Explain why DMPCs are bad to me.

[Tsillanabor]

So what about games with rotating DMs?

 

[James Heard]

So what about games with rotating DMs?

In games with rotating GMs I normally suggest they be episodic enough in the first place that one GM's plotlines don't mix much with the others'. Fortunately that means that there's no good reason to drag along every party member in every adventure, so when you swap out GMs you can have Billy the Thief stay at home and protect the valuables and thusly not worry everyone with his amazing ability to know just when to call for search checks, when to fall back into the back of the party before the ogres attack, etc. Just put the sheet away and give him XP as if he'd been there, just like everyone else does with their own characters when THEY are running.

It might stretch someone's sense of absolute realism, but it's just the most practical way to do things. If the GM runs his own character he's got a DMPC and that upsets the players, if he lets another player run the character then there's always the danger that they turn him into a high hit point Nodwick and lower him into rooms to test for traps while the GM gets upset because "Billy would never do such a thing!"

 

[Imagicka]

I wonder if we'll ever see and upgrade on this site to have the multi-quote feature.

I have no issues with players having multiple PCs in the game world - just multiple PCs in the party at the same exact time. I'm getting from your post that you mean the same thing?

Where I can see it being conflicting, and hard to juggle. Sometimes the situations in the game are such that the party is only effective when each player is playing two characters. Usually, I make the stipulation that if they are going to run two characters, at the same time, that if they do anything 'fishy' in conjuction with those two characters... that being the GM, I have the power to veto their actions. Though, I've never seen such problems. I don't mind if someone does something, like act divisively against their other character. After all, they are just roleplaying. But usually, the players understand that we're only doing this because we need multiple characters because the party would suffer without them.

Basically because I am still not sure why the PCs were with this character - since we never did anything. Anything that we fought our weapons and spells were useless against (only the 'charlie's' abilities could effect it). All the puzzles we encountered only the 'charlie' could solve. We got to the point of the PCs - in character - playing cards during battles while the DM rolled dice against himself. It didn't take him long to realize that we weren't lifting a finger. (DM: "PC1 - it's your Init." PC1: "I raise." PC2: "My init is next. I fold, too rich for my blood.")

That's the problem. If anyone is going to pull a Gandalf, you never go half-buttocks (is that grandma friendly enough?) on it. It should be more of a 'Charlie' situation where he sends the party out to do his dirty work. All of this work should be beneath him, that's why he has the party for!

I once, when I first started GMing, I was pulling a Gandalf. Well, it was more of a Mary-Sue since the character was only a couple of levels higher than the party. I wanted my character to be more of a 'in-the-background' kinda deal. But I quickly soon realized that the party was relying on my... and I'm said to say... DMPC. So, when I finally had my players meet the main villain, who had captured them all. My DMPC told the players what they needed to know, just before they were interogated, and of course... since the DMPC was perceived as the 'leader'... the villain went to work on her... and in the process killed her. No dice rolls, just matter-a-factly tortured her to death because he "didn't like the fact her teeth were so perfect".

Now, I'm not saying that it can't be done well - I believe that it can - but that particular experience was not done well.

No, I'm just glad you guys found another way to entertain yourself while the DM played him himself.

 

[Imagicka]

In games with rotating GMs I normally suggest they be episodic enough in the first place that one GM's plotlines don't mix much with the others'. Fortunately that means that there's no good reason to drag along every party member in every adventure, so when you swap out GMs you can have Billy the Thief stay at home and protect the valuables and thusly not worry everyone with his amazing ability to know just when to call for search checks, when to fall back into the back of the party before the ogres attack, etc. Just put the sheet away and give him XP as if he'd been there, just like everyone else does with their own characters when THEY are running.

It might stretch someone's sense of absolute realism, but it's just the most practical way to do things. If the GM runs his own character he's got a DMPC and that upsets the players, if he lets another player run the character then there's always the danger that they turn him into a high hit point Nodwick and lower him into rooms to test for traps while the GM gets upset because "Billy would never do such a thing!"

For the most part whenever I've done rotating (round-robin) GMs... James' suggestion here is dead on. The DMing styles of the varoius DMs is often different enough that you don't want to rely on any of the other DMs to set up any particular situation for you. Unless it's a theme your working on. "Okay, all I want you to do is to get the players to DarkReach, and have them attacked by members of the Thieves Guild... oh, and make sure that they see lots of ravens on their way there." But never expect another GM to run your story for you, the way you want.

You want an example of how different DMs can be? Goto a gaming con where they are all running the same adventure, and then talk to the various DMs (or players) and ask them what happened in the game. I usually like to debrief the other DMs when we run a gaming advent... hang out with them afterwards with a cider and a plate of wings, and find out what they did with their group. The differences are like day and night.

I find that most players will want to also swap out their characters when your changing DMs as well. Because more often than not, the players want to try something new... and as soon as one of them did it... they all did it. Either for the novelty, or just to round out the group. Which always begged the question from me... If your going to bother to all change your characters, why are we bothering to play in the same world? Why are we even playing the same game?

 

[Brimshack]

Sorry I missed this quote. I was getting a little frustrated with the discussion to be honest, and I just got back from Gen-Con So-Cal. So, I haven't been keeping up.

Trolling back up the thread a bit.

