On the subject of balance...

[Strigon]

This is a two-part question, both pertaining to balancing two extremes, and both seemingly subjective.

The first is the distinction between NPC's and DMPC's.
It seems to be a fairly common belief around here that DMPC's are awful, or at least difficult enough to get right that they should be met with suspicion. Which is a fair point of view.
But, every campaign I've ever heard of has had some NPC's. Every NPC is played by the DM, so they're similar to DMPC's.
My question is, what's the difference?
Is it purely a question of why the character is there (An NPC being there as a plot element, while a DMPC is there to play with the PC's), or is any NPC who adventures with the party a DMPC? Or is that term even exclusively used for the NPC's used by the DM to have a power trip?
I'm curious as to what you playgrounders think of the distinction.

The second question I know will get everyone extremely vocal, because it's an alignment question. About good vs. evil.
Yay.

The question is, why does everyone think evil overrides good?
A few examples.
Let's say there's a guy who is very... unstable.
He likes some people, and he'll do anything for them, and be extremely altruistic towards them; a stereotypical NG character.
But other people, he despises. He's sadistic, cruel, and torturous to them. And these two people are in even numbers.

My guess is everyone here would label him either Neutral or Evil. Yet he does good and evil in even quantities, so the only explanation is that evil outweighs good. (Of course, my prediction here could be way off, in which case feel free to tell me, because my entire point is based on this being right.)

The other example is this.
Everyone can think of, quite easily, an evil character with a soft spot towards one particular demographic, be it children, elves, miners, redheads, whatever. They could act good towards those people, but still be evil.
Yet, nobody seems to believe that a character who is good to everyone but one demographic could be good. Even if there is a 9/10 chance that you're good to somebody, that 1/10 seems to be enough for many people here to label him as neutral - even evil - despite him being far more good.

Any thoughts?

[Vhaidara]

This is a two-part question, both pertaining to balancing two extremes, and both seemingly subjective.

The first is the distinction between NPC's and DMPC's.
It seems to be a fairly common belief around here that DMPC's are awful, or at least difficult enough to get right that they should be met with suspicion. Which is a fair point of view.
But, every campaign I've ever heard of has had some NPC's. Every NPC is played by the DM, so they're similar to DMPC's.
My question is, what's the difference?
Is it purely a question of why the character is there (An NPC being there as a plot element, while a DMPC is there to play with the PC's), or is any NPC who adventures with the party a DMPC? Or is that term even exclusively used for the NPC's used by the DM to have a power trip?
I'm curious as to what you playgrounders think of the distinction.

That's the distinction exactly. Further, they aren't a bad thing. They are bad when used badly. Namely: When the DMPC is the main character and the campaign revolves around them (barring the approval of this by the players) or when the GMPC is significantly more powerful than the rest. I've heard of GMPCs who were gestalt in non-gestalt campaigns, ones who got custom classes/races/feats/weapons/other that was simply imbalanced, overoptimization (playing a full OP wizard in a party of newbie with things like a monk, a rogue, and a healbot cleric), and even right out cheating (why does he crit EVERY attack?)


The second question I know will get everyone extremely vocal, because it's an alignment question. About good vs. evil.
Yay.

The question is, why does everyone think evil overrides good?
A few examples.
Let's say there's a guy who is very... unstable.
He likes some people, and he'll do anything for them, and be extremely altruistic towards them; a stereotypical NG character.
But other people, he despises. He's sadistic, cruel, and torturous to them. And these two people are in even numbers.

My guess is everyone here would label him either Neutral or Evil. Yet he does good and evil in even quantities, so the only explanation is that evil outweighs good. (Of course, my prediction here could be way off, in which case feel free to tell me, because my entire point is based on this being right.)

I would be inclined to agree that he would either be E or N on the cusp of E. The more random it is, the more it leans towards E (though honestly this is more Crazy).


The other example is this.
Everyone can think of, quite easily, an evil character with a soft spot towards one particular demographic, be it children, elves, miners, redheads, whatever. They could act good towards those people, but still be evil.
Yet, nobody seems to believe that a character who is good to everyone but one demographic could be good. Even if there is a 9/10 chance that you're good to somebody, that 1/10 seems to be enough for many people here to label him as neutral - even evil - despite him being far more good.

Any thoughts?

This is actually pretty much how my favorite LE characters work. He has this one group that he is out to advance (most classically his town/city). And he will kill EVERYTHING in the way.

The most extreme example I've made was a CE character who was completely in love with someone. If it was necessary to make her happy, he would gladly burn the entire Material Plane (and all the others) TO THE GROUND AND THEN SET THE ASHES ON FIRE.

[Yahzi]

The first is the distinction between NPC's and DMPC's.
What Kelederath said. Except DMPCs are always a bad thing. NPCs are great. NPCs can help the party, lead the party, boss the party, give the party stuff or take it away. DMPCs, no matter how innocuous, are badwrong. The DM cannot simultaneously adjudicate the rules and play by the rules. It's like having sex with yourself - fine to do in private, but not really cool in public. I mean, even if you're at an orgy, it's still kinda rude to focus on yourself.


The question is, why does everyone think evil overrides good?
Because one act of murder makes you a murderer. No amount of puppy kisses makes up for that. This is basic morality 101. Moral acts are not fungible; you cannot use one good act to pay off another bad act. The only path of redemption is to make up for the specific bad act (which admittedly for murder can be a bit difficult if you don't have access to Raise Dead).

Or to put it in the popular parlance, what do you get when you add a teaspoon of ****e to a ham sandwich? You get a ****e sandwich.

I think the way to handle D&D alignment is to do it in ever-widening circles of who you consider worthy of moral treatment. That allows for Good characters who kill monsters and Evil characters who kill their own kind.

[NichG]

There's no reason for Good and Evil to be symmetric, any more than Law and Chaos are symmetric. Instead, they're distinct in character, but in ways which balance out on the whole. There is more Evil than Good, but Evil tends to be more self-destructive in the long-term and Good tends to be more cooperative. There's an infinity of Chaotic Evil demons, but they're perfectly stagnant in a war against what is only a finite number of Lawful Evil devils.

So it makes sense that Good can be more stringent than Evil, even in a 'balanced' cosmos, because they don't have to be identical and opposite in every detail, they just have to be balanced in the sum of the entirety of what they are.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with an unbalanced cosmos either. In general, D&D settings favor the Good - the heroes almost always win. If there is a balancing factor, its that in the rare cases when Evil wins it tends to win big.

[Kioran]

I used to be guilty of getting too fond of certain NPCs or running quasi DMPCs - and the problem with that is indeed once the characters feel the story is not about them. By now, if I do have a "DMPC" or an NPC I am too fond of for my own good, I force myself to limit their appearances. Make them less crucial to the plot or only let them surface every 2-3 sessions.

As for good vs. Evil, especially the in-group/out-group thing: Having a certain group of people, circle of friends etc. and treating them different is a very important factor in weighing acts. Basically, an in-group, and the smaller it is the more pronounced this is, is basically still a pretty narrow extension of the character himself or his personal sphere. An evil general who is fiercely protective of his family can still be considered mostly egoistic, because serving his family is ALMOST like serving himself. (sidetone: This is why both Haley and her father are CN, not CG. Their "good", as it is, is almost entirely limited to their in-group).

Good means selflessness, being good as a general principle to the world in general. If the overarching, and more prevalent motivation is evil, the character is evil. That said, most characters should be neutral, so someone who is merely callous towards most people is probably neutral, evil takes actual malice or extreme ruthlessness.

In your particular example, unless the character as a general rule does a lot more good than evil, he is probably still evil. If his evil acts and good acts are rare and interspersed with a lot of neutral or ambiguous acts, he is probably neutral. But being good requires an actual commitment to greater good imo, not just being nice to people around oneself.

[Telonius]

The line between DMPC and NPC is a little bit blurry. How involved a "helpful" NPC can get, will vary from situation to situation, and sometimes an NPC does need to have the spotlight. But from there, it's a matter of degree.

Two pretty clear mechanical markers of a DMPC: wealth based on the WBL chart (rather than the NPC wealth chart); and tracking XP for the character. If it has those, it's almost certainly a DMPC.

For the alignment question ... pretty clearly Evil (assuming it's sane enough to have an alignment). If a person saves the life of every brunette they come across, but tortures every blonde to death if they have the opportunity, that's what we call a serial killer. Having a preferred target doesn't make them less of a monster.

[Vhaidara]

What Kelederath said. Except DMPCs are always a bad thing.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is called an opinion. Most likely from someone who has had bad experiences with GMPCs.


NPCs are great. NPCs can help the party, lead the party, boss the party, give the party stuff or take it away.

No argument here.


DMPCs, no matter how innocuous, are badwrong. The DM cannot simultaneously adjudicate the rules and play by the rules.

And here's where you're wrong. You want to know how I know this? I've played with people who can. I've played with people who did.


It's like having sex with yourself - fine to do in private, but not really cool in public. I mean, even if you're at an orgy, it's still kinda rude to focus on yourself.

This is just kind of disturbing. Also completely irrelevant and inaccurate.

[Deophaun]

DMPCs are bad not because they're guaranteed to ruin a game or it's impossible to have fun with them. They're bad because there is always a better option.

Now, how to distinguish between an NPC and a DMPC is pretty easy: Do your players have to watch you play with yourself? If so, you're running a DMPC. And you're going to go blind.

[Urpriest]

DMPCs in D&D are bad because you're either employing them for bad reasons (wanting more control over what the party does, wanting that special "I am a PC" feeling, power fantasy at the expense of the players), or you're using them to make a bad situation more feasible (groups with fewer than the expected number of PCs, groups that need some amount of hand-holding/help) when there are generally more optimal, if more difficult, solutions (find more people for your group, write a campaign that your PCs are able to handle by themselves).

[Vhaidara]

DMPCs in D&D are bad because you're either employing them for bad reasons (wanting more control over what the party does, wanting that special "I am a PC" feeling, power fantasy at the expense of the players), or you're using them to make a bad situation more feasible (groups with fewer than the expected number of PCs, groups that need some amount of hand-holding/help) when there are generally more optimal, if more difficult, solutions (find more people for your group, write a campaign that your PCs are able to handle by themselves).

Or, in the situation I've played in, wanting to play. I had a while where the only other person I knew who played was my cousin. He would GM, run a GMPC, and center the campaign around me. The only time that didn't happen was when he actually made an awesome character, so the first chance I saw a plot hook to explore his GMPC's character, I chose to take it. That was still one of my favorite campaigns to this day.

[Red Fel]

This is a two-part question, both pertaining to balancing two extremes, and both seemingly subjective.

Come at me, bro.


The first is the distinction between NPC's and DMPC's.

As others have said, it's as you point out. An NPC is a non-Player Character. It's not a PC, it's a plot device, like a Dragon, or a mountain, or Wee Jas. It exists as an object within the setting. A DMPC is a DM's Player Character - it is, by its nature, on a more equal footing with the other PCs. It is a peer, not a plot device, yet is operated by the DM.

I will not join those who say that DMPCs are universally bad, in part because I loathe blanket generalizations. I will say, however, that the appearance of a DMPC is a yellow flag (not a red flag), because of the potential for mal- or misfeasance. DMPCs can be done well, I know that, but they also create a tremendous conflict of interest. The DM must walk a very fine line when operating the DMPC; too much power and he's a showoff, too little and he's a worthless appendage and an annoyance; too much foresight and he's metagaming, too little and he's leading the PCs into constant traps deliberately. It's very easy to fall into one of many traps with the DMPC; to use him as a crutch, to use him to metagame, to use him to railroad, to use him as a pokedex, to use him to be the star, to use him to progress the plot, or to use him as an excuse to play because you really, REALLY want to play. Too many things can go wrong.


The question is, why does everyone think evil overrides good?

Everyone? That's a bold statement. I don't think "everyone" on this board - or even "everyone" who has read this thread - agrees one wit about good versus evil.

Now, let's look at your examples.
Let's say there's a guy who is very... unstable.
He likes some people, and he'll do anything for them, and be extremely altruistic towards them; a stereotypical NG character.
But other people, he despises. He's sadistic, cruel, and torturous to them. And these two people are in even numbers.

Okay. Here's the thing. What you're describing is a kind person who is capable of great cruelty. Or, alternatively, a cruel person capable of great kindness. Now, by D&D's objective morality, the cruelty is the deciding factor. Not because Evil "overrides" Good, but because a Good person wouldn't be needlessly cruel.

Under D&D's objective morality standard, there are lines Good will not cross. The same is not true of Evil. As a result, when a person is the sort of person who regularly and willingly crosses those lines, even though he might have a kind heart or the best of intentions, he is an Evil (or at least Neutral) person.

It's not that the Evil acts "override" the Good. It's that the Good acts are incidental - he is defined by his willingness to perform those acts of Evil. It looks like Evil is "overriding" Good because the alternative would be proving a negative. It's easy to say "he performs Evil acts, therefore is non-Good." It's hard to prove the negative - "he doesn't perform Evil acts, therefore is non-Evil." It's easy to show what someone does, hard to list all the things they don't do. Y'see?

It's not a question of relative weight of Good and Evil. It's the fact that he willingly, regularly engages in Evil at all; he crosses a line Good people won't cross.


Everyone can think of, quite easily, an evil character with a soft spot towards one particular demographic, be it children, elves, miners, redheads, whatever. They could act good towards those people, but still be evil.
Yet, nobody seems to believe that a character who is good to everyone but one demographic could be good. Even if there is a 9/10 chance that you're good to somebody, that 1/10 seems to be enough for many people here to label him as neutral - even evil - despite him being far more good.

It's possible for a Good character to have a deep-seated, pathological hatred of a given demographic. Rangers are the perfect example. (Favored Enemy says what?) But there's a line between hating an entire demographic and being explicitly cruel and/or genocidal towards them. A CG Ranger, for example, could have Favored Enemy: Humanoid (Goblinoid). Goblinoids could have killed his family, burned his village to the ground, salted his farms, and played kickball with his dog Pongo. He hates them with a passion, and kills every Goblinoid with whom he engages in combat.

But there is a line. He kills, but he doesn't torture. He also doesn't murder people who come waving the flag of truce. He won't kill the Goblin Cleric in town, for example, nor the Goblinoid children in the orphanage. He has no qualms about killing those who fight him, but when he comes upon a grove of peaceful Goblinoid Druids, he won't slaughter them all in their sleep. He won't like them, and he doesn't have to be friendly, but he's not a murderer.

That's the line again. If he's good to everyone, but completely murderous to a single demographic, he's a person who is willing to be completely murderous based entirely on demographics. That's decidedly non-Good.

[Jormengand]

DMPCs in D&D are bad because you're either employing them for bad reasons (wanting more control over what the party does, wanting that special "I am a PC" feeling, power fantasy at the expense of the players), or you're using them to make a bad situation more feasible (groups with fewer than the expected number of PCs, groups that need some amount of hand-holding/help) when there are generally more optimal, if more difficult, solutions (find more people for your group, write a campaign that your PCs are able to handle by themselves).

So duct tape is bad because you could pay a few thousand pounds (that you don't have) at a minor repair job and it would, in some abstract way, be better?

And hang on, wanting to be a PC is bad? This is news to me.

In a game I'm running, I have a DMPC. Why? Because one of our players ASKED ME TO. And you know what? They like the character and are happy to have him running around with them. But of course that is BadWrongFun. Clearly. I should feel ashamed?

[Vhaidara]

It's possible for a Good character to have a deep-seated, pathological hatred of a given demographic. Rangers are the perfect example. (Favored Enemy says what?) But there's a line between hating an entire demographic and being explicitly cruel and/or genocidal towards them. A CG Ranger, for example, could have Favored Enemy: Humanoid (Goblinoid). Goblinoids could have killed his family, burned his village to the ground, salted his farms, and played kickball with his dog Pongo. He hates them with a passion, and kills every Goblinoid with whom he engages in combat

Red, I agree with everything you said until this, because you got it backwards. There's one demographic the character has a soft spot for. As in he's a massive, murderous tool to everyone who isn't a child, a miner, a woman, a kender, etc.

[Red Fel]

Red, I agree with everything you said until this, because you got it backwards. There's one demographic the character has a soft spot for. As in he's a massive, murderous tool to everyone who isn't a child, a miner, a woman, a kender, etc.

I was on the second example. He said that if an Evil character has a soft spot for a single demographic, he's still Evil (with which I agree); he was asking about a Good character who has a hate-on for a single demographic. I was answering that latter part.

[Vhaidara]

I was on the second example. He said that if an Evil character has a soft spot for a single demographic, he's still Evil (with which I agree); he was asking about a Good character who has a hate-on for a single demographic. I was answering that latter part.

I actually completely misunderstood that the first time I read it. I am sorry for questioning you, Overlord.

[Red Fel]

I actually completely misunderstood that the first time I read it. I am sorry for questioning you, Overlord.

You have failed us for the last time. Now you must learn the price of failure. *shoots random underling*

But, y'see, I also provide dental coverage. So I'm Good, not Evil!

