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Jan 6, 2013 -- 10:56AM, Hipster_Cat wrote:

Jan 5, 2013 -- 6:36PM, Jorunhast wrote:

It's just my take on things, YMMV.

If you want a world filled with DMPCs and want to pretend they're no different than NPCs, that's your business.

And you're obligated to run your FR campaign with all sorts of NPCs interfering in your game?

Obligated?  Not at all.  But when a designer writes an article advocating this kind of thing, that's where it's a problem.

Jan 6, 2013 -- 12:49PM, Hipster_Cat wrote:

I didn't see Ed advocate what you claim. All he gave me was an good idea for an NPC, another tool in my DM arsenal. A surprisingly good one as most of Ed's other columns were meh for me. 

Not all groups do an adventure in the very controlled environment of dungeons. A NPC like the one Ed suggested is very useful in a RP heavy game.

I just do not understand all the anger.

Criticism of an article or an idea/concept is not the same thing as anger.  At no point have I been angry, and frankly it's getting a little tiresome that you're still suggesting it.  But whatever.

I'm also not advocating "dungeon only" types of adventures or "highly controlled" adventures (whatever that means).

RP-heavy games are great.  They're my preferred style of play.

But I disagree that this is a good idea for an NPC.  That's all.  Again, there's no "anger" here.  Please stop making these unusual attributions.

As someone who has played with Ed as a DM many times, I totally disagree with Jorunhast. Who seems to have totally missed Ed's point: what Quelzard did is what a lot of doppelgangers do. "Maintaining" (helping) "their" pets (a group of adventurers) for their own benefit as the adventurers' benefit. While manipulating the PCs at the same time.
As DM, Ed plays "the Realms." By which I mean a huge cast of NPCs, some sentient and speaking, some "dumb" beasts, and some unhuman monsters. I have known Waterdeep's doppelgangers do this since around 1990, when the PC adventuring band I was playing in, in an Ed-run library program in Toronto, started spying on a landlord and found out that both the landlord and the party's most trusted servant (combination cook and horse-tender) were doppelgangers, and the two of them were conspiring to steer the PCs into conflict with people they wanted weakened or eliminated.
Ed is like most veteran, superior DMs who run games with many layers of intrigue. He lets the players enjoy it on one level but if they ever get suspicious (and he'll give them hints and clues constantly), they'll find a whole "new" hidden layer. That will make them question everything that's happened so far, and see the world around them differently.
Now, you may not LIKE those sort of campaigns. That's fine. But please don't decry those who enjoy a Realms crawling with energetic NPCs. I think Ed is one of the best DMs I have ever met. ALL of his NPCs have their own aspirations and rounded-out lives. Neither Quelzard nor any of the monsters I've seen Ed run are "DM's pets" or "Mary Sues" or there to further the interests of the DM.
I have met players who like roleplaying because they believe that unlike real life, there are no consequences. They can haul off and hack a king or high priest to death because they don't like his nose and then just walk away, because "they're the heroes and the most powerful" characters. They tend to be the same sort of players who want to kill gods and any powerful NPC printed in any book. And criticize DMs who don't let them walk all over everything, but of course get quickly bored if the DM does give them the dominance they want. Perhaps those sort of players are the ones who see DMs as "playing against them." I've never felt that, with Ed as DM. With him, it's more like you're plunged into the middle of, say, A Game of Thrones and guess what? You're not the only ones running around with swords being dangerous.
Quelzard is really good at what he does. The not-so-deft doppelgangers got caught by THEIR adventurers. I'm posting this as proof.