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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Airwolf" data-source="post: 459013" data-attributes="member: 2905">It sounds like my group is in the minority compared to others that post on these boards.  Here is how we do it.  If a player can’t make a session their character does not play, does not get any experience points, and does not get any ‘game’ knowledge from that session.  This can mean that some players will fall behind when it comes to levels and experience points.  Over time (our characters range from 12th to 15th level) it seems to even out.  The primary DM and I are the only people to make every session, but neither of us plays our characters while we DM (I DM about a third of the time) our characters are the lowest level (12th).   To my knowledge (makes knowledge ‘D&D session’ check) no one has ever requested that his or her character be played by another player when the player is going to be absent.  The reason behind this is that everyone in the group believes that the adventure/campaign belongs to the DM, while the characters belong to the player.  It is up to the player to see that the character is played, as it should be, not for someone else to do the role-playing, adventuring, or fighting. Has this caused hardship for the group?  Sure it has.  Have the remaining players had to work harder to overcome situations? Yes.  Does it make the players better at gaming?  I think it does.  I know I feel a larger sense of accomplishment when I am playing with a group short handed and we are able to overcome what the DM has set before us.   Our group consists of six players and the DM.  One of the characters has leadership so we often have a cohort running around with us as well.  This does give us some breathing room since some of the skills and abilities overlap between character classes.  I also realize that in a group of only four characters a missing player could cause some serious hardship.  If I played in a group with four characters I still would not want my character played by someone else, even the DM.  Well, that’s my take on how to deal with a missing character.  ta ta.</blockquote>

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