Are DMPCs inherently bad?

Are DMPCs inherently bad?
In what situation are they acceptable?

Share horrible/amazing experienced with DMPCs!

>Are DMPCs inherently bad?
Yes. A DMPC is a PC played by the GM and goes in direct contradiction with what a GM is.

>In what situation are they acceptable?
None, never.

>Share horrible/amazing experienced with DMPCs!
>amazing/horrible
>implying the GM gifting himself elite loot is amazing
The closest I've ever come to witness a DMPC was a retard that was talking to me about his "homebrew" that was an abomination that strung up Starcraft 2, Warhammer 40k, D&D, VtM and Alien vs Predator and then started talking about how he is "both the GM and a player" and how he's planning on writing a book about this shitstain.

I pretended I had internet problems and left.

The best role for a DMPC is filling a support role that the players won't do. A specialised driver build in a cyberpunk or modern game for example, or a healbot or local guide. Ultra-specific characters whose limited utility would gimp an actual player as they rarely, if ever, get the spotlight.

Of course not, it's only bad in the same way that a DM's girlfriend character is.

DMPC is a term that doesn't make sense as it should not exist.
Character controlled by player is PC.
Character controlled by Game Master is NPC.

Those are only terms that are needed.

Why not just an NPC in that case?

DMPC means that the character has a stat sheet, is part of the party and can make key decisions in plot. It also means that the DM is also a player in the sense that he is playing a character that's on the same level as other players' characters.

I've played in campaigns with rotating GMs, in which case GMPCs are an obvious problem. We dealt with it by getting them out of the way early in the adventures, so the only issue was the hit to immersion

You should learn semantics before acting like a pedant.

>Are DMPCs inherently bad?
No. I'm playing one right now, and players are in love with her. In fact so much so, one of the PCs actually married her.

Here's how you do it
>DMPC may never be in the spotlight, unless the PCs actively put it there. And even if they do it themselves, you should resist.
>DMPC must be helpful, but always in the way that compliments the players, not overshadows them.
>DMPC must have a memorable and colorful personality, but speak as rarely as possible - unless it's spoken to by the players first.
>Adding to that, don't have scenes of a DMPC and another NPC for longer than 15 seconds.

>In what situation are they acceptable?
If the DMPC is an important part of a quest or story and is only part of the party for that quest. Although at that point its not really a DMPC and it's more of an important NPC

Depends on tue players. Having a NPC that is almost as powerful as the PCs guide the party can be useful to new players. The GM can use the NPC to demonstrate basic and advance combat techniques. The GM can also use said NPC to help the players to start thinking outside the box and to show them all the different ways they can interact with the game/setting. Even use the NPC to get the players roleplaying with each other by starting up conversations. All of this also applies to a passive group of players that need that outside push to get going. That said, an experience group of players that are already capable of sorting out their play style don't need a NPC guide to help them out. I would only introduce a strong NPC to such players as the campaign demanded and even then, the NPC would be notably weaker and more mute so as not to get in the way of the players.

If they are good, they are not DMPCs, jusy NPCs that follow your party. I had a DM play a character once when my party was composed of only two people, so we needed someone else to round it out

GMPCs are inherently bad, by definition. Any non-bad GMPC (say, a specialised character to fill in a gap in the party that just hangs back and plays second fiddle) is by deinition just an NPC. GMPC is only one when the character is a nuisance to the players proper. Theres no way to make a good GMPC because then we're looking at an NPC.

You're playing a weird fetish game aren't you

Yes, because the GM is supposed to run the world not adventure along the players. It's just an inherently unbalanced situation.

Yes. If it's a DMPC that includes "PC". As a DM you can't impartially play an actual character.
A healbot or NPC Ally isn't necessarily bad, like others have said. But then that's not really a "PC" so I wouldn't call it a DMPC. If you're playing an actual character as a DM like you would a player though, that is inherently bad, yes.

Inherently?
No.

Most DMPCs I have are underpowered, expendable, and often times only exist to fill in a role that none of the players wanted to do.

I do have a horror story however...

Then it's not a DMPC but just a regular NPC tagging along.

I'll start with a fun story

Playing in a 40K rogue trader campaign, I put in an unapologetic cultist chan as a minor villain
>they wound up on an asteroid colony
>Asked to solve their issues for a fee
>Cultist chan contaminating food and hospital supplies,
>starting underground bloodsport fighting pits
>Rearranging the candy bars in grocery stores

So they hunt her down and eventually murder the cults she was starting but cannot find her.

>They find her on their ship
>Decide to keep her as a pet
>Becomes DMPC for exactly two sessions before t hey get tired of her shit
>Smash her face in with a warhammer (irony)
>Its pretty easy since her stats are shit
>She explodes like a toxic water balloon
>Gives everyone nurgle rot
> Survivors stay away from anything chaosy after that

Why did they write "they can't find her" if the very next line contradicts that

In order:
Yes
never

The only reason i can fathom to have a DMPC in your champaign is to have him killed as a way to kickstart the adventure

NEXT STORY
This one's a horror story

Playing in a campaign, the DM is creative but sometimes goes off on weird political tangents.
World of Darkness campaign
>Meander around looking for the source of people disappearances
>Somehow linked to strange weather patterns
>Get mysterious invites by someone who wants to help us (IE get us to the plot)

The DM is an amature musician and a possible furry, just for some context.
>Get to this person's home
>goddamn mansion
>Palatial even
>The quest giver is a world famous rock star
>He is also a wer panther
>he is also a demi god
>he also fits a physical description of said DM without physical flaws

This would have been okay IF
>He didn't start coming with us on quests
>Pretty obvious he's head and shoulders above the other characters in terms of power
>COULD NOT FUCKING DIE even when in situations where the party just tried to leave him for dead
>Wound up fighting the final boss for us

They couldn't find her on the asteroid colony, they found her later on the ship smuggled aboard through the resupply tubes

She pulled a reverse shawshank and climbed INTO the ship by way of the septic tank.

NEXT STORY
Again a fun one

So we're playing another World of Darkness campaign. Same DM.
Good story, fun game, with one small exception.

DM had a DMPC again who again fit the physical description of DM with some artistic liberties taken, with identical political stances that were always pushed as being correct to the point where spiritual beings would be like "yep he's right"

>We try to leave him places
>He always shows back up again

One of the players flat out tried to kill him and the rest of the party helped. HE WOULD NOT DIE
The dice clearly laid out that he would get shot, and the DM saves the DMPC by waving his hand and saying "it just doesn't work"

NPC also includes "PC"

Would a skillmonkey character that tags along with the pcs to do odd jobs that doesn’t talk much if at all, but is built like a PC for a player to take control of if they die an NPC or a DMPC?

Curses! Foiled again!
Although to be fair, for NPC the "PC" is preceded by "Non-"

Hirelings are a good remedy without having to insert a character yourself.

Yes, especially if they fulfill a critical niche the party cannot, and are not a permanent fixture. I think of them as "regular secondary characters" in a TV show. For instance, Hondo from Clone Wars and Rebels makes an appearance every season or so, maybe 2, but he isnt the "core cast", which should be the party.

Seconding that this is how you do it.

>everybody's characters are from the same neighborhood and know each other
>no healers other then the bard, who would rather focus on other shit
>just plop a npc cleric into the mix so they have a healer, complete with backstory that ties the cleric to the other characters
>he rarely talks and is usually forgotten until somebody gets fucked up
is this acceptable?

No
If your players don't have a healer in their group you don't make things simpler for them by creating one, you give them alternate ways to have access to healing.
Creating a character to tag along the party because you can't be assed to work the adventure and encounters around their specific skills is borderline railroading

see this There is absolutely no excuse nor reason to give your party a babysitter just because they need to follow your plot no matter what

You guys are overthinking this. DMPC is just a derogatory term for an overpowered, spotlight-hogging NPC. Like, the kind of NPC who shows up just in time to rescue the party from an unbeatable encounter. It's not an NPC with a character sheet for fuck's sake

So they can't hire a porter.

People disagree about what "DMPC" means.

If your definition includes "spotlight-hogging," then yes, it is bad. If your definition is just a party member controlled by the DM, maybe to dole out exposition or fill a party role no one wanted to play, then no, it's not automatically bad.

This isn't a real argument. People are just using a made-up word to mean different things.

The players also have family members that have more class levels than the players that the players made themselves. I don't think having a cleric of their level along with them is much of a problem at all when they have access to even stronger NPCs

Eh get the bard a wand of cure light wounds. Ideally, every party member should have heal-sticks, even if they cant use them.

>neckbeards getting pretend married
Do you have any idea how pathetic you are?

You are on Veeky Forums, you have no high ground whatsoever in this one.

DMPC has a stat sheet is is generally assumed to have levels comparable to the PCs.

Generally if the NPC is going to be in combat or high stress situations alongside the PCs, it's best to give them a full DMPC sheet and make them a few levels lower than the PCs. This also allows a GM to have an expositionary character there in the thick of it with the players so background information can be provided in a more immersive manner. A DMPC bard that can both heal shittily and answer questions about the world in-character is a good option.

Of course the DMPC should refrain from any critical decision making and should take a back seat as much as possible unless they're filling a supportive role the party needs.

Protip: if you must have a support-DMPC, plan on that character dying after a few sessions. By that point s/he'll have given the characters all the information they need about the world. If s/he was filling a supportive role, the player's should at this point understand what niche the DMPC was filling and it will be a challenge just like any other to fill that niche without the DMPC.

Pic was the inspiration behind Jim-Bob. A conspiracy theorist and truck driver my players encountered when they hit a snag in their investigation and needed to skip town. He effectively just gave a bunch of guns to the party, drove them to a safer county, accompanied them on a couple of missions, threw a bunch of wild false leads at them (the 'true' lead was whatever theory the PCs found most interesting) and eventually died because he was a low level DMPC palling around with high level PCs and shit happens.

...

>implying

nice fallacy faggot, you just cant accept normal functioning people dont fucking MARRY fake people

I once had a DMPC in a shadowrun game where a dwarf rigger/shaman had rigged an old '50s yellow cab, which was slowly turning into a feral demon.

There was no way I was giving my players control of that, and began having it do weird things as it developed.

Mostly it just went for big damned Kool-Aid moments or grazing the corpses on the street.

Imagine a openly malignant taxi from Rodger Rabbit.

>DMPC means that the character has a stat sheet, is part of the party and can make key decisions in plot. It also means that the DM is also a player in the sense that he is playing a character that's on the same level as other players' characters.

>DMPC has a stat sheet is is generally assumed to have levels comparable to the PCs.

I reject these definitions. Over the course of my gaming career, I've had tons of characters who fit those criteria, but they were still just NPCs because there weren't "me". There wasn't the same level of investment and identification as a player has with their character. When something happened to the party, I never thought: "what should *I* do now", when it came time for me to decide what the NPC did. As a GM, it's necessary to maintain a greater separation than that. DMPCs are bad, because a GM shouldn't be playing a PC in his own game.

>I never thought: "what should *I* do now", when it came time for me to decide what the NPC did
Isn't that the same regardless of playing an NPC or PC? You should do what your character would, not what you yourself would do.

>Are DMPCs inherently bad?
Yes. The term has been conceived to describe something negatively.

However, some idiots have begun using it in other scenarios that are not bad and thus the word has assumed a more neutral tone, although most normal Veeky Forums goers know that a GMPC is a bad thing.

Language is a fluid thing: in the past, "gay" meant "happy" and nowadays it just means faggot. Such is the nature of the english language, that words are slowly twisted by people to then mean something different than what they were originally.

To me, however, the GMPC will retain negative connotations of bad GMs who want to play so bad that they make their own PC... and proceed to have fun at the expense of the players who have to put up with their super-powerful shitty characters who boss them around and kill them/hurt them if they don't do as they are told.

