Unconventional Experience with DMPC

[Jorgo]

So I play in a pretty small group of me and three others, and usually I am the DM. When we played a pre-published adventure designed for 4-5 players, to make it easier I tentatively raised the question of whether they want a DM-controlled bodyguard henchman. They were very enthusiastic to have somebody join the party, to make it easier and so the one avid roleplayer can have something to talk to. The henchman is a fighter who levels up with them. While I always hear on here about "my DM added a character and it SUCKS" I have had the opposite experience. Whenever the henchman kills a monster, the players cheer and commend their fighter for helping them out. If done right, and the henchman is not overshadowing the players (the fighter barely talks, and takes only seconds to take a turn), I think a DM character can work out.

[Unoriginal]

People don't complain about henchmen who accompany the PCs. They complain about the Totally Not The Super Special Main Character who makes the PCs accompany them.

You could have used a NPC statblock and there would have been no difference.

[Tiadoppler]

DM-controlled NPCs that work well without stepping on the PCs' toes:


Smart, trained guard animal (dog, lizard, lion, etc.)
Unusually clever and patient pack animal with nigh-unlimited carrying capacity
Servant or assistant who takes care of animals/cleaning gear/etc. Useless in battle, but loyal and useful outside of combat.
Champion Fighter or other simple-to-play meatshield (at party level - 1 or CR equivalent)
Pacifist Healer (Life Cleric or simply non-magical doctor) (if the PCs don't have a healer, and the campaign is combat-heavy)
(4e) Lazy Warlord (grants their allies extra attacks) (should be played for comedy)


When running new D&D players through an introductory campaign/one-shot, I've found that they frequently like having "Professor Exposition" on hand. If the players themselves don't know what a Basilisk does, or the difference between a red dragon, and a gold dragon, their characters can go ask the "aged scholar" at the same time as they ask the DM for the answer. Use with care. More experienced players tend to prefer relying on their own characters' knowledge (and metagame knowledge).

[Man_Over_Game]

There are plenty of good comments here.

Simply put, the players should ALWAYS be the heroes.

Never put an NPC in the game that's more heroic than the players, unless it's a rival they can surpass, a badguy they aim to bring down, or a leader that's only relevant on few occasions (and is assumed to be doing other heroic stuff elsewhere).

If an NPC is provided, it should only bring things the players themselves can't provide. Healing is one example (assuming there are no healers in the party). Information is also a great choice (such as a Knowledge Cleric/Inquisitive Rogue protected by a group of murderhobos). A warrior NPC should only be available if he only provides something the players need, and generally, they don't need someone to steal the spotlight; they can do that plenty well themselves.

[Millface]

It doesn't have to be bad. A DMPC can certainly work, as long as they're quiet, low INT, and generally maybe a level or two under the rest of the party.

I still don't see the need for it, but it doesn't have to be a deal breaker if you understand the point of the game: Everyone is there to have fun, no single person's fun is more important than anyone else's.

[MaxWilson]

So I play in a pretty small group of me and three others, and usually I am the DM. When we played a pre-published adventure designed for 4-5 players, to make it easier I tentatively raised the question of whether they want a DM-controlled bodyguard henchman. They were very enthusiastic to have somebody join the party, to make it easier and so the one avid roleplayer can have something to talk to. The henchman is a fighter who levels up with them. While I always hear on here about "my DM added a character and it SUCKS" I have had the opposite experience. Whenever the henchman kills a monster, the players cheer and commend their fighter for helping them out. If done right, and the henchman is not overshadowing the players (the fighter barely talks, and takes only seconds to take a turn), I think a DM character can work out.

What you're describing is a henchman, and works fine. It's an NPC under their control (mostly) who helps them out.

The kind of "DMPC" which gets viewed as especially problematic is one where the DM identifies with and cares about the NPC in a way similar to how players care about their PCs, to the point of rivalling or overshadowing PCs. It's a violation of the Czege Principle: when the same person is responsible for both creating and resolving problems, play isn't fun.

[GlenSmash!]

People don't complain about henchmen who accompany the PCs. They complain about the Totally Not The Super Special Main Character who makes the PCs accompany them.

You could have used a NPC statblock and there would have been no difference.

Indeed. When I do this, I always use an NPC statblock to make the difference clear in my mind.

