Does the word GMPC even mean anything anymore? Let's find out. As a seasoned journalist, I've had the pleasure of experiencing one of my favorite characters ever, Tally, who just so happens to be an NPC.

Tally was a hobgoblin from a space prison ship that my group ran into during session one of a new campaign. They found a crashed part of a prison spaceship on their fantasy planet and a bunch of alien prisoners had escaped. These aliens were about to start causing havoc in an attempt to create a way to get back up to the rest of the prison ship where they had started a prison break.

Tally was a mercenary before being incarcerated. He wasn’t interested in fighting the party, was happy to be free, but understood he had nothing on this planet. Hearing Tally’s story, one of the player characters decided to hire him as a bodyguard. Tally was part of that party from levels 1 – 11 when we eventually stopped playing that campaign.

Now, when I say he was part of the party I mean he fought alongside them, saved other party members, put forth ideas and opinions, and was listened to just like anyone else in the group. He also had his own quirks and desires, and eventually became the romantic interest of one of the other player characters via that player’s romantic advances.

He was an important and valued member of the group. I didn’t intend him to be that. It just happened through play and the unpredictability of RPGs. I made Tally as an NPC, potentially even one that showed up for one scene and was never heard from again, but in the end he served the same function as what is commonly known as the GMPC.

With that experience I thought to try and replicate the end result, which is having an NPC that’s a beloved and functional member of the party. Not a mascot, not a sidekick, but someone who is a true part of the group, and I have. Many times over the last decade.

You can even hear a more recent version of it on The Heroes of Hovel’s Way actual play podcast. Sylpharia and Monte would sit in that role in that game. That’s made me question if the term GMPC has a place anymore. I don’t think it does. The term itself is an oxymoron. Game Master Player Character. I guess you can take both roles at the same time but wouldn’t that just make the GMPC the same thing as an NPC and therefore an unnecessary and meaningless term?

I’m also pretty sure the ttrpg internet hivemind believes the GMPC to be the character a Game Master puts into the party to play because they’re not able to get to play as a PC in a game. The worst offenders are the ones whose characters can do anything and everything that the PCs collectively could do, and probably do it better.

For my money I’d call them allied NPCs or allied GMCs (Game Master Characters) if you prefer. I don’t. I like a classic. The only thing that makes them different from other NPCs is the role they play in the game, which is as a member of the group.

These kinds of NPCs can be there from the beginning. They can join up in the middle. They can come and go. They can die. They can become enemies. They can do all the things any other character in the game can do. They just happen to be members of the party and NPC’s.

That said, there is a set of best practices to make sure your allied NPCs are actually enjoyed and embraced by the PCs. Allied NPCs need to fulfill a role in the group that other characters can’t fulfill.

I’m not a big niche protection person but in the case of an allied NPC this is hugely important. They can be good at healing if there’s no healer. They can be an excellent hacker if no one is any good at hacking. If someone built a parkour second story styled character, the allied NPC best not be better than that PC.

They need to fill a role, not overshadow a role. To make sure you get this right is pretty easy. Just understand what your party needs and what your party has and fill in the gaps.

Wanna make it more palatable to the PCs? Have them help you decide what kind of allied NPCs they want to fill in the gaps, either using the game’s rules to build those characters, or just some general questions they can answer, so you can craft the allied NPCs from the adversary rules your game has.

The allied NPC should have their own motivations. This gives them reasons for hanging out with the party other than because they’re the party.

To figure out their motivations, answer the following questions as your starting point and then fill in until you believe you understand why the NPC wants what they want, and what they’re willing to do and not do to get it.

Give them a couple of personality traits to help guide how we can present them. You can choose to give them more since people are many faceted, but I’d start with two and let the others come through play.

Now when I mention personality traits, I’m thinking things like the allied NPC is dour and aggressive, or silly and curious. I like trying to find ones that could be both good and bad depending on the situation but once you have them, using the information you got from motivations filtered through the personality traits will give your allied NPC a distinct personality and voice.

In play the allied NPC needs to have their own opinions. These characters should also have a say in how the group functions.

The thing is, that input needs to be from the allied NPCs point of view and not the GMs. That’s the important thing.

And it’s doable. But to do it you need to be a little self aware because the problem is, as game masters, we know everything that’s going on in the background. We shouldn’t let that information leak into the allied NPCs’ conversations and actions unless it makes sense.

By filtering the context of the game at any moment through the motivations and personality traits of the allied NPC, you’ll be having them taking actions, saying things, and having their own opinion in play.

With these four ideas we have a pretty good basis for a character that’ll be more than a mascot and have a good chance at fitting into the party. Here’s an example of that: Our allied NPC is Alice. Alice is a healer because I’ve heard the term cleric on a stick so many times, I kind of hate it, and I would like Alice to be more than that.

Alice wants money so she can open up a bar, and serve people food and drinks for the rest of her life. That’s her motivation that pushes her to be an adventurer. Alice won’t commit any illegal acts, especially around her hometown, because that’s where she wants to open the tavern.

Now Alice would cross that line if it meant protecting someone she loved, but she’d first look for other solutions. She’s an adventurer because she is willing to risk her life for a way to get money faster to open her tavern instead of working in someone else’s tavern to make the money slowly over many years.

Alice’s reason for opening the tavern is that her parents owned the previous tavern in town before it burned down. She loved the place, grew up there, saw how happy it made people, and how much she enjoyed just watching the life of the townsfolk pass through the tavern on a daily basis.

The memory of how her parents made the townsfolk lives a little better has stuck with her all this time. Alice doesn’t like defying the law because it was an escaped prisoner who burned down her parents’ tavern and a lawman who saved her from the fire.

It gave her a great deal of respect for the profession of law enforcement. In fact, when she sees law enforcement abusing their power it angers her greatly. Alice lost her dad in the fire and her mom was hurt pretty bad.

This loss makes it hard for her to think of losing others so she’s willing to go pretty far to keep those she cares about safe.

Now we know a lot about Alice: What’s important to her – people she cares about. Things she’s interested in – business, food recipes, drinks and drink recipes. Where her emotional triggers are – how she feels about the law and abuse of it, why loss hits her so hard, and how it can affect her.

For personality traits I like sincere and sociable. Tying that to her motivations and the reasons behind them you can fill in some more of her story for yourself if you’d like, but playing her is even easier now.

She’s willing to help since she’s a healer, will be a pretty popular member of the party, and have a great dynamic with other characters. She best not be better than that PC or she'll overshadow them!

They need to fill a role, not overshadow a role. To make sure you get this right is pretty easy. Just understand what your party needs and what your party has and fill in the gaps.

Wanna make it more palatable to the PCs? Have them help you decide what kind of allied NPCs they want to fill in the gaps, either using the game’s rules to build those characters, or just some general questions they can answer, so you can craft the allied NPCs from the adversary rules your game has.

The allied NPC should have their own motivations. This gives them reasons for hanging out with the party other than because they’re the party.

To figure out their motivations, answer the following questions as your starting point and then fill in until you believe you understand why the NPC wants what they want, and what they’re willing to do and not do to get it.

Give them a couple of personality traits to help guide how we can present them. You can choose to give them more since people are many faceted, but I’d start with two and let the others come through play.

Now when I mention personality traits, I’m thinking things like the allied NPC is dour and aggressive, or silly and curious. I like trying to find ones that could be both good and bad depending on the situation but once you have them, using the information you got from motivations filtered through the personality traits will give your allied NPC a distinct personality and voice.

In play the allied NPC needs to have their own opinions. These characters should also have a say in how the group functions.

The thing is, that input needs to be from the allied NPCs point of view and not the GMs. That’s the important thing.

And it’s doable. But to do it you need to be a little self aware because the problem is, as game masters, we know everything that’s going on in the background. We shouldn’t let that information leak into the allied NPCs’ conversations and actions unless it makes sense.

By filtering the context of the game at any moment through the motivations and personality traits of the allied NPC, you’ll be having them taking actions, saying things, and having their own opinion in play.

With those steps you’ll have a way to get allied NPCs into your groups that’ll have some depth, be easier to play, and have a greater chance of being enjoyed by the party. But I want to hear from you. What are your tips for getting NPCs that stick around and are enjoyed by the party? How would you improve this methodology? What do you think about the term GMPC? Is it still relevant? Does it even matter?