I introduced some temporary NPCs a while back in my 5e campaign.

Sounds like your players are enjoying them, so there isn't really a problem. If you don't like them because it takes time to roll their combat turns, just have them be out of the picture when combat breaks out.

>>49280146
The party seems to like cheering them on during Combat, so that might not really be an option.

>>49280012
Involve then less by making them have activities separate from the party

Suck it up nancy and play the game with your players. You're not stealing the show directly. Give them a level or two, and have them handle side detail when the party asks, and have them offer to do low-level quests on the side for the party's benefit. Have them go off on their own occasionally when the Party doesn't wanna come along, and give them a 20% flawless success chance, 60% Success but they get wounded and need a week to rest up, and 20% they get really badly fucked up and have to get the party to save them.

From the sounds of it, if the Kobolds got in over their heads, could be a fun "Curb Stomp" easy game to let the players abuse their level advantage and play the big brothers. Add in, two Clerics are damn handy anyways, so you can have them dolling out stuff on short rests a lot, so you can toss more and meaner shit at the party more frequently.

They want lackies? Make them pay for the food, the housing, and have the Kobolds ask about getting better equipped.

I had a sorta-similar thing happen when the party found a Dwarf in a cave that was near death. I kept forgetting about him, but the party liked him and used him a lot, given he was a Crossbow sniper, so they'd ask him to provide cover, which he would. Usually kept their wagon safe when they were in deep shit, so Orcs didn't get behind them and steal their horses. That isn't too bad a cop-out if the players are okay with the Kobolds being behind. Otherwise, if they want them active, kinda gotta just deal with it or get them killed. Could have your BBEG do it.

>>49280268
Dude, Don't worry, my players do this stuff all the time.

Give your players the kobolds character sheets. You do the roleplaying, they do the rollplaying. Give them all the rolls and work after you make the decisions. Works really well. Your players will spend their own money getting gear for them, make sure they participate. Hell, they'll even level them up for you. Just make sure you're clear that to you make the decisions and do the actual roleplaying. Otherwise the players will start making out of character choices and everything will start getting away from you.

>>49280012
Had a similar scenario. The party was fighting a frost giant invasion alongside a dwarf army. One of the dwarf soldiers took some grievous wounds (vile damage) in the battle and needed some high level magic to undo it. He was the only NPC that got hit by the BBEG without just instantly dropping dead, thanks to some very lucky dice rolls.

The party escorted him out to get fixed up, and being a stout dwarf fighter, he insisted on joining the battles along the way. Once again, he was in over his head, but a long string of very lucky dice rolls kept him alive.

The party marveled at his superhuman luck and ability to survive absolutely anything by the skin of his teeth. So they adopted him and made him the party tank.

At one point I wanted to remove him from the game, so when the party faced off against the bandit king, he took a Death Attack right between the eyes with a DC high enough even his impressive Fort save couldn't keep up with.

This just made the party tweek out go all Powder Keg of Justice on the bandit king. Then they pooled their gold together, sold off some loot, and paid for a Resurrection. And by the way, diamond dust wasn't readily available for the Resurrection, so they sailed across the ocean to the dwarven capitol, where they could actually acquire it. It grew organically into an entire plot arc.

And to top it all off, when the party completed one of their major, over-arching quests to obtain an uber magical weapon that they had been working on for months of real world time, they gave it to the dwarf so he could do more than bonk things for 1d8+1.

>>49280012
There's a difference between followers/hirelings and DMPCs. They don't seem to be spotlight/agency stealing little shits for you to stroke your DM-peen with, so they're fine.

>>49280012
You seem confused about what a DMPC is.
Those characters are NPCs; this represents no conflict of interest and is a natural part of all role playing games.

A DMPC is when the DM makes a player character and is invested in playing them as if he, himself, was a player; this represents a conflict of interest and causes all manner of trouble.

>>49280453
The players are currently rich as fuck (they always roll insanely well on loot tables), so the cost of food and such won't matter much.

The idea of using them as sidequest robots is actually really cool, actually. I'll have to come up with side-quests they could actually do, but I think it sounds fun.

>>49280612
I'll consider giving them character sheet control. Not sure if they'll really want it, to be honest—none of them are huge on crunch.

>>49281132
Okay, so maybe this isn't as weird as I thought it was.

That story is really cool.

>>49281180
>>49281196
Okay, awesome. So as long as the Kobolds never take plot attention away from the party, they're good to keep?

I was mostly concerned with kobold rolls taking time away from player rolls, but, come to think of it, the entire party seemed to really enjoy watching them beat the odds.

>>49280612
As a DM, thank you. I'll be taking this.

>>49282255
To clarify; A DMPC isn't "bad", just really easy to fuck up. The NPC here CAN, in fact, have plot stuff, but it should NEVER be hinged on them. The players should, as usual, be the main driving force and center of attention. Any actions these Kobolds take should feel more minor in scope. Their worries aren't as grand, their challenges are more mundane, their quests pay off less or have "kind thanks" as their main focus, that sort of deal. Make them small, not meaningless, then when they do organically take a big point, it's not all-consuming or the focal point, it's a piece of the players larger story, rather than something they need to be party to.

>>49280012
>I really don't want to put 2 DMPCs into my campaign, but the players unanimously agreed that they wanted the characters to stay.

That is because they are not DMPCs. They are NPCs, and from the player point of view 'real' people in the world that they are friends with.

A DMPC is a character stand in for the DM and almost always are some sort of special snowflake that overshadows the players with his awesomeness. Your guys aren't that at all.

You are doing it right, don't change what you are doing. Treat them like NPCs, and not your own personal stand in character.

What I did in my most recent campaign that I DM'd was gave the party a convoy. Perhaps they are employed by a wealthy noble who adventure and quest in his name, perhaps they were given the additional supplies from a city state to aid their quest, or perhaps they are part of, or are possibly establishing a heroes guild.

But for whatever reason, where the party go, a wagon or two full of supplies and helping hand NPCs follow. These guys can give the party a group of folk to interact with that they will become familiar with on a basis far beyond "Oh, this guy is our contact for X, this guy gave us Y quest.". It gives them the "Manpower" to loot some dungeons after they have been cleared, help build defences during a town raid, something the party can establish over "Oh yeah I guess we'll fight the bad guys.". It also gives the party something else to do from time to time, mine really enjoyed working on trade agreements and investing gold in a couple crates of valuable goods and spices to trade a few cities over while they were on the journey.

We had a Human ex-merchant who acted as the voice of reason quartmaster organising the logistics of the caravan. A Dwarf who worked as the butcher and chef, keeping everyone fed. A Human hunter, who worked as a porter moving stuff between heading out to bring back and Elk for dinner. Two brothers, who worked as porters but mostly slacked off whenever possible. A Human blacksmith who most of the time worked on maintaining the armour and gear of the party, as well as anything else that needed fixing. A halfling who slacked off constantly but somehow got away with it, he was decent with the horses though. A halfling who was earnest and hardworking, often working with the chef around the cook pot. A human student wizard who started travelling with the caravan for convenience and got comfortable. Mostly studies her magic manuels and old arcane books, not much helpful all in all but could help the party identify magical items.

>>49286244
It boiled down to giving the party an extra half-dozen pair of hands for out-of-combat stuff, and it made long rests go beyond "Okay, we rest for 8 hours, any encounter?" Plus it was great for a DM to feed plot hooks, advice or clues if the party got stuck or started thinking far in the wrong direction.

I also kept character sheets for all of them, mostly stated as level 1-2 characters with low attributes. One of the most fun encounters was where I decided to mix it up and at the start of the session handed out the NPC character sheets and said "The adventurers you've been travelling with have been down in the cavern for hours now, they are taking longer than usual but that isn't the most pressing concern, you've heard wolves in the distance and fear that the goblin bandits have been tailing you. Perhaps without the party around they might feel brave enough to attack. You've had to ward off the odd scrap here and there before but fear this may be more substantial. To make matters worse, Hunter and the Porter brothers are still out in the woods." So they went from fighting as a team of level 11 adventurers to doing a session as under equipped level 1-2 characters they were all rather attached to.

So basically, I'd suggest doing something like this. Give the party a wagon to take care of, give them a few NPCs to befriend and hang out with. The kobolds will spend most of the time helping at the wagon, perhaps offering the odd "Healing Touch" or "Lesser Restoration" if needed at the end of the day. Don't be afraid to throw something at the caravan too, let them know that the Kobolds are doing their own thing as well. Perhaps at a later date have the kobolds give a goodbye as they must go another direction for their own quest. Who knows, bring em back later a bit higher leveled as a familiar face.