I can't be the game world and the Hero both. If I want that I can write a novel.

[Millface]

What you're describing is a henchman, and works fine. It's an NPC under their control (mostly) who helps them out.

The kind of "DMPC" which gets viewed as especially problematic is one where the DM identifies with and cares about the NPC in a way similar to how players care about their PCs, to the point of rivalling or overshadowing PCs. It's a violation of the Czege Principle: when the same person is responsible for both creating and resolving problems, play isn't fun.

Great distinction there.

I have been guilty of caring about an NPC that was with the party before, but he was a Kobold that they spared and just on the fly I gave him more of a "I was evil because it's all there was around me" kind of personality and he really wanted to see the world and write songs and stories about heroes.

His personality was present, but he was too stupid to solve problems and I think I gave him 1 bard level for every 3 levels the party had, so he essentially was just a comic heal-bot. If the party hadn't loved him, I wouldn't have kept him around, but he was like a pet, more than anything.

[Waterdeep Merch]

As everyone's said, what you've done is perfectly acceptable. And if it ever starts bordering on DMPC, a relatively easy fix is to hand control of it over to the players. Then the character is a powerful tool in their arsenal, and less likely to bruise egos and ruin games.

[Keravath]

Based on the definitions I usually use, you've described an NPC and not a DMPC.

NPC = Non Player Character

An NPC doesn't need to use a stat block from the monster manual. It can have levels, classes, stats and a personality. An NPC can be a villain, a source of information or a companion or helper to the party. Quite often the players can get quite attached to notable, fun, cute or useful NPCs. In many cases, the party will take over making the decisions for an NPC which accompanies the party except when the personality or other history that the DM is aware of (but the players are not) might dictate other actions.

However, in my books this is not a DMPC. To me a DMPC is a character introduced into the game as the DMs personal avatar. The DM is both playing the character and running the game. The DM can get quite attached to their character. In some cases, the DM even goes so far as to build a plot line that significantly involves or even revolves around their DMPC. Generally, in my experience, this is usually a recipe for disaster, arguments and a game that will implode when the PCs don't follow the plot line designed for the DMPC. (There is no worse DM than one who wants to railroad the party into a plotline that rotates around making their personal DMPC avatar shine).

The only time I have seen DMPCs work is in games with rotating DMs. When the DM is running the game, their character is an NPC controlled by the party with the DM only contributing to roleplay aspects of character decisions. When the next DM takes over they go back to playing their character in the game with no loss of continuity and the PC belonging to the new DM becomes an NPC.

Anyway, your example is perfectly ok and will play fine since the extra in the party is just an NPC and not a DMPC (at least by my definitions :) )

[Sigreid]

My current group is 4 people and the DM shifts now and then. To keep things smooth, the current DM's character stays with the party. Works fine so long as you obey a few simple rules:


You can make normal, logical comments, but don't have all the answers. Or even any of the answers really.
Don't put in an excessive amount of cool stuff that is clearly totally for your character.
Let the party make all the real decisions.
It's ok to be the high charisma character, just resolve social tasks with a roll, and only when they ask you to. I've even let one of them do the talking and let my high charisma character make the roll.
Don't have all the answers.
Do walk blindly into traps if they aren't looking for them.
Do totally believe that the double dealing, back stabbing, lying PoS NPC is totally on the up and up, unless they ask you if you think he's legit. Then you can make an insight roll.

[Spriteless]

When I was a kid, my dad had a monk DMPC. To resist the urge to protect/boss around his kids, so he gave that character a vow of silence. If he broke it, the character lost his monk powers for the week.

[WilliamHuggins]

In my current campaign, I get to play a DMPC constantly, I did not stick to the same DMPC for the whole campaign, I think I swapped between 6 different characters (we are level 16 now) and four of them were arcane casters while other two were divine support casters as my group consists of Barbarian + Monk + Ranger/Paladin, so they desperately needed a full caster all the time and I tried to provide that while also handling some parts of the information giving with DMPCs, they romanced my characters and got heartbroken, they romanced my characters and succeeded, they considered my characters brothers/sisters and tried to help them.

Now that we are talking about our next campaign as this one comes to closure, I asked them whether they would prefer if I used no DMPC at all, and they actually replied by saying that they would prefer to have a DMPC and they wanted to have the same one for the whole campaign.

[Dudewithknives]

I usually play with a group of 3 players and one of us as a DM.

Usually the person running has a DMPC but it is more like a plot device.

Ex. it is built like a PC but it usually covers a position in the group they do not have.

However, it takes no actions at all other than to talk or get out of the way unless they ask him to.

Ex. In a group with a fighter, a rogue, and a cleric, I made a divine path sorcerer.

All the sorcerer kept were utility spells like, fly, invisibility, cure wounds, detect X, things like that and would use them only if the group asked him to.
Other than that he would sometimes remind the group of something they forgot, or point out something obvious they missed.

Like when the group came across a rushing river and no bridge anywhere thy talked it over and came up with some plans until one of them said, "Hey, can you cast fly on us?"
To which he said sure and blew a spell for them to cross.
After a big fight the group asked him to spend some spell levels to heal the group which he did.
In combat he did not do much other than to heal if needed, and to throw a firebolt if the group was busy in melee.
For social interactions he did nothing, he never talked to NPCs and never had opinions beyond rolling a knowledge check or 2.

Worked great.

However if someone made a DMPC who the group are all following as their leader and he is an amazing smite-machine who splatters enemies in one swing, yeah that would be a problem.

[Gryndle]

The presence of DMPCs and their worth in a game gets a bad wrap by the awful DMs that have made their character the mary-sue of their own story. I posit that these DMs would be bad DMs regardless of whether or not they played a DMPC, and that in those cases, the DMPC is a symptom and not the cause.

the key things to remember if you are DMing and running a continuous character are these
-the DMPC should NEVER be the center of the story
-the DMPC should be on or near the same power level as the PCs, but never above. Falling too far behind the PCs in power level is a drain on resources, and that can be ALMOST as bad as being slightly more powerful than the PCs. Being blatantly overpowered is a different problem.
-a DMPC should not be used in any game that is structured around a DM vs PCs mindset.
-a DMPC with a class or gimmick that uses complicated game mechanics should be avoided. Mature players are going to be fine with you making a few quick attack rolls or casting simple spells. but they are less likely to be cool with action bogging down every time your DMPC's turn comes up.

basically they all boil down to one rule: be considerate of the other players at the table.

I always run a DMPC, and I follow those rules. If my character starts falling outside of those parameters, I kill them off and use it as a plot device, replacing them with something that falls in line. My players trust me to be on the up and up with my DMPC just as I trust them not to cheat. And if you cant trust the people in your group to not be liars, cheats, or egomaniacs, then why game with them at all?

[Mordaedil]

My experience with DMPC's recently have been nearly all positive:

1st game I played had no DMPC.
2nd game I played was just me and another dude, so the DM offered to have a cleric join us to help us out, we accepted and had a blast. Then other players joined, but we didn't want her to leave, so she stayed around as a useful member of the party, but rarely actually did anything besides make banter while we were roleplaying.

3rd game we were playing adventurers attending an academy for adventurers, so there was a bit of a school-class structure. We were assigned a teacher (NPC by all means) and two class mates. This, I felt, didn't work as great, but it was still a mostly positive experience. The DM struggled to roleplay two NPC's that could keep up with the rest of us, but we sort of solved it by having us split up, which would normally be an ill-adviced strategy. I dunno exactly what the DM is thinking when he decides to then later introduce even more NPC's to join our class though...

[Spiritchaser]

I feel one great use for the DM PC is comic relief

You’re all making the story

You’re all creating the mood, but the DM is most responsible for it, and a wisecracking swashbuckler, uncouth ale swilling dwarf or a completely filterless young *anything* can really help refocus the mood from broken frustration to optimism with a one liner after two critical fumbles on the final boss, or after you realize that the just discovered Yuan Ti plot was way too much of a horribly nasty downer for the group in question, or after the warlock and the paladin almost PvP for the third time that play session.

Sure they need to keep their mouths shut lots too... but...

[solidork]

The most incredible Actual Play I have ever witnessed broke almost every rule about including NPCs in the party. There were a lot of unusual circumstances that allowed it to work though (the GM is incredibly good, it was all played over text so NPCs talking to each other wasn't awkward), the primary one being that everyone was on board from the beginning.

It's this Werewolf: the Forsaken chronicle: https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?446663-Werewolf-The-Forsaken-quot-Detroit-Rock-City-quot

Truly epic stuff.

[Xihirli]

We had a high-level Fighter join our party for a few sessions.
We first met him as a quest giver, he gave our wizard a sword (it made slightly more sense at the time) that was built to kill the BBEG.
Later on, he died fighting a demon. We found out where he was, dragged his corpse to the nearest city, and got him rested.
When this high-level fighter was helping us out we saw it as a reward. It was something we worked for.
After we hit tenth level he retired, though.

[opaopajr]

A GM (DM) ideally is a fair arbiter while being a "fan" of the PCs. NPCs are the supporting cast.

The players' PCs get the spotlight time -- within reason -- even if their acts are somewhat off-course (e.g. mundane, sidetrack, bizarre, etc.). So NPCs can be on any relationship level to the PCs, including more powerful!, however the PCs are the main focus. And since the GM is assumed a fair arbiter, settings are expected to coherently push back... So the world is not push-over paper tigers or tissue ablative armor allies, but neither are they untouchable.

GMPCs (DMPCs) are not that. They are often extentions of the GM's deus ex machina will, and end up ECLIPSING the spotlight upon the players' PCs.

Sometimes they are the GM's power-fantasy on display. Other times they are the adventure-museum-docents to prevent PCs from touching their precious. In truly bad cases, both. But routinely GMPCs have an immunity from PCs, and privilege of GM attention, that makes them unpleasant. They often share the feeling that the GM is masturbating their fantasy upon the table while everyone is stuck watching with powerless mortification.

So I think you mean the former than the latter. :smallcool:

[Gryndle]

A GM (DM) ideally is a fair arbiter while being a "fan" of the PCs. NPCs are the supporting cast.

The players' PCs get the spotlight time -- within reason -- even if their acts are somewhat off-course (e.g. mundane, sidetrack, bizarre, etc.). So NPCs can be on any relationship level to the PCs, including more powerful!, however the PCs are the main focus. And since the GM is assumed a fair arbiter, settings are expected to coherently push back... So the world is not push-over paper tigers or tissue ablative armor allies, but neither are they untouchable.

GMPCs (DMPCs) are not that. They are often extentions of the GM's deus ex machina will, and end up ECLIPSING the spotlight upon the players' PCs.

Sometimes they are the GM's power-fantasy on display. Other times they are the adventure-museum-docents to prevent PCs from touching their precious. In truly bad cases, both. But routinely GMPCs have an immunity from PCs, and privilege of GM attention, that makes them unpleasant. They often share the feeling that the GM is masturbating their fantasy upon the table while everyone is stuck watching with powerless mortification.

So I think you mean the former than the latter. :smallcool:

I disagree with the definitive tone. I do agree that in the hands of a power tripping DM, you are probably right. In the hands of a decent DM in a cooperative game, I do not think your statements necessarily hold true at all. I maintain my opinion that BAD DMs are responsible for the negative view of DMPCs; but the presence of a DMPC does not necessarily equate a bad DM.

[opaopajr]

I disagree with the definitive tone. I do agree that in the hands of a power tripping DM, you are probably right. In the hands of a decent DM in a cooperative game, I do not think your statements necessarily hold true at all. I maintain my opinion that BAD DMs are responsible for the negative view of DMPCs; but the presence of a DMPC does not necessarily equate a bad DM.

What you are thinking of is likely a regular NPC -- which includes hirelings, henchmen, allies, and the like. But you are likely insisting on an historically, explicitly negative, jargon term to word-migrate into inclusion. GMPC never was a catch-all term historically, we already had other terms for party members ran by GMs. You can believe what you want, tone or otherwise, but this is what the jargon meant when it arose. :smallsmile:

[Gryndle]

What you are thinking of is likely a regular NPC -- which includes hirelings, henchmen, allies, and the like. But you are likely insisting on an historically, explicitly negative, jargon term to word-migrate into inclusion. GMPC never was a catch-all term historically, we already had other terms for party members ran by GMs. You can believe what you want, tone or otherwise, but this is what the jargon meant when it arose. :smallsmile:

nope. not at all. I mean DMPC, that is a fully fleshed out character following all PC rules <plus a few extra for courtesy's sake> that is ran by the DM.

[Tiadoppler]

What you are thinking of is likely a regular NPC -- which includes hirelings, henchmen, allies, and the like. But you are likely insisting on an historically, explicitly negative, jargon term to word-migrate into inclusion. GMPC never was a catch-all term historically, we already had other terms for party members ran by GMs. You can believe what you want, tone or otherwise, but this is what the jargon meant when it arose. :smallsmile:


nope. not at all. I mean DMPC, that is a fully fleshed out character following all PC rules <plus a few extra for courtesy's sake> that is ran by the DM.


This sounds like a disagreement over terminology, rather than a disagreement over the actual situation.

The DM controls the entire universe of NPCs. If one of those NPCs takes on a plot-relevant role that overshadows the Player Characters (the ones not controlled by the DM), that's a bad thing. If, instead, one of those NPCs happens to travel with the party, have conversations with them, and is otherwise treated like the PCs, that can be absolutely fine, or even a benefit to the campaign.


The term DMPC has two meanings:

DMPC is a neutral term for a PC that happens to be controlled by the DM. A good DM will keep their DMPC under tight control and limit their power, knowledge, and plot relevance.

DMPC is a strongly negative term for a PC that is controlled by the DM, and is given significant advantages (in terms of power or plot significance) as a result.

Which meaning of DMPC is the "true" one? I don't know, or care. Both meanings are used regularly.

[MrWesson22]

We have a DMPC that is very unconventional as well. I am DMing a West Marches style campaign with a co-DM and 8 players. The DMPC is something for the DM who isn't running the session to play if we are both at a session. He's a 10 int/8 cha lizardfolk 1 life cleric/x land druid who doesn't talk almost ever, comes and goes, and is just a support caster/healbot when he is there. The players often ask "will Ma'Carro be with us tonight?" They seem to enjoy him being there. He also doesn't take any gold or loot from the party. He is still in his starting equipment after 6 months of play and a current level of 10.

[Citan]

My current group is 4 people and the DM shifts now and then. To keep things smooth, the current DM's character stays with the party. Works fine so long as you obey a few simple rules:


You can make normal, logical comments, but don't have all the answers. Or even any of the answers really.
Don't put in an excessive amount of cool stuff that is clearly totally for your character.
Let the party make all the real decisions.
It's ok to be the high charisma character, just resolve social tasks with a roll, and only when they ask you to. I've even let one of them do the talking and let my high charisma character make the roll.
Don't have all the answers.
Do walk blindly into traps if they aren't looking for them.
Do totally believe that the double dealing, back stabbing, lying PoS NPC is totally on the up and up, unless they ask you if you think he's legit. Then you can make an insight roll.

This.

Having a socially shiny character works perfectly fine as long as you know how to turn it.
You could have a DMPC Bard that just want to be THE ladyman everywhere around, maybe or maybe not up to a point where the party will decide to ditch him.
You could have a Cleric that follows around just because it so happens current goal is aligning with party but doesn't care about anything apart grabbing the expected loot with a nifty treason.
First example is a "safe" one: the character is basically a NPC with traits, and that kind of personality is usually a good enough hint for players "this one won't have any worthy information".
Second one is a bit more dangerous, because you can't have the secret goal being tied with main story without walking a thin line. But as a character for a secondary quest, or a seemingly random clerk assigned because party accepted a mission from a Church, it's totally workable (of course you'd have to adapt the level of hints about true intent depending on party taste for intrigue and backstabbing -not everyone likes Game of Thrones).

You could also have a Sorcerer with Subtle metamagic, that is actually not able to talk nor really write (raw magic is raw after all). No
tongue to speak words? No need to be afraid of embarrassing questions. ^^
It's really easy to design any sort of DMPC working fine.
As people said, the only real risk is coming from you DM developing a true affective relationship with that character. But that is honestly true of any NPC. After all, we sometimes around here see stories about apparently unkillable bad guys for example. XD

One nice way to ensure you won't ever fall into that trap is by programming a certain death (uncurable illness, powerful faction etc), with added benefit of offering added strings for players to pull. ;)

But overall the only real important thing is: know your players.
Some like the idea of having some antagonisms with other characters.
Some will totally hate the idea of having to watch their back.
Some will like having people to boss around.
Others will always be in doubt of whether you are managing to play the NPC without any bias from your world knowledge as a DM.
Last point is probably the crucial one: if you think your players wouldn't trust you on that exercise, just don't. It's just simple like that. XD