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

[CanadienneBacon]

Hope you took the high road. Best I can tell, none of what she wrote or did calls for any sort of response from you, ever. Best to remain silent and make no comment on other people's crazy.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I suggest telling her that a cease and desist letter from a Dr Sheldon Cooper has arrived, as her character name is clearly a rip off of his catchphrase, "bazinga". He seeks damages to the tune of fifty golden age marvel comics and a Hornby model train.

 

[Umbran]

Anyway I have never seen a reaction like this over something happening to a character you are no longer playing. Did I do something wrong in choosing the best way for my game as DM to continue the plot without these characters? Should I have cleared it with her first? How do other DMs handle leftover PCs when players leave?

Don't think about it as simple right and wrong. Think of it in terms of what works adequately, and what works better. Then, keep in mind that the game is not just an exercise at building a fiction and having interesting combats and situations - it is also a *social* gathering. Social mores apply.

General precept - if someone has to leave a game, ask if they care about what happens to the character. Even if they are leaving, they still have something *invested*, some of it is still their personal creation, and so having some permission before you muck with it makes sense. Ask if you care if they die, if they care if you use them as an NPC, and so on.

In general, I try to not outright *kill* the characters of departing players. For one thing, it is very final, and thus restricting. What if that player ever comes back? For another, as you may have experienced, death says to some folks, "We don't want you," which may be a violation of some social niceties.

Most commonly, I try to find a non-mysterious reason for the character to be elsewhere for an indeterminate amount of time. If it is mysterious, the PCs may decide to try to solve that mystery, which rather defeats the purpose - to solve the mystery, they'd generally find the departign character, dead or alive, and the point is for the character to *not* be in the picture.

 

[Umbran]

Also, what does GAFIATED mean?

Technically, it should be "GAFIAted". GAFIA is an acronym for "Got Away From It All".

 

[KarinsDad]

In general, I try to not outright *kill* the characters of departing players. For one thing, it is very final, and thus restricting. What if that player ever comes back?

Err, this is D&D.

It's not final at all.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I normally have them fade into the background until the party reaches civilization, then leave if appropriate to the story. For characters with a tighter woven party dynamic, I might allow them to be run as NPC's. I dont think you did anything wrong in your handling however.

In college we had one particularly annoying guy drop out of a Ravenloft game to our relief. The next session he was grabbed by a greater wolfwere or something. Attempting to free him, myself and the other mage simultaneously cast grease and shrink on him to try and let him wriggle free (which ended up shrinking just him and not his clothes). He did squirt free, only to be ultimately killed the next round. So he died naked, tiny and lubed up, to everyone's delight. And hey, we didnt have to dig a big hole, so bonus!

 

[SteveC]

One of the things I've learned over the years playing RPGs is that the hobby attracts a lot of people who have some real issues. I've encountered many people like this before who react in ways that I'd call extreme or out of hand from things in a game.

I've just seen Pride and Prejudice (our local theater company is doing it and it's one of my favorites) and I realize that over the years I've adopted a somewhat Mr. Darcy attitude towards these situations. What would Mr. Darcy do? Apologize, bow, and extricate himself from the situation. And then never have much of anything to do with that person again.

I really think that's the best attitude since I'm not trained at therapy, and gaming is something I do as a hobby for fun.

I'm not sure that's always possible since this person is in your extended group of friends, but I guess I'd suggest giving them a wide berth for a while.

 

[Ahrimon]

I understand players getting attached to their characters I think that is good and can add to the the role playing but I think this is going to far. Come on getting nuts over a character you played once. I shudder to think what would happen if her PC had died in the game with her playing her.

No, not Black Leaf!! No, No!


As for how our group handles it we are doing something fairly unique in my experience. We opened the campaign as prisoners in a mind flayer laboratory and learned that some funky magical liquid metal had been put into us. So now our characters can "randomly" switch between realities. So if someone can't make it, we simply switch to the reality where that person isn't there. When they return we switch to that one. No muss, no fuss.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

Looks like a complete meltdown from here. Best thing to do is stay away.

And since I'm not completely callous, maybe you should ask someone else who knows this poor woman to make sure she's okay, because it sounds like she might need some professional help.

 

[KarinsDad]

As for how our group handles it we are doing something fairly unique in my experience. We opened the campaign as prisoners in a mind flayer laboratory and learned that some funky magical liquid metal had been put into us. So now our characters can "randomly" switch between realities. So if someone can't make it, we simply switch to the reality where that person isn't there. When they return we switch to that one. No muss, no fuss.

We do not even go to this level of "correcting the script".

We have 6 players, a DM, and a visiting player. One player cannot make it until 5 PM each time and we start between 12 and 2. If a player is not there, his/her PC is not there. When the player shows up, the PC shows up. No muss, no fuss. I don't need to roleplay to this level of verisimilitude. I'm playing a game, there to have fun, not to be the believability police.

No need to play PCs as NPCs, or to come up with story reasons why a PC is not there.