[ericgrau]

The easiest way to avoid a DMPC is to make him 2 levels or more lower level than the lowest level party member. That way the PCs get to shine and be the heroes. Nonelite array and NPC class levels help too. No normal NPC should have the elite array and PC class levels. Those are supposed to be for the elite, for NPCs that are like PCs. So you can make an expert who is a good guide, a warrior who is a good backup tank, or an adept to supply some missing magic. They may help but their options are so limited that they're both easy to play and it's hard for them to take over. Not that important world figures helping the party can't be elite. Just keep their level low enough or have them consider themselves too important to travel with the party, or let a real human take over that character.

"Equal parts good and evil" is just insanity. Try more realistic role-playing. Even full blown chaotic evil doesn't overtly commit evil acts purely for the sake of doing evil. There's always a motivation and usually it's a noble sounding one.

[Segev]

The difference between a DMPC and an NPC is focus and DM investment, really.

A DMPC is a character the DM identifies with on the same level as a player does his PC. It also tends to get at least as much screen time as PCs. That is only a tendency, however; if the DMPC shows up "rarely" (that is, once a session or every other session) but is still a central figure in resolving the plot such that his opinion (and usually the DM's) matters at least as much as the party's, he's a DMPC.

An NPC of such import would still not be a spotlight-stealer. The narrative weight would be on the PCs more than him, even if he is powerful and his opinion is important. His opinion also is less likely to be that of the DM. And, if the party doesn't like him, the DM is less likely to be personally hurt.



A good person can have bad behaviors. An evil person can have good behaviors. There are, as people have said, lines. Good people do not cross them without slipping.

I would say that a Good person who makes even a serious mistake - perhaps murder - could remain Good...but it would be difficult and require genuine remorse and atonement.

The thing about Evil is that, even if it has regular Pet The Dog moments, it doesn't need to feel remorse for them to remain Evil. It just needs to have no problem with wallowing on the far side of those lines that Good does not cross.


Actually, "Lines You Do Not Cross" are a good example altogether. Good comes off as more restrictive because it is self-constraining. (The fact that staying within those lines makes you better able to do more things is akin to the fact that strictly following a diet and exercise regimine makes you able to do more physical activities better.) Good people crossing lines pushes them to Neutral, and the more comfortable they are hanging out on the Neutral side of those lines, the less likely they are Good. They feel remorse for each toe across it, and will do their best to make up for it and try to never do it again.

Neutral people also have lines. These are the line between them and Evil. As with Good, if they are comfortable crossing those lines and hanging out in the Evil end of the pool, they are likely Evil.

(To go back to the health analogy, the health nut who has the occasional ice cream cone, but feels badly if he indulges too much and strives to avoid it thereafter to make up for it, is still a health nut. A guy who is comfortable indulging regularly, but strives to keep to a certain weight limit and/or maintain at least a reasonable adherence to regular exercise, is probably "neutral" in this respect. The guy who regularly overindulges and feels no compunction about eating entire dessert bars, even if he also enjoys the gym from time to time, is a glutton.)

For people to move out of Evil to Neutral, or Neutral to Good, they have to not just cross the line the other way, but actively refuse to cross it back again. They have to be uncomfortable with what they've done if they DO cross it back again.

For them, the "line" is where they start developing a conscience against a line-crossing activity. It's the very act of acknowledging that the line exists. That's the "sin" to the Evil side: acknowledging that there IS something "wrong" you could be doing, and striving to avoid it.

It's not "doing good" that makes you stop being evil. It's "avoiding evil."

[Flickerdart]

The alignment thing has been covered pretty well already.

To weigh in on the DMPC debate, there are situations where a DMPC has an excuse to exist. Mostly because D&D tries really hard to have niche protection, and if nobody wants to devote resources to healing or buffs or whatever, you need a guy for that. This can be solved in other ways (such as potions in every chest) but stapling a meek white mage to the party is a pretty good way of handling this. Keep the DMPC out of the spotlight and nobody will care.

"I want to play too" isn't a compelling argument, to me. A DM controls more characters than the players already, he doesn't need another. If you really must, just have a couple of recurring NPCs willing to help the party on the quests (sort of a "help me do the thing" instead of "go do the thing and report to me once the thing is done). If done correctly, the players will actually appreciate these NPCs - if, for instance, they advance the PCs' cause off-screen and advocate for them when interacting with various regional powers.

[atemu1234]

I think I can clarify what was meant by DMPCs always being bad; if they're not bad, then they're just relevant NPCs.

[Honest Tiefling]

So duct tape is bad because you could pay a few thousand pounds (that you don't have) at a minor repair job and it would, in some abstract way, be better?

And hang on, wanting to be a PC is bad? This is news to me.

In a game I'm running, I have a DMPC. Why? Because one of our players ASKED ME TO. And you know what? They like the character and are happy to have him running around with them. But of course that is BadWrongFun. Clearly. I should feel ashamed?

No, you should be proud. You can actually balance your DMPC well with the PCs and make it fun for everyone. Just...Remember for every good DMPC there are 100 bad ones. I played with one 10 levels higher then the party who stole all of the loot we gained. And that isn't even the worst example on these forums! That sort of experience is going to make people pretty damn cautious about another DMPC, even if it is a bit unfair.

[jedipotter]

But, every campaign I've ever heard of has had some NPC's. Every NPC is played by the DM, so they're similar to DMPC's.

In most games, a PC is special. They are a unique character. The whole world revolves around the PCs. And a lot of games give PC's all sorts of powers and abilities, mostly outside the game rules. Plot Armor, for example, will protect the PC from random harm. A monster that is just a round away from killing a group of PC's will ''suddenly'' just take them captive. And if a PC is taken captive their equipment they must have to play their class(spellbook, holy symbol) will be left close by so they can find it when they escape.In other words the PC's are the main characters of a movie or TV show.

Now a NPC is just a normal character. They don't have any of the special rules above the rules. And NPC is a guest star. And you get the Classic Star Trek Red Shirt: Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Lt. Jones all beam down to the planet, everyone knows that Lt. Jones will die before the next break. So an NPC can have anything, anything happen to them, randomly, at any time.

The DMPC is the first one, a PC. So they get all the perks of being a PC. And they get a big plus, the DM controls the whole game, and the DM controls the DMPC. So, in short, a DMPC can do anything.




The question is, why does everyone think evil overrides good?
Let's say there's a guy who is very... unstable.
He likes some people, and he'll do anything for them, and be extremely altruistic towards them; a stereotypical NG character. But other people, he despises. He's sadistic, cruel, and torturous to them. And these two people are in even numbers.

Most people see good as ''walking a line''. So you can do 99 good things a day, but as soon as you do one evil thing...your evil. It's a very odd and unfair way of looking at things, but it is how a lot of people think.

But not everyone. I'd say your guy is a fine NG character. He'd make a perfect half orc who hates the barbaric evil orcs and is good to everyone else. Or an elf that felt that way towards drow.



Everyone can think of, quite easily, an evil character with a soft spot towards one particular demographic, be it children, elves, miners, redheads, whatever. They could act good towards those people, but still be evil.
Yet, nobody seems to believe that a character who is good to everyone but one demographic could be good. Even if there is a 9/10 chance that you're good to somebody, that 1/10 seems to be enough for many people here to label him as neutral - even evil - despite him being far more good.


This is just the modern view creeping in, the idea that ''good=you must like everyone''. Or at least pretend you do. Though it's a fun one. People can say ''you must like all orcs'', but then they say ''oh, but it's ok to hate dragons''. But wait, I thought it was ''everyone''? And the answer is simply that ''everyone'' is ''just who they say everyone is''.

[Segev]

Most people see good as ''walking a line''. So you can do 99 good things a day, but as soon as you do one evil thing...your evil. It's a very odd and unfair way of looking at things, but it is how a lot of people think. Eh... no, that's a straw man. Few people say "one evil thing," unless that evil thing is crossing a moral event horizon.

Now, if you have a particularly vile habit, but play nice all the rest of the time...you're probably neutral at best, because having vile habits makes you a bad guy. For instance, if Jack the Ripper is the sweetest, kindest fellow to all who know him...except he goes out and murders prostitutes every night...he's still evil. He's an unrepentant murderer.


But not everyone. I'd say your guy is a fine NG character. He'd make a perfect half orc who hates the barbaric evil orcs and is good to everyone else. Or an elf that felt that way towards drow. It depends how he treats those he hates. Being rougher than he should, having a knee-jerk prejudice, maybe kill-on-sight out of a genuine belief that giving them a chance only invites them to kill first? You could argue Good, still, though you're dangerously close to the line.

You cross the line when you start hunting them down, torturing them, killing them even if you have reason to doubt that the target du jour is guilty of anything... then you're a serial killer or a mass murderer, and you've crossed that line.

Cross it once, and you might fall only to Neutral. Recognize the error you made and seek to avoid repeating it, maybe even seek to atone, and you could recover or retail your Good alignment. But it's about the lines you are willing to cross, and how comfortable you are on the far side of them.

