Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

Night10194 posted:

I wonder, have anyone ever had a good experience with a DMPC or long-term party ally? I mean, you can always tell the story is going to go bad when you hear 'And it's his favorite PC from X campaign' but has that poo poo ever gone right?

I can't speak for my players, but I used one of my past PCs in a game of 7th Sea that I ran. The game was the last in a series of six campaigns that my buddy and I ran over several years. He ran the odd campaigns, and I ran the even ones. Players made new characters each time, but the overarching plot and setting was continuous.

I dropped my PC from the fifth game into the sixth one as a plot machine. To make a long story short, she killed a seated member of 7th Sea's version of the Illuminati, "NOM," at the end of the fifth game, so she was on the run and a paranoid wingnut by the time of the sixth game. But her situation made her a great conduit for NOM-related plots. But I never made her a aprt of the group and deliberate made her buzz off whenever important stuff was happening or about to happen. Basically, she'd nudge them in a plot direction or two, or show up long enough to provide a clue, and then turn into a sparrow and fly away because :tinfoil:

I don't think she ever rolled into a combat the PCs were involved in. I made that one of my rules if I was going to use her as an NPC. It worked well, I think.

Then again, I have some horror stories as a player of other GMs turning games into, "Hey, look at what my old PC can do when I can give him as much XP as I want?" One of those games ended with a player standing up and walking out in the middle of a combat round. Social niceties are the only reason I wasn't right there behind him out the door.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

ibntumart posted:

This thread is dangerously close to rekindling my passion for wargaming. Though not 40K (Warmaster is still cool, though).

Hell, I can barely get through a game of HeroClix without looking like a moron. There's no way I'd be able to play a real wargame.

Railing Kill posted:

Then again, I have some horror stories as a player of other GMs turning games into, "Hey, look at what my old PC can do when I can give him as much XP as I want?" One of those games ended with a player standing up and walking out in the middle of a combat round. Social niceties are the only reason I wasn't right there behind him out the door.

There's a guy who used to DM 4e at a shop a few years ago who would do threaten to drop his PC on us all the time.
"If you bunch of level 2 characters start getting out of hand, my character will show up to put you down. He's got 20 levels each in Fighter/Rogue/Ninja/Wizard/Cleric, is a demigod, and the Right Hand of Kord."

the_steve fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Dec 23, 2014

ibntumart
Mar 18, 2007

Good, bad. I'm the one with the power of Shu, Heru, Amon, Zehuti, Aton, and Mehen.
College Slice
Honestly, you'd probably be fine as long as you played someone who wasn't being a dick. It is immensely satisfying once it all falls into place and you start being able to visualize strategy for those little minis moving around the table.

S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

There are plenty of sweet miniature games to play out there, check out the Infinity, Warmachine/Hordes, or X-Wing threads at the very least.

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

S.J. posted:

There are plenty of sweet miniature games to play out there, check out the Infinity, Warmachine/Hordes, or X-Wing threads at the very least.

There also a Star Trek game using the same rules as the X-Wing game, but it uses cap ships instead of fighter-scale stuff. Both are pretty good.

Addamere
Jan 3, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

the_steve posted:

Hell, I can barely get through a game of HeroClix without looking like a moron. There's no way I'd be able to play a real wargame.


There's a guy who used to DM 4e at a shop a few years ago who would do threaten to drop his PC on us all the time.
"If you bunch of level 2 characters start getting out of hand, my character will show up to put you down. He's got 20 levels each in Fighter/Rogue/Ninja/Wizard/Cleric, is a demigod, and the Right Hand of Kord."

What possible point is there in doing that rather than just saying "rocks fall and everyone dies"?

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

Because that's not nearly as cool, obviously.
Sure, rocks could fall, OR Sir Awesome (I don't actually know the character's name) can show up, and much like a cat with a quadriplegic mouse, can show us his entire badass power suite and haha guys, isn't my character so cool, check out THIS thing he can do.