Why are you uncomfortable with the idea of servants? It is certainly fitting with the setting. Many, many fantasy heroes had mooks with them. Conan had a pretty decent leadership score - granted, it kept getting knocked down 'cos he got all his followers and cohorts killed - but he still rarely trooped off on his own.

Since the cohort is given to me by a feat that I choose to take, screwing me over by having my cohort do something against my interests is hardly fair. We don't suddenly have PC's wands that they crafted themselves spontaneously combust. I would be very, very angry if a DM decided that my cohort was going to screw me over. I would also be truly angry if my cohort was better than me.

Now, don't take that to mean that the cohort should be useless. If I'm a fighter and I take a cleric cohort, I expect the cleric to be a better caster than me, of course. But, I don't expect the cleric to be able to outfight me, have more hit points, better AC and know all the answers.

Your second paragraph gets to the heart of my concern. Screwing someone over isn't necessarily what I have in mind, but I do think a cohort ought to be considered a real person with a real life of his own and real preferences. The notion that one person's loyalty is settled and can be taken for granted is what I find objectionable in the use of cohorts. I am well aware that there is a rule for them and that it costs a feat to get them. This doesn't change the fact that the practice is prone to abuse by the players. Your comparison of the cohort to a wand is precisely the heart of my concern. I'm not interested in any world in which a person of any kind has the functional significance of a wand.

An NPC is fine. I've run them and had DM's who've run them. Groovy. A DMPC is a bad thing IME.

Okay.

Look, one of the worst things you can do is bring in a Mary Sue character. That's just bad for everyone. A DMPC is a Mary Sue. If he's not, then he's just an NPC.

No. A DMPC is not by definition a Mary Sue. That they tend to be is a noted fact. That regular NPCs can also become Mary Sues and Scene Stealers is also clearly true. The attempt to redefine a DMPC as a Mary Sue effectively turns an empirical question about how a DM actually manages the character in question into a matter of semantics. Just because a DM runs a PC and considers it his own doesn't mean he will run it as a scene stealer or create it as a Mary Sue. And just because you call somethign an NPC doesn't mean it won't be run as a scene stealer. Your concern is reasonable; your statement of that concern is not.

An NPC cleric brought into a group that needs a healer is fine. An NPC cleric that is 5 levels higher than the party, outfitted to the gills and has access to resources far beyond the party is a VERY BAD THING.

As you've read my posts, I think it should be clear that I too think that is a bad thign. I also think that is one of the advantages of a declared DMPC. In my circles, a declared DMPC is rolled up at the level of the party and under the same constraints as the regular PCs (plus a couple metagaming restrictions on long term problem solving). The only times I have ever been part of where the DMs character was consistently scene stealing and well above the power level of the party the character in question was technically considered an NPC. Often they were introduced without the initial intent to keep them in the party. They helped us with a situation, then they helped again, and again, and again... until the DM is effectively running a character with all the emotional attachements of a regular PC. As the NPC inthese situations was not initially rolled up as the rest of the party, it was not subject to the same restrictions and hence ended up several levels above the party.

Now we can say that the characters in question (paragraph just above) is now effectively a DMPC, but that approach is misleading. It leads to the expectation that gradual continuum can be resolved with a simple categorical reference. It can't. The DMs screwed up in these instances not by making a single decision about the nature of the character, but in a series of distinctions in which the character gradually took center stage away from the PCs. This is a question about how the DM conducts himself, not a simple classificatory exercise of finding the right label for the right character. There was never a magic moment in which the character became a DMPC much less a moment ni which the DM decided to make the character a DMPC. What there was was a gradual evolution of the campaign into a situation in which a character technically classified as an NPC was in effect being run as a PC.

 

[Brimshack]

Just taking stock of teh semantic angle for a moment. What are the variety of things we can use the distinction DMPC versus NPC to signal:

A) An over-powered and/or ideal character versus one that is par for the party.

B) A favored character versus one that receives treatement comparable to the rest of the party.

C) A character considered part of the party versus one who is subordinate and/or really treated as background for the party.

D) A character that is considered as belonging to the DM and to which he has attached goals comparable to those of the players versus one which he runs without such investment.

Are there others?

For my own part, I am thinking of this largely in terms of definition D. I'm doing this because I am fairly certain that when I roll up a character and introduce it into a party as my character, I am fairly certain all the usual concerns will immediately come to mind. Those who define a DMPC by definitions A, B, or C are unlikely to give me a pass simply because I haven't yet triggered the technical distinctions which they highlight.

And herein lies the problem I think with a lot of the semantic arguments being tossed around here. Unless you are prepared to say that a situation such as described in definition D is NOT a DMPC, then concerns such as those attached to A and B, are not really semantic questions; they are practical concerns about whether or not D actually leads to conduct such as described in A and B. Those are perfectly reasonable concerns, but they are concerns which play out in the actual details of a campaign. A DM may field a character in keeping with definition D and fail to produce the problems associated with A and B. Likewise, a DM may produce the problems associated with A and B without ever making a conscious choice (much less an openly aknoldged one) to play a DMPC.

If avoiding the situation described in A and B the primary concern of a player, then I think it's reasonable to raise it in cases where a DM fields a character. I also think refusal to play under the circumstances described in D would be reasonable. What is not reasonable is the assertion that D is by definition equivalent to A and B or that it leads categorically to them.