D&D 5E dealing with PCs when players leave a game.

[graypariah]

This is an issue I have noticed more in formats such as roll20 than in person sessions.

If the player is absent (but likely to return) I generally have their character tag along and make humorous comments occasionally then come up with a reason why they can't participate in a fight. It keeps the character there and moving along with the story without having to make more work for me or the other players.

If the player leaves the campaign (or is removed) then I typically have their character disgraced and/or killed off in a way that closes up all loose ends. Last one was a bad case of incurable Arcane Syphilis.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yep, seriously. If killing them were not considered "final" in some sense, there'd be no particular call to use that method. It is an explicit statement, "You don't have to worry about this, 'cause the character is dead." It is a statement of finality. There's no point to killing them except to get that statement of finality.

Nope. There are other reasons to kill an ex-PC beyond just statement of finality. Like I posted earlier in the thread, I once killed a PC whose player left in order to further the story. The PC was killed in a brutal way that got the rest of the players emotionally attached to finding the killer. It had nothing to do with finality and if the player would have come back, the PC could have come back (and the players would have been emotionally glad she did).

There are a lot of reasons one might kill off a PC whose player left, but some of them are probably just to tie up loose ends, a rather convenient and easy way for DMs to seal off the story as opposed to expanding upon it.

This is because, despite the rules of one particular game, *humans* think of death as final. Our psychological reactions as players are not based on game rules.

Not in fiction we don't. Fictional characters (Gandalf, Spock, Superman, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) come back all of the time.

It's a staple of the various fantasy, sci fi, super hero genres. Beloved characters make their way back into the fiction.

And, in general, if you explicitly kill the character, their path back to the game must then include a return to life. That is a constraint. If you don't kill them, their story could still include death and return, but doesn't have to, which is less restricting.

Neither is any more or less restricting than the other.

It's a game. Made to be fun.

The DM says in both cases "Fred walks back into camp.". In one case (the DM killed the PC), the PCs start the conversation off with "What the heck, are you a ghost? You died." and in the other (the DM did not kill the PC), they start the conversation off with "Hey, where have you been?". And the campaign continues in either case.

The only person in this conversation restricting anything is you. You are making a lot of assumptions about how people treat returning players (as if they have no right to play their killed PC anymore) and how restrictive this really is.

It's not restrictive at all. You are making it that way.

For you. But you've already noted that continuity is not something you care much about. You've already stated that you don't need a story reason for a PC to be present. I think it is still okay for me to say that I don't think most of us treat PCs like pokemounts, to pop in and out of existence without care for rhyme or reason in-game.

See, now here you are spinning what I said. I never said that there should not be continuity. I said that the person coming to play is a human being with emotions and feelings. That person might have spent hours and hours on his or her original PC. Why should the DM give a rats rearend about this when in two seconds, he can seamlessly adjust the continuity and add in a reason for the PC to be alive and add in a reason why the PC is in the vicinity of the rest of the PCs?

DM: "Hey, I don't like Raise Dead, you'll have to roll up a new PC cause we killed your PC."
Returning Player: (thinks) *What a d__k! He cannot take out a minute to come up with a reasonable reason for my PC to return. He's known that I've been coming back for a month.* (and says sarcastically) "He wasn't dead when I left." to laughter around the table as he rolls up some smuck PC he is not emotionally attached to and now has to play.


You really would treat a returning player this way? A friend? Seriously? Whose PC you killed to further a storyline (or to conveniently tie up loose ends).

You wouldn't take out 5 minutes to make the story continuity work? This really is an issue about how DMs treat their fellow players and not continuity. You are spinning it as continuity, but continuity is simple to maintain.


Death is not final in fiction.

Btw, I do think that death should be a consequence that is hard to overcome as part of the player playing his or her PC, but not if it is done offscreen like this (or at least offscreen to the original player, maybe not to the other players).

 

[Elf Witch]

Sure, but my solution works for both, has an already established and accepted premise and is does not require any effort on the DM side to establish some sort of special event.


I may have been unclear. Let me clarify.

Wanting an in-game explanation is fine. Not every case will get one. Demanding an in-game explanation that the player making the demand finds suitable and disregarding the out-of-game explanation is not. The in-game is only half the picture. When someone says they can't attend something due to issues, or just plain gives no reason at all, the rational option is to accept that, regardless of what problems it may create in the fiction.


I am honestly going to agree with you. But time is short and I'm more interested in planning out things that are relevant to the remainder of the game and the group than giving a couple players a special exit.


I agree that there certainly are more creative and potentially better ways to handle it. But I developed the method I developed because I had a very fluid group for several years, and ran a public game at a local store. I don't feel like the DM should be required to invest heavily in players who are unable to unwilling to do the same.

I can understand if you have a fluid game with a lot of turnover doing it your way. But in a game where that does not happen very often (I am talking about a player up and just quitting the game with no warning) then it is very unsatisfactory to do it your way. Now I am not saying it has to be complicated like I did it. It can be as simple as saying the PC leaves a note he is tried of the adventuring life and is going home. Just something that wraps it up.That way you are not really taking time to do anything.

I agree that the DM shouldn't invest heavily in players who are unwilling or can't continue to play. I didn't do this for the players who left but for my players who stayed and I am using it to further my over all plot.

As a player I don't want the DM to say Bob left so as of now his character is just gone pretend he was never here or whatever. That is very unsatisfactory to me because it is not hard to say you find a note Bob has left gone back to the farm and didn't want to face you. It wraps it up and everyone moves on and does not leave a bad taste in story orientated players like me.