Addamere
Jan 3, 2010

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
yeah dont play with that

JackMann
Aug 11, 2010

Secure. Contain. Protect.
Fallen Rib
Pretty much, DMPCs can be okay so long as they don't draw agency away from the players and aren't annoying. So, don't drop in your level twenty fighter on the level three party, and don't drop in Skinny McHelpless who makes things harder on the party so they have to keep rescuing him. I've seen both. They're not fun. So long as the NPC is there to enhance the party's fun, then things will go well. And always listen to feedback from the party on what works and what doesn't.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
I was a dmpc, sort of, dm had me brought in as a ringer to help out a group with less experience gaming, I wasn't any higher leveled just significantly more optimized. I mainly kept to the background and let the roleplayers keep the spotlight(the guy playing our artificer had some theater experience and kept a journal of events and future schemes, twas fun), but when they made mistakes in combat or got badly hurt I stepped up my game and started throwing out high level iron hand maneuvers because nothing says "hands off the bard" like 18d6 damage.

KJDavid
Nov 22, 2013

My other avatar is a pocke-thingy.
A DMPC that doesn't suck is called an NPC.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Which one of you had the GMPC Cleric who was unable to do anything but cast spells because he was baked all the time?

Doodmons
Jan 17, 2009

Commoners posted:

stuff about etiquette in gaming stores

The 5th ed D&D game I'm in was held in our FLGS for the first couple of sessions before we decided to start hosting it at our homes. The people I roleplay with (myself included) are relentlessly foul mouthed and our FLGS is a family-friendly place. We realised after a couple of sessions that our antics were aggravating the owner - who is a really nice guy - and rather than let it come to a confrontation or anything, we decided to do the sensible thing and not game and swear loudly in his store. We all still buy enough stuff there regularly that I'm sure he doesn't mind.


As far as DMPCs go, I once had a group of NPCs who associated with the player party that I described as 'a former group of player characters' meaning that they used to be dynamic and have adventures and stuff. As of the game, they were all retired. When the campaign began, this group were significantly more powerful than the PCs, but as the campaign went on the gap grew smaller and smaller and eventually the PCs left these guys in the dust. I think my players enjoyed using those NPCs as a benchmark for their power level. And the first time one of the PCs won in a sparring match against the combat wombat of the group was very memorable indeed. Overall, I think it was successful, but I definitely found it quite difficult to not fall into the standard DMPC trap of making them cooler and more important than the player party. It's really tempting when you're controlling a group of characters that you really enjoy.

Shady Amish Terror
Oct 11, 2007
I'm not Amish by choice. 8(

Kavak posted:

Which one of you had the GMPC Cleric who was unable to do anything but cast spells because he was baked all the time?

That sounds suitably amusing. 420 Praise It.

goatface
Dec 5, 2007

I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.


Grimey Drawer
Support role characters who are in the employ or service of the players are probably the easiest to integrate. That or a one-note "swing axe at target" fighter in the type of games they appear in.

Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

KJDavid posted:

A DMPC that doesn't suck is called an NPC.

Basically this. The term DMPC has a whole lot of baggage attached, and while I was in a campaign with enough party-following NPCs to make two whole other parties (We often did, too, we'd send groups of one or two PCs and 3 or 4 NPCs to tackle missions in different parts of the world), none of them had the level of power, omniscience, or smugness required to be truly considered a DMPC. They might have vital information on the off chance our bard (Or my character with 2 ranks in Know:Religion and a disturbing tendency to roll 18+ on it) flubbed her roll, occasionally they'd give us an in for some ruler or other in case we hadn't brought one of the party diplomancers, but usually they were support casters or tanks with their own motivations and personalities.

Kavak posted:

Which one of you had the GMPC Cleric who was unable to do anything but cast spells because he was baked all the time?
Okay, this I have to hear. :allears:

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!

the_steve posted:

Hell, I can barely get through a game of HeroClix without looking like a moron. There's no way I'd be able to play a real wargame.


There's a guy who used to DM 4e at a shop a few years ago who would do threaten to drop his PC on us all the time.
"If you bunch of level 2 characters start getting out of hand, my character will show up to put you down. He's got 20 levels each in Fighter/Rogue/Ninja/Wizard/Cleric, is a demigod, and the Right Hand of Kord."

I don't think he knows how 4E works if he has that kind of setup.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

The Bee posted:

I don't think he knows how 4E works if he has that kind of setup.

