I've been always advised against running npcs as party members, but I gotta say, I don't get what's so bad about it.
My players like the NPCs that joins them, one accompanied them for a whole campaign and they had a team of adventurers with them in the next one.
I've always made it a point that they were in charge, and the NPCs rarely if ever interfered with decisions they had to do. They only did so when it's something related directly to them.
Also, they were all useful in many of the same ways the players were. For example, one was a fighter when we already had 2 other fighters. I wouldn't say they were outshined, but they probably couldn't take on the NPC individually until halfway the adventure.
Is my group an anomaly or did I just miss what made it insufferable for most people. I really don't get it.
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There is nothing inherently bad with them
You have NPCs. That's good.
A DMPC is a PC controlled by the DM. Thats bad for a bunch of reasons.
Next!
How's it different though? Not having player class levels?
NTA, but the difference isn't so much mechanical as how the DM runs them. If the DM was to make the NPC the center of attention, make the story revolve around them, give them all the best loot, etc etc? That would be the bad thing. But when it's "Look, you need a fourth character in the party, but we can't get another human. Here's a tank." That's fine.
What if the DMPC is a sexy anime girl who is meant to be a sexual outlet for the PCs?
What if you stayed in your coomer containment thread?
If the players are fine with it when they signed up. Pushing magical realm on players without consent is bad.
Have a wank instead of wasting everyone's time
You're not running the NPC like a party member in these examples, you clearly understand the dynamic they're supposed to play to the group instead of shoving them out of the way so you can have a 'moment'.
so when we say DMPC around here we don't mean general NPCs that the DM runs. Helper NPCs are great and you will be hard-pressed to find a game without them.
A DMPC is something quite different, though. It's when the DM shoves THEIR character into the game and bends the rules and narrative around their character. It's when the DM makes the actual players be sidekicks to a character they can ensure doesn't fail or struggle.
It is extremely gay.
DMPC is a stupid and redundant (should be DMC the P is completely out of place) term coined, obviously, by terminally dnd brained asocial spergs. Like fudging, metagaming and railroading it is word designed to contextualize a rather pathological antagonism between the "Tyrant" DM and the "Rebel" Players. If you are a reasonably adjusted human that learned how to play games in a social settings in kindergarten like most of us, all these terms are just noise intended to rage bait you in the spergs arguments, and the only way to win there is not to participate in the argument other than to ridicule it.
God bless and have a nice day.
>claims to have developed social skills
>posts on Ganker
Aaaaayyyyy.
There is nothing wrong with DMNPCs. The problem usually is more rooted in narcissism of the dm or wanting to control the players actions. In reality NPCs as party members are great for getting the players involved in the world, give them engaging Roleplaying opportunities and filling holes in party roles to make character creation for players less restrictive. The issue is more a botched execution than it is the concept itself.
I play a dmpc only because I have 2 players who usually both choose to play the same type of characters together. So they tend to need a little help with magic or a meat shield depending on what they play.
The dmpc I play is always stoic silent guy who makes 0 decisions and just goes with the flow of the group.
DMPCs are terrible when the DM would much rather be playing, and their thirst for fantasy fulfillment is palpable.
Still bad, and imagining yourself as the silent cool guy of the group doesn't fix the major issues of a DMPC. If he's deformed, subservient (not just ambivalent), or otherwise exhibiting traits that confirm that you're not living a fantasy life through him, that's one thing. But being a stoic silent guy hovering in the background might seem cool to you, but it's lame as frick to your too-nice-to-tell-you players, and no amount of "he's here to help balance out the party, even though I set the encounters/situations and can balance things for two people as readily as for three" can mask that you're just living vicariously through him.
>blah blah blah your living though the dmpc that takes zero(0) actions and has zero(0) input besides what your players want.
>you totally can balance the encounters however you want!
I tried just gearing it towards 2 players and they disliked it because it wasn't what they were used to. We used to be a group of 6, me and 5 others. Life/work/family meant 3 of our number dropped away forever. The two bros left want to fight lichs, dragons, demons and eldritch abominations. They want multiple session combat grinds against ultra powerful villains. They want me to toss the book at them just like I used to. I tried that with predicted ultra deadly results. The two bros tried playing two characters each, they hated it. So we settled for slightly dumbing it down and me playing a nameless mook.
>I tried that with predicted ultra deadly results.
How are you so bad at this.
>The two bros left want to fight lichs, dragons, demons and eldritch abominations
And that's irrelevant. Those exist in a wide spectrum, as can the PCs, and everything is ultimately just skins wrapped around numbers.
You can't tell me it can't be done, and yet you're trying to do exactly that. It's not even particularly difficult to create encounters for two people, because you're making all the same considerations you'd make with 3-5 players. If it was a solo player you might have more to stand on, but even then it's often actually easier because you only need to worry about a single player-side set of values.
Your DMPC does nothing but slow down combat considerably, and any combat value you personally couldn't figure out how to handle otherwise could easily be handled with either gear or adjusting the encounters to suit the party, something you are doing regardless, since difficulty is always relative. NPCs of any kind are never a neccessity, and hoping to pretend one might be seems an awful lot like begging me to believe you.
Your players might not know any better, and you might be counting on that, but I've run hundreds of games for two people, as well as hundreds of games for more, and you can't lie to me about there actually being any real need for your DMPC. It's a choice you're making.
>reeee your running your game wrong!!!
Okay. My friends and I are having fun. I'm sorry this makes you upsetti.
How "cool" is your DMPC.
Because, I'll tell you now, the more cool you imagine he might be, the lamer he actually is.
Literally a non entity.
Keep seething my friends and I have fun playing a game the way we wish to play it.
You decided to double down on "I'm bad at math, and instead of effeciently balancing the equation, I am introducing a waste of time and space who is tipping the scales without providing any value."
If your NPC provided some kind of real value, perhaps by acting as a foil to help bring certain PC traits into greater prominence, you'd be better off. Instead, you've decided to slap an unneccesary and awkward mechanical band-aid on your inflated problem, and then lie to your players who don't know any better. Or, in the worst case, you've actually convinced yourself you can't balance a two-person game effectively.
GM/Player communication isn't always clear, especially with certain kinds of criticisms. As much as you want to tell me your players enjoy you slowing down the game to include a completely unneccesary character, I really can only say they might not be as upfront about the issue as I am being. Or, they are genuinely too dumb to understand basic algebra, which you really shouldn't keep pretending to be.
>reeee stop playing the game the way you and your players already discussed and agreed is fun for everyone.
>your playing Wong!
>your having fun WRONG!
kek. Your so mad my friends and I are having fun.
You type alot of words but your reading comprehension is bad.
I already previously stated I balanced the game around two players, which my players didn't like because enemies die too fast, I gave them too many magic items/potions/xp etc..., there's not enough monsters. So I brought the difficulty back up they didn't like that much either because now it's harder for them but there's only two of them. So they tried playing two characters which they really hated. After that I suggested they buy hirelings instead that i can run as neutral npcs, which they also hated because hirelings suck (they're not real players!) Frustrated, I shat out a nameless, no personality, non action taking PC character to shore up their lack of magical ability. I geared the game towards 3 people and my two slightly (more than slightly to be frank) autistic friends have been happy with the game.
Our group of 6 had been playing d&d since high-school and its only since 2019 that the group fractured with people moving and starting families. I wasnt the original DM but I took on the challenge to keep what was left of our friend group intact. My two tism bros don't like change, they've been playing the same way our entire friendship together. They both choose the same class, almost always make their characters twin brothers, usually choosing character names that start with the same letter (Barric & Borric are their current guys. 2 battlemaster bros). They don't get along with most other people and new players put their teeth on edge.
Hopefully this clears up any misunderstandings that are causing your booty to be blasted about a game you have zero involvement in. You can also stop headcannoning what's going on in my games too.
>which my players didn't like because enemies die too fast, I gave them too many magic items/potions/xp etc.
I'm actually mildly impressed by just how incompetent you've convinced yourself you are, all in your efforts to convince me the same thing. By all means, you've definitely convinced me at this point.
