When making a DMPC - if you do - can you make one that's supportive, but not necessarily a literal support class...

More like Freed

My personal rule of thumb is never have NPCs roll attacks or skill checks.
Also never have two NPCs talk directly to each other.

Damn it. Now I want to introduce a swashbuckling DMNPC who deals very little damage but is always feinting and distracting the party's opponents, but I already know that's a terrible idea.

I mean that if you are adding an npc to fill in for a small group, then a weaker version of a pc doesn't actually contribute to the situation you are trying to relieve, but exacerbates it by adding a npc that the pc party needs to babysit.
Despite what Veeky Forums may say, there is nothing wrong with an npc or dmpc so long as they do not take the spotlight away from the players, but helps to add to it.

>can you make one that's supportive, but not necessarily a literal support class?
Yeah, by making it a "fifth wheel" class. In a game like D&D we all know about the traditional division of labor: tank, healer, blaster, skillmonkey. Some classes can combine multiple aspects, but most of the time you cover one of those bases (at least, that's how the system is designed). Something like a ranger or a bard is a great "fifth wheel" class that can be slapped on a group without stepping on anyones toes or being utterly plot essential. Both can do some combat, both have some skill utility and both can do some minor healing. You won't make the cleric redundant (mostly because the cleric is covering ALL the bases and making everyone else redundant) and you're not going to replace the tank anytime soon but you can fill holes as needed. I think that's much better than a wizard who arbitrarily gimps himself.

> traditional division of labor: tank, healer, blaster, skillmonkey.

That's MMO roles, and really only applies to 4e.

Early D&D was divided into Combat, Magic, and Skills (mostly traps, locks, and sneaking). This was then changed in AD&D to Babysisters and Magelets at low levels, followed by Spellcasters and their entourage at high levels. 3rd tried to get a balance between Warriors, Mages, Holy men, and Technicians, but they made the mistake of putting too much power into unpopular/unfun roles in order to entice players.

4e is really the only one that really tried to hammer in roles, and even then they went with Tanks, DPS, Healers, and AoE. This was largely abandoned in 5e.

>really only applies to 4e
user, D&D is the game that created those "roles", mmos and jrpgs co-opted them.

>Dmpc
Run or play don't do both.

>Skillmonkey is an MMO role
Try harder mate. In MMO's that's usually DPS because those games by design can't have skillmonkeys as a dedicated role. Also this: To play the devil's advocate, in games with only one or two players it can help to have the DM cover a support role. I do agree that from 3 players upward the DM has no business getting involved on the player's side.

The origins of the roles are actually war games.

Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry/Armoured were the major roles, and Chainmail adopted them with Thieves, Magic users, and Fighting Men. They also introduced Clerics as a fourth role, roughly analogous to Medical/Supply units.

I'm running at least two games with prominent DMPCs. One of them is a NPC ex-cultist cleric a player wanted to keep around to help the party, and the other is a noble wizard the party is getting paid to protect. There's a few tricks for having DMPCs in the party:

>Never force them into a party; always give the party chances to dump them
Players want the spotlight and the ability to affect the game, so forcefully adding a DMPC to a mission is a good way to piss players off. "Offering" the chance to have or work with the DMPC is a good way to see if they actually want it.

>Call them NPCs and treat them as such
NPC and DMPC have different connotations applied to them. DMPC is usually negative, while NPC is common to virtually all RPGs. Calling your DMPC an NPC makes the players feel like it is less important to the story and thus not made for the DM to soak up the spotlight.

>Ask your players what you want the DMPC to do
Some might say this isn't properly controlling the DMPC, but asking for minor suggestions on what the DMPC should do is sometimes a useful way to "give up" control of it to your players, making it feel less like the DM's personal plaything.

>Give the DMPC flaws
This is a great way to make your DMPC likable too. For instance, one of my parties guards a wizard that is technically stronger than them, but has no experience with combat and thus has to be taught by the party what buffs to cast at the start of the day and what spells are actually useful in combat.

>Within reason, in a standard encounter, target the DMPC with lethal force
A great way to utilize NPCs and DMPCs alike is to use them as targets for an opponent's powers, especially when the DMPC is a higher level than the party. In some cases, this could actually be detrimental to the game (if the DMPC is an important plot point, for instance), but that's even more incentive to genuinely try and kill the DMPC. No plot armor makes a DMPC feel more useful.

I hope that helps!

>"Offering" the chance to have or work with the DMPC is a good way to see if they actually want it.
This.
The only dmpc I ever ran was a fighter that was being played by a player that dropped, and I took it over to finish what was going on.
At the end, I told the players the fighter was going on his way, and the players asked him, ic, to stay on with them.
Out of game, they told me the fighter was more personable, fun to have around, and useful in a scrap than the previous player ever made him.

Indeed. I daresay that is the most important part of the DMPC or traveling NPC. If the players specifically ask to keep it around without any prodding from the DM, that's when you know it's safe to keep it around.

Now, unlike what says, I did treat him as his own character, with his own opinions and preferences, but made sure to not clash with the party and be a voice of reason if there was a dispute.
I would voice ideas here and there is the party ic asked for them, but never ones that were of the gm's mind, but of the fighter's opinion.

>Building character to fill roles instead of good character arc.

Holy shit neck yourselfs.

6 clerics with good stories are better then a "balanced" "role" group.

Generally skill-monkies in MMO's are the DoT/CC/Utility guys. They got the team teleports, they got the ice walls, they got the stuns, they got the huge movespeed buffs. That kinda thing.

Clerics preceded thieves, which weren't added until the Greyhawk supplement. D&D was a different product from Chainmail, which did not have D&D classes. There were no particular design reasons for adding the thief and cleric. One was added because someone asked Gygax to do it and the other was because someone wanted a vampire slayer to counter another player's character who turned into a vampire

6 clerics with good domains are likely stronger than "balanced" group too.

>translation

>"Oh my, I believe this discussion's focus may be distracting you from more important priorities. I personally find that party balance is not quite as important as making sure that the characters are well-written."

Yeah, but party balance is nice too. Helps everyone feel special and vital to the party.

I think there's a fallacy at work here with that word "instead". You can do both.

>"Offering" the chance to have or work with the DMPC is a good way to see if they actually want it.
I don't necessarily ask them if they want to bring an NPC, I just ask "Which one do you want?" out of a pool of characters. I think of it as a reverse of squadmates in Mass Effect or Dragon Age. The players get to chose one NPC to go with them, usually to fill the inevitable hole when someone doesn't show up, when the mission is outside of range of skills they chose, or when they have a mission that is tied to a character.

i know a lot of rage dm and ONE cestree dm other than me. i need a hug, or 10k dollar in my bank account now

True. They are still characters in the narrative and should be handled as such. Naturally, they'll want to do things or avoid things. That guy should learn a thing or two.

I do something kind of similar. I'll let players hire NPCs they liked or even have an NPC offer services. Sometimes there are odd cases where the players forcibly take an NPC and it ends up becoming the party pet. One time, some players of mine spent half a session trying to save a completely random slave they had zero connections to and spent the next five trying to turn him into a hero.

Strangely, regardless of if I am a Player, DM, or even an observer reading a Greentext, I find that well-liked DMPCs/NPC companions tend to be either straightforward and blunt (a sort of straight man to the party shenanigans) or underleveled NPCs earnestly trying their very best to help the PCs. Build-wise, I see a lot of them as meatshields or out-of-combat supports.

I just gave mine an old Cleric. Nice guy but most of his power has waned. Blesses people, heals people and is generally a supportive character.

Don't expect him to run into fights, though. I put DMPCs as support that may get a bit of spotlight now and again. But otherwise is a background character.

>Call them NPCs and treat them as such
Basically this. The first major campaign I ever had I had a Bard "DMPC" who journeyed with the party, but was strictly a supporting character, for the most part. I always felt a little uncomfortable playing him because everyone knew him as the DMPC.

Every campaign after that I always called everyone that wasn't a player an NPC, regardless of how often they worked and fought with the party and it just felt so much better for the players and me as a GM. It's absurd to think the party has to fight and act in a void where it's them vs. everyone. A friendly face to help in a fight will almost never be turned down, just try not to steal the spotlight.

IF, and that it a huge IF, I make an NPC that follows the party, I generally make it some PC's familiar. If no one has a familiar, then whatever follows them around has the general value of a familiar; e.g. it'll scout for them (if given a means to hide extremely well or return to the party immediately), drop plot hints that I have no other way to give them, etc.

I generally don't, though. It's a pain in the ass for me to run it and I absolutely do not want to end up in a situation where I'm RPing with myself, even by accident.

So I work a third shift at my job and me a friend play Pathfinder. I rolled up a character to help in combat and play as well as GM. I give all the spot light to his character and have him figure up the plans. He asks my dmpc for advice sometimes but I always give it in character never meta. Things are going well and we are having fun together. The important trick is to do your thing as a dmpc but never upstage or take the spotlight from the pc unless it’s for emphasis on something related to dmpc, which should not be often.