Absent Players

[francisca]

In the game I am a player in, when someone can't make it, their PC is still present. The PC can carry things, stand watch, and that's about it. For this, the PC get's 1/4 XP and a 1/2 share of treasure.

In the games I DM, I run the missing persons PC, for which he gets 1/2 XP and 1/2 treasure. If more than one person can't show, we usually play something else or just scrub the gameday.

 

[StalkingBlue]

Missing game sessions? Happens to the best of us.

Missing game sessions on a regular basis because he prefers to play in another game?! What the hell.

I'd boot him.

 

[S'mon]

Missing game sessions? Happens to the best of us.

Missing game sessions on a regular basis because he prefers to play in another game?! What the hell.

I'd boot him.

That would be my opinion, although in practice I'm pretty accommodating. In this case I think I'd politely ask if he preferred playing in the other campaign, and suggest that he should play it instead of mine. If he decided he'd rather play my game (& miss sessions of other game), ok, I'd see how it went.

Re XP - my standard rule: if no player, then no PC in-game, no risk, ergo no XP. PCs "guard the rear" or are otherwise absent from the session.

If an absent player asks for their PC to be in-game, then they get played by another player, they have the same risk of death, & they get full XP.

 

[Mark]

I concoct a (semi-)plausible reason why they are not there and they gain no experience. Over time, everyone misses a session or two so it works out well enough in the end. If someone is missing so many sessions that they fall tragically behind the rest of the group, they likely should find another group that plays at times more friendly to their own schedule...unless no one minds them being a bit of a tag-a-long character that doesn't have a lot to offer.

 

[Kalendraf]

I've handled this multiple ways...

1) If it makes sense, I just have the missing player's character vanish for that session. Works best when folks are in town or near a safe spot. Doesn't work so well in the middle of a dungeon, but it can be used there as well.

2) Run them as an NPC. I really only like doing this if the character is important to the plot or there's no reasonable way to explain them not being there. NPC's gain 1/2 exp.

3) Let another player run them as a pseudo-PC. This is really, really rare, but I have done this at times. This is the method that gets used when a player needs to leave halfway thru a session due to an emergency. They just hand their sheet to another player and let them finish up the session. Since they participated and it's only due to this emergency arising, I don't like to punish them, so they get a full share of exp.


If a PC starts falling behind on exp, dem's da breaks. In my monthly campaign, I have a player that's been a no-show pretty consistently as of late. While the rest of the party is now 9th level, he's back at 6th or 7th. Due to the new exp system in 3.5, if he starts playing regularly again, he'll catch up pretty quickly since lower level characters get more exp. The original 3e rules really punished people and never let them catch up, which was not a good thing. At least with the 3.5 exp rules, there's still hope for them to one day be on equal footing again.

 

[tarchon]

1/2 XP, usually played by another player. If it goes for more than a few sessions, the PC usually ends up getting left out of any new adventure hooks that come along. If only because the stand-in isn't familiar with the character's abilities, PCs played by other players also have a disturbingly high mortality rate.

"Yeah, I think Mike would try to wrestle that dire wolf if he were here."

 

[Ogre Mage]

what do other GMs do about a player missing sessions?

Do you NPC them and grant them some portion of experience? No experience?

I ask because I have a player who is now constantly missing sessions in favor of another game that up until now ran about once every 3 months.

1. Our GMs simply have the character of the non-attending player fade into the background. In city adventures it is easy. In dungeon crawls it stretches the suspension of disbelief. Since the missing PC is not exposed to any danger, they gain no XP. They do get a share of treasure, however.

2. On one or two rare occasions when the presence of the character was necessary, this was done. Since in this case the PC was present and exposed to danger, they got full XP.

3. That is a shaky reason to miss the game. Personally, I would allow the player to keep playing, but would give NO XP and NO treasure for missed sessions. If they are not happy being three levels behind the rest of the party, that is the choice they made. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

 

[The_Universe]

I don't penalize people for not showing up to game (and, thank goodness, I've never had a player just fail to show), but I also don't give them any rewards for their absence.

Treasure isn't an issue, as items and money are not instantly divvied up by the present players--generally, the PC that would get the most use out of something recieves the thing.

Generally, I offer missing players a chance to catch up with XP, and I don't schedule games when less than 2/3s of the players can attend. However, if a player was missing my game because of another campaign, I'd politely ask them to leave. No GM wants to feel like they're nothing more than a "back up" and I'm no different. Bah.

 

[the Jester]

In general, if someone doesn't make a session- and we have a large, eclectic group with many sometimers- then their character isn't involved in the game. Once in a while they get a cameo, but usually they're scouting ahead, off going to the bathroom, down with the flu, etc.

This approach sometimes pays off with priceless gems of campaign lore. The pcs who missed last session, for instance, where the pcs had just emerged from the Buzzing Fens, came down with an impromptu disease (the buzzing bowels). Now that disease is part of my campaign lore.

If a player isn't there, their pc gains no xp (except in the very rare occasions when I run them as an npc). In general, they're at no risk (the exception being a tpk).

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Howdy!

I know this has been discussed before on this site, but what do other GMs do about a player missing sessions?

Do you NPC them and grant them some portion of experience? No experience?

I ask because I have a player who is now constantly missing sessions in favor of another game that up until now ran about once every 3 months. My group consists of 7 players and I am looking for advice.

Thanks!

I think I'd give him the boot as he seems to think the other game's more important than your's.

But to answer your question, we only give experience for absent players/characters if he's a cleric AND we actually use his spells to heal the party. If not, then he's just SOL.

"NO XP FOR YOU!"--DM Nazi (to parody the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld)