCs are fully aware that they don't NEED him, and that they could dump and/or kill him whenever
>they always have the choice between keeping him around for his useful bits of information or killing him outright the next time he tries to molest the cleric

I did it once cause i only had 2 players,once the players had grown fond of him i killed him so they would know shit had gotten real.

The GM already plays every fucking character in the setting. He doesn't need to be in the party. Its OUR party, fuck the GM.

Also
>GM talks to himself in a PC to NPC scenario
Cringe.

This. I've done this a handful of times

Depends on your players though.

One group understood what him dying meant and put on their big boy pants, the other group was just really pissed their pal died and they derailed the campaign in order to find a way to bring them back. Granted that ended up being infinitely more fun than the story I had planned, but not every DM can pull shit out of their ass and stall like I did. Plus my players happened to be really patient and shit.

>>GM talks to himself in a PC to NPC scenario

Kinda necessary if you're to have any socially complex game at all. Just best to keep it to a minimum.

As long as he's not stealing the thunder. A support character with a passive personality (won't make many decisions on their own) can work. Of course, it's not as fun as playing a proper character.

It's absolutely nonsensical. You already control every non-player character, what do you even mean by calling them "a PC"? What's the distinction?

>Not taking blindfighting

>A support character with a passive personality (won't make many decisions on their own) can work
A good DM gives the PCs the ability to control that kind of character. Via just unspecified mind control or through leadership.

GMPCs are ALWAYS Mary Sues unless used as personality-less extra firepower for when a PC can't make it to the session. Avoid them at all costs.

In 40+ years of RPG playing, I've had several GMs try, but none succeed, playing a party member. All the above comments are valid, but one reason I'll always give is that if you're playing a character, you can't devote yourself to your job as GM.

While not inherently wrong, it's EXTREMELY abusable. You, as a GM, want to participate, but need to distance yourself from it and take a back seat to the rest of the party. That's not something everyone is able to do, especially since you already had a hand in puzzles and traps and encounters.

But it can be done.
When my last group was starting out, they only had three members, and needed a caster to balance them out, so I made a Dwarven Cleric, who was a mute. It kept them from being able to ask him for info, kept me from weighing in heavily, and kept the adventure moving along at a steady pace.
Occasionally I'd have him mime an obvious answer to them (character is wearing an earing that lets them talk with the owner of the other earing as a whisper, tries catching a dove to train as a carrier bird, I flick my earlobe and slap my forehead), or made rude gestures.
When the party got a 5th human, he retired at the family farm with the saguagin child they rescued, and had him sell potions and alchemy ingredients to the party at cost.

Back in the day my first playgroup was only three people, so we switched off DM'ing and basically alternated which PC became the DMPC per adventure. If you can functionally disassociate player knowledge and DM knowledge, it works surprisingly well.

Honestly a lot of the hate I've seen for it in my opinion comes from the DM attempting to portray their character as the best of the group when running them, when really they should just use their DMPC as a means to highlight the adventure. It's not about your character saving the day, its about the party as a whole saving the day,

desu, I forget to level mine up.
I also make him pathetic in combat except as utility and/or healing (and shitty at both).

His primary utility is having someone PCs can RP with, can ask questions or bounce ideas off of, and who can interject when they're about to do something awful. He also covers a few useful skills the PCs lack. and is plot-related but shhh.

OP, are you going to play him like a PC, or an NPC? And where, power-wise, relative to the PCs, do you want him to be?

As a general rule I think parties will not want and want a DMPC at the same time. They don't want it to be somebody else's show, but a part of the typical PC mindset is to grab any and every tool it's possible to use. This means that if there's someone even reasonably capable who doesn't have prior commitments, or who's goals even vaguely line up, many players will try to rope them in because an extra sword arm is good to have.

The big thing is, just going from years of experience with various groups, that nobody knows everything all the time. If the whole party is being farmed for ideas and an NPC is there, half the time the answer is usually "I don't fuckin' know, that's not my thing". Once you combine that with a party where there's at least one person covering most skills you'll usually have just a handful of situations where a GMPC really does much, since they need to know what to do AND a PC isn't geared towards that. I.E. Your party has no other rogue type but suddenly there's a locked door you can't bash open for some reason.

>weak in combat
>healslut/buffbitch
>tells characters to not do things
>plot related

You've got a whole lot of red flags in there.

Parties doing really goddamn stupid things are where the great stories and encounters come from.

I think the main thing is that this only really works in a scenario where the party is totally isolated. If literally anyone else is around who knows the topic at hand half the time they'll just outright say "that's fucking stupid".

DMPCs invalitade the existence of players and eliminate innovation and roleplaying. People make all kinds of excuses for them:

>I keep my dmpc weak and ineffectual and don't have them interfere in things.
Then why do they exist?

>No one in the party chose to be a particular class or role that they will suffer for not having.
Because you make your encounters and games by textbook examples and have no willingness to meet your players halfway on anything.

>I always have to run and I want to play in a game too.
You will never get the player experience doing that.

Anything a dmpc does is something a player should have done. Anything the dm gives their dmpc is something a player should have gotten. If a party didn't bring anyone who can lock pick or heal then that's their problem to solve, not your problem to solve for them and not something you should beat them over the head with either. Besides all that, the story isn't about you, DM, it's about the players.

Tl;dr DMPCs are used by bad dms.