It was his 3.5 character from a previous campaign he had played in. I guess he was just so awesome and powerful that the reality of 4e just had to adapt to him.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Dareon posted:

Okay, this I have to hear. :allears:

All I have is this from my big file of RPG stories. I think it might've been Yawgmoth:

quote:

And now you know why the only time I bring in a "me" GM NPC, it's because the group is down a man, he's at-level with the players, and he doesn't participate in puzzles unless asked specifically to make a check because, the way I describe it, he's way too baked to be an autonomous contributor to the party's business.

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

S.J. posted:

There are plenty of sweet miniature games to play out there, check out the Infinity, Warmachine/Hordes, or X-Wing threads at the very least.

I'm not entirely proud of this, but I still have my collection of SportsClix from about 10-11 years ago. If you don't know, and I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if you don't, this was a Clix game based around Major League Baseball that had 2 iterations:

The first, out in 2003 I think, had a pretty complex rule set and was pitcher dominated. Games tended to be relatively slow and very low-scoring even with mediocre pitchers. There was one expansion, but for a collectible game it was not as rear end in a top hat as many. Red- and blue-based rare versions of players, in the base set at least, were no better or point-costly than the more common green-bases, they just looked different. So, there was no functional difference between a green "common" player and a really rare version of same.

The second edition was greatly simplified and very high-offence where games were faster, but usually ridiculously high-scoring. It was more "collectable", by which I mean pay--to-win. The game tanked after that, but I still hold onto my almost-complete collection of the first version of the game because A) I like having them around and B) nobody would want them anyway. I'll probably never finish the set, sadly.

Since then, I've stayed away from any kind of collectable game or even video games with tons of DLC (most of them, these days) because I have bad OCD and I can't stand to not have 100% of something. I used to collect Axis & Allies miniatures, and had quite a set. I ended up selling it because I didn't have anyone to play with, despite liking the game, and I was spending too much trying to complete sets.

Asehujiko
Apr 6, 2011
My best go at a non-intrusive DMPC was in Warhammer 40k:
Black Crusade, players assaulting a hive stack full of baddies that they and their fledgling cult, all of them armed with various small arms and sharp objects, couldn't possibly handle on their own so a sort of friendly group sent a vtol gunship to support them. Cultists go do room to room fighting offscreen and the players get told that their underlings have cleared the staircase to the roof/penthouse area where the enemy boss has his hq set up. Players make their way to the top and get in a fight with the boss. One turn into the fight, a dozen or so enemy troops run out of the penthouse towards the fight. The gunship appears overhead and shoots a missile at them, killing most, leaving a pair of low health survivors to harass the party. Turn after that, a second wave appears, gets blasted as well and the two who don't die join the fight against the party. Third turn, more enemies show up, gunship radios that they're out of missiles and open up with their heavy machine guns and laser cannons. Less effective at killing infantry swarms than missiles, this time four enemies get through and the party figures out that they should try and finish the fight fast before their friends run out of ammo altogether and they get overwhelmed.

Net result is that the party feels like they're doing the most important stuff(fighting the boss) and the friendly npc's are there to keep stuff from interrupting them while they're doing that, even if the support staff's kill count is an order of magnitude higher.

Cartoon
Jun 20, 2008

poop
Well if we're moving onto wargaming:

A map will aid understanding



Two of my friends agreed on a particular set up. Late WWII Western front. The Allied player has to get to and hold the 'flag' being the road junction at the top of the map. The German's have to stop them. The river is unfordable and the bridges can't be destroyed by the forces deployed on the map. As by terrain and role the defenders have a much easier go of it that player was given a small fraction of the points the allied player got. The ratio was agreed by both sides and the equipment list likewise.

The German player(defender) took a slightly unusual approach and heavily stacked the forest on the left (his right flank) with well concealed, sighted and dug in anti tank guns focusing on lanes of fire that included one or other of the bridges. With a small mobile reserve to account for any strays. Unlike most typical German players he focused on guns and infantry and had no armour what-so-ever. His opponent of course had no idea of his force disposition or composition.

