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

[lowkey13]

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[Jester David]

Plenty of storytellers use other penalties upon death, like level loss or loot loss. That's certainly a conversation for another thread (and there are several cool threads about it on this forum). But it doesn't mean you have to force a player to not play D&D for several hours. If you know he's fine being a watcher, that's cool. But if he's not, he can run a hireling, play a monster, play whatever NPC might be in the area, or even roleplay someone's sentient magic weapon. Whatever is handy and convenient.

I mean, there are sooooo many options. So many neat and fun things a DM can offer. A player might be a total grump and hate every one of them, but that's probably an outlier situation. Why do they have to sit there if they don't like it?

Agreed.
Ideally the DM should find *some* way of engaging that playing and keeping them from being bored. But that's beyond the rules and goes into table management and DMing skills. And sometimes it's just less possible.

Honestly, the biggest cause for one player being sidelined for long periods of my game is when half the party goes shopping...

 

[Caliban]

The thing that everyone seems to be missing is that there is not a single right answer. There is only a right answer for a particular gaming group and set of circumstances.

GM4P did what he considered to be the best thing based on the circumstances and DM he was dealing with at the time. And it sounds like he made the right call. (Of course, we only have his side of the story. But thus far I have no reason to doubt it.)

If you were the DM, or it was with your group of players, that may not have been the proper thing to do. And that's perfectly fine.

But assuming that what would be right for your gaming group automatically applies to a group you were never part of, to a set of circumstances you don't know all the details of, and a GM you never met... well that's just plain stupid.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This whole argument is stupid. You weren't there, you weren't the GM, it wasn't your group of friends or your gaming group. Stop acting as if it was.

 

[Iry]

Same thing here. There's a variety of consequences that can occur in the game (I am referencing past editions, as well). You can be knocked out of combat for a short, or long, period of time. You could lose levels. You could be immobolized (petrified, mazed, etc.) for a short, long, or permanent period of time. You could lose levels, treasure, magic items, or even your life. These are all things that happen to the character.

With you so far.

Same with characters being knocked out. There can be various levels of loss associated with this. Take dying. If a player can immediately "respawn" a new PC with the exact same level, then dying is not really a big deal. If the player knows that dying means that the player won't be playing until the next session, then dying becomes a huge deal.

There are plenty of other penalties that can used to encourage certain behaviors that don't involve the player not playing until the next session. I agree that it CAN change behavior, but so can hitting another player upside the head with a metal bat. Making the choice to have a player sit out until the next session is completely unnecessary to accomplish the desired behavioral change.

I'm not saying that you have to do it the same way we do it- but it helps to understand why we do it. We do it for the same reason that I play Diablo III HC; for me, the actual pain of defeat makes the game more thrilling and the victories that much better. You can do it differently, but it helps to understand that different preferences work for different people. You like chocolate, I like butter pecan, but we both like ice cream.

I'm also not saying you have to do it another way, provided that all the players at your table are happy with it and agree to it. I mean, you might even have players who want to be sidelined, and look forward to sitting back, sipping a nice cup of joe, and just watching everybody else but themselves play. (I actually know one player like that)

But if you have players who would prefer to keep playing in some capacity, why force them to sit out and wait? Making them sit out and wait is not the only way to generate the desired behavior change (as mentioned above). You can accomplish the same changes with different penalties AND allow the players to jump back into the action.

Some tables don't want the DM to fix failures. And that's fine too.

Failures don't require extended sidelining.

 

[lowkey13]

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[robus]

I think we can probably all agree that every player has a limit to how long they will tolerate being sidelined. Whether it's a fraction of a session, an entire session or even multiple sessions. At some point a player is going to say "WTF DM?! When am I going to get back into the game??!!".

Surely all we're arguing about is where that line is drawn? Or am I to believe that there are players here who are so hardcore that they will sit forever (until the end of the campaign) waiting for the particular circumstances to occur such that they can rejoin the game?

 

[iserith]

I think we can probably all agree that every player has a limit to how long they will tolerate being sidelined. Whether it's a fraction of a session, an entire session or even multiple sessions. At some point a player is going to say "WTF DM?! When am I going to get back into the game??!!".

Surely all we're arguing about is where that line is drawn? Or am I to believe that there are players here who are so hardcore that they will sit forever (until the end of the campaign) waiting for the particular circumstances to occur such that they can rejoin the game?

I'm so hardcore that not only did I sit until the very end of the campaign for the best opportunity to rejoin, but I did it while sitting in another room so I wouldn't be able to "metagame" with the knowledge I might have gained as an observer.

 

[lowkey13]

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[robus]

I'm so hardcore that not only did I sit until the very end of the campaign for the best opportunity to rejoin, but I did it while sitting in another room so I wouldn't be able to "metagame" with the knowledge I might have gained as an observer.

Jesus man! Throw me a bone!

 

[lowkey13]

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