Hi, 

I had a thought about making myself a DM avatar.  

My idea was to make myself an immortal, High Elf bard called Nehemiah, who is reading a story from his most famous work, “One Thousand Years of Dreams”, to a group of elven children far in the future.  Then, the prequel to the primary campaign would be called Tales of Prophecy.  The main campaign itself would be called The Chronicle of Nehemiah.  

Both the prequel and the primary campaign take place through Nehemiah’s narrative.  

Centuries before Nehemiah became immortal and wrote his masterpiece; he appeared in the game as nothing more than an NPC - a bard in the court of one of the noble families of Chrysalis, the capital city of the Imperium of Solace.  He is a generally good-natured, good-humoured Elf who is full of sadness and regret and anger over the death of his wife and child, murdered by purist extremists called, The Nights of The Blood Oath. 

The Knights of The Blood Oath are a group of extremists who believe that the Gods made all races separate for a reason and that Humans should not have children with the other races of the world.  They murdered Nehemiah’s wife and child because she was Human and their son was a Half-Elf.  They left Nehemiah alive to force him to live with the pain of losing his family for the rest of his life as punishment for what they considered a crime against nature and the Gods.  

It is for that reason that Nehemiah became a bard.  To tell stories and sing songs that are gifts to his murdered wife and child.  It is also why he starts looking for a way to make himself immortal, believing that as long as he lives and remembers his family, they will never be dead, that they will live forever in his memories.  

I should say, though, that despite my ideas of making myself an avatar, I would not be running a railroad.  The players will still have all the usual agency and whatever occurs during each session is what I will write up as part of Nehemiah’s great work.  

Has any other DMs done something like this before?  If so, how did it work out?

Also, what are your general thoughts on making a DM avatar like this?

Thanks

Forge XD

From reading this, it looks like your character is going to serve two major roles - they are going to be a major NPC in the campaign and they are going to write the after-action "here is what happened last session" notes in that NPC's voice.  However, from my reading of your description, when you are actually DMing, you will not be DMing with this character's voice, but your own, is that correct? 

I might have different advice based on how that question is answered, so I will hold off on responding with more thoughts until I am clear on that point. 

The closest I have come to something like that is using a spirit that have become linked to the party. The overarching story in the campaign is about getting him back to his home and his wife (sounds simple, but we're 1 year into that journey :-) ). His most common involvement is to answer questions, and can provide some spiritual energy (magic missile) if the chips are really down. 
But,  I would be hesitant about putting in a character with a full sheet played by the DM. Even assuming there's no favouritism, it is another job for the DM that kinda strays over into the player experience. The DM is already "on" a lot having to interact with each character while others wait. Interjecting a DM led character/avatar could be seen as problematic if it "steals" time from players (hope that makes sense). 

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

From reading this, it looks like your character is going to serve two major roles - they are going to be a major NPC in the campaign and they are going to write the after-action "here is what happened last session" notes in that NPC's voice.  However, from my reading of your description, when you are actually DMing, you will not be DMing with this character's voice, but your own, is that correct? 

I might have different advice based on how that question is answered, so I will hold off on responding with more thoughts until I am clear on that point. 

 
You are correct.  

The players would still be telling the story through their actions.  My avatar is retelling the story far in the future.  So he would recount what happened last session (serving the purpose of reminding the players) and also where required become the narrator, setting the scene, describing the world and so forth.  

He wouldn’t actually be the DM in terms of what’s required of the DMs role   

His sole purpose as a bard, is basically to tell (or rather retell, after the fact) the story.  

So after each session, I would write up the events of that session in a format that resembles a literary work, which the players would be free to read as it progressed, and I’d also give them a “here’s what happened last week” recap as Nehemiah at the start of each session - think like the recaps that old TV serials used to do at the start of each episode.  

In that case, I think you will be fine.  At that point, I would not really call them your "avatar"--they are more an NPC who happens to be creating an in-world work of literature.  In such a regard, they are little different than a random innkeeper telling the party a story about those "strange adventurers they heard rumors of", who happen to be the party--the scale might change between the two, and the level of true detail known might be different, but it still boils down to an NPC talking about their interpretation of the party's actions.

To that end, I would avoid calling the character your "avatar" to the party--that would ascribe that character a greater level of importance than a regular NPC and might make your party think the "avatar" is trying to put them on rails.  Neither of those are things you want.  I would just couch it to the party as "I have to write an after-action summary anyway, I might as well have fun with it and do it from an NPC's perspective, rather than a DM's perspective."

I am actually working on the exact same basic concept for a campaign I am homebrewing.  The NPC in question is the head of an archeology guild and will be a major player in the campaign.  She also wrote the 80-someodd-page in-universe guidebook that serves as my players' introduction to the campaign and will write the summaries of what the party members did.

One thing I am being very careful about--making sure her voice feels realistic.  She is not omniscient or omnipresent, which means her version of events or description of locations is going to be governed by her own experiences.  Her own interpretations, biases, and any flawed information she receives will be an element of her writings--I, as the DM, might have perfect knowledge of various goings on, but she does not, and that is to be reflected in the work.  I will  make sure to hit the critical elements the party needs to remember, but smaller details might be forgotten or changed, lost in their having been relayed to the author. 

I would recommend similar flaws in your own character's writings, letting the party know that the character is composing their work based on hearsay and rumor, so the work might not be 100% accurate.  That lessens the summary's value as a strict recap tool, but it would still serve as a nice refresher and would make a fun little in-world document your party feels like they have a hand in creating. 

I’d agree with caerwyn. You should be ok, and calling it an avatar might make it seem more like a DMPC. Might I suggest narrator instead. 

I’m curious to hear how it works. It could be really cool and immersive, or it could be too cutesy by half; but that will mostly come down to execution and not overdoing it. 

I inserted myself in the guise of a 15 year old girl named Clara. She was psychic, and meant to be a local contact for the party for if/when they got stuck. They thought I/she was the BBE and murdered me/her with a shovel.

The closest thing I've done for this is that I have a dungeon I run when I don't have a specific mission on tap from the oneshot games I run. The PCs get magically dragged in, no questions asked, dropped into a "progressive store" sort of room with a mahogany desk, a black office chair, and a goblin attendant sitting in it, who just tells the PCs to check the catalog and buy what they want. The tap an item's name and a big computer lady voice asks them "X item selected, add to cart? YES. NO.", etc. A big, booming voice asks them "ARE YOU FINISHED WITH YOUR PURCHASE?", door opens, they walk in. They reach another door, booming voice asks "DO YOU ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE?", no matter the answer the PCs are pulled into the randomly generated room. Once the time for the session ends, I narrate them getting pulled into a big, black room with a glowing highscore board detailing the points of the previous groups/PCs that've been there. Then all their GP falls on them, they get back into the office and say bye to the goblin. Their GP falls on them again. Then they're sent back to where they got kidnapped from, as they get showered again.

When I remember to, there's a voice (different from the others) that just mocks the PCs. Calls 'em bums, idiots, telling them "haha, look at ya spending hours on this puzzle, lmaooooooooo. It so easy loooooooollllllllllllllllll.", etc. The PCs have dubbed them "The Announcer" and hate 'em. Which is the point! The Announcer is literally the master of the dungeon, they made it. The idea behind them was that they are an amalgamation of all the other DMs on the server I run this on. So they're a crazed being cuz they got so many thoughts in their head, being basically like 12 people at once.They are some ultra powerful being, and have all the power I the literal DM have. But they only use it to just bring all these random yahoos into their dungeon to test shit out or just see who gets the best score. For shits and absolute giggles.

Yeah no, I wouldn't want to play in a game like this. The story is supposed to be about the player characters, not the DM's idolized version of himself, which, unless you actually are an immortal elf bard, is what it's going to look like. Especially since you're making him an important NPC in the actual game AND you're naming the campaign after your own avatar? Thanks, but no thanks. Also, the "stuffed in a fridge" trope is considered really, really horribly cringe for a reason.

I really don't see any purpose to this character in a roleplaying game other than to move focus away from the players and onto this character. I mean, I don't care what a bunch of elf children listens to and if you change things around even the slightest I would feel robbed of *my* story.

Now, if you just want to  do the weekly recap by using the voice and medium of a storyteller in the future, that might work. Inserting yourself as basically the center of the campaign? Probably not so much. Honestly this sounds more like a framing story in a book than anything else.

I'm going to slightly disagree with the usual feeling on this: I've used DM "avatar" characters once or twice quite successfully...  The issue being the difference between a "DM voice" and a "DMPC"; teh former can be pretty useful, the latter not so much.  Hear me out: it's a trick I stole from a couple authors I like (Jules Verne among others); in a world with a lot of lore/information to get across, it can be incredibly useful to just have someone that the players can just ask.  It saves on the need for inorganic lore dumps; and when lore dumps ARE needed for whatever reason; they come form someone that the party already knows/likes/values as opposed to feeling like they're stuck in a cutscene they can't skip.

Thanks, everyone, for sharing your thoughts.  I have decided to think more carefully about doing this to ensure that my players don't feel like I am trying to steal their thunder.