What made it fun was the allied player decided to spend almost all his points on infantry and DUKW transports with a small mobile recon force that was meant to be largely bait. He deployed his forces on the left (his left flank) and basically charged to the river and into the forest. Due to the well positioned infantry opposition things actually went pretty badly for him and early on he was starting to lose faith in his clever ruse. What he didn't yet know was that he had accidentally run into the bulk of the defence force and his opponent was now scrambling what ever forces he had available to attempt to stop the imminent disaster. During this conflagration his recon force moved over Bridge B on the right expecting to be annihilated by a similar defence. This was the critical pivot of the match. He waited until (unknown to him) the defending player had repositioned effectively his entire force to deal with threat on the left. The recon unit moved onto the final objective unopposed and the defender resigned because he now couldn't disengage an effective force to dislodge the 'bait' force.

DMNPCs

I tend to deploy NPCs as necessary to fill gaps but either make them explicitly hencemen under the direct control of a PC or independent 'allied' forces who have entirely their own agendas and motivations. Currently in the AD&D1e campaign I'm running in TG the PCs have recruited allies to help them fight a much more powerful wererat cult. The allied are a sect of paladins who can't be revealed publicly and a people's militia (cover story for a gang of the local theives' guild). When in doubt add Nitro and Glycerine and stir.

S.J.
May 19, 2008

Just who the hell do you think we are?

JustJeff88 posted:

I'm not entirely proud of this, but I still have my collection of SportsClix from about 10-11 years ago. If you don't know, and I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if you don't, this was a Clix game based around Major League Baseball that had 2 iterations:

The first, out in 2003 I think, had a pretty complex rule set and was pitcher dominated. Games tended to be relatively slow and very low-scoring even with mediocre pitchers. There was one expansion, but for a collectible game it was not as rear end in a top hat as many. Red- and blue-based rare versions of players, in the base set at least, were no better or point-costly than the more common green-bases, they just looked different. So, there was no functional difference between a green "common" player and a really rare version of same.

The second edition was greatly simplified and very high-offence where games were faster, but usually ridiculously high-scoring. It was more "collectable", by which I mean pay--to-win. The game tanked after that, but I still hold onto my almost-complete collection of the first version of the game because A) I like having them around and B) nobody would want them anyway. I'll probably never finish the set, sadly.

Since then, I've stayed away from any kind of collectable game or even video games with tons of DLC (most of them, these days) because I have bad OCD and I can't stand to not have 100% of something. I used to collect Axis & Allies miniatures, and had quite a set. I ended up selling it because I didn't have anyone to play with, despite liking the game, and I was spending too much trying to complete sets.

Well, fortunately, none of those games are the collectible variety.

Jurgan
May 8, 2007

Just pour it directly into your gaping mouth-hole you decadent slut
GMPC's always worked well for me. In the first campaign I ran, I had a kobold who was secretly a villain sharing a cell with one of the PC's. I wasn't planning on him joining, but the PC actively recruited him to join. So I had him follow along, help fight, all while secretly sending information to his allies. But he helped fight and kept quiet because he didn't want anyone to be suspicious.

Second time was in a Call of Cthulhu campaign (Spawn of Azathoth) which was designed for four to six people, and we only had three players. So my wife (who was a player) and I designed a character to be her ally, and he was basically there to help fight and level the playing field. My brother, at one point, had to stop me from giving advice, so I generally let my wife control him. So, as far as I can tell, it works as long as you make the character a type who follows orders. A henchman, basically.

Rannos22
Mar 30, 2011

Everything's the same as it always is.

Jurgan posted:

GMPC's always worked well for me. In the first campaign I ran, I had a kobold who was secretly a villain sharing a cell with one of the PC's. I wasn't planning on him joining, but the PC actively recruited him to join. So I had him follow along, help fight, all while secretly sending information to his allies. But he helped fight and kept quiet because he didn't want anyone to be suspicious.

I need to know how he eventually turned on the party because I'm a sucker for a good heel turn.

neonchameleon
Nov 14, 2012



Best DMPC my group ever had was before I started. They decided they needed a wizard (everyone was playing martial types except one cleric) so asked the DM if they could have an evoker. Who was a formidably effective Evoker in the "You survived that fireball and they didn't. Now stop complaining." school.