[jedipotter]

Eh... no, that's a straw man. Few people say "one evil thing," unless that evil thing is crossing a moral event horizon.

Well, of course a person can lie, cheat, steal, mislead, harm others indirectly, and change the rules for themselves.....and everyone will still say they are as good and pure as the wind driven snow.

But as soon as a good person does an evil act like murder....well, they are now evil.



You cross the line when you start hunting them down, torturing them, killing them even if you have reason to doubt that the target du jour is guilty of anything... then you're a serial killer or a mass murderer, and you've crossed that line.

The problem is your saying ''Good sits around and waits for evil to strike'' is a good thing. It's not, in both senses of the word. It's the horrible: evil folks live just on the other side of the river. Good folks ignore them. Evil folks move across the river and attack and kill a bunch of people. Oh, and now the good people will respond. Though if the good folk would have attacked first, all the good innocent people would not have had to die.



Cross it once, and you might fall only to Neutral. Recognize the error you made and seek to avoid repeating it, maybe even seek to atone, and you could recover or retail your Good alignment. But it's about the lines you are willing to cross, and how comfortable you are on the far side of them.

I never liked the ''one cross of a line and your doomed forever''.

A lot of good people, are in fact, not good people.....they are ''good people in name only''. They say they are good, and will act good, mostly in public, but they are really neutral or evil. They are just pretending to be good for things like social status.

[eggynack]

The problem is your saying ''Good sits around and waits for evil to strike'' is a good thing. It's not, in both senses of the word. It's the horrible: evil folks live just on the other side of the river. Good folks ignore them. Evil folks move across the river and attack and kill a bunch of people. Oh, and now the good people will respond. Though if the good folk would have attacked first, all the good innocent people would not have had to die.

What made the evil people evil before they crossed the river and killed a bunch of folk? If you're just crossing a river a slaughtering a bunch of folks due to what is presumably some difference in ideology or race or something, then you're really not much better than the evil folks attacking and killing a bunch of people.

[nedz]

Unless your setting is very, very strange: NPCs are essential — they make the world.

DMPCs on the other hand are Protagonists, and this is meant to be the PC's job. A minor character hanging around with the party is not a protagonist, even if they fill a useful role like heal-bot or even fighter. Protagonists take decisions and lead the story. Now the DM should have enough on his hands running the NPCs, the Antagonists, and the rest of the universe. It's for these reasons that I normally let the players run NPCs who accompany them. I also have them leave after a certain amount of time just to avoid the risk of them becoming bad — if the players are sorry to see the NPC leave/die/whatever: then I know they have not over-stayed their welcome.

This leads to a good test of whether your NPCs are bad: how do the players react when they leave ?

DMPCs often get confused with Mary Sues — which is understandable since the two are often one and the same — but that would be a different question.

[Segev]

Well, of course a person can lie, cheat, steal, mislead, harm others indirectly, and change the rules for themselves.....and everyone will still say they are as good and pure as the wind driven snow.

But as soon as a good person does an evil act like murder....well, they are now evil.What? Who ever said that a pattern of lying, cheating, stealing, and hurting others made you good?

Certainly not me. I said, flat out, that "one evil thing" is insufficient, by itself, unless it's crossing a moral event horizon. How do you go from "one thing is not enough" to "a lot of things are not enough, but one thing is?"




The problem is your saying ''Good sits around and waits for evil to strike'' is a good thing. It's not, in both senses of the word. It's the horrible: evil folks live just on the other side of the river. Good folks ignore them. Evil folks move across the river and attack and kill a bunch of people. Oh, and now the good people will respond. Though if the good folk would have attacked first, all the good innocent people would not have had to die.Again, where do I say that?

I spoke of you crossing lines making you evil if you're happy staying across them. That's it. I said nothing about how you react to others' evil.




I never liked the ''one cross of a line and your doomed forever''. Where did I say that? Read it again. I said that crossing it can propel you into neutral or evil territory. That's for particularly egregious acts.

Even then, remorse for it, desire to fix it, desire not to do it again and to BE good and NOT to stay evil...that can redeem you. It won't always be easy (it rarely will be easy), but it's possible.


A lot of good people, are in fact, not good people.....they are ''good people in name only''. They say they are good, and will act good, mostly in public, but they are really neutral or evil. They are just pretending to be good for things like social status.

Irrelevant to anything I was talking about.

[Vhaidara]

Where did I say that?

Wait, I thought you were around for the earlier threads? It is established that the entire world, as viewed by jedipotter, is black and white in every respect (wrong) and you said whatever he says you said.

[VincentTakeda]

I've got a wierd way of going about it that's tread a fine but not overboard line with my players. My gmpc is always immediately easy to spot and defies a lot of the above conventions... He's loud and boisterous and surrounded by beauty and success, and he's also handily more powerful than the rest of the party. There are plenty of folks who will judge a gmpc as bad simply on the condition that 'if we wanted to kill him and we couldn't... then he's a bad dmpc. If he's more powerful or more well off. We only like him if compared to us he sucks...'

In that way he can easily be labeled by folks as a 'horrible way to run a dmpc'... on the other hand...

There are pretty much 6 things I do with him that make him tolerable...


The fact that he defies the above 'bad dmpc conventions' is good news for my players.. My gmpc is super easy to spot a mile away and the party can choose to avoid him completely if they're not in the mood for him. Remember... Player agency is paramount! It allows a group who HATES gmpcs to see him immediately and avoid him completely if thats what they want.
He may be more powerful than the party but always in a pleasant and encouraging and respectful way. No talking down to them or putting them in their place. If he starts to not like them because they treat him poorly, he'll be done with them without a thought, so the party always has control of when its time to get rid of him and its handled in a non lethal but believable way. He's not the kind of guy who will murder you for a slight. He's pleasant and considerate and easy going. Not browbeating and condescending and arrogant.
He's not there to instruct the party in any way. No advice. No moral lessons. No pushing his values or concerns on to the party. He's not a babysitter paladin trying to keep the party in line.
He's offering the kind of assistance the party is looking for. If they are a first level party that needs to get on a ship and they can't afford to buy a ship... he's a ship captain. Sure I'll incentivise him a bit by making him the captain who's willing to offer the best deal, because i'd like to get to run him even for the littlest bit.
He is not available for any other kind of assistance and is otherwise largely completely ignorant of the party. They don't ever interact with him unless they choose to. He doesnt follow them around town or send them on missions. If they ask him questions he can be a decent but imperfect information source...
When its time for him to part ways, thats it.. off he goes... he might be able to leave a way to get in touch with the party if they need him again and he happens to be in the area, but a lot of times even that's not an option... Being a pc and all... He's got his own fish to fry and may be indisposed, so he's not an omnipresent reliable crutch.
He's not the best answer to every problem every time. His faculty to assist the party is chosen ahead of time and what he can and cannot do does not change to fit the needs of the party. He's not a one stop shop for everything the party needs. He's not there to solve ALL their problems. Just ONE of their problems.


I've been running gmpcs for 3 decades now and I rarely get negative feedback on how I run them. The pcs don't get the luxury of being able to kill him and take his stuff, but they absolutely set the limit on how much they interact with him, and I like to make him the best possible choice when the party needs access to something they normally shouldnt. The trick to making a gmpc that the party doesnt mind having access to is making him the kind of guy you'd want to hang out with in the first place, and by making him the kind of guy who's got other stuff going on so his entrance and exit from the campaign is believable and natural and only as much, if not considerably less than the party wants in the first place.

[Mystral]

This is a two-part question, both pertaining to balancing two extremes, and both seemingly subjective.

The first is the distinction between NPC's and DMPC's.
It seems to be a fairly common belief around here that DMPC's are awful, or at least difficult enough to get right that they should be met with suspicion. Which is a fair point of view.
But, every campaign I've ever heard of has had some NPC's. Every NPC is played by the DM, so they're similar to DMPC's.
My question is, what's the difference?
Is it purely a question of why the character is there (An NPC being there as a plot element, while a DMPC is there to play with the PC's), or is any NPC who adventures with the party a DMPC? Or is that term even exclusively used for the NPC's used by the DM to have a power trip?
I'm curious as to what you playgrounders think of the distinction.

I'd say that a good litmus test for DMPC is if the NPC accompanies the PCs on an adventure that isn't an escort mission for that NPC. Also, he has to be roughly as competent, or more competent than the pcs, or he is more of a cohort.

The second question I know will get everyone extremely vocal, because it's an alignment question. About good vs. evil.
Yay.


The question is, why does everyone think evil overrides good?
A few examples.
Let's say there's a guy who is very... unstable.
He likes some people, and he'll do anything for them, and be extremely altruistic towards them; a stereotypical NG character.
But other people, he despises. He's sadistic, cruel, and torturous to them. And these two people are in even numbers.

The alignment in question very much depends on the groups in question and his motives. If he is bad to goblinoids because they murdered his parents, he's neutral. If he slits the throat of any women he can reach because he has mommy issues, but he is extremely nice to every man, well...


Everyone can think of, quite easily, an evil character with a soft spot towards one particular demographic, be it children, elves, miners, redheads, whatever. They could act good towards those people, but still be evil.
Yet, nobody seems to believe that a character who is good to everyone but one demographic could be good. Even if there is a 9/10 chance that you're good to somebody, that 1/10 seems to be enough for many people here to label him as neutral - even evil - despite him being far more good.

Any thoughts?

One thing you have to remember is that being good is about doing it unconditionally. If you only good to someone if all the boxes are checked right, and you rape and kill everyone else, you aren't good.

[Deophaun]

He is not available for any other kind of assistance and is otherwise largely completely ignorant of the party.
This basically means he's not a DMPC.

[nedz]

The fact that he defies the above 'bad dmpc conventions' is good news for my players.. My gmpc is super easy to spot a mile away and the party can choose to avoid him completely if they're not in the mood for him. Remember... Player agency is paramount! It allows a group who HATES gmpcs to see him immediately and avoid him completely if thats what they want.
He's not there to instruct the party in any way. No advice. No moral lessons. No pushing his values or concerns on to the party. He's not a babysitter paladin trying to keep the party in line.


These two points means that he is not a protagonist and therefore not a DMPC. The bolded bit underlines this.



He's offering the kind of assistance the party is looking for. If they are a first level party that needs to get on a ship and they can't afford to buy a ship... he's a ship captain. Sure I'll incentivise him a bit by making him the captain who's willing to offer the best deal, because i'd like to get to run him even for the littlest bit.
He's not the best answer to every problem every time. His faculty to assist the party is chosen ahead of time and what he can and cannot do does not change to fit the needs of the party. He's not a one stop shop for everything the party needs. He's not there to solve ALL their problems. Just ONE of their problems.


So: He's helpful NPC.

I wouldn't expect this NPC to cause any problems, rather he would add some flavour to the game.

All your points are good BTW.

Ed: Formatting

[Doctor Awkward]

This is a two-part question, both pertaining to balancing two extremes, and both seemingly subjective.

The first is the distinction between NPC's and DMPC's.
It seems to be a fairly common belief around here that DMPC's are awful, or at least difficult enough to get right that they should be met with suspicion. Which is a fair point of view.
But, every campaign I've ever heard of has had some NPC's. Every NPC is played by the DM, so they're similar to DMPC's.
My question is, what's the difference?
Is it purely a question of why the character is there (An NPC being there as a plot element, while a DMPC is there to play with the PC's), or is any NPC who adventures with the party a DMPC? Or is that term even exclusively used for the NPC's used by the DM to have a power trip?
I'm curious as to what you playgrounders think of the distinction.


Aesthetically, there is basically no difference between the common descriptions of an NPC and a DMPC. They both are characters that are run by the DM. They both (hopefully) fulfill a role in the story. And if they adventure with the party, it's usually to cover an area that the party otherwise cannot cover (sending a rogue on a quest where stealth is required, and the party has no one stealthy, or a priest if no one in the party has any religious knowledge at all).

I always assumed that the term DMPC is something that is used by players as a derogatory term for an NPC that crosses the line, whether they are more effective than the entire party combined, get special abilities no one else has, or serve no purpose in the story other than the DM wants to play more than he wants to run, but no one else will run.


The second question I know will get everyone extremely vocal, because it's an alignment question. About good vs. evil.
Yay.
Woo-hoo


The question is, why does everyone think evil overrides good?
A few examples.
Let's say there's a guy who is very... unstable.
He likes some people, and he'll do anything for them, and be extremely altruistic towards them; a stereotypical NG character.
But other people, he despises. He's sadistic, cruel, and torturous to them. And these two people are in even numbers.

Ah. So, pretty much Vegeta?
That is exactly him during the Cell saga onwards: will do anything for Bulma and Trunks, hates pretty much everyone else.
His alignment during those arcs is solidly chaotic neutral, by the way.
That's pretty typical behavior for most 90's antihero type characters. And nearly all of them fall somewhere in the lawful-to-chaotic neutral range of alignments (Compare Judge Dredd to, say, the Punisher, or Spawn, or Dr. Manhattan, or Wolverine).


The other example is this.
Everyone can think of, quite easily, an evil character with a soft spot towards one particular demographic, be it children, elves, miners, redheads, whatever. They could act good towards those people, but still be evil.
Yet, nobody seems to believe that a character who is good to everyone but one demographic could be good. Even if there is a 9/10 chance that you're good to somebody, that 1/10 seems to be enough for many people here to label him as neutral - even evil - despite him being far more good.

Any thoughts?

Personally, I think whether or not the character is evil boils down to his role in the story. You have to remember that D&D is a fantasy world built upon very specific rules. One of those rules is extremely strict moral codes and very clear distinctions between right and wrong. The gray areas that crop up in real life simply don't occur there, just like there are no mustache-twirling villains in real life who do evil things for the sake of being evil.
A villain with standards is a common trope because it helps the audience empathize with them, sometimes even respect them. In much the same way, having a hero with a prejudice (or other fatal flaw) helps humanize them and create tension with the audience when it comes up in the plot, because you can never be sure how the hero will react to it.

[jaydubs]

Sometimes a player will get a second character to control - an animal companion, a hireling, and follower, or an absent player's character. What's the difference between that controlled character and the player's "main" character? Their PC?

I'd pose it's a matter of identification and emotional investment. The "main" character represents the player himself in the campaign universe. It's why I've heard several player respond with "I died" on losing their "main" character. But I've never heard a player say the same thing in regards to an animal companion, hireling, etc.

To that end, a DMPC is a character that the DM actually identifies with personally. The DMPC is a representation of him in that world. And that identification makes it extremely difficult to act impartially towards said DMPC.

Now I'll acknowledge that not everyone plays that way. Some people don't identify with their characters (though I think more people do than would admit it). I certainly identify with my characters, for the most part. Which is why I never add DMPCs (I suspect I'd have difficulty staying impartial).

DMPCs might not always hurt a campaign - but they're suspect because they apply an improper incentive to the DM. A DM should get most of their enjoyment from running an interesting campaign, and making sure their players have fun. A DM shouldn't get enjoyment from seeing a particular character (other than perhaps the PCs) succeed. It's a different (but similar) problem to Mary Sue NPCs. I think the two often get confused with one another, because both involve the DM overly favoring a character over the PCs themselves.

That's not to say I don't create NPCs that follow similar creation rules as the PCs, and who travel with and work with them. But I make sure they aren't DMPCs. By which I mean I never emotionally invest myself with them, and so it's easy to not try to give them spotlight. It's easy to let them die, fail, get screwed, etc., whether by the hands of the PCs or other NPCs. Because I don't win when they win, and I don't lose when they lose, I can treat them as objects to manipulate for the enjoyment of my players and the benefit of the story. The only way I as a DM can "win" is by running a good campaign.

[jedipotter]

What made the evil people evil before they crossed the river and killed a bunch of folk? If you're just crossing a river a slaughtering a bunch of folks due to what is presumably some difference in ideology or race or something, then you're really not much better than the evil folks attacking and killing a bunch of people.

They were evil by their actions before they crossed the river. They are not perfect angles at home. They were killing each other in the streets. And doing all sorts of evil acts.


What? Who ever said that a pattern of lying, cheating, stealing, and hurting others made you good?

Certainly not me. I said, flat out, that "one evil thing" is insufficient, by itself, unless it's crossing a moral event horizon. How do you go from "one thing is not enough" to "a lot of things are not enough, but one thing is?"

A lot of the ''shady good'' people can ''forgive/ignore'' at lot. After all, most good people ''lie'' and ''steal'', but they just do it in the ''good way''....that is they way they say is good.


Irrelevant to anything I was talking about.

Ok, your a good person.


I'd also note a NPC is fodder, they can be harmed or die at any time. PC's and DMPCs can't.

And a PC/DMPC will almost always be played as if....well they were a character in a game. So they won't do anything unwise or self destructive, if they know about it.

For example take the character: Dor the dwarf. He is always mad and always attacks any monster he sees.

As a NPC Dor sees a Troll, attacks it and dies

As a PC/DMPC Dor knows a Troll is too tough for him and amazingly(and unrealistically) suddenly ''decides'' that ''oh, just this once he won't attack the monster..as, re, um, Trolls don't count as monsters.''

[eggynack]

They were evil by their actions before they crossed the river. They are not perfect angles at home. They were killing each other in the streets. And doing all sorts of evil acts.

