Good thoughts all around.
I do not DMPC, as I'm trying to work on something a bit different in my games- all the DMPCs I've made in the past were little more than attempts to lead the party about by the nose, and once I realized what I was doing, I stopped.
As DM I try to keep in mind that I'm playing too, just that my role is a lot different from the PCs. I'm their ally/coach, not their antagonist/judge.
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@Zexcir: Your conditions aren't necessarily bad, but I would offer a point of caution about a couple. #1 and #4, if the NPC ally is suppose to "hold his own" as a full party member in combats, then these can be extreme hindrances. In the end, these may cause the NPC ally to become The Load, and end up wasting a lot of character actions just trying to keep such a character alive. Ultimately, this may cause the party to abandon the character, which I guess might be the desire of the GM in this case anyway.
If a GM Is going to run a major character with the party, the GM should not take up too much time taking up actions anyways. The players already have to wait for all the enemy combatants to go through plus any indecisive players in the party. SO I use a cheat sheet, that lists a priority of actions so that when it's the NPC's turn, it is a quick action anyways.
As for #4, you can equip the NPC well enough that they are able to create an impact on the enemy forces, without having to take from the players loot. After thinking more about it, I believe that one should see how the players react to situations and base how they handle future NPC's that tag along with the party.
I know the group leader, and most experienced playing table-top, was concerned when I went to introduce a major NPC along with them, because he had multiple bad experiences where GMs would have overpowered and broken characters that have everything they need when they needed it. Which will make their characters feel insignificant. Where if the NPC is less powerful than the players, the players will then feel more satisfied with their characters - which ultimately is how they should feel because they are the main characters.
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Characters run by the DM are NPCs. There is no such thing as a DMPC. Some NPCs will stay with the PCs for a long while, some die quickly or drift away. However, having some kind of way to talk to the PCs can be a great boon.
Personal preferences aside, I'm not sure I agree with that logic, LazarX — at least not as a blanket statement. First off, it seems to infer that GM/NPCs added to the story can't have definite parts to play or defined exits. One of the BIG advantages that I've always seen to Paizo's APs is that with fairly open plots, they are conducive to integrating homebrew content and simply dropping to the slow XP track.
As an example, given the mix of NPCs in Serpent's Skull, Paizo seemed to do a good job of covering roles the players might have forgotten. Hell, one of my players has become bosom buddies with Sasha [as I play her in our PbP] and is hoping to keep her on as a cohort. I rather doubt I'd have gotten that positive reaction from that player if I simply treated Sasha like a cardboard cutout and not 'owned' the NPCs.
To the contrary, there have been other games I've participated in where it felt like the GM was screwing with us because of the fact that the GM/NPCs were so lacking in depth. Those have been the instances where I've felt the GM/NPCs were simply tools with which to mess with the players. YMMV.
I've run a DMPC in my game. I'm fairly ruthless with her life, just to make sure I'm not favoring her at all. She's the same level as the party, and gets loot from the same stash that the regular party does. I've also made her sometimes right and sometimes wrong, just to keep the players from relying overly much on her for DM cheats.
The few times she's come close to dying, and the time she was removed from the party, the players made a pretty big deal about saving her life and missing her, so I must be doing something right. She's not intimately connected to the main plot (Savage Tide), so if she dies, the story will go on.
One of the most constructive things a GM can do is learn to look at the campaign as his PC. You should be as interested in the PCs as the players are, and that's what sates my normal drive to have a PC of my own.
Actually having my own PC in a game I was running would be very unsatisfying, I think.
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I universally oppose the idea of a DMPC. For particularly small games (i.e. 1-2 players), I support the idea of an NPC who "sticks around" and, by and large, is kind of a DMPC, but that NPC will never have the wealth, stats, or usually even levels of the PCs. It's more like a cohort than a true DMPC.... just one that the PCs don't need to pay a feat for.
What we're referring to is the general question of DM inserted NPC's and one person brought up the NPC's of Paizo AP's as a sort of justification for DM's putting in their own characters.
Yes, I know that's what we are referring to, I was the one that mentioned it. :P The point I was making is that whether it's an NPC inserted by the GM or one written by Paizo, it's still a character that is not being 'voiced' by one of the players. Unless the GM tells the players that they have modified the story, then players who are not 'reading ahead' should really have no clue whether an NPC is homebrew or Paizo.
IMO making such distinctions is a form of metagaming — one that breaks the 4th wall.
I generally feel that this is something that should be avoided at almost all costs. and that players shouldn't be coddled this way because they refuse to take care of critical issues such as healing.
Of course, all of this assumes that the GM is capable of maintaining the integrity of the story and ensuring the experience is enjoyable for all parties — players and themselves. From what has been stated in this thread though, it's apparent that a great many GMs are... lackluster in that department. If that's the case then I would agree with your statement than 'generally' it should be avoided. However I'll still stand by my statement that it can work and should not be discounted out-of-hand.
As far as 'coddling' players, I think we might be looking at it from different perspectives....
If none of the players are enthusiastic about having to be a front-line warrior... or perhaps arcane artillery, trap-springer, or healer, it seems rather authoritarian for me to mandate that every single one of the 'traditional' roles must be covered whether they like it or not. I'd rather that all of my players be enthusiastic about their characters rather than one of them resenting that they got roped into filling a role they don't want to play.
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I universally oppose the idea of a DMPC. For particularly small games (i.e. 1-2 players), I support the idea of an NPC who "sticks around" and, by and large, is kind of a DMPC, but that NPC will never have the wealth, stats, or usually even levels of the PCs. It's more like a cohort than a true DMPC.... just one that the PCs don't need to pay a feat for.
Precisely why I use a Vow of Poverty Healer NPC for it.
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I generally feel that this is something that should be avoided at almost all costs. and that players shouldn't be coddled this way because they refuse to take care of critical issues such as healing.Of course, all of this assumes that the GM is capable of maintaining the integrity of the story and ensuring the experience is enjoyable for all parties — players and themselves. From what has been stated in this thread though, it's apparent that a great many GMs are... lackluster in that department. If that's the case then I would agree with your statement than 'generally' it should be avoided. However I'll still stand by my statement that it can work and should not be discounted out-of-hand.
As far as 'coddling' players, I think we might be looking at it from different perspectives....
If none of the players are enthusiastic about having to be a front-line warrior... or perhaps arcane artillery, trap-springer, or healer, it seems rather authoritarian for me to mandate that every single one of the 'traditional' roles must be covered whether they like it or not. I'd rather that all of my players be enthusiastic about their characters rather than one of them resenting that they got roped into filling a role they don't want to play.
Or it could be even worse than that. You could have the pushy player bullying other players into playing certain rolls. They usually are the first to call out what they are playing and use that to justify forcing others to play certain positions. "I'll play the arcane caster and cover that role. Bob you have to play the healer, since we need one and the rest of us are doing our job of covering the other positions."
i have attempted to DM a few times on rare occasions.
i make a boatload of tweaks.