Today's comic was spawned from a few games I played in where the DM's characters had the best stuff, the best weapons, and would randomly be able to do things to save the day.  Sadly, I think I made that mistake a few times myself when I was 13 or 14.   Luckily I grew out of it pretty quick, though the games I remember most having this trouble were run by people in their 30s!  If you've ever experienced this first hand, maybe post here...

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

Well the npc was the guide, the badass, the main hero, and for some reason when my character was trusted with a dragon's egg it would only hatch for him.  Good thing for duct tape and coup-de-grace's!

So you were playing the sidekick to the DM's Eragon?

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

So I'm reaching in the way back machine here, Spring of 97, my third, no fourth, D&D campaign. First time at the table with this GM, who's been doing some pretty awesome stuff in a Star Trek PBF game. He's got an awesome concept world, I have since knicknamed it Jurrasic Elf. Real lost worlds D&D stuff, I was playing a Paladin with a Triceritops Bonded Mount. (second coolest mount I ever got BTW).

So we run this quest, we go here talk to these NPCs, go over there talk to those NPCS, go back over here, talk to these NPCs. Everywhere we go, NPCs are rude and upity, not wanting to help the party. Twards the middle of the second session, a swarm of Velociraptors attack town. It's like 20 to 1 in their favor, and the NPC guards are doing shite. The VRs bust through the gate, and start eating people. My shots are bouncing off them, the Mage is out of spells, the thief made his Hide/ Move Silently check to get the H-E-double Hockey sticks ((should we be calling these Palin sticks now?)) out of Dodge. They ate my bonded mount. All is lost... until a tribe fo elves who live on the back of Brontosourii arrive. The next 10 minutes is a combat between NPCs, and amazingly unlike me or the guards, these guys have weapons that work.

I'm agast, I'm insensed, I'm offended, I try to commit suicide. (In character of course) They save me too. Co-incidentally that was the alst game fo D&D I played with him. He was later kicked out of his Star Trek group for having Domineering NPCs.

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I would like to report a DM who liked his NPC way too much to the DnD police (wouldn't it be awesome if such an organization actually existed): Myself.  About two years ago I started a DnD group for a bunch of normal people who had never played and wanted to try it out.  Being the accommodating person I am I agreed and much to my surprise they took white well to it and it last for some time.  About 6 months into it I introduced a character that was quest both necessary and serving my own desire to be a player in a DnD group (I hadn't been for almost a year).  It was all good at first, I would have him tag around like the rouge he was and usually once per session he would pop out and do something cool and then go back to his almost nonexistent status.  It worked.  Too well.  My players liked him and wanted to know why the hell he was doing what he was and asked me to go into his back-story a little (i.e. invent one), so I did only to make a side quest around him that turned into the main plot and quickly spiraled out of control.  Before I knew it my NPC was the some unholy fusion of main quest giver, broken character at their same level (remember I was an experienced player and the others were noobs), and party face.  It got so bad that one of my other players suggested that he take over and I play him as a character, which worked pretty well except I soon got a huge taste of my own medicine.  He not only turned his old character into the same unholy fusion but actually made him a demi-god at level 12.  A god! We quickly told him to kill the character, which he did only to have him go to hell and start a revolt. *smacks head* The group actually lasted for another year and a half, but its best parts were clearly before I screw up with my NPC.  Truth be told I think I have advanced substantially as a DM since that point and could now run an NPC like that without the obsession, but I would rather not chance it and make the following statement: DM shouldn't have NPCs in the party as players, if they want to play they should find another DM to play under because member of a world and absolute master of a world usually don’t go well together.

Man this is a long post.

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God Gives us Strength so we can defend the weak, so that they can defend us when we are weak.

I completely agree ComicViolence, its too tempting for the DM to want to have the most powerful character, or the funniest character, or whatever. 

Its really disheartening to go into a game looking to tell a great story/have fun/etc, then have an NPC run in and have better stats, better equipment, and more powerful magic. 

 Also, NPCs should never have strong opinions on what the players should do, otherwise you're not arguing with the NPC, you're arguing with the DM, which puts the players in a bad situation all around.

 

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

I remember about 10 years ago, (just after 3.0 was released) I was in a campaign with this DM who really wanted to tell the story of his character.  I don't remember a whole lot, one thing stuck in my mind:  We were all around 4-5th level, but the DM railroaded us into the middle of a major national war.  I don't think any of us rolled a die for the entire gaming session that day, just listened to Ron go on about how his character was leading the elite corps of troops and decimating the enemy. 

I think that was when I started bringing my laptop to gaming sessions and playing freecell and surfing the web during lulls.

my dm (sven) keeps doing this thing were we meet our future selves and "fel halkling" the npc rouge was in it once

it was obvious that he wanted him to become a permanent member of the team becase most of his campains from than on were very rouge heavy (every second room had a trap to search for)

at the time "fel" was the one leading us through the tunnel and opening all the doors, it was at the end of the tunnel and about five minutes till we all went home that me and the other players decided to kill him just to screw with the timeline

but like a rash (next session) he returned in the next town we were in and his story was and I quote "i was rescued by a band of gnome traders one of which was a cleric knew the rezerect spell" rescued by a band of gnomes who happend to go into that tunnel in the middle of nowere and rezerect the first dead corpse thay saw out of hundreds there (from the last minute pit traps) and than get to this vilage faster than we could?

 

now what about that strikes you as odd?

I know one GM of mine in particular who is NOTORIOUS for doing this.  We were in a BESM (Big Eyes Small Mouth: its an rpg system for playing anime) campaign where we were battling a universe eating universe.  It seemed like every session we would go out on some mission were a powerful important NPC would give us all of the battle tactics divide the group up and lump them with other divisions.  We got no say in which division we wanted to be in, it was always an NPC bossing us around (In fact at one point I loudly protested in character because the other division was doing something perfectly suited for what I could do, but to no avail), or whether or not we wanted to be split up; we never did.

Each session the NPC would have us go off and deal with mooks who wher way to easy for us, and then the NPC would swoop in once we did all the booring grundge work and take out/maim/kick-off the plane the big bad guy of that session.

Each of our characters were either from some Anime or game where he could show how powerful his NPCs where in comparrison or from the "home plane" and had their back stories in variably weaved into the story of some given NPC.  For example, my first character was a technomancer/artificer.  The GM weaved my character in as being the APRENTCE to "Areost" the "second smartest technomancer in the universe"  who was in turn an ex-aprentice to his even powerfuller NPC "smartest technomancer in the universe."  I built the character so that I could build cool gadgets for all the other players (I hate taking all the spotlight, I enjoy boosting other players, and I like ensuring game balance taht way.)  Throughout the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN my character didn't get to build a single device worth note.  Everytime we needed some piece of technology Areost would always swoop in and make it for the party before I could try.  When I did try Areost would always *conviently* assign me to some other task, or to "helping him."

He also had a NASTY habbit of never letting anything we did succeed.  everytime we tried to take on ANYTHING that was a challenge would would almost invariably fail, and then one of his big "bad ass" NPCs would swoop in and "overcome this incredible challenge."

I got so sick of never succeding at ANYTHING, and never being able to make anything, that I made a new character.  I confrenced with the other players, and at their secret request (I was the best rolepalyer in the group so I could get away with playing him) I made him MAJORLY BADD ASS in abilities (and to my chagrin sort of BROKEN)!  He was quite litterly the walking manifestation of an entire UNIVERSE/PLANE!  (I don't need to go into the backstory but I will if asked, the story was cool and everyone enjoyed my backstory ALOT, some more than the game).

for anyone who knows BESM trstat system I made his stats::    body: 4    mind: 6    soul: 16;   the other players didn't have a stat over 8.

okay the reason why I mention this is becasue everyonce in a while when something was happeniong that the other players couldn't seem to handle I would have my character flex all of his might and see if he could beat the challenge (to test to see if it was even beatable).  Th GM would have my cahracter role soul roles to see if I could succed and for soem reason my character would regularly fail if I roled bellow a 10 (on 2d6)  lets point out that that makes the DC a 26 to succed!  I would also like to say that no other player could roll more than a 20 (12 [max roll] + 8 [stat]).  For those more famiar with D&D let me say that th max suggested DC "improbable" is 24, so this makes the DC equivilant to an epic+ DC roll when we were equivilant 12th level.

For some reason though...everytime one of his NPC tried the feat they never failed, in fact they rarely even rolled!!!

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dang sorry about the length.

Wow.  Blatant.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

of corse on the other hand there are times wheanthe dm hates thear creation and trys to get rid of it

now I think it was last year that we were doing a quest were we needid a gide for the forest

the gides name was num treearms ect' ect' or something like that and she was a female elf, now the dm did'nt like doing girls voices and wouldnt you know it erica a 18 yearold woman who lives an hour away joins our weekly groop

now whean ever our dm had to roleplay a girl infront of erica he would get embarrassed and so he started trying to kill num treewhat'shername

now at forst me and the groop tryed to protect her thinking it was part of the quest

in the end the horde of bad giys all going for one person clued us in and this made things a little more fun

and she keept geting bitten by snakes and dieing of "mega cancer" the whole rest of the way but ericas new character was a cleric so she just keept comeing back

in the end she died but not before telling us of her manly man brother who lived not far from here who knew the rest of the way (and would gide us without question or charge even tho his sister died not 40 ft from his door step)