D&D 5E If the DM plays his own PC is it ok for the party to kill him and take his stuff?

[doctorbadwolf]

Yes, it's still being a bad player if the DM is being a bad DM and has a PC they play.

The DM isn't being a bad DM by virtue of having a DMPC. This is logically equivalent to saying that someone with a car that can go very fast is a bad and dangerous driver.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, I think that's fair.
To my mind, there's a difference between "the DM's PC" and a DMPC. The first is what you describe: the DM is also a player with a character. Some groups might have trouble juggling that, but I know it works fine for others.

A DMPC, on the other hand, is something like "the DMs favoritest PC 4evar!" The character is often overpowered, and might be a recurring PC in that same setting or even in others. Adventures often end up revolving around the DMPC, too, consistently and in ways that go beyond the NPC as plot device (who does their important thing, but then leaves the spotlight).

Back in the 2e era, I played for a while in a long-running campaign with a DMPC in this sense of the term. (There were 6 players, so it wasn't necessary to fill a spot in the party or anything.) In this game, the DMPC was the object of every quest, the key figure in every storyline, a buddy of godlings and kings, and powerful beyond their stated level. While there were a couple longterm PCs who had prominent roles in the story, most of the PCs were effectively supporting cast in a grand multicosmos-spanning story about the DMPC. I mean, the story was vaguely interesting, but I mainly played just to hang out with friends; and when I left the game, I didn't miss it. Or even remember much of it.

So that's my DMPC story, and why I tend to avoid them. I imagine it largely comes down to one's personal experience dealing with them.

See, that is an example of bad DMing. That sounds fracking terrible.

OTOH, I've got 2 campaigns that I took over from another DM, and both technically have a DMPC. They level up when the party levels up, they're assumed to be with the party unless there is a reason for them not to be, they get to just be cool every once in a while, they have ongoing plot threads from when they were just regular PCs that have become more like "recurring NPC quest-lines" in how they're handled, and the PCs are free to ignore them. They don't, because this guy is one of their close friends and they like him (both of them), but they could, and they know that.

In my Eberron game, the group just basically got a quest to accompany Khalid the Shadar-Kai Monk/Rogue (Cobalt Soul/Inquisitive) to his home in Thelanis, in the shadowy kingdom of Shaelas Val, and on to the City of Night, to bring what he and the Vryloka Paladin have learned about their people's shared past and lost true homeland to The Sisters, and possibly find what they need to complete the puzzle of that lost land, and find it again.

This is a type of story/quest that I do sometimes with NPCs that aren't at all part of the party. It's "recurring NPC X"'s personal quest. There will be tie-ins for multiple PCs in different contexts, moments to shine for multiple PCs, opportunities to be the person who saves the NPC or finds what they need or forces them to face something difficult, etc.

In a fight, Khalid often takes out minor mooks, stalls a dangerous enemy at an opportune moment, provides opportunities for others, or even just serves as a vehicle to introduce a complication like enemy reinforcements arriving, by way of using his turn to narrate him doing some wild monk nonsense only to stop dead in his tracks, go "oh [curse], we got maybe half a minute before we are royally [curse word]" to announce the arrival of a new dangerous enemy or whatever. My style of running combat tends to occassionally involve huge fights that the PCs are at the hinge-point of, with most of the battle happening around them. NPC allies tend to be involved in those peripheral elements of the fight unless needed at the side of the PCs.

But Khalid is, from a roleplaying perspective, fully a member of the party. If he died, they'd be calling on Jorasco for a rez. It wouldn't work, because of his origins and who he serves, and they'd have to either perform a ritual to allow it to work or go on a 1-2 session quest to find his soul, but they'd try.

And it adds to the game, and is a useful tool in my kit. The trick is simply to not use them as a vehicle for your own aggrandizement, or to make them The Chosen One, or whatever.

 

[Bill Zebub]

The DM isn't being a bad DM by virtue of having a DMPC. This is logically equivalent to saying that someone with a car that can go very fast is a bad and dangerous driver.

I disagree. It's more like saying that "anybody who drives a (model redacted) is a smug, entitled person." It might not always be true, but dang if there isn't a high correlation.

Mod Edit: Seems someone forgot to redact at least one word…

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I disagree. It's more like saying that "anybody who drives a (model redacted) is a smug, entitled prick." It might not always be true, but dang if there isn't a high correlation.

