how would you deal with the character of a player who leaves the game?

[Mathew_Freeman]

I voted other. The character just leaves as soon as possible, with a minimum of explanation.

 

[arwink]

I tend to keep the character around as an NPC, but I drop them out of an adventuring role. They become a background character, an ally, etc, but they don't follow the party into combat anymore without a damn good reason.

 

[Jenale]

It really depends on the situation for me. I've been running on-line games (play by post), so I may take any of the following actions:

1) re-cast the character. If the player leaves on good terms (i.e., tells me that RL considerations have made it impossible to continue playing), I'll ask if it's ok, and won't re-cast if they say no. If the player doesn't leave on good terms (simply stops posting and doesn't respond to emails), I may re-cast after a month of silence (NPCing the character minimally in the meantime).

2) send the character on his/her way away from the party. If the player indicates that they may be able to return at some future point, I'll NPC the character until they return to civilization, and find something to occupy the character which takes said character away from the party. I may also do this if I think the character has good potential for a future NPC--as an example here, I have a bard whose player just up and quit posting, and after some email, concluded that he wasn't returning to the game. However, the potential for a bard NPC who used to travel with the party as a conduit for future rumors just seemed like a nice opportunity to use.

3) character death. If the player isn't going to return and objects to re-casting, I may well engineer a character death, or simply let it happen during the course of NPCing the character back to civilization.

4) mystery. Somehow or another, the character gets separated from the rest of the party. While he is out of sight, the character is killed/made to vanish. I actually did this with the character of a player who I booted from my game (after having been far too long-suffering--he criticized judgments I made, insulted me when I told him that his paladin's behavior put him at risk of alignment change [to CN, no less!], and circumstances finally put him in a room alone (filled with sand), so I vaporized him with a lightning bolt which left a glass symbol of his deity atop the sand as the only trace. The others in the party, only hearing the rumble of thunder and finding the glass, isn't quite sure what to make of his departure yet.

5) who? This works best with someone who has had very little impact on the game, and I wouldn't recommend it if the character has had much impact. I reserve this for the characters of players who make an appearance, and just sort of vanish into thin air (posting wise) afterwards. It's much easier to simply ignore the brief appearance than it is to worry about smoothing the exit. However, if the character has been a major participant prior to the player's departure, this seems very unsatisfactory.

 

[S'mon]

Headshot. The beauty of a headshot is that it leaves little room for debating about survival, and when you're using monster snipers, kobolds being my favorite, can strike at any time nearly without warning.

It's my tried and true method of dealing with a permanently departed player: His character is granted redshirt ensign status and is used the next time I need a redshirt to warn the party about the presence of snipers.

Stepping on a land mine is also an effective strategy. If the character is blown to bits as a result of a deadly trap that he has now disarmed, this also neatly solves the problem.

Maybe it's just me, but I like neat, permanent solutions, and being shot in the head or blown to bits qualifies as fairly permanent.

If I were running a Vietnam or Sven Hassel-style penal battalion WW2 game, that'd be an appropriate exit for the PC. Otherwise I don't think death should be quite so ubiquitous - they just leave, same as the player.

 

[Thels]

It kinda depends on the impact the character had on the party and what the current situation is.

If the characters are in a town of some sorts, it just makes common sense that the character stays behind when the party next leaves on adventures. If they come back to town later on, they might meet him/her if it's gonna be of any use storywise (most people trust fellow PC's and even ex-PC's), but not in an active adventuring role. If the character had little impact on the party, they just never see him again.

If the characters are in the outdoors, the character probably tags along for a while as an NPC. He/she might or might not join in the activities depending on how realistic it would be and how much his help is needed. He/she will usually become very uncreative, leaving it up to the players to get the ideas (unless they're real goofballs, you might want to give them a hand). When they reach civilization, leave him behind.

Optionally, you could just let him/her tag along permanently if your party doesn't mind a partymember with no ideas towards the adventure, if you don't mind a little extra work as a DM. (Note that being uncreative on adventure ideas doesn't automatically mean it'll be a dull character.)

 

[S'mon]

1) re-cast the character. If the player leaves on good terms (i.e., tells me that RL considerations have made it impossible to continue playing), I'll ask if it's ok, and won't re-cast if they say no. If the player doesn't leave on good terms (simply stops posting and doesn't respond to emails), I may re-cast after a month of silence (NPCing the character minimally in the meantime).

I agree that for most PBEMs, where player drop out is much more likely than in round-table, re-casting is often the best way to go, . It depends on the game though - in a quest-type game centring on a single party (like Fellowship of the Ring), recasting is absolutely vital. By contrast, I played and GM'd a Western PBEM centring on a small town, where 'drifter' type PCs frequently wandered in and out - if their player left, the PC did too. By contrast townsfolk PCs whose players left usually became NPCs.

 

[mmu1]

Depends - does the character fill an important role in the party? If we're playing, say, CotSQ and the player running the Cleric drops out, I'm not about to replace him with some wands of Cure Serious Wounds and Lesser Restoration potions - it's just not the sort of campaign that works well without a divine caster...

On the other hand, if I'm running a home-brew game, and one of the three fighters in the party drops out, chances are he'll go on his way at the earliest opportunity.

Either way, killing off a character doesn't really serve a purpose, as far as I'm concerned (aside from the rare occasion when the player was a jerk and everyone cheers when his character gets splattered by an Ogre...) - much better to keep him alive even if he leaves the party, to be used as a plot hook in the future, or used to let a new or guest player jump into the game.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

This happened to our party, and it was also a ranger. That class is broken.

In our game, he just sort of disappeared. For a few sessions, he stayed outside "watching the animals" and then he just wasn't there when we got back. Later, when we got TPK'd, I suggested that the ranger ride in to save us, but the DM didn't go for it.

Since you don't need the character (or a replacement player, for that matter), I'd suggest having a dramatic death--where the ranger kills one of the other party members and sneaks away in the night. Keep the players on their toes.

 

[alsih2o]

to clarify, the player was not a jerk, and neither was the character. but she(the character) is also uneccessary, altho i have thought about recruiting a replacement, i like the 6 man party, lets me be nastier

 

[Silver Moon]

re-cast the character.

This has happened three times with out group, twice times with guests who have decided to stay with the group who had been playing NPC's that had once been PC's who they wanted to continue with; the third time was with a husband who continued with his wife's PC after she left the group.