Returning DM in need of some help regarding DMPCs

[lytokk]

For starters, its been a few years since I've actually gotten to play D&D, either as a DM or as a player, and after finally moving back around my gaming group, we want to get a game moving. I've DMed a bit since I gamed with my group, mostly online in a Neverwinter Nights setting, so I've gotten some more experience under my belt, so I'm sure I'll be able to run a good game for them.
The problem comes in with most of my players being very rusty, and only having 2 people wanting to play anymore, with the possibility of more coming in later. Encounter balancing is one of my weakest attributes, and the major thing I want to avoid is a session 1 TPK, so I've thought about running a DMPC for the thing, and I know that's a cardinal rule of DMing that I'll be breaking. My intent is to put the character into whatever role I think is missing from the party.
My worry is, am I actually having a good idea, or is it my desire to play again overriding my DMness and talking myself into playing a character? We're also going to be on a rotating DM system, keeping the same characters but changing the DM, staying in the same setting. Though I guess that's a different question in and of itself if that's even a good idea, because we're playing in the world I've been putting together for the past few years.

[Aegis013]

Having a useful NPC that the party chooses to invite on adventures and having a DMPC have wildly different connotations. You really have to divorce yourself from any attachment to the NPC in the event that he 1. dies, 2. annoys the players and they tell him to bug off, 3. whatever else, otherwise you've ended up with a DMPC and it's too easy to meta/show favoritism to your own guy. Typically those are not good DM qualities.

A couple of alternate possibilities would be allowing the two players to each control two characters, or allowing them to Gestalt their characters so they will be capable of covering more roles.

[lytokk]

if it comes to a situation between one of them dying and the DMPC, I'd gladly kill off the DMPC, of course I naturally play Lawful Good types who are going to do that anyway. The only reason I don't want to call him an NPC is the idea when one of the other players takes over as DM, I'll have a PC right there who's already associated with the party.

Also, I'm not familiar with the gestalt idea, isn't that just multiclassing?

[Aegis013]

Gestalt is a rules variant introduced in Unearthed Arcana, but it's on the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm), it basically allows you to have two class progressions instead of one for your character. You get the better of saves, skills, HP, and BAB from the two classes, and class features from both.

So for example, a person could play a Sorcerer//Rogue and be both the stealthy trap-finding skill guy and the primary arcane caster for the group.

[John Longarrow]

Rather than a DMPC, I'd suggest going old school and let the players hire hirelings. Use the elite array instead of good stats and have them single class. If your two players want to be a wizard and a Cleric, let the Cleric request a warrior (CLASS) from the church to accompany them. Let the wizard hit up an old friend who's got a connection to a good burglar (read small Rogue) to do scouting for the party and trap finding. Neither will be as good as a PC in the same roll, and both will be very one dimensional in what they should be doing.

This avoids having your hirelings come off as better than the characters. They do what the boss tells them to and expect to be paid and get a cut of the loot.

Once your group goes, the hirelings remain as NPCs the party still keeps in contact with, so they can become a source for plot hooks.

[lytokk]

We've never been a group of powergamers, so the gestalt might be a little over the top for the group. I can suggest the dual characters, but they're more of the role variety in terms of play style.

I guess I could always have a set of npc's they could hire out should they need the help.

The only big trick would be, come time for me to switch to a player from a DM, due to the structure of the first adventure, the option of new characters is going to be limited, so one of those NPCs will more than likely become my PC.

I suppose thats going to be another problem we're going to encounter, when we switch DMs, what's that player going to do with their character?

[Aegis013]

Gestalt doesn't have to be used for powergaming purposes. It simply opens more options up, especially if you're going to only have two or three characters in group. Ever seen a cool prestige class that just wasn't quite good enough but had a cool feel to it? Use it in gestalt with another class so that it ends up still being decent.

I merely suggest Gestalt because it allows small groups to cover more desired party roles, which seemed like something that might be useful to your group in your circumstance.

Also, you could always just have story reasons for why X or Y character has personal matters to attend to during this session but will rejoin the party later. They don't even have to be specific... could be "This character has personal matters to attend to and will be splitting from the party for the session."

[vendur]

I had two play groups growing up, one only 2 players --sometimes only one of which could show up the day in question, and the other was usually a 3-5 person group.

The smaller group was actually just as fun as the larger group, because it actually did let me play a PC a bit. A rugged outdoorsman who's a crack shot with the bow or a fresh set of tracks, a sweet talking lady's man who just want to sneak into the castle to get a gander at the princess's pearls; a neophyte cleric sent by his/her order to retrieve and artifact from the same undead-filled cesspool your Pcs have a quest to do something in?

Don't think of "hireable" NPcs as your own DM character. they are no different than any other NPC in the universe. They just happen to fight alongside your PCs for awhile.

the Operative word being "awhile". I always make sure they either disappear, die (usually heroically), or turn on the party for some reason or another.

[lytokk]

The gist I'm getting here is that my desire to play is seriously overwriting my better judgement. Glad I asked about this.

Have a handful of NPCs on hand that can accompany the PC's in their adventures, build them around single minded utility. Sounds good.

A second part to this would be when I switch from player to DM. A big part of the setting is re-colonizing an area that had been abandoned for hundreds of years due to a demonic corruption. Because of the lack of availability of a population in which to draw a new PC for me from, is it bad form for me to grab one of the NPCs I had made and use them as a character? Or is that again crossing a line? The good thing about this colony drive, its giving me the chance to use every character concept I've come up with in the past few years.

The DM switch won't be a session by session thing, we could be switching DM's for a period of months from time to time. When it comes to keeping the party balance, the DM's character can always pretty easily be doing something on their own to stay within the range.

Thanks for all the help guys. I do really appreciate it, and I hope I'm not coming off as brushing off your advice, I've been told I sound like that a lot.

[John Longarrow]

I'd have a totally separate character that isn't being "Hired" by the party. This avoids issues down the road. If you can have a reason to be busy otherwise, just have that reason in effect now (even though no one else knows about it... yet) and have it finish when you rotate DMs. Something like:

"Oh, YOUR the group that's been clearing out all those undead leftovers. I heard about that. Sounds like you had a worse time than me an Tony. We've been out finding and mapping planar weak spots, just to make sure nothing nasty pops out as a surprise. Since your heading to deal with Glibligling's cave, mind if I tag along? We found a lot of weak spots out that way and I'd love to get a chance to shut them down!"

You get to have a life besides the party and you get to bring something in that's not always obvious to the other player. The DM gets to have their character head off to deal with what ever is needed.

[ericp65]

You can still be a player and a DM at the same time, if you can separate character knowledge from DM knowledge well enough. Most games I've been part of have seen the Storyteller also playing a character in the party, and it's rarely been questionable.

[JusticeZero]

Never, ever, ever use an NPC to do absolutely anything that a party member can do in any way, ever.

This, by the way, means that you almost never need to add a "healer", because as soon as you drop a wand of CLW in front of them, they will realize that UMD isn't hard to get even if they don't have a Paladin or Ranger to use it. Seed treasure with healing items, don't drag an NPC along.

[JusticeZero]

You can still be a player and a DM at the same time, if you can separate character knowledge from DM knowledge well..
That is an unreasonably vast "if". The worst games I've been in had DMPCs, and it was almost always because the DMPC outdid me at something my character was supposed to be good at. Even if it is only a secondary focus.

[lytokk]

I've played in 2 games with a DMPC, the first was as far as I believe the best way to do it. The PC was slightly overpowered, but we all were. Treasure was tailored to us all. If the DM wanted to give his PC something, all of us got something equivalent, tailored to our characters and playstyle. I really had a lot of fun in that game. His character was a frontline fighter, I was a ninja, and we had a gnome wizard. Whenever it came to problem solving, he left it up to me and the wizard to take care of, unless the solution to the problem just wouldn't come to us, then his character would give a hint. Though, sometimes the hint was to throw us off, but it always got us thinking in another direction.
In combat, the DMPC got the chance to show how awesome he was, but when my initiative came around, I got the chance to show how awesome I was. Neither me or the wizard felt like we were in the shadow of the DMPC, and that was the DMPC playstyle I was going for. The DMPC roleplayed with us, but never railroaded us into doing things his way.
The other time I ran into a DMPC, it was as bad as expected. The DM was finishing up the campaign, and he had this character brought in from a previous campaign I DMed, during a time period when I took over as DM during the campaign we were playing. His character became the be all end all, and when his character died, a huge shrine got built in his honor. My character died in a bit more of an explosive fashion (blowing himself up and the entire pantheon) and was completely ignored in the epilogue. Granted, I'm still somewhat bitter over the end of that game, but it did give me a good idea of what not to do, in comparison as to how to do a DMPC right. Just simply as a player character, staying in the middle of the party, only offering advice when the players seem completely stuck on something.

[Pentagon]

I have been umming and arring over this. As when you GM you do miss playing... my solution is to have an intelligent weapon given out that will be my 'DMPC...'

Therefore I get to roleplay a bit and have fun. But the players are hardly going to feel overshadowed by a magic sword... makes for some fun sessions if the player utterly fails his will power test...

Pentagon