Thus, GMPCs are inherently bad, because that is what the term originally meant: a shitty, super powerful character portrayed by the GM who wants to have fun and doesn't give a rat's ass if the players don't like it.

Yes.
A "good DMPC" is just a helpful NPC.

DMPCs are characterized by the fact that they are bad GM insert characters.

One thing worth noting is every story about a "good DMPC" comes from a DM, and every "bad DMPC" story comes from a player point of view.

Normal people don't pretend to kill fake dragons or save fake princesses either.

>people literally have done that in videogames for decades

hmmmm

>DMPCs are characterized by the fact that they are bad GM insert characters.
False, a DMPC is merely a PC stand in that the DM is playing because they are a forever DM or just want in on a bit of the fun

They have to be very cautious about using them though

>Battle of the dubs

It's not about that. It's about how much you inhabit the character.

This is fine...
Player: "I go over to the door and see if it's locked."

This is not...
GM: "I go over to the door and see that it's locked."

"I"? Who the fuck is "I"? That character isn't you. You're the GM. You don't play a character; you run NPCs.

>a DMPC is merely a PC stand
What?

Depends on the game. In a game where most things are not prepared beforehand, I don't really see the issue. If you're running something where you roll on tables, or where the players can do whatever, the worst a DMPC can be is a distraction. If they can handle it without bringing down the quality of the game, I won't make a shitstorm over it

you are now aware that you could marry people in Fallout 2, a 1998 title.

To further clarify, when I'm playing a character, I absolutely think: "what should I, [my character], do?"

Stand in
Learn grammar you illiterate cretin

>Yes
>When it's completely unavoidable

I'm still somewhat new to DM:ing, and I hate it when my players ask NPC:s to join them - and roll successfully. Even if it makes sense in universe, it means less work for them, while I'm stuck playing a purosefully uninteresting character in addition to my DM duties. How could I keep the players from enlisting NPC help without outright denying it?

A notable story about this is from a game with DM with aspergers (and one player with autism, but I should probably vent about that in another thread). His campaign was based in the feudal time of the settings world, and for the boss battle he wanted to bring in four legendary heroes from that time period.

What resulted were turns taking more than five minutes, consisting of two player turns and twice as much of him narrating and rolling what the legendary heroes were doing. That of course being in addition to the enemy NPC:s, of which there were about six or ten at a time as well.

We're talking about games of make-believe, generally where we play the parts of powerful individuals who often become quite successful in mundane society. Getting married is a pretty normal thing for characters to do, at least in the vast majority of settings. I'd probably wait until either the adventure was over, or until a possible spouse is found that's as capable as the PC, but if one of those conditions is met I don't see why it would be an issue.

Are all of your characters MGTOW or something?

Stand-in, you mean. Putting "stand in that" together is a bit confusing, in that "in that" is a common phrase, and one tends to group those words together, especially when stand-in isn't properly hyphenated. With that said, I'll admit to being dumb, as I should've carefully reread the sentence and tried to make sense out of it before asking for clarification.

>How could I keep the players from enlisting NPC help without outright denying it?
Just outright deny it. The NPCs have their own interests and desires, and one good die roll won't convince them to majorly change their life plans unless they're already inclined in that direction.

No, they make perfect early game crutches. You basically add to the party someone that can either be competent in the field neglected by the party and/or gain access to a knowledge broker that makes up for easier introduction into the setting/world/situation at hand

Last time DMPC was around, I was playing a simple scenario where the party was supposed to retrive a totemic stone. Since one player in the party was completely green and under the impression RPG = combat and fighting, we ended up in entirely avoidable combat with bunch of golems, while being pretty much unarmed and in a trap. Technically GM described the place previously as being a site of many skirmishes (our less lucky predecessors), with all the more prominent gear scattered around, but everyone just grabbed for first weapon at hand and tried to run from that place. When we ended up trapped, GM had a free hand to save our asses in most corny, yet efficient way:
The DMPC, which was strangely absent from the fight (but nobody commented on that aloud), managed in the meantime load, aim and shot a ballista standing in the main hall, knocking out the golem at the gate.
Without the DMPC we would end with TPK caused by greenhorn's lack of experience with the hobby. Nobody minded and it actually worked for the story with such configuration.

shilling my thread for DMs and GMs

also
>I like to make DMPC and then drop rocks on them before they can help the party

The only DMPC I ever played with was my dad, we were 8 and 10 and didn't have a 3rd player. We wound up each running two characters, but it was still necessary.