Also, please remember that I'm not the one who keeps insisting that you suck at balancing combat. You're the one telling me, laboriously, that the only way you figured out how to mechanically balance a 2 person party was to make it 3 people. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, that you were just being dishonest, because it's quite easy to end a lie, but you'd much rather convince me that you're actually kind of stupid. If that's the way you want to roll, I guess that's you, though I have to say that's a much harder problem to fix.
Maybe take a second spin on the whole high school thing and pay attention in math class this time around. Who knows? You might even end up with new friends who can actually do rudimentary equations.
Lastly, you seem pretty defensive about your "fun." If you didn't want to be judged for doing things in a dumb way, don't do them in a dumb way. Hell, you've gone out of your way to explain to me how dumb you and your friends are, so it's kind of weird that it's striking a nerve for someone to agree with you that you're dumb.
>I'm actually mildly impressed by just how incompetent you've convinced yourself you are, all in your efforts to convince me the same thing. By all means, you've definitely convinced me at this point.
I'm actually impressed your reading comprehension is so low. My friends are autistic. Thier complaints about the balancing were foundless because it was about the game not being the same as it was when there was all of us playing. To hard, too easy, or just right wouldn't have mattered to them. They literally see the game as us vs. the monsters and the game wasn't fun with them (not me included) against the monsters. The game to them is about beating back evil with their friends and crunching mad numbers. They love them big numbers.
Simple as.
Anon, I mean this as no insult and as a person who spends alot of time with autistic people you should go get checked to see if your on the spectrum. Inability to understand other people's perspectives is a major sign of autism. Sorry about the reading comprehension thing if you actually turn out to be autistic BTW. I don't like to kick down.
Much love anon.
>my friends are dumb
>i am dumb and keep trying to invent excuses for why I can't balance encounters for two people, even though half of my complaints are "they didn't like the skins I was wrapping my numbers in!"
Here's hoping you walk away from this conversation with a seed of doubt. You've already admitted you're dumb, and dumb people take a long time to learn basic things, so I'm not expecting a sudden eureka moment where you start seeing RPGs like Neo did at the end of the Matrix. The best I can hope for is that somewhere down the line, you stop to appreciate just how far you went with your excuses to justify your DMPC's existence, my poor, elementary-school educated long-suffering DM who is bullied by his autistic players.
I'm sorry your upsetti about this anon.
I'm serious though, go to the doctor and get checked for autism. It might help you with alot of the issues you are experiencing in life.
>You're upset! You're upset!
>you actually care about me!
Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to lead you on like that. I only care that you do dumb things and that it's easy to point out how dumb they are. Whether you remain stupid is really all on you.
>inability to understand another perspective
>low reading comprehension
>fixation on minor details
>getting angry over minor disagreement
Your ticking quite a few boxes anon.
I return your own words to you.
Autism is a hell of a condition. Sometimes it's mild enough to allow someone to slip through society unnoticed. People like this tend to fall into the cracks of society and become outcasts of some kind or other. They suffer from depression, anger, and lack of proper social interactions. Alot of times they project all these negative emotions outward and become genuinely negative people to be around.
Anons, if you think you might be autistic, talk to your doctor. Get help.
Don't be like this guy.
It's great! You get to have a character that levels with the party so that you get to have fun when you trade the DM/GM reigns off to another player (whose character becomes DMPC or simply out of the game for some reason, such as the reason for the adventure or quest or whatever).
Anyway, *this* is important:
DO NOT OUTSHINE THE PARTY.
Play to survive, but not necessarily to win.
Be ready to have your DMPC do dumb shit just to advance the story, like Merry & Pippen throwing stones into the Watcher's Pool at the Gates of Moria.
Oh, and try to be ordinary, but cover some sort of gap in the party, such as a cleric or fighter might if everyone else is a special snowflake thief or magic user or assassin or whatever. It's actually quite liberating just being a "boring" fighter helping to protect your party while your players try to do more interesting things than kinetic combat.
the line between a DMPC and a regular helper NPC is more about whether or not the character is a railroad attendant than anything else.
you got away with it probably by just not having the character do much beyond things the players asked them to do