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

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

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[Seramus]

I'm having trouble imagining a social situation when a person leaves before the session ends and ... there isn't any communication. One person earlier (jokingly, I hope) said all you had to say was "Goodbye."

That would be kind of weird, wouldn't it? Again, just me, but I would have trouble wrapping my head around someone who just got up from the table, said goodbye, and walked out ... unless it was performance art or they were leaving for good. You're at a table with, what, five or six or seven people, and you just get up and go without talking?

That actually happened to me. I was a player at the time, and another player was having luck with his dice. Like statistically insane bad luck. Rolling Sub 8 on most of his rolls. He succeeded one roll that night, and it wasn't even a really vital roll. So about halfway through the game, with a steaming angry look on his face, he just puts his dice away, gabs his keys, and quietly walks out. We all felt really bad for him.

That wasn't a point or anything. Just a funny anecdote.

 

[iserith]

I agree completely!

This just seems (to me?) to be one of those few occasions when communication is pretty much mandated. Other than the emergency, of course-

"Sorry, spouse and pet are on fire, have to run now!"

The fire will be out by the time you get there anyway, so you may as well hang out.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Lanefan]

Or the DM could just put you in the very next room that the Party goes to....

Party goes left and there you are.
Party goes right and there you are.
Party goes back, hey where did you come from?

You could even just have your character come straight to them.

Not in my particular case. I was a prisoner, strapped to a torture table in a room whose location was already pre-determined by the DM. So my going to them wasn't really an option, nor was having the room magically move around to put itself in front of the party.

 

[Shasarak]

Or sports! It would be rude to the coach and the team if you walked away from your team because you were sitting on the bench in some contexts; on the other hand, if it's a pickup game, maybe not so much. It's difficult to make hard and fast rules for social occasions, other than to say that some things would be rude at some table, and not rude at others.

Say you were playing a sport and say your character, I mean you were somehow KOd by some freak chance of the dice coming up as a crit, I mean a Linebacker breaking your leg or some such. Does the DM, I mean Coach really expect you to say at the game watching what happens or are you going to go to the movies with your girlfriend, I mean the Hospital to get your injury fixed up?

Afterall having your character die, I mean leg broken is a normal consequence of playing DnD, I mean playing sport and you would not let your friends down by leaving the game early would you?

 

[Shasarak]

Not in my particular case. I was a prisoner, strapped to a torture table in a room whose location was already pre-determined by the DM. So my going to them wasn't really an option, nor was having the room magically move around to put itself in front of the party.

Of course, in your particular case what happened was what happened that is just how time based events occur in this particular space-time continuum.

The point was that your character (which did not exist until your last character died) could have easily appeared tied up ready to be tortured in any room, maybe even the next room the party went into. I mean what was the advantage of having the character tied up in that particular torture room? Just seems like an arbitrary decision by the DM who did not prioritise how fast you got back into play.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Lanefan]

Of course, in your particular case what happened was what happened that is just how time based events occur in this particular space-time continuum.

The point was that your character (which did not exist until your last character died)

Well, in fact it did; it was a retired character returning...not that it matters.

could have easily appeared tied up ready to be tortured in any room, maybe even the next room the party went into. I mean what was the advantage of having the character tied up in that particular torture room? Just seems like an arbitrary decision by the DM who did not prioritise how fast you got back into play.

I think it might have been the only torture room in the adventure, and it had some...interesting equipment.

I do know this (homebrew) module had been meticulously designed by the DM, and I can understand his not wanting to change it at the last minute.

It's also quite possible that some of the other players kind of enjoyed hanging me out to dry. They as players knew I had a character in there somewhere but (quite legitimately) the characters did not know, so they had no in-character reason to do anything different than they usually would.

But the best part was yet to come. When they finally did find me I was strapped to a table whose function was to greatly magnify any touch or impact felt by whoever was on it (remember what I said about interesting equipment?) thus a simple pinprick felt like a sword thrust, a tap on the shoulder felt like a punch, and so on. I'm mostly unconscious, having not had any water for quite some time, and so one of the PCs who recognizes me slaps my face to wake me up.

And breaks my neck.

Lan-"after this the players/characters did take pity on me, and made sure I was quickly revived"-efan