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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragon Vindaloo" data-source="post: 3274691" data-attributes="member: 46821">How do you usually go about roleplaying your 'extras' who aren’t PC's, NPC's or DMPC's?  If a player has a cohort or something similar (talking sword etc), do you as the DM speak for it and roll its checks, attacks etc?  Do you let the player roleplay his/her own cohorts themselves and roll all their attacks etc? As the DM I have always roleplayed the cohort or animal companion characters and my players and I have never thought to have it any other way, until recently that is.  Normally all the roleplaying for 'Jath the 3rd level fighter cohort' who 'belongs' to the wizard player is performed by me but I share the rolling of dice (attack rolls etc) for said cohort characters with the player, depending on the situation it is sometimes better for me to roll the listen checks, attack rolls and what have you.  The character sheets for cohorts and others like them are shared between me and the players also, passing them back and forth as the game demands.But lately one of my new players (playing a knight from PHB2) has taken the leadership feat and said he wants to get a squire to help him with his armour, sort out his horse etc and then he mentioned that he couldn’t wait to play him (as his secondary character) and proceeded to tell me how his cohorts mannerisms are going to be really cool, contrasting and much different from his knight and there may be some friction between them.I don’t really know what to say as I have never had a player be his own cohort before, the other players think it’s weird to and his announcement to play his own squire was met with blank stares and confused looks all round one guy said its like the new players going to have two characters.  And yes he is.I always play the extras; players have always only ever actually roleplayed their own characters personalities in every game I’ve played in or DMed.  Although with a familiar in particular I think there’s a grey area (as the spellcaster and animal are sharing a mind/personality/soul kind of.) so I do let players have final say with familiars in regard to their actions and things, unless they were to do something silly or OOC like have the animal commit suicide in which case I would say no way in most circumstances and there would have to be a very good story reason for such behaviour.Anyhow, while I am intrigued and open to the idea of the new player playing both his PC and his PC’s cohort I think it’s a bit odd.  I feel like its DM's job to be the world around the PC's and that includes all the folk they meet in the game world.  The new player feels that the cohort is 'his character' and that seeing how he has had to take a feat for it so he should be allowed to play it fully and that the book seems to suggest cohorts and companions are the players wholly, otherwise what’s to stop him from just asking some NPC squire (played by me) at the next village to serve him as his personal man servant/cohort instead.So I am going to let the player roleplay his own cohort as he wishes but it does feel a little...um, strange... On one hand it’s rather liberating and I like this interpretation of the rules and new angle of looking at cohorts and playing them, it feels like my world is growing, more alive but at the same time it’s awkward, scary and feels like something is wrong with this.  Maybe I’m just frightened of change.The new player has been gaming with us for about six months now in a new campaign using Dungeons Shackled City adventure path and it’s his first ever go at any role play game ever apart from WoW online (which got him into fantasy etc) he’s enjoying the D&D hobby immensely and as none of the other players in this campaign are playing characters with cohorts, animals or ‘extras’ the new guy just thought that cohorts, familiars etc were a players thing to play.  Weird but understandable, this has led to me wondering if its maybe my players and I that are the weird ones and lots of other groups out there players play their own cohorts all the time…Well?</blockquote>

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