CovfefeCatCafe
Apr 11, 2006

A fresh attitude
brewed daily!
Can't say I've had a 'good' experience with DMPCs. Usually they're some uber-level PC the GM used in a previous game and always has a flashy entrance in which he always saves the PCs butts. Those games usually died out quickly.

The only notable one I can think of, was one of our veteran GMs decided to run 7th Sea. This was a game she liked a lot, and had played a few times herself. The captain of the privateer ship we were on was a (male) character of hers. A day out to sea and we meet up with another pirate/privateer ship, this one captained and crewed entirely by women! Naturally the captain of this ship was another one of her old PCs! Oh, and guess what? Both her PCs were lovers! And we all got railroaded into descriptive sexual acts with the women pirates "so we would be well rested for the adventure." That helped kill the game for me, as well as a couple of players' insistence on announcing every time they wanted to engage in buggery (how they said it) and the GM's eager willingness to follow along, which happened multiple times a session. Basically:

Player A: "I man the mizzen!"
Player B: "I'm in the crow's nest!"
Me: "I'm manning the ropes."
Player C: "I'm going to look for the cabin boy for buggery!" (or something like that)
GM: Very good!
Player D: "Me, too!"
Player C: "Wait your turn!"
GM: "Okay, roll to see how well you did!"

She wasn't normally like this in games (she was a popular GM that I had played with a few times), and she generally avoided "descriptive romance", so I didn't know what the hell was up. I don't think there was ever any actual combat outside of a few players dueling meat swords with the cabin boy.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

I asked mostly to make sure I wasn't alone in having it work out pretty well. In the Pathfinder game I ran (before deciding gently caress Pathfinder) the party rescued a parish priestess from a horrible place-spirit in not-France and decided to bring her along as a healer and buffbot. I think that's one of the keys; the party deciding to bring the character with them.

Ambi
Dec 30, 2011

Leave it to me
I generally have a host of friendly NPCs, or potentially friendly NPCs, since currently my group is only 4 people and often a player isn't there so a DMPC can help fill out the party, or I can throw an NPC to give information or tools for the party to use - magic item repair, scrying, information brokers etc. More recently I have started statting up NPCs with quicksheets (just HP, AC, saves and attacks, plus a few special abilities) to both simplify running them, and so if a PC is separated from the group for an extended scene I can hand them an NPC to run rather than flitting back and forth or leaving them bored. To this end, I generally also write up brief motives/potential backstories I think would be interesting, or suit the character for the players to choose from if they want to go that way, See; being made of shadow and murderbuddies in my previous post.

In my previous game the GM introduced a DMPC for much the same reason - we had no real arcane caster, or knowledge of Planar affairs (two cops and a bunch of Outlands backwaters more or less), so a shy Expert/Wizard was introduced. We had many other permanent NPCs, but that was mostly due to us picking them up like pokémon because we talked our way out of most problems, and because we wanted to see how many our GM could handle with his superhuman skills (Ended with 10 players, plus another 2 retired PCs who came in for the final fight, and maybe a dozen or more NPCs joined us for the finale, not to mention the enemies or our own personal cohort/retinue/my hyena zombies - and he still managed to work in a plot arc).
Honestly that entire campaign was a best experience, and a perfect introduction to RPGs (or reintroduction after an extended drought) for almost the entire party. I would write it up here, but I do not think I could do it justice (also I'd be horribly biased). The GM is a poster on here, and still one of my best friends, so I should badger him to do a writeup sometime. The story of how a disgraced Inquisitor, an oath-bound Paladin, a Gnoll Mad Scientist, a blacksmith's son, a small-time criminal, and a blind lizardfolk doctor took down Asmodeus, King of the Nine Hells needs to be told sometime.

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

Ambi posted:

The story of how a disgraced Inquisitor, an oath-bound Paladin, a Gnoll Mad Scientist, a blacksmith's son, a small-time criminal, and a blind lizardfolk doctor took down Asmodeus, King of the Nine Hells needs to be told sometime.

I'd love to hear it, myself. I'm still pissed at that bastard for killing Azuth, Faerunian deity of wizards.

