[DevonDs101]

 I am in a game that seems challenging.
We have 7 people plus the GM at the table. We are new to 5th edition and a couple of us haven't player since second edition.

We started the game as a corporate team and the GM set up a character in the group as the team's leader and the team's face.

It doesn't seem to be working well, however I also may just be biased since he had me re-write my character who was designed to be a shaman with strong secondary face to drop my leadership, negotiation and etiquette skills.
Anyway, I am curious what other GM's experiences have been like running characters as part of the team.
Thanks

[Critias]

It's one thing when a GM "rounds out" a group by providing a GMNPC (or GMPC, I've seen it said both ways).  If no one wants to be a Hacker, and the GM handles it via a handy NPC that's basically a walking plot device?  That's no problem, in my experience.  The GM brings the healer in D&D, or makes the electronics guy in Cyberpunk, or what-have-you?  No big deal.

The GM making the team leader though, and then telling folks to change their characters to fit what he wants the group to be?  And doing so in a group that's already got seven players, so it should be pretty well rounded?

Yeah.  That's setting off alarm bells, to me.  There's a lot that can go wrong there, not least of which him deprotagonizing the rest of you and it being "his" team in addition to him running the story and the rest of the world.  Screw that noise.

[Companero]

The only time I've ever seen a GMPC team leader work is when that leader serves purely as a plot hook to introduce the players to the setting in a very specific campaign - cyberpirates, specifically. The captain makes the decisions for one or two sessions while everyone learns what the options are, and then s/he dies and hands over to a player. That's almost understood from the beginning. Hell, the plot might even be based around some pre-game agreement that "the PCs are going to be involved in a mutiny" sometime soon.

Or you could have a stand-offish corporate leader handing out missions, that's an old and proud tradition in Cyberpunk games.

Or even a Carter Burke style character there to screw with the PC team - basically another obstacle.

Those are some leader options.

As for the face...

No. Just no. That completely removes agency from the players. More to the point, that's going to result in GM talking to himself, while railroading the story. Nothing good can come of it!

[Critias]

The only way I'd find this cool -- especially given the plot as explained so far -- would be if the GMNPC "team leader" were to die in like two sessions.  Get everyone used to having him around, have 'em all live the sweet life as a corporate hit team or whatever, big budgets, lots of support, good action, right?  Then have the corp double-cross the team, killing their front-man in the process (and in suitably dramatic fashion), and then suddenly this team of company men is in the wind, off the reservation, and trying to (a) make ends meet while also (b) get to the bottom of things or maybe (c) clear their name.

But the thing is, that doesn't seem to be what he's doing, because he specifically told at least one player to stay away from any "Face" type skills (which means he was worried about preserving the spotlight on his GMNPC, which is bullshit, and it also means he's not planning to remove said GMNPC any time soon, without leaving the players helpless in social situations without him).

It's just...yeah.  The situation, as presented in the OP, is deeply problematic.

[emsquared]

Don't think I've ever seen it done at a table with more than 3 players (that's 3 players and a GM), and never as a team leader.

Real poor form, him telling you to scale back your Facing skills, and not only because social skills are one of those things that you really can't have enough of in a group... I'd talk to the other players, hopefully they're like minded? and then talk to the GM about this - siting the issues Critias has pointed out above (primarily the removal of player agency). If he doesn't respond well, or says he has "plans" for it, but they don't manifest in significant change within a session or two, this is definitely an instance where an IC player revolt wouldn't be out of line, when the OOC message does not come across.

[The_Hyphenator]

I've only done the GMPC thing in one game, a D&D 3.5 campaign where nobody wanted to run a rogue (not really sure why), so I agreed to run one so that they had somebody to disarm traps and pick locks, etc. It worked all right at first until about our third adventure, where a random treasure roll produced a Sword of Subtlety (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Sword_of_Subtlety,) which the party naturally gave to my GMPC since he was the one who could use it best.

Suddenly my rogue was the biggest badass of the group, frequently one-shotting monsters in combat before the sorcerer or fighter could do more than scratch them. The other players started to resent that my character was doing more in a fight than theirs, so I tried to compensate by throwing more magic items their way, and the whole power level of the campaign escalated so quickly that it was ridiculous. In retrospect, I probably should have had my character eat a fireball and fudge a dice roll so the sword was destroyed or something to that effect, but I was a new DM and it didn't occur to me at the time. As it was, I ended up not only having to run the combats, but do my best to make sure my rogue didn't show anybody up too badly, which wasn't satisfying for me as a DM or a player. The group eventually ended up splitting before the campaign ended due to unrelated reasons, but I was suffering some serious burnout by the end, partly as a result of running this character.

I think Critias said it best when he suggested that the GMPC be a temporary character, an "Obi Wan" type who could kickstart the adventure before fading into the background or dying off. I certainly don't recommend running a long-term party member as a GM based on my own experiences with it. But it sounds like your GM is trying to make himself the star of the show, Devon, which is never a good thing. If a game is like a movie, then the PCs are the stars and the GM is the director/screenwriter; he shouldn't be in front of the camera except on rare occasions, if ever.

[RulezLawyerZ]

In my experience, the GM usually thinks s/he has good intentions when adding a GMPC, but really just wants to play in the game. A GMPC is, as they say, an abomination; there is no reason a GMPC shouldn't just be a plain old NPC, one that sticks around just long enough for the players to cheer/cry when he or she gets red shirted.

As for your situation, DevonDs101, I don't have any in-game advice, but do wish you good luck. This is the sort of thing that you generally have to deal with on a personal level; grab your GM by the ear and say "Hey, thanks for running the game, but we kind of feel marginalized by this guy. Can you help us out here?"

[Tarislar]

I've done the GM-PC thing before but as several mentioned its to allow the group to be complete when they are short on something.  Or provide a hint if they are just lost.
But its always then a "silent/follower" type, never contributing till there is a major "need" for it.

But to make a PC change their own character    /boggle.   That is just bad.
And to be the FACE of the group too ?    Double Bad.

Leader, I can almost see that, mostly if its done in some sort of military manner where the GM has the "officer" & the PC's are all NCO's,  so he can "give orders" but in the end they do their own thing.

I'm still going /boggle, over why a player was forced to change their character.  Seriously  /boggle.

[Critias]

GMPCs work best one of two ways, in my experience;  as a plot device, or as a magic item.

Plot device:  use them to help get something organized, to grant social access somewhere they wouldn't have it, to gather together a group of intrepid wanderers and get the quest started (a Fixer, a Gandalf, a Professor Xavier).  Then, they need to either step out of the spotlight, or die.  They get the ball rolling, but then the story is about the rolling ball, not about them.

Magic item:  They're the Decker no one wanted to play, the Rogue/trap-monkey no one wanted to play, the Cleric/healer-bot no one wanted to play.  Make them as a walking MacGuffin who does their one trick, and then keep them hands off.  Use them to do a lot of "aid another" actions, to patch up hurt folks, to reload crossbows, to distract opponents, even to escort other NPCs -- but not to attack, themselves, not to get the kill shot, cook up the big plan, or steal the limelight.  Have them do their one good trick in order to move the plot forward for the rest of the group, and that's that. 

Anything other than these two, and there's trouble on the horizon.  The GM (and as such the GMNPC) knows everything the world has to throw at them and knows all the plots, so they shouldn't be a team leader in the long-term (because they'll either metagame and make all the right decisions, boring for the PCs, or they'll pointedly make all the wrong decisions, which is boring and dangerous for the PCs).  The GMNPC shouldn't hog the spotlight, because it's not his fucking spotlight.  The GMNPC shouldn't solve all the problems, because as the GM he's got all the solutions;  he should advance the plot so that the PCs can solve problems, instead.

[RulezLawyerZ]

GMPCs work best one of two ways, in my experience;  as a plot device, or as a magic item.

This. So much this.

[ZeConster]

The only GMPC experience I have is when my character convinced Tosh Athack to join us on a run (we had to rescue a kidnappee and recover the already-paid ransom money, so I figured having an actual cop with us would make things run more smoothly: I actually had to vouch to personally pay his share if we didn't retrieve the ransom money, as the Johnson couldn't afford to pay another share if we failed), but I agree with everyone else: GMPCs should only be there if there's a job nobody else wants or is able to do, and they should stay out of the spotlight.
Also, WHY would anyone get rid of a secondary face? Does your GM have any idea how invaluable teamwork tests are for negotiating payment? And what if you split the party (which with 7 players plus a GMPC is bound to happen a lot)? It boggles the mind.

[cantrip]

Only time I've ran a GMPC was when we had multiple GMs that rotate through sessions. We opted for this setup to keep continuity for the team and to provide everyone with a character that the team knows. I really back-seat what he does when I'm GMing though---like others have said, the character is used for plot hooks, or possibly as a glorified contact (mine for example is the only mage) when the players need 'expert advice' or some magical backup.

[prismite]

Was playing TMNT some time ago as a Minotaur (Bull mutant) and the other player was a Werewolf (Wolf Mutant). The game was so much fun until the GM decided he wanted to have fun too. So he rolled a Calico Cat girl. On the first session with her we discovered the the FBI, CIA and DHS were after her for some reason. They wanted her alive but the welfare of her partners (us) was unimportant. So we fought law official after law official until a mutant Lion found us and pulled us to safety in some hidden caves.

Turns out this Lion was from another planet where all the residents are feline based and the Calico Cat Girl (named "Callie" not surprisingly) was the long lost heir to that planet's royal family  (which had just been attacked and killed) and fortune, which included a space fleet of thousands of ships. We (the players) had a "WHOOOOA, slow the f**k down! Say what!?" moment.

So because we all refused to go along with the 'space princess adventures' plot, the GM abandoned it, but not before he gave her an alien laser pistol, a space ship and a credit card with a trillion dollar limit. <groan>

No ... GMPC's are quite possibly the worst thing you can do to a player.

[cantrip]

Was playing TMNT some time ago

Completely off-topic; but man! I had me some fun with TMNT! 

[Reiper]

As GM, I'd limit it to support only.

Example, in 5th ed, we don't currently have a decker/TM so I try to work my runs where they shouldn't be needed, but if there is a case where it will be, I play Glitch, an AI I created that resides in a deck that one of the Johnsons owns. So he's on loan, or I'll toss him in randomly as part of the plot (for example, fragging KE's servers temporarily to keep the team's warrant from hitting the public right away).

But as an actual leadership role, I don't think that is a good idea for a few reasons
#1 - knowing the plot twists and the plot yourself, this can lead you to (without realizing it) setting the entire run on rails the way you designed it. One of the coolest things about ShadowRun from a GM or player perspective for me, is doing runs ways in which the GM didn't expect.
#2 - Metagaming - again linked to #1, but it'll lead to more meta gaming

And I'm sure there are other reasons not to as well. But with 7 players plus GM, I wouldn't see a reason to run an 8th PC most of the time simply because in a turn based game, that is a ton of downtime.