If you already know about evil stuff they did, and presumably not just evil stuff they were doing to each other (that's their business, I figure), then you're presumably not attacking them without knowing them to be guilty of something. If they're guilty of something, then you're hunting them down for that, and if they're not guilty of something, then you're just as evil as they are in the theoretical case where they cross the river and attack the town.

[Deophaun]

As a PC/DMPC Dor knows a Troll is too tough for him and amazingly(and unrealistically) suddenly ''decides'' that ''oh, just this once he won't attack the monster..as, re, um, Trolls don't count as monsters.''
Oh, if only that were true for some of the characters I had to play alongside. Like the one with a murderous hatred for dragons. Didn't matter if it was red, gold, blue, pyroclastic, or a statue. Didn't matter if it was a great wyrm and he was level five.

Keeping that character alive was an epic quest in itself. In hindsight, we should have just let nature take its course after the first time he literally ran into the jaws of death.

[jedipotter]

If you already know about evil stuff they did, and presumably not just evil stuff they were doing to each other (that's their business, I figure), then you're presumably not attacking them without knowing them to be guilty of something. If they're guilty of something, then you're hunting them down for that, and if they're not guilty of something, then you're just as evil as they are in the theoretical case where they cross the river and attack the town.

Right, but then you go down the lines of ''they are a sovereign nations with laws'', so if you think that sort of thing is good, then you can't attack them. So they are evil everyday doing evil acts that is there way of life. And they build up a huge army right on the border. And then attack. And only then do the good people want to do something about it.

[eggynack]

Right, but then you go down the lines of ''they are a sovereign nations with laws'', so if you think that sort of thing is good, then you can't attack them. So they are evil everyday doing evil acts that is there way of life. And they build up a huge army right on the border. And then attack. And only then do the good people want to do something about it.
If you have a really good idea that they're going to attack, then you can set up defenses, or try diplomacy, or seek out knowledge about the potential attack (divinations are good at this), or attack preemptively. The only way of dealing with them that is particularly evil is just attacking without provocation because you think they're evil. You're adding in all of these justifications for an attack, but the original point was that there is issue with attacking without justification.

[jedipotter]

You're adding in all of these justifications for an attack, but the original point was that there is issue with attacking without justification.

Who added the justification?

I'd say: Attacking is not good or evil.

Lendes the Efl is Good. To all creatures.....except drow. Drow he kills on sight. He will actively seek out any drow he hears about nearby. I'd say he is Good. Others would jump in and say ''he kills, he is bad not good''. Others feel good has to do some ''crazy dance'' of words or meanings or justifications before they can even think of killing anyone for any reason other then self defense.

[Honest Tiefling]

One thing you have to remember is that being good is about doing it unconditionally. If you only good to someone if all the boxes are checked right, and you rape and kill everyone else, you aren't good.

I actually kinda like this sentiment. If you do not mind, I'm stealing this for my games.

[Flickerdart]

Who added the justification?

I'd say: Attacking is not good or evil.

Lendes the Efl is Good. To all creatures.....except drow. Drow he kills on sight. He will actively seek out any drow he hears about nearby. I'd say he is Good. Others would jump in and say ''he kills, he is bad not good''. Others feel good has to do some ''crazy dance'' of words or meanings or justifications before they can even think of killing anyone for any reason other then self defense.
That's not just murder, it's racially-motivated murder, which makes it extra evil.

[eggynack]

Who added the justification?
You did. Suddenly the evil folk are building up an attack on the edge of the town's borders, and they apparently took some sorts of actions to indicate that they're evil. That's a justification separate from them just being fellows who are probably evil, not really doing anything to harm anyone.


Lendes the Efl is Good. To all creatures.....except drow. Drow he kills on sight. He will actively seek out any drow he hears about nearby. I'd say he is Good. Others would jump in and say ''he kills, he is bad not good''. Others feel good has to do some ''crazy dance'' of words or meanings or justifications before they can even think of killing anyone for any reason other then self defense.
Whether the character is good or not, the action is evil.

[afroakuma]

That's not just murder, it's racially-motivated murder, which makes it extra evil.

Question is, would adding in a "crazy dance" change that any? :smalltongue:

[jedipotter]

That's not just murder, it's racially-motivated murder, which makes it extra evil.

I disagree.


You did. Suddenly the evil folk are building up an attack on the edge of the town's borders, and they apparently took some sorts of actions to indicate that they're evil. That's a justification separate from them just being fellows who are probably evil, not really doing anything to harm anyone.

Guess it depends who gets to make the call on good and evil.

Nation one: Everyone is said to be equal no matter what. There are still tons of social problems, but everyone says they are working to fix them and sometimes small vague things are done or not done that maybe do something or not. Weapons are illegal, only the guards can have weapons. Murder of anyone is a crime and is evil.

Nation two: Only people that act and think a set way are citizens, the rest are just bumps. Bumps have no legal standing at all. There are no citizen social problems, everyone thinks the same, after all. Weapons are common. A citizen can kill any bump any time and it's not a crime at all. Citizens can also duel each other and that is not a crime.

So what nations is good and what nation is evil?

[afroakuma]

Nation one: Everyone is said to be equal no matter what. There are still tons of social problems, but everyone says they are working to fix them and sometimes small vague things are done or not done that maybe do something or not. Weapons are illegal, only the guards can have weapons. Murder of anyone is a crime and is evil.

So, true neutral.


Nation two: Only people that act and think a set way are citizens, the rest are just bumps. Bumps have no legal standing at all. There are no citizen social problems, everyone thinks the same, after all. Weapons are common. A citizen can kill any bump any time and it's not a crime at all. Citizens can also duel each other and that is not a crime.

So lawful evil. Or lawful neutral, depending on the "set way" that people think, but the duels strongly suggest that it's lawful evil.

[Vhaidara]

So lawful evil. Or lawful neutral, depending on the "set way" that people think, but the duels strongly suggest that it's lawful evil.

Wait, the duels? I actually put the duels as a more LN sign. The "Killing people who aren't citizens isn't a crime" is an evil red flag to me.

[jedipotter]

So, true neutral.

Really? This so makes me want to do a ''give this an alignment'' type thread.




So lawful evil. Or lawful neutral, depending on the "set way" that people think, but the duels strongly suggest that it's lawful evil.

So duels need to be evil? I can see good duels.

[justiceforall]

I've seen both sides of the reaction to "DMPCs" when I'm running. For reference, I'm using the term for the NPCs I've fleshed out beyond my usual which is a name, a basic personality, and at least basic stats. Some of them drive the world/plot along with the players.

A particular example sticks out in my memory, where the world's pre-existing heroic group (who the players would in theory one day take the torch from) joined the party with the PCs and joined them on a single short arc. The spotlight occasionally rested on the powerful NPCs, but the players were never totally sidelined.

I've run the same adventure set for two different groups now. One group utterly hated it, and pretty much rebelled. I had to drop every other NPC activity down to virtually a sounding-board from there on (with a couple of minor exceptions). For the other group it was one of their favourite sessions ever, and thought it was awesome to run around with powerful NPCs and get to participate in action way above their level. They even went so far as to actively seek out the DMPCs on numerous other occasions.

My conclusion from this is that as previous posters have said, it's a matter of personal opinion.

[afroakuma]

Wait, the duels? I actually put the duels as a more LN sign. The "Killing people who aren't citizens isn't a crime" is an evil red flag to me.

There are no citizen social problems and they all think the same way, and they duel. If we can infer that killing people who are citizens is a crime, then presumably there is a value placed on citizen life, which suggests that either the duels are a surprisingly feckless form of entertainment for a lawful society and hence are there to entertain the kind of people who like watching duels to the death/killing people, or else that there is a motive to dueling other citizens separate from venal entertainment which would tie it to some form of status derived from the ability to do violence unto those you're not ordinarily supposed to. Now mind you, there's a buttload of inference all over that, which is why I presumed lawful neutral in the first place, but the inclusion of that element, as I said, set off a cascade of potential inferences about the society which, having no other information to go on, are more likely than any counterpoint leaning good.


So duels need to be evil?

Nope, but see above.

[eggynack]

Nation two: Only people that act and think a set way are citizens, the rest are just bumps. Bumps have no legal standing at all. There are no citizen social problems, everyone thinks the same, after all. Weapons are common. A citizen can kill any bump any time and it's not a crime at all. Citizens can also duel each other and that is not a crime.

That seems reasonably evil, as the bumps theoretically don't really want to be killed. But, if I'm attacking this nation, it's not because I decided to label them evil on some arbitrary basis. I'm attacking them because they kill beings in a particularly unfair way, and I'm fighting for the rights of those sentient creatures, and to find justice for their slaughter. Common duels and weapon carrying don't seem to be necessarily good or evil traits though. Kinda value neutral, by my reckoning.

[goto124]

That's not just murder, it's racially-motivated murder, which makes it extra evil.

Writing down 'Evil' on your character sheet and having that person do good things will be less jarring to most than writing 'Good' and having the character do evil things like murder of drows.

Let me bring in something from another thread:


With the hypothetical saint-to-all-but-gnomes (to choose a "hated race" that isn't going to open the "is killing orcs because they're monsters evil?" can of worms), it would really depend on her actions.

True, saintly behavior towards all save gnomes definitely pushes her towards Good. It would depend on the actions she takes when presented with the opportunity to do harm to gnomes. Does she delight in tormenting them? Does she go out of her way to hunt down any she knows about and petrify them to cut pipeworks into and use as fountains in her garden?

If she's a gnome-centric serial killer, that's enough to put her firmly in the Evil category. Habitual murder and/or torture is definitely Evil. She might be in the more northerly climbs of the Evil alignment, verging on Neutral, but she's still quite Evil.

Remember, Evil can be good and kind to those that it finds worthwhile.

If, however, she just is mean to them when they impinge on her presence, or avoids helping them in favor of non-gnomes, possibly with a haste to assume the worst about a gnome in any situation that arises, she's probably Neutral to even Good, depending on just how badly she treats gnomes.

The thing about Good is that it values people as people, and doesn't really care what they look like. Any treatment of people as non-people pushes you Evil-ward on the moral axis. (Minor depersonization doesn't make you evil by itself, but it's a mark against your "good" credit.)

It also helps to have her believe the gnomes/drows are Evil, and to give a good reason why.

[jedipotter]

That seems reasonably evil, as the bumps theoretically don't really want to be killed. But, if I'm attacking this nation, it's not because I decided to label them evil on some arbitrary basis. I'm attacking them because they kill beings in a particularly unfair way, and I'm fighting for the rights of those sentient creatures, and to find justice for their slaughter. Common duels and weapon carrying don't seem to be necessarily good or evil traits though. Kinda value neutral, by my reckoning.

I wonder if a ''how would you rate this for alignment'' type thread would work.....

[eggynack]

I wonder if a ''how would you rate this for alignment'' type thread would work.....
Eh, seems like even more of a lightning rod than usual. You'd get through maybe a setup or two before things would collapse into an infinite nexus of ridiculousness. Alignment threads are kinda like monk threads in that way, though thinking about it, I don't think we've had a monk thread in awhile.

[jedipotter]

Eh, seems like even more of a lightning rod than usual. You'd get through maybe a setup or two before things would collapse into an infinite nexus of ridiculousness. Alignment threads are kinda like monk threads in that way, though thinking about it, I don't think we've had a monk thread in awhile.


I should so do a monk thread....my homebrew monk is awesome.....full BAB, higher Ac, no dead levels....

[eggynack]

I should so do a monk thread....my homebrew monk is awesome.....full BAB, higher Ac, no dead levels....
I dunno that it'd count as one. Typically, a monk thread begins with someone saying, "Why are all of you folk saying monks suck. They have like all of the punches, and can survive anything, and kill wizards like it's nothing." And then a bunch of people refute all of the points up and down, and if you want some real duration on the thing, you need someone defending monks to the death, despite all available evidence to the contrary. Things usually devolve into either weird rules arguments or pointless duels if things go on long enough.d

Edit: To be fair though, you may be able to hit ridiculousness from the other end. In that kinda thread, to get to that point, you'd usually either want someone defending the monk as is, or arguing for ToB instead of a monk fix, or maybe arguing against the problem of imbalance in the first place. I'd figure the second one, offhand.

[Mystral]

I actually kinda like this sentiment. If you do not mind, I'm stealing this for my games.

Sure, I don't mind.

I didn't mean it as in "You have to be 100% altruistic, all the time, to everyone, no matter how much of a douche they are, to qualify as good"

But even lawfull evil and neutral evil people can behave like a good person when concerning their family, underlings or peers.

[Sam K]

I think discussing DMPCs is tricky because people have such different definitions of the term. To some, DMPC means "super powerful character that steals the show", to some it doesn't.

My take on it is that there is really 3 levels of it:


Party NPC: This is a NPC that travels with the party and works with them , and which is controlled by the DM. This can be done to move the plot along, or to provide the party with required skills that they do not have access to. The character can be around for the short run or the long run, and CAN be more powerful than the rest of the party. The character is not required to be around, however. The party can "fire" the party NPC. The DM runs the NPC for the benefit of the story, not for the benefit of the NPC. If the story requires the NPC to disapear or die, the NPC disaperas or dies.
DMPC: This is a NPC that travels with the party and works with them, which enjoys (or is expected to enjoy) the same level of "belonging" as a PC. That is to say, the rules (written or unwritten) regarding PvP applies to this character. If the party isn't allowed to fire PCs for being inefficient or silly, they can't fire the DMPC either. Further, the DM will run the DMPC for the benefit of the DMPC, not for the benefit of the story. If the story requires the DMPC to die, the DM will try to prevent this using the tools available to the DMPC, just like a player would generally try to prevent PC death.

This kind of DMPC doesn't have to be bad, although it does require alot of the DM since the DM knows the plot and has access to far more tools to influence it than PCs generally do. But if the DM is fair, and there is a high level of trust in the group, this can work.
Mary Sue: This is a DMPC which is given special treatment by the DM. The character is ran as a PC but the DM uses the tools available as a DM to favor the Mary Sue. This can involve giving the character a higher level, more liberal access to feats or templates (Mary Sue can be a half-minotaur fighter, but a PC fighter can't have that template), or simply fudging rolls to keep the character alive when it sould have really died.

Because of this, Mary Sues tend to dominate the party. They do not have to, though; the favorable treatment of a DMPC is enough to qualify for being a Mary Sue.


Using a famous example, I would say that Gandalf is a Party NPC: he's more powerful than the entire brotherhood, but he doesn't generally use his power. He usually only bursts out the big guns when everything else has failed. He brings abilities the party doesn't have access to, and doesn't generally try to overshadow other members in their role (he can fight decently, but he doesn't out-perform the dedicated melees). Generally, he's a safety net for what is essentially a very low powered party. Although he does pull some deus ex machina, he mostly does it AFTER everyone has had their moment to shine (he arrives at helms deep after the mundanes have had their moment leading the defence), and when the story requires that he go AWOL, he's quick with the "Run, you fools!" thing.

Aragorn is a Mary Sue. He's better at everything than everyone else, outperforming the other melees more often than not, without having any real weakness. Boromir, Legolas and Gimli are all noble/ranking members of their culture, and skilled warriors, but Aragorn is MORE noble and a MORE skilled warrior. His fate is grander, his part in the world is bigger. AND he gets more epic lootz and gets to bump uglies with an elven princess (you could argue Gimli does too, though). He doesn't help the party look better, he makes them look worse by comparison, and he drags them along for things where their only role is to observe him being awesome.

[Crake]

There are no citizen social problems and they all think the same way, and they duel. If we can infer that killing people who are citizens is a crime, then presumably there is a value placed on citizen life, which suggests that either the duels are a surprisingly feckless form of entertainment for a lawful society and hence are there to entertain the kind of people who like watching duels to the death/killing people, or else that there is a motive to dueling other citizens separate from venal entertainment which would tie it to some form of status derived from the ability to do violence unto those you're not ordinarily supposed to. Now mind you, there's a buttload of inference all over that, which is why I presumed lawful neutral in the first place, but the inclusion of that element, as I said, set off a cascade of potential inferences about the society which, having no other information to go on, are more likely than any counterpoint leaning good.

daaamn, that's some next level analysis right there.

[atemu1234]

Who added the justification?

I'd say: Attacking is not good or evil.

Lendes the Efl is Good. To all creatures.....except drow. Drow he kills on sight. He will actively seek out any drow he hears about nearby. I'd say he is Good. Others would jump in and say ''he kills, he is bad not good''. Others feel good has to do some ''crazy dance'' of words or meanings or justifications before they can even think of killing anyone for any reason other then self defense.

I would say guiltless murder is not a good thing. If they attacked first, then alright, but murdering someone for the species they belong to accomplishes nothing. What if, Corellon forbid, they were the one out of a million that'a actually good? What if he kills a polymorphed surface elf?

[The Insanity]

Sometimes I have a DMPC when I want to try out a new build.
I also admit that on some occasions I (knowingly) had a DMPC of the sort that a lot of you would call "bad". Why? Because I felt like it and it was appropriate for that game. Everything being perfect is not only impossible but can get boring after a while.

[Segev]

If the argument about the Good Elf who is kind and cheerful and helpful and friendly to all creatures...except drow...is that way because, to him, every drow is horrifically evil, he's probably good...overall.

