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<blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 6206929" data-attributes="member: 1879">DMPCs are usually poison. But not always.A DMPC as opposed to an NPC is (to me) someone who is on equal footing with the PC, someone they would consider a full share member of the party, and thus has the opportunity to steal the spotlight. This is almost always a bad idea.It is acceptable however if the DMPC is filling a role the PCs need but can't supply themselves such as healer or lockpicker. In this case the DMPC should be fully PC level competant in his area of expertise, sub-par elsewhere, but not an actual liability. Ideally they should be mostly silent but amusing and personable when they do talk, kind of like Scruffy from Futurama.One role where this is a bad idea no matter how much the PCs suck at it is the face character. This leaves the DM in the unenviable position of having to narrate both side of a discussion and leaves the PCs as passive viewers of a pantomime show. There may be places where the PCs NEED an NPC face character for in-game reasons, but they should be a temporary ally, or hireling rather than a regular member of the party.DMPCs are desireable in the specific circumstance where the game has an important sub-system which is time-consuming and isolated from the rest of the party. This doesn't usually crop up in D&amp;D, but I've found shadowrun flows much more smoothly when the Decker is an NPC. Actually Shadowrun has two potential spotlight hogging sub-systems. The decking rules, and the astral plane. However the Astral is a lesser offender, and there is almost always going to be a PC mage. Just my 2¢</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Andor, post: 6206929, member: 1879"] DMPCs are usually poison. But not always. A DMPC as opposed to an NPC is (to me) someone who is on equal footing with the PC, someone they would consider a full share member of the party, and thus has the opportunity to steal the spotlight. This is almost always a bad idea. It is acceptable however if the DMPC is filling a role the PCs need but can't supply themselves such as healer or lockpicker. In this case the DMPC should be fully PC level competant in his area of expertise, sub-par elsewhere, but not an actual liability. Ideally they should be mostly silent but amusing and personable when they do talk, kind of like Scruffy from Futurama. One role where this is a bad idea no matter how much the PCs suck at it is the face character. This leaves the DM in the unenviable position of having to narrate both side of a discussion and leaves the PCs as passive viewers of a pantomime show. There may be places where the PCs NEED an NPC face character for in-game reasons, but they should be a temporary ally, or hireling rather than a regular member of the party. DMPCs are [i]desireable[/i] in the specific circumstance where the game has an important sub-system which is time-consuming and isolated from the rest of the party. This doesn't usually crop up in D&D, but I've found shadowrun flows much more smoothly when the Decker is an NPC. Actually Shadowrun has two potential spotlight hogging sub-systems. The decking rules, and the astral plane. However the Astral is a lesser offender, and there is almost always going to be a PC mage. Just my 2¢ [/QUOTE]

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