D&D 5E How Often Do You Have NPCs Join the Party?

[Leatherhead]

"Join" the group? Extremely rarely, only when there are less than 4 people at the table, and then one of the players doubles up and plays it.

Be subcontracted by the group? All the time. Having henchmen to take care of the wagon and horses while they go into the heart of danger is great. Likewise people to manage the homestead and perform other minutiae so they can get back to adventuring is just a necessity.

 

[Grainger]

Have you ever given the party an NPC ally who had the player's or PC's flaws, but even worse?

The guy who charges at prepared defensive positions, tells the king to shut up, harasses the barmaid, tries to grab all the treasure for himself, etc.

Would the PCs try to bail him out of trouble every time, or give up and let him face consequences?

Exactly the sort of dramatic development that makes for an interesting game. An NPC with the party doesn't have to be a DM Mary-Sue or chance to railroad the players - it could be an interesting catalyst for roleplaying and a way to throw them into problems which they need to get out of.

 

[AmerginLiath]

I'm not sure how to answer the percentage question per se.

My ever-morphing group isn't playing at the moment, but we've always had the technique of basically running campaigns-within-an-overarcing-world (a Dragonlance campaign that's been ongoing for about a century in-game and close to twenty years on and off out-of-game) almost as storyarcs with rotating DMs (with one DM as the "showrunner" of a particular "season," to borrow some TV terms) so that one person isn't bogged down all the time. So, we'll almost always have NPCs with the party, because the DM du jour's PC will be run as an NPC during that arc. By switching up DMs such, we just agree which characters get 'focus' during what times (a player who runs a storyline that plays to the subplots and stylings of some other character(s) get rewarded by having another DM include his/her character's subplots & stylings in their storyline). It's always seemed to work, especially with the added twist of the "showrunner" DM giving us certain hints, monsters, or NPCs to include/feature along the way (or taking over for a scene at the end of the night after we're done to run a short scene or two that leads up toward the main villain/storyline for that part of the megacampaign).

So, that might be a ~100%, but the NPCs in question are PCs that tend to be in the background (I remember one famously where the player of a Solamnic Knight ran a mystery arc where we went to his family castle, we met some of his family – new PCs actually – and got to have the adventure there while his PC was tied up in land management issues!)

 

[Psikerlord#]

I never add "fighting" NPCs to the group as a DM. Mainly because as a player I hate these kinds of NPCs taking up any of the spotlight. But also because I want to focus on enemies and dont want to also be running party NPCs.

If the players hire some meatshields that is a different story - no worries at all.

 

[aramis erak]

When I add fighting NPC's, I tend to have the players pick their actions by consensus.