Editing NPC (section)

===DMPC===
The DM really wanted to play, and so made a character up. Only now, he's in control, so things tend to go the NPC's way.  He will often be min-maxed, but arbitrarily so, as the abilities seem to change with the encounters as they require. This is a '''Bad NPC''' - unless he knows how to stay out of the way for most of the time, which usually doesn't happen. Gandalf is often accused of being the only Good DMPC; in reality, Tom Bombadil was more likely the DMPC, and Gandalf was just an overleveled Player Character from another campaign that the DM let play anyway.

Then again, if the DM knows humility and the dangers of Mary Sues, these can be a helpful tool in situations like the following:
*Inexperienced players 
*Hendersons
*The players did not discuss what sort of characters they'll be building beforehand, and so the party ends up, for example, without a healer. The key is to not treat them any differently than you would any other player character.
* An inexperienced ''DM'' who doesn't yet know how to not kill the party.
* They can be a subtle means of railroading: If the players are mistaking your plot hints for background details or vice versa, you can have the DMPC suggest a different course of action.
* [[Shadowrun]] - if a player plays the team's Fixer, then they'll be bored as shit during a run. If the DM plays the Fixer, they are in a good spot to come up with background details on the spot when the team asks for research, and when the Fixer is out of play there are 'plenty' of other things taking up their attention.