It probably wasn't set in FR, but I don't care overly much for 4th edition, and I especially didn't care for the FR transition to 4th edition and the painfully bad novels and canon that came out of that. Also, Azuth was a fairly minor power I quite liked... I tended to like the lesser powers in Forgotten Realms. like Deneir, God of LIterature, Red Knight: Demi-Goddess of Tactical Warfare, and Shaundakul the God of Wind and Travelers more than the big, generalist Greater Powers. A lot of those lesser deities were annihilated in the 4th edition changeover.

Yes, I know that I'm projecting, but it still sounds like a hell of an epic story.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


JustJeff88 posted:

It probably wasn't set in FR, but I don't care overly much for 4th edition, and I especially didn't care for the FR transition to 4th edition and the painfully bad novels and canon that came out of that.

I know Faerun got hosed up pretty bad with the Spellplague and whatever, but what else did they do?

Echophonic
Sep 16, 2005

ha;lp
Gun Saliva

Kavak posted:

I know Faerun got hosed up pretty bad with the Spellplague and whatever, but what else did they do?

Sidelined all the punk-rear end DM fiat dudes like Elminster and murderated a bunch of gods. I think Mystra ate it and now wizards have Daily powers? Also added all the cool races to placeswhere they made sense. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Then again, I think the Realms are kind of dumb (Ebberon 4 lyfe), but Neverwinter was a sweet campaign setting book that I enjoyed playing in.

Night10194
Feb 13, 2012

We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Echophonic posted:

Sidelined all the punk-rear end DM fiat dudes like Elminster and murderated a bunch of gods. I think Mystra ate it and now wizards have Daily powers? Also added all the cool races to placeswhere they made sense. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Then again, I think the Realms are kind of dumb (Ebberon 4 lyfe), but Neverwinter was a sweet campaign setting book that I enjoyed playing in.

If an event in Faerun killed off Elminster whoever wrote it will be forever my hero. Did this happen? Did Elminster and Mystra buy it?

Echophonic
Sep 16, 2005

ha;lp
Gun Saliva

Night10194 posted:

If an event in Faerun killed off Elminster whoever wrote it will be forever my hero. Did this happen? Did Elminster and Mystra buy it?

Well, let's put it this way. The Spellplague was caused by Mystra getting Chaos Dunked to death by Cyric and Shar, thus destroying the Weave. Elminster's basically all magic at that point and is pretty well hosed up and driven nuts by this and then Manshoon beats his rear end almost into non-existence.

And this is the stuff the folks at the FR wiki let through. It's probably way better than that.

neonchameleon
Nov 14, 2012



Night10194 posted:

If an event in Faerun killed off Elminster whoever wrote it will be forever my hero. Did this happen? Did Elminster and Mystra buy it?

They tried. They seriously tried. Unfortunately Ed Greenwood was still writing Realms fiction - and (and I'm not making this up) Elminster was reduced to magical ash, I think in an urn, but still survived and recovered.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

JustJeff88 posted:

It probably wasn't set in FR, but I don't care overly much for 4th edition, and I especially didn't care for the FR transition to 4th edition and the painfully bad novels and canon that came out of that.

Now I know you're not talking about the Swordmage novels. The Blades of the Moonsea trilogy kicked rear end and I'll not hear otherwise :colbert:

As for Elminster, pretty much, yeah. His tenure in 4e was pretty much spent being powerless, bitching about how everybody was stupid except for himself and Storm, being a pile of dust (except when his spirit was riding shotgun in the body of his female descendant), playing Benny Hill in Cormyr's absolutely ridiculous amount of secret passages, and then getting re-powered because Mystra reasons just in time to stick it to the Shades.

He got de-powered, but that's relative, because he's still the most powerful Wizard to be a Wizard in the setting whenever he needs to be, he just isn't as strong as he was in previous editions (But hell, that's a fairly common trope in fantasy anyways, isn't it? The previous generations of wizards were infinitely stronger and better at magic than their modern counterparts, but those secrets have been lost.)

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

neonchameleon posted:

They tried. They seriously tried. Unfortunately Ed Greenwood was still writing Realms fiction - and (and I'm not making this up) Elminster was reduced to magical ash, I think in an urn, but still survived and recovered.

