D&D 5E Sidelining Players- the Good, the Bad, the Ugly, and the Poll

Saelorn said:

Ten minutes is just about the minimum period of time that I would consider significant in this context, but it was never really defined. That's like one character getting dropped from a bugbear ambush, and the rest of the fight proceeding without incident while the one player looks on.

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In the other thread, the times people objected to were... about 40 minutes at the shortest (in one example), several hours (in other examples), with one person being out for almost 4 hours (he left and saw a movie), and myself being out for 4 hours in slightly different circumstances.

lowkey13 said:

So, what do you think? As always, please use the comments to explain your choice, question the premise of the poll, and declare your undying love for the oeuvre of Michael Bay.

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I don't think people give Michael Bay his due. Sure, his movies don't make much sense but they have explosions! Big explosions! No one does explosions like Michael Bay!

Also, Bay hates people at a fundamental level and hes at his best when he's making nasty movies like Bad Boys and Pain and Gain. Reply to this poll if you agree.

transtemporal said:

I don't think people give Michael Bay his due. Sure, his movies don't make much sense but they have explosions! Big explosions! No one does explosions like Michael Bay!

Also, Bay hates people at a fundamental level and hes at his best when he's making nasty movies like Bad Boys and Pain and Gain. Reply to this poll if you agree.

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Slightly NSFW. Nothing big, just some language.

[video=youtube;_wYtG7aQTHA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wYtG7aQTHA[/video]

*Deleted by user*

Seramus said:

In the other thread, the times people objected to were... about 40 minutes at the shortest (in one example), several hours (in other examples), with one person being out for almost 4 hours (he left and saw a movie), and myself being out for 4 hours in slightly different circumstances.

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That sounds like there would be more consensus around those examples, then. Really, a more useful question might be how long it's okay for a player to be sidelined, before the DM should contrive an intervention.

I would suggest about an hour. If the party can finish the current encounter and retreat back to town so they can bring in a replacement character (or get whatever death/disease/petrification fixed) within an hour, then they should be expected to do so; if they can't, then the DM should contrive a replacement character to join the party within an hour, even if it's only a temporary measure for the rest of that session.

Gadget said:

I believe the example that resulted in the huge kerfuffle in the other thread involved the DM employing an extreme 'Gygaxian Gotcha', such that a 7th or 8th level PC failed a save on a trap on a Dungeon Door and suffered the effects of the Imprisonment spell. Unless it is a more 'Tomb of Horrors' style campaign where the players know what to expect going in, this would be a bit unusual in 5e. Most, put-the-PC-out-of-action effects in 5e (other than death) are fairly temporary until high level, and once PC obtain that level they usually have plenty of get-out-of-dodge tools in their collective tool belt as well.

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The example was mine... The DM is a 'killer' and a 'Gygax' DM who still today runs 2e. The funny thing is I also think he is kinda monty haul...

Every game he runs has house rules but for the most part in the 30ish years he's been playing they are consistent... he has an NPC Archmage that is in every game he runs (he even transferred him to WoD both old and new, and SHadow run) who's name is an anagram of his own... way back when we used to talk about him he had a 25 Con, Int, WIs, and CHa and using high level campagins had true dewomers and 15th level spells and a 'ring of the archmage' that tripled his 1st-9th level slots.

Every item has a story, and multi abilities. He has a variant on the drow that are albino but have even more crazy spell like abilities then base MM...and 1 PC per campaign can play one first to ask gets it no waiting lists.

I was a 7th level human mage with a mantle that gave me 20% Magic resistance, and I could cast Detect Magic, Cantrip, and Magic Missile (all 1st level spells that edition) a number of times per week equal to my Int score (I think it was 15). I had a book that let me swap spells as an action so I could cast ones it knew, and it knew 1 or 2 cleric spells, I had a magic belt that made throwing knives (per combat and tactics so 2d4 damage) that were made of pure force and added +2 to hit but nothing to damage AND I had a 'ring of the unicorn' (I have stolen this idea he stole from thundercats) that gave me healing and restoration abilities x/per day and teleport to one forest 1/month, and counted as a ring of prot+1.

So my complaint wasn't "I couldn't survive the trap" or "I was too weak" because multi games later when his Archmage NPC freed me I had gotten a Dwarven Fighter/CLeric up to like 4/5 or 5/4 and still choose my mage over him as my main PC (I had to next session start a new PC with no xp)

Seramus said:

As a personal preference that is totally cool. But I don't think it should be okay in a general sense to sideline a player from playing D&D (for an extended period of time) because they have other things they can do to occupy themselves that involve not playing D&D.

Unless you've got two different games running simultaneously, or something

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Back in MY day, we walked 2 miles in the snow, uphill both ways, to get sidelined when you got killed by a goblin ambusher's arrow 2 minutes into the adventure

Shiroiken said:

Back in MY day, we walked 2 miles in the snow, uphill both ways, to get sidelined when you got killed by a goblin ambusher's arrow 2 minutes into the adventure

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I actually did that to a player once. The game had JUST started. Brand new characters. Some brand new players who had never played before. In the first 10 minutes, I had a quick skirmish designed to demonstrate fighting to the new people. Nothing really threatening. First attack of the combat (by the monsters)?

Triple 20.

New Player: "Wow! What does that mean?"
Me: "Well..."

lowkey13 said:

D&D is four good hours of joking with friends, spoiled by the rolling of dice.

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This is the point, isn't it, even though it's something of a trite quote. If you're good enough friends to be playing D&D together, then being knocked out of a game for even a fairly significant time is still time spent with friends. In every instance I have either played in or DMed for, if a character got killed, incapacitated, or separated from the rest of the group, the player simply settled in and started providing a snarky running commentary on the game to entertain both themselves and the rest of the group, until such time as the player was able to rejoin the game proper. Heck, in once instance way back in college, when a single character got so separated from the rest of the group it required a special one-on-one session with the DM to detail the character's return, most of the rest of the group voluntarily showed up anyway, and either took on the roles of NPCs, or as a commenting Greek chorus, or to just sit around and watch the fun unfold.

Demetrios1453 said:

This is the point, isn't it, even though it's something of a trite quote. If you're good enough friends to be playing D&D together, then being knocked out of a game for even a fairly significant time is still time spent with friends. In every instance I have either played in or DMed for, if a character got killed, incapacitated, or separated from the rest of the group, the player simply settled in and started providing a snarky running commentary on the game to entertain both themselves and the rest of the group, until such time as the player was able to rejoin the game proper.

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Aye. But from what I've seen some posters say in the past, there seem to be tables that frown on out of character talk, where a sidelined player providing commentary would be seen as disruptive. Indeed, I recall someone (Though I haven't a clue who) saying a player speaking up when his character's not in the spotlight would be bad form.