Playing a character while DMing. Yes or No?

[Haltherrion]

Having a PC while you DM will never feel like having a "real" PC. At least, it shouldn't. You know what's coming, so there's no mystery. Combat is like playing chess with yourself. Getting new gear and powers doesn't quite feel the same because you're giving it to yourself.

So if you want to add another character into the party, don't call it a PC, because it's not. Call it an NPC. You can give it XP and level it up as if it were a PC, but it's not a PC. It's not your avatar in the game.

If it really becomes a PC, if you find yourself looking forward to getting loot and killing bad guys, if you want to lead your party to victory, then somebody else should probably DM because it sounds like you prefer to be a player.

These are good points. When I was reffing the extra PCs for my son, they were more NPCs. When I do it in the main campaign, it is with the thought that at some point the other ref will take over and then my PC will become a 'real' PC but while I ref it, it is certainly more of an NPC, partly because I need to compartmentalize, focus on ref'ing and not the PC.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Yeah, I do, but in my face to face group I kinda have to. We have only two players, and even though we do a kind of 4E gestalt, it is not enough, and even with three the lack of that fourth standard action a turn can really be felt.

If I had three players I might not play an NPC, if I had four I would not.

In my online games, I never play long-term characters. I just cannot do that and DM well at he same time.

 

[Merkuri]

But I do look forward to getting loot, victories and XP awards, because my character looks forward for it (just swap "XP awards" with "power"). I just act in-character and also keep people around the table interested. Player has to care about others' fun too.

Are you looking forward to it, or is the character looking forward to it? There's a difference. If you are looking forward to it then that's a warning sign.

 

[pemerton]

Having a PC while you DM will never feel like having a "real" PC. At least, it shouldn't. You know what's coming, so there's no mystery. Combat is like playing chess with yourself. Getting new gear and powers doesn't quite feel the same because you're giving it to yourself.

So if you want to add another character into the party, don't call it a PC, because it's not. Call it an NPC. You can give it XP and level it up as if it were a PC, but it's not a PC. It's not your avatar in the game.

What you say fits with my experience.

In a previous Rolemaster campaign, some players left the campaign but their PCs stuck around - they were the healer and the diviner, and the party needed this spell support.

Responsibility for playing them was distributed across the group, with me (as GM) tending to take the lead. But it was not at all like having a PC, for the reasons you give.

 

[pawsplay]

Back when I was running Pathfinder for my son and a friend of mine, I thought we were a little short on characters, and so rather than put another character on new players I ran one myself. I know some GM's do this and some frown on it. I really hadn't up til then, but I liked it and I think I'll continue to. Not only did I get a chance to advance a character of my own, it kept me super honest with the players. I wasn't overly hard on the pc's, and I made sure I didn't hold back just because I had a player in the game. I think it gave me a barometer to gauge some of my actions. If I didn't want to do something because it was detrimental to my character, that was an even stronger reason to do it.

I feel obliged to state that it is psychologically impossible not to have your style affected if you have a PC in the game. However much you may tell yourself you are playing it fair, your decisions are affected, and whether you are too hard on yourself, too easy, or basically fair, you cannot and will deliver or receive the same experience. The way humans are built, with our natural empathy, with our biases, with our cognitive structures, dictates that we see things differently when we have skin in the game.

That said, it's neither good nor bad. I generally do not recommend it. I don't mind investing in a favorted NPC or two, but from the moment they are created, they were born to die, if necessary.

When I was about nine, I ran my first couple of D&D sessions. For one, I played a cleric, while my brother played a dwarf. At 2nd level, I sent the characters up against a white dragon. That's a pretty improbable fight. Predictably, the dwarf died, but thanks to some good die rolls, my cleric actually defeated the dragon, gaining a very high amount of XP and treasure and leveling up. Even though I did not favor my character in any way, neither cheating for my cleric or to the detriment of the dwarf, I was engulfed in the guilty feeling that I had improbably profited while my brother had predictably lost. I became at once at the disparty between us in the information we had about the risks and rewards, and I realized that he would have no vantage to truly know how I may have manipulated the situation. Since that time, I have vowed never to play a PC myself when I GM except when strictly necessary. It doesn't matter that I didn't cheat; what was important was that I saw both sides of the screen.

 

[zonetrooper1]

Youngest son passes off character to eldest son?

Did I mention the youngest is six? Yea, I think I did. And like all younger brothers he was wanting to do what his older brother was doing. I knew this wouldn't last and soon he would be off to see what his mother was doing and the oldest would get the character anyway.

Why didn't the druid player also take on a second character?

This was the second session for the druid player and he was having enough trouble keeping track of it as it was.

I am in no favor of having even number of players, but in case of decision making, even being green, the druid player having another could have given them both a little more.

If both characters weren't half-orcs, it could have given them both a chance to try different characters as well.

It doesn't really matter what other people think about your game, so long as it works for you and your players.

I think the main reason I rarely do this anymore is that my brain is already going a million miles an hour to keep up with all the stuff I need to do to run a great game. Having the extra work of keeping track of another character is nothing I care to have to juggle on top of that.

I also feel like I'd need to be extra careful to make sure that not only was there no favoritism toward my character but not even the appearance of favoritism. That's also work that I don't need to be doing while trying to run my best game.

I feel obliged to state that it is psychologically impossible not to have your style affected if you have a PC in the game. However much you may tell yourself you are playing it fair, your decisions are affected, and whether you are too hard on yourself, too easy, or basically fair, you cannot and will deliver or receive the same experience. The way humans are built, with our natural empathy, with our biases, with our cognitive structures, dictates that we see things differently when we have skin in the game.

That said, it's neither good nor bad. I generally do not recommend it. I don't mind investing in a favorted NPC or two, but from the moment they are created, they were born to die, if necessary.

When I was about nine, I ran my first couple of D&D sessions. For one, I played a cleric, while my brother played a dwarf. At 2nd level, I sent the characters up against a white dragon. That's a pretty improbable fight. Predictably, the dwarf died, but thanks to some good die rolls, my cleric actually defeated the dragon, gaining a very high amount of XP and treasure and leveling up. Even though I did not favor my character in any way, neither cheating for my cleric or to the detriment of the dwarf, I was engulfed in the guilty feeling that I had improbably profited while my brother had predictably lost. I became at once at the disparty between us in the information we had about the risks and rewards, and I realized that he would have no vantage to truly know how I may have manipulated the situation. Since that time, I have vowed never to play a PC myself when I GM except when strictly necessary. It doesn't matter that I didn't cheat; what was important was that I saw both sides of the screen.

I agree with both of you. When I had a stable, large group that actually knew the rules themselves and owned their own books and learned on their own, I never played a character while DMing, for the reasons you both mention. Unfortunately I don't have that luxury and am the sole educator of the group.

 

[EvilCat]

Are you looking forward to it, or is the character looking forward to it? There's a difference. If you are looking forward to it then that's a warning sign.

When playing in-character, you're supposed to feel as your character does. But you can say that I'm looking to experience a character %)

I don't see too much of a difference... Maybe because of STG (story-telling game) experience. You have a character, or characters, that you control, and one of them is a protagonist (along with other players' characters). You play him in-character, he pursues his goals, and by that (and other story means) you keep story dynamic and exciting for everyone, including yourself.

 

[Merkuri]

When playing in-character, you're supposed to feel as your character does. But you can say that I'm looking to experience a character %)

You're supposed to act like your character, but not necessarily feel like your character feels. There have been lots of times where my character has been really pissed off but I couldn't have been happier. I love setting up situations where my character hates another PC or something they do, and provided that the other player is on board with what I'm doing, I love arguing with them and setting up a lot of in-character drama. I do not take it personally.

This may sound like semantics, but it's not. What happens if you, as the DM, get emotionally attached to your character and that character is about to die? As others have said, it's impossible to be impartial in situations like this. Can you really say that you would've made the same decisions for the monsters if you didn't have a horse in the race (so to speak)?

This is not just for DMPCs, by the way. This is for any NPC the DM might have an emotional connection to. To make for a fair game the DM should not get emotionally attached to any NPC. The risk of emotional attachment is much higher for a DMPC because of the tendency to say, "This character is me."

 

[EvilCat]

You're supposed to act like your character, but not necessarily feel like your character feels. There have been lots of times where my character has been really pissed off but I couldn't have been happier. I love setting up situations where my character hates another PC or something they do, and provided that the other player is on board with what I'm doing, I love arguing with them and setting up a lot of in-character drama. I do not take it personally.

This may sound like semantics, but it's not. What happens if you, as the DM, get emotionally attached to your character and that character is about to die? As others have said, it's impossible to be impartial in situations like this. Can you really say that you would've made the same decisions for the monsters if you didn't have a horse in the race (so to speak)?

When you read a book, you simultaneously feel like each character in the scene and also feel excited because you "witness" these events in your mind. That's what you described: character's conflicts bring excitement to the player (or reader). But you wouldn't be able to set up a conflict if you didn't feel emotions that motivate your character, on some layer of your mind; you wouldn't know how would he act. I think we're talking about the same thing, actually %)

Anyway, if the character you had empathy for dies in a dramatic, satisfactory manner, it doesn't hurt you. The same goes for DM, and even more, since he is used to take on the author's role. No character should die in a manner not satisfactory for his player (such as from a series of poor die rolls). There are always alternatives, such as imprisonment, that add to the adventure. Even in a dungeon survival game where you're not supposed to hold players' hands, players are satisfied if the challenge is high to their liking; death in this case motivates them to act smarter in the next try and makes for a satisfying game.

And if the character is dead or out of the story in a way that satisfies all, imagination has endless ocean of other characters.

 

[The Shaman]

So if you want to add another character into the party, don't call it a PC, because it's not. Call it an NPC. You can give it XP and level it up as if it were a PC, but it's not a PC. It's not your avatar in the game.

If it really becomes a PC, if you find yourself looking forward to getting loot and killing bad guys, if you want to lead your party to victory, then somebody else should probably DM because it sounds like you prefer to be a player.

In our group we had four dungeon masters who switched off running games; all of us had player characters in the party because we rotated the chair behind the screen. My character was not an npc - it was my player character.

When I referee, I run dozens of npcs in a game, and I have to make choices based on what they know and don't; often I have to feign ignorance of the adventurers' plans in order to make decisions for the npcs based on what the character knows rather than what I know. I regularly play a game with 'two minds,' that of a more-or-less omniscient referee and that of a character inhabiting the game-world.

The idea that a referee is inherently 'too invested' in a player character to do this fairly and consistently presumes that the referee lacks the requisite maturity to maintain that duality. Though I've heard horror stories about this, personally I can't recall encountering it first-hand with any of the groups with which I've played.

I've certainly sent my characters to their (possible) deaths over the years; in one instance, my dwarf fighter was sent to open a door which I as the dungeon master knew was trapped with yellow mold, and when the spore cloud exploded all over him, I left it to one of the players to roll my save for me. If the players had any doubts about my ability to run a pc in the game impartially, that dispelled them.