Out of Commision - Now What?

[DragonLancer]

If my character is dead I start rolling up a new one. If I'm just sidelined temporarily while the others do something I'll read through the rulebook or check my email on my phone. Or I'll just listen to what the others do.

 

[Celebrim]

a) Roleplay a henchmen.
b) Create a new character.
c) Roleplay an important ally of the party who had previously been an NPC.
d) Roleplay minor NPC's encountered by the party until the session is over. Essentially, start playing NPC's henchmen under the direction of the DM.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Lots of good ideas here ...

I prefer to head off the situation in the first place. My groups almost always play 2 PCs per player. That way if a PC is incapacitated or the party needs to split then everyone still gets to participate. We've never seemed to run into the problems others mention about straining roleplaying when doing this either.

 

[Hussar]

Avoid removing players from play by fudging the dice so characters never die....



What?

 

[Will426]

In our games, the DM revives our players at a heavy price(eg. contract with a devil) so a character is never out permanently unless the player wants it.
In the mean time, we look up needed rules and descriptions or we browse supplements for stuff related to our character. We usually figure what we want to do with our characters in the next level up

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Usually in our games, players of dead PCs become the DM's beer gophers.
Or dire beer gophers, in the case of especially snaggle-toothed or ill-tempered players.

Also, they often roll up new PCs, run monsters, and/or help with rules questions when they arise.

 

[Richards]

In one campaign I'm running (with two of the four players new to RPGs), each player has two PCs, and all eight PCs are part of a unified team of the Adventurers Guild in their city. (It's Greyhawk City for the sake of my own convenience, although it's a somewhat modified one.) Each Guild member wears a ring that can be used once per day to teleport back to their Guild HQ. Furthermore, within several rounds of someone teleporting in to the Guild HQ, if another member of that Guild team (whose rings are all part of the same set) touches rings with the one who just teleported in, the ring "traces the teleport" and allows the PC to teleport over to where the other member just teleported in from.

So, the end result is that if a PC gets himself into too much trouble (low on hp, out of spells), he can "bink" back to HQ and be replaced by that player's other PC. The same holds true of PC death, generally -- a dead PC can have one of his partners activate his ring for him, sending the corpse back to Guild HQ (to be resurrected behind the scenes, although the cost is paid by the dead PC) and allowing the player to bring his other PC into the battle. The only time this wouldn't work (which thankfully hasn't come up in the campaign yet) would be if the slain PC's body was somehow inaccessible to the other PCs.

This setup hasn't fully taken away the sting of death -- it's always a bummer to have a PC killed -- but it's done wonders for keeping the players active during a gaming session.

Johnathan

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I generally allow the player to take over an NPC, at least until they recover or generate a new PC. It has not been unknown for the temporary character to be become permanent.

The Auld Grump

 

[Quartz]

A bit of personal experience here: I was kept out of an encounter for many hours and I grew very bored and then frustrated. So bored that I went outside to play with the dog. I'd given up my weekend to play and I wasn't playing. Not good. Bored player = unhappy player. So GMs, it's okay for a player to have some downtime, but if it's going to be extended, give them something to do!

 

[Corathon]

Generally I offer them the chance to run an NPC - unless they have somebody else to run already (such as a henchman/cohort).