I mean, I've only heard stories of bad DMs with DMPCs, while OTOH I've seen dozens of campaigns with DMPCs where none of the horror story stuff happened, so...now it seems, from my perspective, that you're saying that Honda Civic owners tend to be smug, entitled, [expletive]s.

Regardless, the saying you propose is not any more rational than the one I proposed. People who drive cars that can go very fast have a reputation for being bad and dangerous drivers, but that reputation is built just as much on confirmation bias as it is on facts, and assuming bad driving because someone is driving a car with a very high top speed is irrational and unreasonable.

Likewise, having a DMPC does not equate to bad DMing. (In case you forgot what I actually said and what I said it in reply to)

 

[Bill Zebub]

I mean, I've only heard stories of bad DMs with DMPCs, while OTOH I've seen dozens of campaigns with DMPCs where none of the horror story stuff happened, so...now it seems, from my perspective, that you're saying that Honda Civic owners tend to be smug, entitled, [expletive]s.

Regardless, the saying you propose is not any more rational than the one I proposed. People who drive cars that can go very fast have a reputation for being bad and dangerous drivers, but that reputation is built just as much on confirmation bias as it is on facts, and assuming bad driving because someone is driving a car with a very high top speed is irrational and unreasonable.

Likewise, having a DMPC does not equate to bad DMing. (In case you forgot what I actually said and what I said it in reply to)

I remember reading about a study...man this must have been years ago...where researchers sat at 4-way stops and counted cars that didn't wait their turn. Top two offending types were BMW (all models) and Prius. I always found that funny.

Anyway, not really worth arguing the point. I've only encountered DMPCs a few times...not plot-driven NPCs, but the DM wanting to run their own character...and I've never liked how it has gone. But my sample size is really small.

Found it: https://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/the-rich-drive-differently-a-study-suggests/
2013. I would have guessed older.

 

[J.Quondam]

The DM isn't being a bad DM by virtue of having a DMPC. This is logically equivalent to saying that someone with a car that can go very fast is a bad and dangerous driver.

That's why I personally differentiate between a DM's PC (ie, a DM just running an character in a role equivalent to a PC), and "DMPC", which "by definition" is specifically bad, and therefore a perjorative. When someone uses "DMPC," they typically have in mind something like the experience I related above. They specifically are not referring to a reasonable character run by a reasonable DM in a reasonable fashion. That's not a "DMPC"; that's something else.

"DMPC" is just a short-hand with a specific (negative) meaning, just like "grognard" or "Mary Sue" or "munchkin", for example, each have their own meanings. Maybe the term in that specifcally negative sense isn't as prevalent as those others? But I've certainly heard it enough to think of it as legit hobby jargon, at least in my experience.

 

[Bill Zebub]

"DMPC" is just a short-hand with a specific (negative) meaning, just like "grognard" or "Mary Sue" or "munchkin",

"3D Roleplayer"

/ducks

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That's why I personally differentiate between a DM's PC (ie, a DM just running an character in a role equivalent to a PC), and "DMPC", which "by definition" is specifically bad, and therefore a perjorative. When someone uses "DMPC," they typically have in mind something like the experience I related above. They specifically are not referring to a reasonable character run by a reasonable DM in a reasonable fashion. That's not a "DMPC"; that's something else.

"DMPC" is just a short-hand with a specific (negative) meaning, just like "grognard" or "Mary Sue" or "munchkin", for example, each have their own meanings. Maybe the term in that specifcally negative sense isn't as prevalent as those others? But I've certainly heard it enough to think of it as legit hobby jargon, at least in my experience.

I completely disagree. Taking a very neutral term and arbitrarily making it inherently negative is...not useful, generally. And I'd disagree if you claimed that what you're saying is the general normal usage. IME, people generally use the term regardless of negative or positive context.

 

[J.Quondam]

I completely disagree. Taking a very neutral term and arbitrarily making it inherently negative is...not useful, generally. And I'd disagree if you claimed that what you're saying is the general normal usage. IME, people generally use the term regardless of negative or positive context.

Well, i assumed I didn't actually need to write "YMMV" when stating something that was obviously an opinion and that I clearly said was limited to my experience? Apparently I did! So...

YMMV.

Voila!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note: Remember folks, careful with the language.