D&D 5E dealing with PCs when players leave a game.

[Sword of Spirit]

The first thing I do is ask/determine if the player intends to come back and play that character again. If they indicate that they do, or might, then I'll do something like have the character get a message summoning them somewhere having to do with (often undefined) backstory-related personal business. The character takes off and may never be heard from again unless the player comes back.

If they indicate that they have no intention of playing the character again, I'll ask them if they care what happens to the character. If they do, we can work out some sort of end of the character's role in the party that works for us both. If they don't, I'll just do whatever I want. This is a great opportunity to get your evil DM on and just kill the ex-PC in some horrible manner.

 

[Elf Witch]

I know that she has been having issues dealing with the death of her husband last year. I have been there for her all through this. I understand she is emotional. But this was way over the top extreme behavior. At this point I am worried that she needs professional help, that she is in a major crisis and while I feel bad that a game caused her such unhappiness I also recognize that I really didn't do anything wrong to her.

I have known her for years and I do enjoy her company though I have always fond her to be a little bit of a drama queen though nothing as bad as this. I had never played with her before because I am a fantasy player mainly DnD with a little Shadowrun thrown in. She prefers things like World of Darkness, Champions, Buffy.

I did have a conversation with another friend a former DM of hers today who saw the post before she took down her entire account and he has told me that she has never been this extreme but she has thrown crying fits and what he called tantrums over character death and if she felt her character was treated in a way she didn't like. In the best of times she has an issue separating herself from her PCs. And allowed in game stuff to effect friendships. She feels what you do to her character you do to her.

I have known players like this and I honestly feel that maybe role playing is not a healthy hobby for people like this. I think it is great to care about your PC. I admit to shedding tears over a couple I had played for a long time and who died. One of my very favorite PCs died when a beholder turned all his eye stalks on her. I made every saving throw except the last one which was disintegration. That was permanent death. I excused myself from the table and went had a little cry in the bathroom and then washed my face and came back out and started thinking about a new character.

I agree that you need to take your players feelings into consideration when dealing with their PCs when they leave a game. Asking what they would like done with them, it is great if you can in their last session role play out their leaving. On the other hand a player who quits a game with little notice should not always expect the best outcome.

As I said my other players were already pissed over the way the other players left the game. Not because they left but the way they gave us no warning, no discussion and waited to right before we set to play again. These players are my priority after all they are staying in the game they hate hand waving things away that don't make sense to the plot as it stands. They would have been unhappy if I had done that. The two players I had disappear with another faction, who one day will make an appearance as NPCs, made sense they made no secret that their characters were aligned with the Fey. But the other character's entire back story and reason for being with the party was that she had been having visions since she was a child about an dangerous rise of evil and has known her destiny was to fight it and aid the cleric of Torm who she has searched for all over Faerun. She made this background her first words in the game were to the cleric was " I have searched for you I am here to aid you in your fight"

So how do I handle her just disappearing do I have her leave a note oops wrong cleric or Torm? I didn't want to have her kidnapped and the party go off looking for her and I didn't want a NPC that was a permanent member of the party. So I figured out a way to keep her around so she can aid the cleric by making her soul into an artifact.

 

[Sunseeker]

We do not even go to this level of "correcting the script".

We have 6 players, a DM, and a visiting player. One player cannot make it until 5 PM each time and we start between 12 and 2. If a player is not there, his/her PC is not there. When the player shows up, the PC shows up. No muss, no fuss. I don't need to roleplay to this level of verisimilitude. I'm playing a game, there to have fun, not to be the believability police.

No need to play PCs as NPCs, or to come up with story reasons why a PC is not there.

For my "main" campaign world, that is, the generic unnamed setting there's a magical instability in the world that causes random people to phase out of existence for unspecified periods of time. It's a great excuse for when people can't show up or need to leave early/arrive late.

Even still, rational people should be able to accept that "Bob's not here, therefore Bob's character isn't being played."

 

[Elf Witch]

For my "main" campaign world, that is, the generic unnamed setting there's a magical instability in the world that causes random people to phase out of existence for unspecified periods of time. It's a great excuse for when people can't show up or need to leave early/arrive late.

Even still, rational people should be able to accept that "Bob's not here, therefore Bob's character isn't being played."

There is a difference between a player can't make a session or is going to be late and a player has left the game permanently.

It has nothing to do with rational thinking and I think it is rather insulting that you are implying that players who like role playing as well as story and who want the story to make sense is some how not rational.

Personally as a player and DM I think just saying Bob left his PC is no longer here just ignore it is rather lazy DMing. There are plenty of ways to handle it that allows the narrative to continue other than having Richie Cunningham older brother go upstairs and disappear to the point that his parents don't even remember having him. Sheesh that is some powerful epic level magic going on there. If narrative does not play an important part in your game that is fine but not everyone wants to play in that style game.

 

[Sunseeker]

There is a difference between a player can't make a session or is going to be late and a player has left the game permanently.

Sure, but my solution works for both, has an already established and accepted premise and is does not require any effort on the DM side to establish some sort of special event.

It has nothing to do with rational thinking and I think it is rather insulting that you are implying that players who like role playing as well as story and who want the story to make sense is some how not rational.

I may have been unclear. Let me clarify.

Wanting an in-game explanation is fine. Not every case will get one. Demanding an in-game explanation that the player making the demand finds suitable and disregarding the out-of-game explanation is not. The in-game is only half the picture. When someone says they can't attend something due to issues, or just plain gives no reason at all, the rational option is to accept that, regardless of what problems it may create in the fiction.

Personally as a player and DM I think just saying Bob left his PC is no longer here just ignore it is rather lazy DMing.

I am honestly going to agree with you. But time is short and I'm more interested in planning out things that are relevant to the remainder of the game and the group than giving a couple players a special exit.

There are plenty of ways to handle it that allows the narrative to continue other than having Richie Cunningham older brother go upstairs and disappear to the point that his parents don't even remember having him. Sheesh that is some powerful epic level magic going on there. If narrative does not play an important part in your game that is fine but not everyone wants to play in that style game.

I agree that there certainly are more creative and potentially better ways to handle it. But I developed the method I developed because I had a very fluid group for several years, and ran a public game at a local store. I don't feel like the DM should be required to invest heavily in players who are unable to unwilling to do the same.

 

[Umbran]

Err, this is D&D.

It's not final at all.

Not everyone has game worlds in which they sell Raise Deads out of hot dog carts on the streetcorners, KD. So, please don't generalize for everyone else.

And, it is a bit difficult to get someone raised if nobody is trying to raise them. Certainly, it isn't the party, so that opens a can of worms that doesn't fit in everyone's game.

 

[KarinsDad]

Not everyone has game worlds in which they sell Raise Deads out of hot dog carts on the streetcorners, KD. So, please don't generalize for everyone else.

Wait. You are the one that claimed that death is final in D&D and I am the one generalizing for other people's games? Seriously?

And, it is a bit difficult to get someone raised if nobody is trying to raise them. Certainly, it isn't the party, so that opens a can of worms that doesn't fit in everyone's game.

It's not difficult at all.

It's so EASY. The DM says "This PC walks into camp". It really is that easy. Piece of cake. The justification for it can be anything. The King got him raised to do a massive favor. The spy guild got him raised to spy on the PCs. A deity raised him since there is unfinished business.

There are hundreds of reasons why a PC could be raised and how to reintroduce that PC into the group. And regardless of how common raise dead is in any given world, the DM controls it. The DM can raise dead whenever he wants. And since it is a game, raising a dead PC party member so that a player who used to play with the group can play again with the group with the same PC trumps the rest of the justification nonsense. It's a game. Meant to be fun. Real world allowing the player back trumps game world considerations.

There are even simple scenarios where the PC never died and the rest of the party just thought that the PC died (e.g. doppleganger, illusion, off stage stuff).

This really is so very easy and death is far from final in a lot of fictional literature and RPGs.

I disagree with your assumptions both in death being final, and in how difficult it is to bring back a PC. If a PC dies in combat, no problem with raise dead being difficult. If a player has to leave and the DM kills off his PC after the fact, I personally think that the DM doesn't have to be a d__k and can put 5 minutes of thought into it and allow that PC back into the group. He put some thought into killing off the PC, he can put some thought into bringing him or her back. Obviously, YMMV. And I'm not generalizing here, it's just common courtesy for a fellow gamer. Some people think that the DM's world trumps the players at the table. I don't. Every player at the game is there for fun, not just the DM.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I guess my attitude is the PC belongs to the player as long as they are in the game once they leave the DM can utilize the PC as they think is best for the game.

It's even better than that! The DM can keeping using the PC, and the player is free to take an infinite number of alternate universe versions of that character for usage in other campaigns/stories/games! It's win for everyone.

So how do I handle her just disappearing do I have her leave a note oops wrong cleric or Torm? I didn't want to have her kidnapped and the party go off looking for her and I didn't want a NPC that was a permanent member of the party. So I figured out a way to keep her around so she can aid the cleric by making her soul into an artifact.

It sounds like you used a pretty good method to me. It even left the option for her to come back and play the character later.

Personally as a player and DM I think just saying Bob left his PC is no longer here just ignore it is rather lazy DMing. There are plenty of ways to handle it that allows the narrative to continue other than having Richie Cunningham older brother go upstairs and disappear to the point that his parents don't even remember having him. Sheesh that is some powerful epic level magic going on there. If narrative does not play an important part in your game that is fine but not everyone wants to play in that style game.

I'm probably the only one in my group that cares about that sort of continuity, but I'm totally with you. As a player I just have to deal with it when the DM lets people fade into the background in the middle of a dungeon delve, but as a DM all life forms must be accounted for. That means your horses aren't just there when you want them--they are also there getting spooked by the ambush on your camp at night.

 

[Lanefan]

Even still, rational people should be able to accept that "Bob's not here, therefore Bob's character isn't being played."

Rational people can (and around here, do) also accept that "Bob's not here, so the players who are here will run his character by committee"; or "Bob's not here but he's asked Angela to run his character tonight", or "Bob's not here so tonight his character's a party NPC", or ... well, you get the picture. The absence of the player does not mean the character vanishes for no good reason.

Lan-"though I cut a lot more slack for public-venue games where you've no idea who (if anyone) will show up from one week to the next"-efan

 

[Umbran]

Wait. You are the one that claimed that death is final in D&D and I am the one generalizing for other people's games? Seriously?

Yep, seriously. If killing them were not considered "final" in some sense, there'd be no particular call to use that method. It is an explicit statement, "You don't have to worry about this, 'cause the character is dead." It is a statement of finality. There's no point to killing them except to get that statement of finality.

This is because, despite the rules of one particular game, *humans* think of death as final. Our psychological reactions as players are not based on game rules.

And, in general, if you explicitly kill the character, their path back to the game must then include a return to life. That is a constraint. If you don't kill them, their story could still include death and return, but doesn't have to, which is less restricting.

It's so EASY. The DM says "This PC walks into camp". It really is that easy.

For you. But you've already noted that continuity is not something you care much about. You've already stated that you don't need a story reason for a PC to be present. I think it is still okay for me to say that I don't think most of us treat PCs like pokemounts, to pop in and out of existence without care for rhyme or reason in-game.