Quote Originally Posted by Derpy View Post
I always like to throw my two cents into these, because it seems like I have the minority experience with a DMPC. It can be a lot of fun, but it's not for everyone. Over the past nearly a decade I've DM'd I've played a few DMPCs.
I am with you here.
Being a DM for 20 years now, I've always had a DMPC, and never had any problems with any of my groups. The main reason I use one it's because sometimes another player take the DM seat (and I always encourage that anyone in the group who wants to DM do it at least once, as part of the main campaign or between campaigns).
It started because my first group was only 3 people (me and 2 others).
I really think that there is a right way to do it and your DMPC can even have a good story just as profound as any PC. If you do it right your character will be just like any party member.
I usually go with wizard because it's a class that you can easily change how it plays depending on your needs. As a wizard he is also very knowledgeable of the world around them and can give info and trivia about places when it's needed.
In combat he usually resorts to AOE spells, so he only shines in combat when the dice are in his favor, the rest of the time his presence makes an encounter easyer and nothing more (and the party happy because he is around).
Social encounters he simply gives his npc opinion like any other npc and nothing else. I find very odd DMs talking to themselves. Your DMPC shouldn't resolve social encounters and speak only in very specifics situations.
On loot he was the only party member who by level 10 hadn't any attuned item yet. A staff of defense came by shortly after and after that another one DMed so I got the chance to burn my gold and get some good stuff.
On your DMPC background and story, bring up only if at least some of your players had their personal quests already and usually make him unable to resolve the quest by himself. He either needs to be saved or can't accomplish his goal alone, making the party interested in his problems as one of their own. And if possible make room for another to DM.
In our last adventure we went to the magic school my character attended, he left before his trials and had to make then now, fighting against his teachers. I gave each player a master wizard to play so I could play against and do my trial. They had an amazing time kicking my ass. Then an antimagic cult was infiltrated there, so it was a normal adventure and everyone had time to shine. After the school was saved it held a tournament, my character didn't participate in any individual fight, only on 2 group fights.
So you have to keep things separate, and really don't step in your party strengths, use your DMPC to fill a gap and don't let him take agency from the players