The issue is not that he kills drow, even hunts them down to do so if he finds out about them. If he has built his idea that all drow are evil from the evidence that all drow he's even heard about have done horribly evil things, he's not operating from the kind of "innocent until proven guilty" mentality that we associate with Western ideals of LG, but he's still able to be Good, and even Lawful if he's orderly about it. (Could be NG or CG, too.)

The first litmus test is whether he tortures them, or is just killing them in the manner of an exterminator out to prevent harm they will inevitably cause. The latter is not evil in and of itself; it's preventative, based on his understanding that drow WILL do enormous harm to multiple innocents. And those he's killing probably already have. The former is evil. Revelling in pain of others always is.

The test, for him, is when he comes across a drow who has, so far as he can tell, done no harm. A drow who is interacting peaceably with others (particularly if it's with non-drow), and who evidence suggests might - just might - not be the irredeemably evil monster that deserves instant and swift death.

Can he be caused to stay his hand, or is he unwilling to let his bloodlust - his hatred and anger - go unsated in the face of somebody who might be trying NOT to be deserving of it?

If so, he's good.

This doesn't mean a good person wouldn't make mistakes and kill such a drow before having a chance to find out. But if he's not even willing to entertain the notion, to the point that he will deliberately kill drow to prevent his viewpoint from possibly being challenged, that's evil.

[nedz]

Sometimes I have a DMPC when I want to try out a new build.
I also admit that on some occasions I (knowingly) had a DMPC of the sort that a lot of you would call "bad". Why? Because I felt like it and it was appropriate for that game. Everything being perfect is not only impossible but can get boring after a while.

I occasionally create NPCs for this purpose. I may even have them accompany the party, but I usually let one of the player's run them — unless they are going to turn heal or something, but even then perhaps :smallbiggrin: Also, after a few sessions, they leave.

[Larrx]

On DMPCs

I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it, I expect, forever :smalltongue: The very phrase indicates dysfunction. Characters that are controlled by players are PCs, and characters that are controlled by the DM are npcs. The very idea that something could be both at the same time is kind of silly. If it makes sense to call a character a DMPC something has already gone seriously wrong.

Are there npcs that travel with the party and help them on adventures? Certainly. Familiars, animal companions, special mounts, and leadership cohorts are all fine examples of this. Usually I let the player in question control them for ease of play, but I reserve a veto if they ask them to do something completely ridiculous.

Sometimes a player will request a companion that they do not get from a class feature or a feat. Maybe a squire or an apprentice. In this case the npc is there to develop the PC's story. I understand that I am expected to RP them more actively. They might object, or cry, or moralize to give the PC a foil to play off of.

Sometimes a player or players will latch on to an npc I have written, and request that characters presence. Usually my (class leveled) npcs have better things to do with their time, but sometimes verisimilitude demands that they agree. They might accompany the party for a session or two.

In all these cases they are still npcs. If you can call something a DMPC something has already gone wrong.

On alignment

D&D alignment is a little strange. There is evidence that it is objective, and there is evidence that it is otherwise. This is a game, not a philosophy course, but since certain game objects depend on what good/evil/law/chaos mean, we have to grapple with it at least a little.

We could look at relativism. The orc tribes think that the good exists in slaying everyone who is not an orc, for example. We could decide that that defines good vs. evil. But in a game this isn't very useful . . . isn't everybody "good" under this paradigm?

We could adopt a consequentialist view point. We could decide that any act that furthers the cause of good is righteous. But then again the road to hell is paved with good intentions . . . and any player could easily claim that they "meant well."

We could look at virtue ethics. A character who is courageous or merciful is good regardless of whether or not they make mistakes. But this just seems like it will open up the same can of worms that the (Bentham) viewpoint opens. Any player is free to justify any action and argue.

I think that the only thing to do is to go full deontological (as the rules seem to suggest).

In my games there are actions that are evil (murder, torture), there are actions that are neutral (stealing, lying), and there are actions that are good. Any evil action might change your alignment if a player participates in it regularly. The same is true for neutral actions. Good characters who choose not to cross the line remain good, but good is exclusive and evil is inclusive. That is to say that evil characters can do good freely and remain evil, but good characters fall if they do evil.

As an example: imagine that there is a prisoner of war. The good character does not wish to kill them, because they believe murder is wrong. The neutral character does not wish to kill them, because they are fearful of punishment. The evil character does not wish to kill them, because they want to extract information.

We have hopefully agreed that intention is irrelevant, and as such the act of sparing the prisoner is good. We also do not want to shift the alignment of the neutral or evil character for performing a good act. Thus good is exclusive and evil is inclusive. Right?

Also, preemptively . . . someone is going to suggest that "modern morality" shouldn't apply to D&D. Ideas like the above were thought by Socrates and Plato ~400 B.C., and they were likely thought about beforehand, we just don't have records of it because they hadn't invented paper yet. There's nothing modern about it. :smallsmile:

[Renen]

I actually play a character like OP mentioned. I list him as Evil, but he doesnt actively do evil things. He just doesnt go easy on those who hurt him or his friends. And I mean take no prisoners style.
He doesnt seek out people to kill, and he doesnt just ranrandomly kill. But if someone shows themselves to be a threat, to him or people he likes, then he will enjoy killing this enemy. Truce might be reached, but only if it outweighs the downside of letting the person live.

[Segev]

I actually play a character like OP mentioned. I list him as Evil, but he doesnt actively do evil things. He just doesnt go easy on those who hurt him or his friends. And I mean take no prisoners style.
He doesnt seek out people to kill, and he doesnt just ranrandomly kill. But if someone shows themselves to be a threat, to him or people he likes, then he will enjoy killing this enemy. Truce might be reached, but only if it outweighs the downside of letting the person live.

The best way to play a functional evil member of a party that is not also evil is something like that. Play them as selfish, but enlightenedly so. Helping their party out helps them, even if it costs them a little right now. Not indulging their evil whims keeps their party happy, so they do it privately if at all. Keeping the party ignorant of some of the....pragmatic....things you have to do to help them out makes them happier. You may or may not lie to them about it; that's more Law/Chaos than Good/Evil. But you won't tell them unless they ask, even if you won't lie. "Do you really want the answer?" is a good non-answer, even if it implies the truth.

Also, BE the pragmatic one. Don't hesitate to suggest the harsher but more effective/efficient options. Starkly weigh the likelihoods of having this "pragmatic" option come back to bite you and the party, and do so in efforts to convince them to go with it if you think it really is the best idea even given the possible repercussions. (Perhaps because you don't think there are any, and their only qualms are, well, moral.)

Be willing to go behind their back and "solve" a problem pre-emptively, or after they've done the merciful-but-stupid (in your opinion) thing. Just be really sure you're not going to make bigger problems for them in so doing, because it's better to be able to say, "I told you we should have killed him," when the wyrmling red dragon comes back with its army of kobolds than to have to explain that yes, you DID kill that wyrmling red dragon the party thought they'd released, and yes, that means its Daddy really has reason for wanting revenge.

Overall, don't play a backstabbing jerk. Play a professional who just doesn't mind getting his hands morally dirty. View your more good-aligned allies as idealistic but misguided, rather than as fools who get in your way. After all, you're travelling with them because working with them is still better than not having them around. Foibles like a conscience are forgivable sins in the face of competence and/or loyalty (and they ARE loyal allies, maybe even friends, to you, yes?).

[Renen]

Yeh basically that, but you dont even have to be selfish. You can just be unforgiving of your enemies, and enjoy hurting them FOR hurting you. You might ggenuinely wanna save that princess from the bandits. You might even ask the bandits nicely to let her go. But when the bandits start shooting you, you will take your time skinning them alive.

[jedipotter]

If the argument about the Good Elf who is kind and cheerful and helpful and friendly to all creatures...except drow...is that way because, to him, every drow is horrifically evil, he's probably good...overall.



This all sounds good to me...

[Segev]

This all sounds good to me...

And so far as you quoted it, it is.

Whether he is actually good depends on more, as I go on to explain in the rest of the post. :)

[jedipotter]

And so far as you quoted it, it is.

Whether he is actually good depends on more, as I go on to explain in the rest of the post. :)

Well, the rest is a lot of running around from a good point of view about how judgmental good is and how they micro analyze every tiny action.

The fun part is if you go by the way most people think of good on the boards, then you could never have a good adventurer. At least without lots of handwaves and ignoring things.

[ZamielVanWeber]

On DMPCs I would view them as bad so much as dangerous. In the hands of a responsible DM they are nothing more than an additional party member. The problem is that they are very tempting to abuse and are capable of all kinds of abuse. DMs possess tremendous power with one restriction; they cannot experience the world as players. The DMPC lifts this while letting the DM keep their tremendous power; the opportunity for disaster is increased.