How Do You Feel About NPC Party Members (A Poll)

[Jd Smith1]

Why not just tone down the difficulty of combat encounters so the extra GMPCs aren't needed? I mean, as GM, everything is up to you so toning down the difficulty of combat is a simple choice you can just make. I once ran a decent length campaign for a single player playing a single PC, and not once did I need to have a GMPC in order to make combat survivable. As GM you control how the imaginary world works, you can easily make combat survivable for a party without needing extra GMPCs, it's a trivial thing to do!

If the GM is concentrating on making combat survivable, what is the point? The GM is just handing out participation trophies.

 

[Marc_C]

If a NPC becomes a long term member of the group (more than one adventure) it becomes the secondary character of a player or it leaves. I give the player the NPCs behaviour guidelines. The NPC resists any player shenanigans to make it do things against these guidelines. It can also leave if it feels mistreated.

Very useful when you have two players. In the past I had campaign with two players (wizard and druid) who ran a NPC each (2 fighters). Their main characters took all the decisions. Over time the players grew very attached to their secondary characters.

 

[aco175]

We had a PC with the noble background, which gives you 3 NPCs to go with the PC. The player chose them all and ran them with only the myself chiming in a few times, but they mostly stayed in the background. I think he had a squire, a groom, and a page who held a lantern. After a few levels, only the squire gained any power. He eventually became more of a 2nd PC gaining some levels but staying roughly half the power of the PCs.

Not sure how many others had this happen to them. The extras were NPCs, but are also part of character creation for the player, so they kind of blur the lines. We discussed it before play started and came up with basic roles they played. It was good to have the 3 of them guard the horses and wagon when the PCs are in a dungeon.

 

[zarionofarabel]

If the GM is concentrating on making combat survivable, what is the point? The GM is just handing out participation trophies.

If the GM is not concerned with the PCs getting killed in combat, why include a GMPC to stop them from getting killed in combat?!?

 

[The Green Hermit]

Why not just tone down the difficulty of combat encounters so the extra GMPCs aren't needed? I mean, as GM, everything is up to you so toning down the difficulty of combat is a simple choice you can just make. I once ran a decent length campaign for a single player playing a single PC, and not once did I need to have a GMPC in order to make combat survivable. As GM you control how the imaginary world works, you can easily make combat survivable for a party without needing extra GMPCs, it's a trivial thing to do!

Because I do not want to do that. Having a GMPC works best for us.

 

[Jd Smith1]

If the GM is not concerned with the PCs getting killed in combat, why include a GMPC to stop them from getting killed in combat?!?

I don't know; I've never used GMPCs.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I have, at times, used NPCs pretty heavily, either at the other players' request, or to fill a role in a small group.

In one capmaign in particular, I used an NPC rogue in a group that had only three player characters. The rogue would go off ahead of the party, and either come back and tell them what was coming up, or would get caught and need to be rescued. I used a simple d6 to determine how successful the rogue was in his scouting. One a 1, he was caught. On a 2, he was spotted and fled back to the party, of a 3 through 5 he returned with useful, if not perfect information. On a 6 he returned with information good enough to give the players a small advantage. The players seemed to really enjoy this set up.

I've used NPCs adventurers both well and poorly. I've seen NPC adventurers sued both well and poorly by other DMs.

 

[dragoner]

I have had players actively angry with me for killing off beloved NPC's that I have created; thus why I usually try to have them make and run their own NPC's.

 

[pemerton]

I am the GM of a Classic Traveller campaign. The "party" - ie starship owner + crew + sundry hangers-on - peaked at about 18 members. The players had 2 PCs each from the start of the campaign; the others sit in a liminal space between PC and NPC depending on context.

 

[Lanefan]

Too bad I missed the survey. Oh well, here's my take anyway...

We've used adventuring-NPC party members since forever, they're just part of the game for us. They show up usually for one or more of the following reasons:

--- the party are missing a key component (usually healing or thieving IME) and recruit to fill it - this is by far the most common reason*
--- the NPC is along as a plot device e.g. a spy or turncoat or active observer
--- the NPC is provided by the module being run e.g. a rescued prisoner with adventuring skills (example of the last two combined: Teldroll Storis the Dwarf, in Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun)
--- the NPC is met or found in the course of adventuring and is taken in, e.g. a would-be foe who switches sides.

Party NPCs are rolled exactly as if they were normal PCs, except if their stats are given as part of a module I'll almost always use those. In play they die about as often as the PCs do, earn xp and treasure shares just like the PCs, and so forth. I give them all character and personality; some end up loved, others hated, others are forgotten as soon as they leave the party. If an NPC looks like it's getting too powerful I'll try to find a reason for it to wander away, though there's been times in the past I've tried this with a popular NPC and the party actively talked it into staying.

* - for example: since covid I've been running my wife in a one-player game. She wants a party of about six adventurers but doesn't want to run six characters, so she runs two or three and the rest are NPCs. She does the rolling for all six; I roleplay the NPCs otherwise, or else she'd have no-one to talk to except herself when it came to discussing plans, etc. I make sure my NPCs don't always have the best answer or brightest idea (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, and sometimes their ideas are just plain dangerous), and most of the time they do what they're told in any case.

In a more normal multi-player party I don't mind having at least one NPC, if for no other reason than if someone's PC dies the NPC is there to be taken over as a stop-gap so the player still has something to do.