I love how canon FR bullshit is the goofiest story in the last several pages of this thread. You couldn't replicate poo poo this dumb with the goofiest, most sleep-deprived group of players in the world.

Re: GMPCs:

A friend of mine is a good guy and a great guy to play alongside as a PC, but he absolutely sucks as a GM. He understands the makings of plot, setting, and character. He's creative, original, and sticks to the rules enough to let them work but knows when to let them go and let players be creative. His only problem that makes him suck as a GM is his GMPCs. He just has no self control about them. He just wants to show how cool they are and, whether they are or not, they take over combats and whole stories. He ran one game in old White Wolf, mixing a few games together (in hindsight, a mistake for the oWoD games, but the nWoD didn't exist at the time, so whatever). We had two mages, a werewolf, a hunter, and a mortal in our party. At the start of the fourth session of the game, the GM showed up saying he had this awesome idea for a mod. The mod turned out to be for Highlander-style immortals in the WoD system. Cheesy, yes, but he's not the first guy to try such a thing, in WoD especially. But god drat did the game take a herd left turn. I get the sense that he had the idea out of the blue, so rather than starting a new game with, you know, the players on board with it, he just dropped it into our existing game. The mod turned every combat into "hey, look at what this GMPC can do!" The crazy crap he made up for the mod was especially bad, since a) Highlander-style Immortals don't commonly have supernatural powers besides being immortal, and b) the crazy stuff he was pulling one-upped the mages in the party in sheer craziness. The game did not continue past that fourth session.

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

the_steve posted:

Now I know you're not talking about the Swordmage novels. The Blades of the Moonsea trilogy kicked rear end and I'll not hear otherwise :colbert:

As for Elminster, pretty much, yeah. His tenure in 4e was pretty much spent being powerless, bitching about how everybody was stupid except for himself and Storm, being a pile of dust (except when his spirit was riding shotgun in the body of his female descendant), playing Benny Hill in Cormyr's absolutely ridiculous amount of secret passages, and then getting re-powered because Mystra reasons just in time to stick it to the Shades.

He got de-powered, but that's relative, because he's still the most powerful Wizard to be a Wizard in the setting whenever he needs to be, he just isn't as strong as he was in previous editions (But hell, that's a fairly common trope in fantasy anyways, isn't it? The previous generations of wizards were infinitely stronger and better at magic than their modern counterparts, but those secrets have been lost.)

I don't want to continue the derail too much, but I guess that at some point the Simbul sacrifices herself to restore Elminster. They were romantically involved and they both had the Silver Fire, so I suppose that that makes some sense. Mystra comes back somehow as well.

Thanks for the suggestion on those novels; I will look into them.

Suleman
Sep 4, 2011
When I use GMPCs, they rarely follow the party on their actual adventures, or if they do, they have a very specific role that does not directly overlap with what the players do.
In the fantasy organized crime game I'm running, there's quite a few supporting NPCs. However, an airship captain will stay with their ship, a crime lord will direct their underlings from afar and the dangerous psycho colleague will be doing most of the dirty, unpleasant stuff involved in the job. This leaves the players to plan crazy heists and dick around, as they are inclined to do. If the players want more mobility or they want to steal a shipment, the airship captain can help. If the players want to make an elaborate plan, the crime lord can help with organizing things. If the players want to get things done, the psycho colleague can take care of nasty things like kidnappings, interrogations and disposal of the bodies, and provide combat assistance if necessary.

So, the concept itself is not necessarily awful, but a prominent NPC should not be taking limelight from the players, but rather allow the players to concentrate on what they find interesting about the game. They generally don't have a lot of initiative. They're there to help the game feel alive and to avoid the tedious elements that would distract from what the players actually want to do.


...I might post some little stories about this game later, actually.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

JustJeff88 posted:

Mystra comes back somehow as well.

She transferred her consciousness into a bear. Not a magic bear or anything, just a bear that happened to be nearby. She managed to summon the Elminster and had him dump a third of the silver fire into her and that somehow restored her powers as a god.

I seriously wish they would have kept her a bear though, because Mystra the Bear Wizard God would have been the best thing ever.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply