Running a Stand-in PC

Ralif Redhammer · Sep 13, 2018

The last time I had a PC present without the player was when we were 14 or so. It went about as well as one would expect with a bunch immature kids.

These days, the PC is just absent, with their absence and return generally just handwaved away.

aco175 · Sep 16, 2018

It depends on where the PCs are in the game. If the whole group is midway in a dungeon, then the PC drags in the rear and one of the other players will roll for that PC in combat and generally act for him. Right now we have a small group so if one mkisses, we usually cancel the night though.

One campaign in the past, we had a NPC with more monster stats so it would be easy to swap out. This NPC would fill in if a PC missed. There was never any reason why the fighter just disappeared and the NPC cleric/thief is now here. It did make things harder when the fighter was not there though.

Hawk Diesel · Sep 16, 2018

Two words. Mallet space. It is where all things go until they need to reappear at the most convenient time.

S'mon · Sep 16, 2018

IMC player absent = PC absent. Keeps it simple.

I try always to end sessions with PCs back in town to avoid PCs wandering off mid adventure.

Laurefindel · Sep 16, 2018

Hawk Diesel said:
Two words. Mallet space. It is where all things go until they need to reappear at the most convenient time.

Is this where all my missing socks go?

Roadkill101 · Sep 17, 2018

A long time ago I discovered that trying to manage an absentee players character as a semi-active npc was a lot of work, more than I wanna take on (and the more absentee players the more work). Letting another player manage another's didn't work very well.
Now-a-days, I employ hand-wavium such that the pc's are all present, but some remain in the background contributing off-screen, such as guarding the dungeon entrance. Such pc's earn a fractional amount of xp towards progression (the amount depending upon why a session is missed, I've one player who's been working a mandatory 6 or 7 days a week for the last 9 months, making two sessions [held bi-weekly] in that time due to using vacation).

Fauchard1520 · Sep 25, 2018

For my part, I've actually invented a "you teleport out of the dungeon" plot device for my megadungeon campaign. I'll have to pay it off at some point (what the heck is doing this to us?), but tying an in-game phenomenon to out-of-game constraints has proven to be an OK workaround.