Button Pusher, Lever Puller, Potion Taster (When players are absent)

[Sunseeker]

Interesting idea. In a FLGS game where you never know who'll show up week-to-week, that could be a really good solution.

That said, however: PLEASE tell me shifted characters don't get the same xp non-shifted characters do!

Otherwise, I can shift my character into autopilot and it'll just keep levelling up...

They do, but players are removed from the game after missing 3 consecutive sessions.

But it's not like they're taking away XP from everyone else. Everyone gets the same amount of XP.

This "permission" is locked in in our game - that if you're not there your character is at the mercy of whoever ends up playing it, barring any instructions you've given the DM. We don't have it do anything it wouldn't normally do - but if it's always the risk-taker when you play it it'll still be the risk-taker when you're not there.

If I saw any of my players running a missing person's character this way I'd make sure to have to talk with the missing player to ensure that's how they want them to run. Other people's characters are not your guinea pig because that person missed a day.

You want to do that, that's on you. But I'm not going to be that DM who when Bobby comes back to the table tell him "Oh yeah Bobby go roll a new character, we got this potion from a witch and we didn't really believe she was legit so your character drank it and died."

That's a load of horse puckey if you ask me.

 

[Ed Laprade]

At our tables, either the character fades to the background or, if it makes sense in the fiction, is off doing something else. Usually, we'll have set up in advance ways for players and their characters to drop in and out in a way that isn't disruptive to the game experience - the party travels in a caravan, perhaps, or the campaign mostly takes place in a city where they can do other things off camera. We don't ask anyone to play anyone but their own character.

This is how pretty much every group I've played with has done it.

 

[77IM]

At our table, if a player can't make it to a session, we draw a giant penis on their character sheet.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Dysentery. If a player can't show, his/her character has the Hershey Squirts until they get back. It's all I need to explain their lack of participation.

 

[Yardiff]

If someone cant make it in our group we put the game off for that week and play a board game or call off the game day altogether.

 

[Nevvur]

At our table, if a player can't make it to a session, we draw a giant penis on their character sheet.

This is a feature conspicuously absent on roll20 character sheets. I've come to enjoy online gaming more than face-to-face, but I do sometimes find occasion for envy...