Absent Players and their PCs

[Caliban]

I have a standing rule in my home game:

If you can't make the session, your character is now a plot device.

Most recently, two players couldn't make it to the game. While they slept, the camp was attacked by a new monster I created, the "Ethereal Mindspider". It cast ethereal webs around the absent characters sleeping forms, and in the Material world the rest of the party found that the two absent characters wouldn't wake up and they couldnt' move them without them going into convulsions and screaming.

The rest of the session consisted of them finding a way to the ethereal plane and combatting the mindspider as slowly drained the life essence of their helpless comrades.

One of the guys missed the next session as well, and that when they learned that the Mindspider they had just defeated had layed an egg-sace in inside the absent characters head. They ended up fighting several smaller versions of the mindspider, after they went back to the ethereal plane and tried to remove it.

People try not to miss sessions to often in my game.

 

[Arnwyn]

Bhaal: I do a variation of your #2. It seems heavy-handed, but it works for us. My campaign is generally story/plot-heavy, and our group values continuity. If a player can't make it, that character is still with the group. Another player (I don't care which one) will control the absent player's character for that session, with the DM monitoring (ie. don't send the wizard to inspect every chest). The absent player's character gets *NO* XP for that session. The player who takes the extra character gets no bonuses. (I've discovered that someone who controls 2 characters will often/always have them work in tandem, and thus have a higher form of "communication" available to him/her. I think that's reward enough.)

If that character dies, oh well. The DM will monitor the situation, but let the chips fall where they may. That's the risk of not being able to show up for a session. (Yes, I know real life can get in the way - but real life is more important anyways, so what's one character or a bit of XP compared to your responsibilities? Not much, we say. So everyone lives with this set-up - and makes the effort to show up.)

 

[Shallown]

I usually state up front in my games if you are not here I retain the right to run your Pc as an NPC. It is just a rule of my GMing. I have never had a problem with it. Sometimes I work the PC into the game sometimes the come down with "Marsh fever which leaves them useless to the party. Depends on were we are at in the game.

Last few sessions I have had someone missing. In one session the dwarf's player had to miss a night, since they had just faought some phase spiders and he was bitten I said the poison was adversly affecting him but I linked it to the fact he always drinks beer or ale, water does not pas his lips. I said the alcohol interacted and made him sicker and the parties cleric's spells didn't help (he also had heal atlike a 2 so I didn't worry about his character figuring it out). So at the end of the night he started getting better since he was to sick to drink.

Following week he couldn't make it again (through no fault of his) So as he got better he drank again and got sick again.

A few sessions later a seperate player was missing so the group engineered a reason for him to be absent, they sent him off to meet someone they were about to kidnap away from the some kidnappers. so this character waited in the woods (he was a ranger/fighter) They group took care of it so I didn't have to. Bunch of good players know how to keep GM happy. Of course turned out they didn't need him there and almost road out of town without him later but they probably would have done that anyway

Later