Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
My default answer is why in the Nine Hells would you EVER think that you get xp whether you show up or not, contribute anything or not, disrupt the game or not? As time marched on I have become more amenable to the idea of simply giving the same xp award to everybody rather than nitpick and tally up individual points for who specifically did what - but if your PC is not there - even if it's just that YOU are not there to personally play your PC, but you have it run by someone else - of course the character doesn't get xp.
Do people occasionally miss the game? Sure. Players have lives. Some players have lives that interfere with their participation more than others. It is not, however, any sort of insult nor an even remotely unreasonable imposition to say that to earn xp for a character requires PLAYING the game. Players who would object to that eminently justified and practical policy are probably not players I will feel especially keen on accomodating anyway.
I'd RATHER see a variance in PC levels properly reflecting their actual presence and participation in the actual game events (even a LARGE variance) than give a PC even a single point to keep levels even when the PC hasn't actually participated in the game to earn that point. That would be infuriatingly unfair to those who are present, accounted for, and participatory. It has been that way in every D&D game I've ever played in or run and would personally be intolerant of seeing it otherwise.
Do people occasionally miss the game? Sure. Players have lives. Some players have lives that interfere with their participation more than others. It is not, however, any sort of insult nor an even remotely unreasonable imposition to say that to earn xp for a character requires PLAYING the game. Players who would object to that eminently justified and practical policy are probably not players I will feel especially keen on accomodating anyway.
I'd RATHER see a variance in PC levels properly reflecting their actual presence and participation in the actual game events (even a LARGE variance) than give a PC even a single point to keep levels even when the PC hasn't actually participated in the game to earn that point. That would be infuriatingly unfair to those who are present, accounted for, and participatory. It has been that way in every D&D game I've ever played in or run and would personally be intolerant of seeing it otherwise.