Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 2090664" data-attributes="member: 5171">Okay, were you just bringing that up for anecdotal purposes, or were you bringing up what you do and what would cause you to leave a game as an attempt to argue that having a DMPC is wrong?  If you were just bringing it up for fun, then I apologize for inferring otherwise, but perhaps you could bring up "SWRushing's personal gaming style, totally unrelated to the argument over DMPCs" in another thread.  If you were doing it for the purpose of arguing that DMPCs are wrong, then I believe that noting that your gaming style may not be the gaming style of all players is fair.Interesting.  My personal viewpoint is different from yours.  I can see how yours would get in the way of you using a DMPC.  Mine doesn't get in the way of me doing so.  That's not a slam on you -- but it does mean that if you're DMing, you probably want to avoid using DMPCs.My viewpoint is that when I'm playing a PC, that PC is both an extension into the world and a tool for the story and plot.  I'm emotionally invested in the DMPC, more so than I am in an ordinary NPC, of course, but I'm also emotionally vested in the other PCs.  That doesn't mean I won't kill them.  It just means that when I do, it's a bit more emotional, a bit more personal.  And that usually makes it better.Maybe this is a writer thing.  I'm just as annoyed at having to kill PCs in some stupid meaningless random encounter as I would be at having to kill my DMPC in one, and while playing a game, I'd be just as willing to sacrifice my own character for some cool, well-played big-bad end fight as I'd be to kill off a DMPC in one of the same.  If it's got good drama, I'm cool with that.That statement, while true, doesn't really give me much to work with as far as understanding your position.  Yeah, the player is on the other side of the screen.  He doesn't roll for the monsters.  I get that.  Is this a back-end run at the "DMs shouldn't have DMPCs because they can't be impartial?"  Between not playing genius-level DMPCs and occasionally asking, "Okay, gang, based on what you know of the situation and of Lelenia the paladin, what do you think she'd do here?" when I've lost track of exactly what the PCs know and don't want to play her as knowing too much, things usually work out just fine.So, in your mind, what's the difference?I don't know if you watched Buffy, but I'd be curious as to which characters you felt would be PCs if that were a campaign.And since you've neatly divided the world up into PC and NPC and refused to admit that DMPCs exist in this paragraph, there's no room for a third area, like, "Character who is with the party and will not be simply dismissed like a henchman, who is not tied to another character like a cohort, who is allowed to voice opinions but does not do so in such a way as to force the group down a specific path, and who is essentially played like a PC by the DM, with the understanding that the DM will not abuse this."That's probably fair.  For me, the difference is that I still control her in combat, and she gets a share of the experience, like anyone else.  Because I'm also the DM, I try to be as undemanding a player as possible, so I'm not demanding about treasure or spotlight time.  The advantage I have, of course, is that I can come up with whatever background story I want for her and not worrying about the DM not approving of the story.  And I can have as much spotlight or solo time as I want -- it just happens purely in my head. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Except that we haven't gotten "a problem more than not" from this thread.  We've gotten multiple people saying "Can be good, can be bad," some people saying, "I've had bad experiences," some people saying, "I've had good experiences," and a few smart folks saying, "Probably like anything else, a few notoriously lousy cases have made everyone leery of the idea, but it's not actually a problem most of hte time." So I'm describing an NPC who gets an equal share of the treasure and XP, won't get dismissed at the end of the adventure like a hired henchman, isn't tied to one character like a cohort, and is treated by all the PCs exactly like one of their own. Realistically, the last line.  It's how the other PCs treated her that made the difference.  They weren't thinking "Bob's cohort" or "Our hired henchman".  They were thinking of the DMPC as a member of the team, as much so as any of the PCs.We may be having an extended argument over semantics, here. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification