please answer

Yes.

Thank you.

Depends on what the definition of 'is' is.

Do you mean "Can they have an NPC that is listed as a Player in the Cast pages?"  Then "Yes".

Do you mean should they run an NPC as a "GM PC"... then we're getting into murkier philosophical/ethical waters.

Of course a GM may have, and play, a character that is no different than any other player character in the Cast. I do it all the time.

In reply to evileeyore (msg # 4):

If they're open about it, letting the whole game know that one of the PCs is a GM PC, then I can't imagine why it would be a problem.  It's only "murkier philosophical/ethical waters" if they try to hide it, I think.

yep, in my games the   main 'GM/PC/NPC ' helps  drive the game, but there is a lot of RP with it too... the   1000's of NPCs in the game are aslo, flushed out, as  not to be ignored..or...focused on.
 like writing a book, you never know  which NPCs   ( besides the  main ones)  will be important.

 In Play by Post, its important to be able to keep the game moving , ebcause  stalled games die.

If it's open, list them as NPCs.  If you're hiding it, for whatever reason*, then list them as PCs.



* And no, I don't mean to drag this into a "what is best in gaming" discussion.  I was clarifying that there are two facets to the OP's question.  If the OP wants to go there (or the thread drifts), ce la vie.  There are 'legitimate'† reasons to hide the NPC as a PC and there are not-so legitimate reasons.

† Quotes to designate I do not ever see a legitimate reason.  But that's not to say I feel others are morally wrong (to each their own game), rather I simply disagree.

In reply to Dream Sequence (msg # 6):

Why is it bad "if they try to hide it"?

Online roleplaying gives an opportunity that never existed in tabletop games - imagine a game where one PC is secretly played by the GM, and is actually working against the rest of the group.  A traitor in their midst, who will steal the artefact that they are on a mission to recover, or kill the person they are supposed to be protecting, or summon up the dark god whose rise they are trying to prevent...

At the table, the GM's friend can play that role... but all the secret note passing and furtive glances can give away the fact that the character is not to be trusted.

thanks

Honestly, I see more reasons to hide a GM PC than to out one.

Why? Because 9/10 of the people I have ever played with have a tendency to absolutely, 100% ignore anything labeled 'NPC'. It's like, to the players, those characters don't exist, don't matter, only give plot points, and are useless to interact with. If I'm in a game where it's imperative that PCs actually interact to get plot cues/information/push story, then I've found that those GM-run characters need to be hidden among the PCs... otherwise, they'll get ignored. Or, conversely, everything they say will be treated as more important because they said it (As in "well, this tidbit of information MUST matter, regardless of how trivial it is, because it came from an NPC, even though I would have ignored it from another PC!")

A hidden GMPC can push plot points in a far more subtle fashion, like BBR said, without things becoming hamfisted or stilted.

To me?  It implies you don't trust me as a Player.  And it's simply not something I'll do.  If I don't trust a Player, I eject them from the game.




Another aspect of it I don't like.  Unless I'm in a railroad game anyway, in which case... said N/PC isn't necessary.

After years of seeing players post interaction after interaction after interaction with a character and then suddenly stop doing anything with a character the moment they find out it's run by the GM/it winds up becoming an NPC for some reason? You're right, I don't trust players to treat NPCs like PCs, and I go out of my way to avoid outing GM-run PCs for precisely that reason. In all of my years on RPoL I can count the number of people I have encountered that treat NPCs and PCs with the same degree of care on one hand, and have fingers left over. Heck, most of the players I wind up playing with go so far as to act like abandoned characters that become NPCs cease to exist entirely, even when they were around and active two days ago.

I 100% don't trust players to treat PCs and NPCs the same, and if I need a character to be paid the same amount of attention to as a PC, it's going to have to be labeled as a PC. Too many people have taught me that having that 'N' in the tag results in things I don't want, otherwise. Blame the years of previous players that don't treat all characters equally, with or without the 'N', for my lack of trust...but better safe than sorry.
This message was last edited by the user at 19:32, Fri 27 Sept 2019.

Out of curiosity, how do games like this can possibly even work? Not criticizing or anything here, just trying to understand - interacting with a fictional world is the whole point of roleplaying, so ignoring the most actively interactive part of that fictional world (the fictional creature that live inside it) seems to me like it'd make playing completely pointless.

And most certainly, in any game I'd be running, not treating the NPCs as living creatures with their own agenda and emotion can very quickly lead to death - for PCs and NPCs alike, depending on the situation. I tend to have something like two-to-four NPCs just join the PCs when it makes sense for them to do so, too, and that's never been a problem.

So... just trying to understand how such a different playstyle could work.

In reply to Egleris (msg # 14):

The problem is that games like that don't work. That's why it's a good thing that hidden GMPCs are possible. =)

Seriously though, I'm with you and I don't get it... yet I've seen it happen over and over and over ad infinitum. Most players (that I've dealt with) just don't give the same treatment to NPCs. Either they think the NPC partymember is there to act as a sacrificial lamb to die in their stead "because they're just NPCs" so they treat them like some kind of combat buffer, or they think there's no reason to bother cultivating a good working relationship with them "because they're just NPCs" so they're rampant jerks, or they don't think there's any reason to bother posting back-and-forth with them at all "because they're just NPCs" so game interaction is stilted.

It's like the NPCs are some kind of disposable commodity, to them - useless for anything until they need them to save them. I've watched people suddenly decide to up and ignore a character that they were posting up a storm with out of the blue, just because the player of that character had to leave the game for some reason or another, and they won't bother continuing an IC interaction with the character once they know it's run by the GM "because they're just an NPC now". It's like the GM is somehow not capable/competent to actually play a character in their own game <insert eyerolling here> as far as some people are concerned.

one of my newer players  , gushed  about the reactions folks had   to  some MIA  NPCs   during  a battle.

 when the   actions  was  ended  and the NPCs   found, they happened to make it out alive....4 of the PCs  and   risked thier lives to try and 'get to them"

( yes..PCs  can die in my games, but you have to  be e either, very foolish, or very unlucky..or both!)

 Sometimes folks interact more with the NPCs  then they  do PCs, because they know they aren't  just 'extras'..they are   'reoccurring '  charcters, that can and will, influence the future  of the  game.

 If you can build a solid  NPC  base,  folks will enjoy the game, much  more.

thanks this thread really helped.

On a related note, I have introduced a new PC to a game, only to have the players treat him like dirt because they assumed he was an NPC filling in for the character of a player who had left.  No matter how often I (and the player) said "Nope, new PC.  Honest." the players weren't buying it.  The new player didn't stick around.  :(

I've seen players:

• ignore NPCs while they (the PCs that is) flirted endlessly with each other - mind you, the love birds also ignored other PCs
• automatically assume that they shouldn't trust NPC party members
• assume that NPCs will drop what they're doing to help them (while simultaneously ignoring the issue that the NPC was dealing with - "Hey NPC!  Can you sell me some arrows!"  "Yes, but first I have to put out the fire that's burning down my workshop!"  "I need twenty arrows, as quickly as possible."  "Will you help me with the fire?"  "Are my arrows ready yet?")

This message was last edited by the user at 20:46, Fri 27 Sept 2019.

::chuckles::  BigBadron...we had this  guy in my space  game, maybe?  a year?  I was goign to be the   'surperhero'.. but?  there are limits  what you can do, based on  the CS ect ect.

  anyway, the NPCs  are Milling  around, some are talking to each other.. most are interacting with One or more   PCs...

  I never say " you can't do that"..unless  they  can't  as a character.. so?  this  guy   starts  to   take over the Op...

 He doesn't listen to the NPCs... he doesn't   worry about... ' the thing   making noise overthere"... he  rushes  in through the door and  gets  attacked  by  a Big Beastie...One of the    NPCs  in the lead of the Op wired out on him, " didn't  you  hear what they said? "

 he  answered in the OOC thread, " I thought that was  just fluff!"

 to which I answered  in OOC ".. some fluff is fluff..some   fluff is important, some is  for  flavor, some  is  for the plot..its   for your character  to  choose  what is  what"

 90% of the players  I have had/have, love this... some   get angry because they thought they were set up... but its like a Movie or TV  show.. yo can't  jusy  focus on the  guy  in the middle of the screen!

This is when you set that PC on fire.


@Unavailable - yes, the GM is a player in the sense that they're more than just a facilitator, and if they need to put a GMPC in there to push the plot along sometimes, that's fine, so long as the GMPC isn't favoured over the others.

He will not be.

In reply to Unavailable (msg # 21):

Sounds like a healthy party, then. [thumbs up]

We haven't started yet but thanks.

Exactly.  Treat the NPCs like trash?  Expect them to take you out with the garbage.

Inversely, if the GM let's the PCs treat the world like it revolves around them, then they will quickly begin treating the game world, and everything in it, that way.





On this we agree.  The rest?  Not so much.  ;)





This is what happens when you develop a 'reputation' for GMPCing (even if unearned).  New PCs that can't be 100% verified won't be trusted to be actual Players.


This of course plays into one of my 'medium' dislikes about the site.  Not knowing who the other Players are (by their general board handle) without having to jump through some hoops.
This message was last edited by the user at 01:19, Sat 28 Sept 2019.

Honestly, I've never understood the fiery passion some people hold against GMPCs (unless it's an occasion where the GM is using the character to outdo everyone else in the game...every character should have a chance to excel at something, and I have seen GMPCs who were the best at everything, even if it didn't make any sense for them to be that good at whatever.)

I mean, the GM is there to have fun, just like the rest of us.  If they have a PC they want to run, why shouldn't they?  As long as the PC exists in the same realm of plausibility as the rest of the characters, it's just another character in the game, doesn't matter who's running it.  But, then again, I tend to steer away from GMs who play like they need to somehow 'beat' the players, whether that may be by running a character who outdoes them at every turn or if it's putting PCs in situations from which they have no way to escape or fight their way out (yes, I've seen both...I had a GM drop my brand-new character into a game with no introduction to any of the other characters, no connection to them, stranded him alone on a space ship and had the authorities capture him and charge him with mutiny--even though there is absolutely no plausible way he could have taken the ship by himself and his totally valid ID listed him as a preacher in a non-violent order--and summarily execute him, all in the same weekend.)  The GMs I play with are just telling a story, and the players are helping fill in the blanks and flesh out the tale.  If that story is told more effectively with the presence of a GMPC, great...more power to you.  I already treat all the NPCs as GMPCs anyway...

In my case it's less fiery passion and more this particular instance is pushing a number of buttons* at once, setting my post tone to "strongly against".


* The Buttons (in actual order of severity, greatest to least)

1 - If you don't trust me to uphold the social contract of the game, why am I in your game?

2 - The game is about the heroics of the PCs against/within the world.  We are not here to watch the DM's characters be mighty in our place (or to upstage us at a few key moments).  We have tv shows, books, and movies for that (or for you really old folks, like me, radio shows).

3 - I don't like railroads.  Any NPC whose job is to act as tour guide or strict navigator is actively working against my enjoyment of the game.


2a - Support NPCs are cool.  Emergency 'pull the PC's out of the fire' NPCs are cool, if used sparingly.  NPCs who are foils are cool.  And lastly, NPCs are who just along for the ride because the PCs like the NPC are cool (Inversely:  NPCs that the PCs are saddled with, and hate, but must keep in the group can also be cool).

2b - McGuffin NPCs are also okay.  Example:  Princess Nastypants has the magical power to heal the World Crystal, get her to the World Crystal deep in the heart of the Evil Emperor Wizard Elgrab's territory and she can heal it.  The PCs are not being 'upstaged' in the 'save the world' plot because without them, she could never get to the World Crystal, and likely the PCs will have to deal the Evil Wizard Elgrab and deal with her forces and all the evil hazards of the empire and Princess Nastypants will be useless outside of being used as glue to hold the World Crystal together.

3a - Having set goals and destinations are fine as long as "how we get there" is left to the PCs.  I'm perfectly happy agreeing to "There will be set pieces and plot moments and you agree to go there to deal with them and I'll alert you to them either subtly, at first, or with a clue-by-four to the head if necessary".



Some advice on GM/NPCs.  See... the GM has all the information in this war.  And information is key in war.  So they know that [ENEMY] type will feature heavily and can make a PC that is particularly well suited to fighting [ENEMY].  So while Smashy McGMPC is (on paper) no more potent that the other heros... every time the group faces [ENEMY] Smashy will '[be aggressively awesome]'.  And if [ENEMY] features heavily in the game, Smashy will be a constant superstar.  This is where well intentioned GMs who 'want to play' often go awry†.  The second, and worse manner in which they will go off a cliff into the rocks of "whoa there" is they will insert several different versions of Smashy.  So when Smashy can't rock out, Smushy will.  Or Swishy.  Or Casty McInsanelyOverpoweredFireballs.  Knowing the system (often better than the Players) and the terrain of the game means their GMPCs can always win every war.  And lastly, if the dice come up "Nope, your dead" on your favorite GMPC, let it happen.  Do not save them.  You'll be better for it in the long run.


† Yes, I, your esteemed author of this rant, lived in that house for awhile (I was young, and dumb, and full of [PROFANITY]).  Take my advice, move in there.


9 times out of 10 that is what a GMPC is for (IME).  Now, an NPC run by the GM, tucked into the party (as a support or foil)?  They tend to be okay, and yes, there is a difference both subtle and vast between NPC and GMPC.  And like porn, I know it when I see it (the first clue?  The GM calls the character a GMPC).


In this case... because of the system at work here, I can't tell the difference.  And yes, I am the type to be slightly more forgiving of PCs making stupid mistakes that cost my Character rewards than I am NPCs.  I will always favor adding a PC to a party over an NPC (even if my Character doesn't treat their Character well).  So if we're hitting my arbitrary "too many PCs limit", yes I'll eye any additions warily, unless I can identify them as PCs right off (even then I might eye them warily).

And of course there have been times I've preferenced an NPC over a PC, usually because the Player or the Character were insufferable [PROFANITY]s, and a role needed to be filled.  Or, I just really enjoyed that NPC for whatever reason and the PC was, as above, insufferable.
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was against the forum rules, at 17:50, Sat 28 Sept 2019.

Fixed that for you.  You're welcome.

And, of course, asking them means that they can then decide for themselves whether or not they want to give you that information (as opposed to us deciding for them).

That fixed nothing and supplied no information I did not already have.

I have had fellow Players be extremely reticent (in other words simply not answer)  and one outright lie about who they were.  Why?  I have no idea.


Yup.  I disagree with this policy, but eh, can't do nothin about it.  Except in games I run.

I have run quite a few games on Rpol. In some of them I have played a PC without informing the other players.

Some of these were abandoned by the original player but too plot-involved or interesting to remove or relegate to NPC status.

Others I have created to play from the start, either because I had a special purpose for them or, more often, because I wanted to play.

I never use these players as 'pets' or Mary Sues. I try to play them straight up and never put them in a leadership position, give them special breaks, or let them operate outside the information all characters share. They often fulfill a purpose that no other player has opted for.

I am no longer gming any games because doing so seems to take the fun out of running characters for me.

My case is unique in that what is important to me is character relationships and romance. The sad fact is that players would much rather interact romantically with other characters than they would npcs period.

I also find that if Im a player in the game you can bet my character can never get romantically involved with an NPC becuase gms seem to also steer away from using npcs in this way.

Bottom line - Ive found that players do want a game to revolve around them and if you dont give them exactly what they want they lose interest. It is never ever a compromise where both parties get to have fun.

I avoid GMing, in general, because for me, part of the fun of playing is seeing the story unfold...if I'm a GM, I generally have a pretty clear idea of where the story is going, even if I don't foresee the exact route taken to get there.

I do have to laugh a little bit about the romance angle...I've been in one game on here for years, now...and while there have been romantic elements to it throughout, for some reason, during the last year, romances have become major plot points for most of the PCs in the game...(about a third of those are with NPCs...)

Pretty much all my players across a couple of games currently have/potential NPC love interests...I think it comes down to whether the GM is good at running a diverse range of people, i.e. someone for everyone if the right circumstances arise. If your tiny milkmaid and your strapping lumberjack (and your ungendered heap of sentient alien ooze, for that matter) have the same depth and care gone into making them people, then there's the possibility of PCs treating them as more than NPscenery.

Otherwise it'd be kinda like romancing the GM, which is...not what any players want to be doing and definitely not what a public RPG site is for (it's what those phone numbers in telephone booths and public toilets are for, in fact).

Funnily enough... about 16 years ago I met the woman who would later become my wife, when she applied to a game that I was running here on RPoL.  :D

 the main game I run has a close knit group, they talk about  OOC  stuff in OOC or PMs,  they get along   pretty well. I think that leands itself to the whole 'romance ' thing.

 For an Ensamble game game  that's important.. 'arena  dice rollers"  and  heavy stat  games  don't need it.. but   heavy RP  games  need  folsk to be able to   play off  each other's posts and the things  that happen... just like actors in a  good movie   or TV series.

In reply to bigbadron (msg # 33):

XD

 ...but presumably you built up a good player relationship before an actual one, right? I was actually going to go edit that post for being mean (old legbone posting hungry here) but the "I'm a romance GM but no-one likes the NPCs" kind of had an air of "I'm expecting players to want the NPCs I want to pair them with for story aesthetics that suit me"...all take and no give isn't what players go for. Plus if one wants a stranger that will do exactly the romance fantasy you want, there are professionals.

Now, that was definitely a bit hard on GMs who're actually just...bad at a range of NPCs, but it's practice that can fix that! Like real life, you've got to get good at liking people (or characters) for themselves and being buddies before you have the emotional know how to love someone.

 don't getv me wrong..folks  come  and go, my games  are darker, and  not everyone like it after a bit.

 the ones who stay form friendships through OOC banter  ect ect, and that, of  course leads to  the characters.

 in the end? Its part of the whole thing.. folks  facing danger , trying to save the universe,..the neat thing is  the  folks  who bail or get cut, can be  weaved into the tale , those who  quit honorably, get sent away.

 there  is somethimes  banter   in-game  of  Vet characters  talkign  about , those who died  or shipped out... in the end? its  all believable  with  folks under stress.

I totally agree with you there. And after my post I kind of realised how it came across. One of the main problems with text is a lot of emotional context is lost that would otherwise be picked up in face to face conversation which makes textual communication much harder (If you understand what I mean). Im not the best with words at the best of times so yeah. Ive also discovered that one wrong word here and there, especially when taken out of context can loseyou friends fast.

I'm constantly learning.

There does come a point however (on the subject of give and take) when youhave to stop jumping through hoops to please people when you get nothing in return for your efforts. Im not pointing fingers at anyone here and I do have a good group of reliable friends but I think I must suck at roleplaying tbh because I seem to get on better with people here OOC than I do IC :->

The best option for this and it should be a sandbox more game is to have a co-GM run that single character.

I would say Yes under four conditions

1) Players are aware that the GM is running the PC
2) You are completely transparent with the dice rolls for that PC. You can never ever fudge a dice roll up or down for your GM-PC.
3) You don't over optimize him so that he doesn't overshadow the others. He should fill a niche and I would recommend either a tank, healer, or support style. He should not be an encounter ending wizard or an untouchable multi-attacking fighter. He needs to ensure the other PCs are getting the spotlight.
4) You establish early on that he can be wrong.

This is a bit of advice from Matt Colville's vlogs where when he puts an NPC in the group and the party asks them for suggestions on what to do that it is abundantly clear the GM is not dispensing secret information through them.

For example in his setting dwarves are like mini-klingons so when the party asked the dwarf GM-NPC "What should we do to infiltrate this fortress" The dwarf said "We should scream at the top of our lungs and charge the front gate"
"Won't that result in us getting slaughtered?"
"Yep! And it will be a glorious way to die."

So the PCs all realized "Ohhh...this guy isn't always a great source of information". Sometimes he was useful like specifically with smithing or stonecunning or if they were looking for ways to die gloriously in battle but he isn't a replacement for the PCs to think critically about solutions.

The GM-PC needs to have a clearly established personality with clearly visible flaws that are the focus in interactions with the players.

I think if you tell everyone up front, if you make sure they don't overshadow the other PCs, that they have a very clear personality and can be just as flawed and wrong as anyone else and never ever ever ever fudge dice in their favor it can be just fine.

I think it’s important to point out that the GM is a player character. I only make NPCs that have purpose in my games. Sometimes it’s their own purposes and sometimes it’s the story’s but if they don’t have a purpose, they never make it out of my GM post and into the cast.

I’ve never had problems with players ignoring the NPCs. The only PC characters I’ve had have been ones I’ve been forced to play because players dropped out and their characters were too Central to the current scene/plot.

Although, what BBR posted is a level of genius I’ve never even contemplated.

Years ago I did that. I was frustrated with how players seemed to lack the iniaitive to create battle or heist plans and thought if I snuck in a GM NPC into the party I could give them the periodic kick in the pants to get a plan on paper.

It worked but after awhile I felt very dishonest and it spoiled the game for me. I never felt like I could divorce my player knowledge and GM knowledge completely. I could never come up with a flawed plan without deliberately coming up with a flawed plan and then I would be deliberately misleading the players who had grown to trust that character as a party leader.

I also lived in constant fear that our similar writing styles would eventually be uncovered. I played in another game where PCs secretly played multiple PCs and NPCs and it was fairly simple to discover who was playing which character.

I have since tried it with outright stating "the captain is an NPC" and that failed too. When the Captain asked "What should we do?" the players just turned it right back to the captain and said "What should we do?" and I shut the game down shortly afterwards.

  I think the bestanswer  si the Players...There are MPCs  all over the place in my games...  The Admiral , is the MAin NPC.. i have a  character that is  my character who is a 'semi-NPC'

  The Admiral   orders the ship/Fleet, the characters  act, react,  on their  own...BUT... there is  still the frame  work on this game's Military...

 my other  games  work a bit the same way... some of the players   cause or start some  RP on thier own?  This may even lead to uncovering plot points, or creating them.. other  time the NPCs   'start' some interactions.

 if you have  palyers that peek in and  say.." oh well..nothing for me today"..the game isn't going to last. The GMs  need to  pump life in and not  let the game bog  down..slow  games  die. And? more often then that, The GM has to have a character, of sorts, to be  invested in the RP as much as any player.

 now?  if all you are doing is  jumping from fight to fight and rollign dice?.. the GM should not have a character, , because  players  may think you are tilting the playing field.

 after saying all this?  A GM should want to have a character  in His or Her own game... If you don't want to play in it? why should anyone else?

It helps if you make sure that the GM PC is expressly not the leader. Then, you can just drop little nudges here and there (that are in keeping, of course, with what the character would have access to) when you need to 'right the ship' as it were. Sometimes you need someone to say 'How about we start with this tunnel?' when the entire party is milling about unable to decide which door to choose, but that doesn't mean they should step up and always be deciding which path to take.

That was the problem though. It started out as a gentle nudge and I would jump on any player ideas but as months went by the other players started turning more and more to my secret NPC because he always had a good idea...

That's fair. It's hard to deliberately sit on your hands and let the players make mistakes, but sometimes that's what you have to do - simply be the voice of last resort when no one else is making decisions at all.

I also very much like using the dice to make 'random' decisions. Say for instance that your party can pick one of four directions, but only one is the "right" one? Just roll a d4 and throw out whatever comes up as your GM PC's contribution to the decision making. Takes away some of the fact that you, as GM, know the answer that way.

Use a GM Emulator type of mechanic to make the decisions.
That way even you can be surprised by the choices.

There are many solo gaming options that you can use to keep from always going the direction you expect.

You can create a "Personality Chart" that sets the expected response and then roll off of that for the actual response.
You can even shift the Target Value over time depending on the number of "successes" or "failures".

One solution that I have found when I as a GM am struggling to make an "honest" decision is to loop in a friend of mine. I tell them what the situation is and have them make a decision. I have my friends run criminal gangs, enemy parties etc. It's a great way to involve buddies who can't really play full time anymore but can spare 30 minutes every now and then.

We have completely different mindsets.

It used to be hard for me to let the 'Players fail' when I tried to run 'stories' with 'plots' in which the 'PCs mattered'.  However I learned my lesson, and once I stopped writing stories in which the PCs actions 'were required to move the plot' I stopped caring if they were 'making mistakes', because they couldn't make mistakes.

They could only take actions, but it didn't matter if they worked to help, hinder, or ignore the plot (or even if there were a plot).  Even TPKs ceased to matter.  The next group would do whatever the next group did.


I'll still run games with rails, if the Players want that, but then they are agreeing to get on the damn train and I am not subtle about pushing them in the 'right' direction if necessary.  But then again, that's what they are signing up for, so it's a-okay  (and it's also going to be a book adventure, pre written by someone else - but altered by me, because I do not bother with that nonsense anymore).

 we never  seem to have those problems.. if there is  a game decision.. that's  what the GMs   for.  I do use  'offboard' dice rolls    for  some  NPC  reactions . but   seriously?.. PCs   and NPCs   are supposed to have personalities. Thier  reactions   are easy enough to write, just  with that  information in your pocket.

 I make no bones about, that my players  might be the best on this site...between  OOC banter  and PM  questions, we keep the game goign   freely. we do hit  hiccups when RL grabs  someone, but it never effects the RP  between palyer..NPCs   and PC/NPCs.

 this isn't hard, unless  you are  too close to the  rulebook..in here?  we can hash out stuff face to face... the game slows  down as you try to juggle?... Nope.. there are PCs  and NPCs  whoa re there  to solve about any problem.. and the ones that can't be solved that way..the GM  ruling  takes  care of the rest.

They can be and many GMs make the mistake of doing a PC beside the PCs. The problem invariably is that they give knowledge to their PCs they should not have often and their PCs are used a focal point often when they shouldn't be.

We all go through stages though, and many commit this mistake. Some learn to grow out of it, some learn that they should not be in the driver's seat on both sides of the table, and some find players that is okay with their style.

In reply to praguepride (msg # 44):

My experience has been that most players will wind up turning to ask the directions of ANY character who is consistently decisive (provided those decisions don't wind up routinely having some kind of catastrophic results).  I've been in a LOT of games where I specifically made a character who was not supposed to be the party leader...subordinate officer, or not even an officer, or an alien in a human-centric universe...all kinds of reasons to not choose to follow that character.  But since I tend to play pretty decisive characters, a lot of times my character winds up becoming the de facto party leader, even in games where there is no official party leader.

If you're a GM running a PC in a game, and you let yourself start providing direction for the party through that PC, you're running a very real chance that the party will start looking to that character for leadership.  If you don't want them to follow your character, don't ever let that character do anything beyond provide advice (and maybe fire support...)  The more your character makes the decisions for the group (or provides suggestions which the group agrees to act upon), the more likely it becomes that character is going to wind up leading the party, regardless of who is running it.

And it's not necessarily a bad thing for the GM to be the one running that character.  Not everyone joins a game with an eye towards being the party leader.  Some people really take comfort in playing characters who are there to follow someone else's directions...for some people, it's a chance for a quirky character...they're the sergeant who's always telling his corporals about what bad decisions the lieutenant keeps making, to borrow a common archetype from war movies (especially Vietnam war movies).  They don't want to make the decisions, they don't want to feel responsible for the fate of the party, but they need someone there to complain about, rebel against, second-guess, etc to fulfill their character concept.

I've already sounded off in this thread about my support for the concept of a GMPC, because I've seen it done very successfully on a lot of occasions.  But I've also been equally vocal elsewhere about the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to gaming.  If you want to do it, do it.  It may take you a while to learn to do it well, but if that's the kind of game you want to run, you should run it.  If you hate the idea, don't do it...and if you hate the idea so much that you can't stand being in a game with a GM who does it, tell the GM when you RTJ the game so they can let you know whether or not you should continue with the process of putting a character together.  As is the case with darn near everything else about gaming, there is no 'wrong' or 'right' way to do it...if you're having fun, and the players are enjoying the game, you're doing it right, no matter how it happens to be that you're doing it.

In reply to facemaker329 (msg # 51):

All true, especially the part about most players following a decisive individual.

When I first started playing con event rpgs with my daughter, she noticed that I always wound up leading the party because I always had ideas and voiced them. After that, I began deliberately not being a leader. I often had more fun playing the dumb bruiser or the plucky comic relief or the single-minded scientist or the twit.

When I run games at cons (and sometimes here), I sometimes have an npc leader who dies/goes insane/goes missing once the party has been dropped in deep doodoo. That's fun. Think of Aliens when they lose Sgt. Apone.

This is a great idea and one I enjoy as well. Set up the GM NPC like he is the leader of the group, he gives orders and they follow for a couple missions just so everyone gets a feel for it.

Then kill the NPC. Or Kidnap him. OR make him go insane. Whatever it takes to abruptly remove that safety net.

Sometimes it works, sometimes the PCs step up. Sometimes it flounders and the game dies. Either way it does make for a nice memorable and dramatic moment so I have fun even if it is the end.