>When something happened to the party, I never thought: "what should *I* do now",

because you were the DM and you already knew

and if you're running NPCs that have stat sheets and are invested in the party then you are at risk of being seen as running a DMPC regardless of how you want to slice the definition to exclude your own actions

Had two, one I liked one I absolutely detested. From the same DM. In the same campaign.

>Stars Without Numbers setting.
>The first DMPC originally made as a PC because he was originally going to coDM eith another guy, but wound up solo DMing
>Crack pilot
>Entire race was destroyed in a war perpetrated by evil alien psychics
>Socially awkward, good natured.
>Served to tie in an over arcing threat that we would encounter a few more times.
>Given spotlight when we the players decided he would be.
I enjoyed him as a character and plot device.

>Teenaged girl who was going to die of generic deadly disease
>Her father transferred her consciousness to a virtual system, which inhabited our ship.
>We didn't even know she was there, but there were hints for a while before we found out.
>Acted fine as a support NPC
>Myself and several others continually point out that she is quite literally insane from hundreds of years living alone on a derelict, and being forever stuck as a bratty teenager
>Whatever, decent support character nonetheless
>Built a couple of drones for her to pilot, one to fix shit, another a combat drone.
>In the hands of an emotionally instable teenager
>Whatever
>Fast forward, eventually find a planet whos colonists came from the same world she did, using the virtual reality tech that's been refined for a few hundred years, pretty much all work and social interaction is done in this computerscape.
>Adventures happen, we get our hands on tech to make the ship itself into a full virtual scape as well.
>Almost immediately DMPC starts having a lot of sex with a character who's player has been in absentia for quite a while.
>Literally almost constantly.

Cont.

>Note, this is after my character quite earnestly shot down her attempts.
>Shit happens, have to abandon our nice colony ship that she lives in. Transfer her to our smaller science ship to escape with the rest of the crew.
>Conveniently find in the next few sessions a scientist that can grow a body for her using her genetic info we have.
>Use VR tech to make the connection between body and computer.
>At this point my old character died, now playing a genetically spliced super psion prototype for the evil human-looking-but-not-human spacer empire, basically the Peacekeepers from Farscape.
>Read: Prototype. Not actually that powerful, dying of genetic diseases.
>Psion's entire MO is follow military protocol, literally grown to know only obedience to protocol. Currently with the party because of minor obscure subclause that told him to focus entirely on putting down a dangerous antagonist no matter the method.
>During clone growing process psion accidentally gets sucked into the clone body, barely escape back to his.
>Psyche transplant goes well, surprise surprise.
>She's showing signs of having psionic capability similar to my psion's.
That's government property.
>Demand that she become clipped.
>She refuses, repeatedly.
>Brings in DM's original PC, whom is already clipped, and therefore immune to psionics, to threaten my psion.
>DM also reveals that his primary PC has been the girl, not the pilot, and that she's been getting Improvement Points this entire time, just not using them.
>More then enough to master the martial art another character can teach her, along with psionics in a day, despite both being two of the only skills that are harder to raise then normal skills.

Cont.

>Are DMPCs inherently bad?

No. They have to be done properly, not stealing the spotlight and not railroading the crew.

>In what situation are they acceptable?

Shifty merchant accompanying the crew, in case nobody wants to play a healer then a DMPC healbot, maybe an attendant or the like but that's it.
Allways cooperative with the party excluding minor roleplaying reasons like a LG Life Cleric not wanting to heal the CE Barbarian named Genocidator Dickbags Mc Murderface.

>Begin formulating a plan to remove the illegal use of government property, killing the body, crippling the system used to transfer the conscious form the computer to bodies to prevent a repeat.
>Easy because most of the team has a low resistance to psionics, just have to make sure a few of the deadly party members don't intercept me.
>Actual players of the characters are okay with me crippling the DMPC, but will act in character if they catch me, because my character is an outsider, and the DMPC has been the fixture of the group.
>Good roleplaying, I approve.
>Group dissolves right before I can enact my plan for enrelated reasons.

>How could I keep the players from enlisting NPC help without outright denying it?

she/he/it has more important things to do/is scared/doesn't want to

and/or

they are stupid unhelpful prejudiced cunts who willfully misunderstand

or

they come but only because the bbeg employed them to infiltrate the party

etc.

basically anything. a successful roll is not a mandate whether to another player or the DM. if the players crit a search do you insert a secret door just so they can find something?

I apologize for being so hasty with a retort.
I should have properly hyphenated my word to "stand-in"

Thank you for correcting me in a polite way

While I agree with the rest of your list, I do add in a secret door if my players go out of their way to look for one. No point in subverting their expectations in an underwhelming way when I can just adapt. If they started abusing it I'd stop but they haven't to this day.

>Are DMPCs inherently bad?
in my opinion, yes. it's basically masturbation

>In what situation are they acceptable?
For example the current party consists of 4 barbarians, who have all taken the lowest int I'd allow.
After realising that waiting for their bits to grow back takes forever. (poor soul even tried planting his arm)
They set about recruiting and I quote "some sort of, wavy make hurt go gone man"

so after a merry little jaunt they met up with Dr. perriwinkle (mw) he's a border line rincewind knock off who flees at the first sight of battle only to emerge latter to congratulate everyone one on some marvellous fighting and to do the aforementioned wavy hurt go goneing.

The point I'm trying to get across
Is they(the party) want to fight and make stupid decisions, I've put in place a NPC who facilitates this, yes he's got a personalty, hopes, dreams, and a whole lot of fears.
but he doesn't get a combat roll, because they want to do the combat. he doesn't get a say in what happens, they decide what happens. he's just along to make the game more fun, not so it can play itself.
>tldr
when they're NPC's.

No, especially when the whole game system is built around it. See: Ryûtama.

I appreciate that. And I understand your initial reaction. Once you pointed out what the sentence actually said, I face-palmed. In my defense though, I am severely sleep deprived.

>because you were the DM and you already knew
You drastically overestimate my abilities as a GM. I mean, there's a lot I can run on instinct, but I by no means have everything intricately planned out ahead of time. Shit has to unfold in the moment, and so I have to make decisions about what the NPCs do.

>and if you're running NPCs that have stat sheets and are invested in the party then you are at risk of being seen as running a DMPC regardless of how you want to slice the definition to exclude your own actions
Maybe. I don't want to extrapolate too broadly from my personal experience, but it's never been an issue in the groups I've been in.* Then again, I've been role-playing since long before I ever encountered the term "DMPC".

*I'm not saying that I've never been in a game where a GM was doing bullshit like playing favorites with an NPC, but rather that I've never been in a group where people challenged the fundamental idea of the GM including fully fleshed-out NPCs in the party.

So, the PCs hear from a caravan guard in the tavern that the Orb of Calliostro, an artefact of considerably power, is being transported under armed guard from Junt to the City of Glass where it will play a central part in Magister Neelio's upcoming exhibition.

Based on their past play-styles and the skills on their character sheets, you expected the players to either try a smash and grab on the road, or something social/magical and or violent at the exhibition.

Unfortunately for your carefully planned notes, Oceans 11 was on cable last night, and the players decide the perfect time to seize the orb is the night before the exhibition. The players expect that at this point, it will be stored in Neelio's safe.

None of the PC's have anything that could pass for safe cracking skills, burglary experience, or stealth. Their solution to this problem is to contact the local thieves guild, and recruit their best man. An OOC argument about the ideal method of infiltration is settled when the players decide to defer further planning until they have recruited the master thief because "He's probably planned lots of heists in the past, we can ask him whose plan is better and run with that".

What do?

I got carried away and now my players are going to start hearing rumors about the Orb of Calliostro and Neelio's exhibition of cunning artifice next session, Thanks TG!

I think it's a waste of storytelling potential to have allied NPCs be bland skillbots or healbots just because user posted something retarded on Veeky Forums about "DMPCs." Remember that your NPCs are as much a part of the world as all your deepest lore, your villains and monsters, your legendary treasure and dungeons, the nations and politics and worldbuilding, and so on. If you're allowed to make all of those interesting and engaging for the players, why the fuck would you go full retarded when it's time to write NPCs? No one even likes Bob the Fighter as a player character, so why would I want to interact with that as one of your NPCs?

NPCs are the mouthpieces of your game world. They're the one thing (aside from the other PCs) that the players can actively engage with and get meaningful responses from. So make it worth their while and make them interesting.

You also shouldn't worry about making them useful to the party. If a player goes on a long quest to find magic gems and use them to enchant a sword so it can penetrate the BBEG's magic armor and harm him, that's considered a worthwhile time investment and payoff. So what if a player finds an NPC that's interesting to them and they decide to explore that NPC's role in the world and dedicate an equal amount of time to that character that the other guy dedicated to enchanting his sword? If that's what the player found interesting in your game and wants to be invested in, there's no harm in making that relationship just as useful. Maybe that NPC's family already has a magic sword but it's bound to their bloodline, so the end result of delving into that NPC's storyline is that they help you in the final battle and make the BBEG vulnerable for the rest of the party by destroying whatever invulnerability magic he had on him.

Basically it's about making your world interesting and making your players' time investment worthwhile. NPCs are a part of the game world, and neglecting them on purpose only makes your game worse.

Have the Master thief they contacted perform the heist for them and either get caught or disappear with the Orb. So now the players have two choices, depending on what you do. Either tey bust in and rescue him or track the thief down and find the orb

Just because your players *want* to do something they don't *need* to succeed in it if they don't have the skills pull it off

You should make the thief actually be competent and have a good plan. But of course there has to be a reason why he hasn't just pulled the heist solo or with his own team. Maybe it's just too dangerous and risky, and the other local thieves guild members don't want to risk it? Then the PCs arrive, how convenient.

The plan should be good, but it will have to rely on coordination from all the player characters to work. Maybe have some of them cause a distraction, someone else is responsible for getting rid of a guard, another guy is preparing for the getaway, etc. You can let the thief do the actual infiltration and safe cracking and flawlessly succeed at his part, but the chance of failure revolves around whether the PCs can successfully support him from the sidelines.

>Be ForeverDM
>Introduced an npc to help my players for maybe 2-3 sessions
>RPed him with a lot of charm, humor, and kindness.
>tfw they want him around in the future and is offering to hire him in game as some sort of assistant/squire thing
>in game it would actually make sense for the npc to accept this but I don't want to DMPC them
>Killing him would almost certainly make them waste their only revive item just to keep him around

wtf do I do? I don't want to turn him into an asshole just for them to hate him. I was thinking of giving him an assistant role for a short while and then have him meet a girl, get a family and give him a happy ending away from adventuring so that they'll "let him leave to live his life" but I'm not in love with that idea.

>introduce element of your game world that the players like and want more of
>sperg out and destroy it immediately because no fun allowed
Making an NPC a relevant and recurring character doesn't make him a DMPC, especially if the players actually want him to tag along. He doesn't have to take part in combat or make big decisions or anything, just let him play the assistant role they requested. It's literally that simple.

See my other post:

Have them simply part ways, The NPC is interested in a place the PCs have already been to, give him a little bit more vested interest like; he wants to visit an ancient battle site in an area in the opposite direction

I use DMPCs in only one of two occasions:
1) the players are new, and the setting/rules are in such a way that they need a guiding hand to get them through things

2) to balance out an undersized party; I imagine an ideal party being like a table- you need three balanced legs to hold it up

Currently hosting a game of Dark Heresy 2e for players who are almost brand new to the rules and setting, fulfilling both criteria I mentioned above.
One made an astropath psyker/face who uses telepathy and charisma to carry things through.
The other is a sniper from the Adeptus Mechanicus, making him good at machinery and ranged combat.

I noticed that, in melee combat, they're both pretty helpless, and there's no other players. Until such time that a third comes in, I have them rolling with an Adeptus Sororitas Crusader, specializing in melee combat (especially against larger targets and demons) so that the PCs don't get ripped to pieces the first time a Dark Eldar Mandrake comes at them looking to carve out their livers.

>has a stat sheet
>can make key decisions in plot
>DM is also a player in the sense that he is playing a character
Congratulations user you've just described an NPC.

The only time they are acceptable is for them to get Worfed. That is, to make a show of how big and badass they are, so that when the campaign villain kills them or kicks their ass, it gives the players a sense of urgency and a rough measurement of how strong they'll have to be to challenge the villain.

Any other use of DMPCs is bad.

If you pretended shit happened to get out of that instead of telling him straight up his shit is retard you are a faggot as much as he is

heres your (you)

Lel

Yes. Always.
None.

I have no horror stories because my DM's knew how to be GM's.

I had a DM who used DMPCs far too fucking much. First boss encounter we had the enemies one shot our two strongest people and a deux ex DMPC came flying in and shat all over them, allowing us to escape... So heroic...

Then later on we had another fight, where the boss once again was waaaay too fucking strong for the level we were at, and the same DMPC gained like a fucking no joke shounen power up and one shot the boss. It was the lamest fucking fight ever.

After that there was a break, thank god, but a month or so later we were in a completely different part of the world, away from where this DMPC was by fucking miles, and we encountered a cult of assholes, and ended up fighting their leader. He one shot the 3 strongest people again, and next turn, lo and behold, this magical fucker turns up and engages the boss, raping his shit because they were immune to one of his abilities that fucked the rest of the party over.

I was about ready to quit at that point but the DM stepped down at that stage as he had apparently had enough of DMing. He's just as fucking bad as a player for his munchkin overpowered shit though, I don't understand people who can't get over the video game mentality.

I’m working on a ‘racing expansion’ to a game we’re playing, and I have a few placeholder NPCs that will act as ‘AI’ drivers. They cheat out the ass, and the players will most likely work together to push them off the road. They’re throwaway NPCs that’ll change from race to race, but for obvious reasons I’ll have to be pretty involved in them.
That doesn’t count, right? That’s just playing an encounter or three. Any suggestions to make it seem less DMPC-ish?

DMPCs are always bad because DMPC is a term used to describe a negative phenomenon. If it is not bad, it is not a DMPC.

>The only DMPC I ever played with was my dad, we were 8 and 10
Your dad fathered you when he was 2?

All my experiences with them have been bad. Almost every time, they're total Mary Sues who steal the story from the players.
The only time this didn't happen with a DMPC, they were like 30 levels higher than the rest of the party, and existed soley to force the party to do what the DM wanted.

There's no such thing as a good DMPC.
If they were good, they'd be an NPC instead of a DMPC.

Why?

My Dm ran a dmpc. I spilt off my the party with the dmpc to hunt orcs. Got one shot and knocked out and the Dm proceeded to run his Dmpc for 30mins while we all waited. He was literally playing against himself and just rolling. He was like " oh wow, look how well my character is doing"
It was boring af
We had offered for someone else to DM but he refused outright

I'm a forever DM only played 3 games as a player and those 3 games together only equals to my 1 campaign in length.
Anyway I hated DMPC's on those games which I was a player. Because they were always exclusively overpowered and did everything better than us in every situation. DMs solved the shit with their DMPC instead of letting us go through it. Since I hated it so much I never ever use DMPC's but instead sometimes I let my players hire hirelings but they have character sheets and backstories just for RP and support. They have the same stat blocks with pc's but generally lower level and follows NPC wealth guidelines so they're rarely on the spotlight when they're it's because my player wanted them to be in that situation and they're usually only helpful to a degree. They sometimes fill the slots that my players don't like party healer