Do you kill PCs of players who do not attend a session?

[Zarrock God of Evil]

I usually run missing PCs as NPCs myself when I run my games, but I have never had them killed off (I go easy on these characters - they more or less just hang around as support-characters). I award full experience to these characters as well since I want all my players to be on equal footing all the time...

-Zarrock

 

[Mordane76]

IMC, players who don't show up unexpectedly move with the party, do nothing, and gain no XP. Also, the party cannot use their skills -- it's kinda a phantom deal; the party accepts the fact that person X is unavailable. If the situation demands a person's abilities and they are not present, I normally figure an in-game way to temporarily (the rest of the session) incapacitate the character so that their skills are moot.

The only way characters in limbo like this die is if the rest of the party dies; if I somehow manage to kill everyone else in the game, then the missing person is dead as well.

 

[WayneLigon]

The GM or other players usually have copies of the missing PC's sheet, so it's not a problem: someone else usually plays them, so they get full XP, treasure, etc.

Sometimes that's not possible, or the person has not left their sheet. In that case, sometimes something befalls them (illness, spends time in prison, something like that) so the absense can be explained. Usually they don't get XP. The current game we're doing, a 'modern magic' campaign using a mix of the CoC d20 rules and the Shadow Chaser gamelet from Dungeon, one person has missed two sessions in a row (work took him out of state) and he's a level behind the rest of us. No sheet, and the events that happened were... well, there was no way for us to judge what he would have done even if we'd had the sheet. We don't know his character that well, yet, for any of us to play him with anything approaching accuracy.

 

[Buttercup]

Well, since we lost a player to some family life issues, we now have too few people to play with anyone else missing. So if someone can't be there, we cancel the session. Previously I would run the character as a wallflower.

 

[Tiberius]

I've told my players that I absolutely will not kill their characters while they are not present, as it's not fun and rather unfair, IMO. The one exception to this is if the other players either trigger or fail to stop some world-shattering catastrophe, like accidentally setting off a magical device that slays every human male between the ages of 15 and 30 on the continent. The character is considered to be absent, so they get neither treasure nor experience in exchance for their safety.

-Tiberius

 

[The Dungeon Master]

If one of my players can't make the game I will simply run he or she as an NPC based on how they tend to play their characters. Also cetain members of the group have asked that if they should miss a game that another player play both characters, so long as the other player feels comfortable I have no problem with this.

As far as death when a player misses a game, I do not intentially do this but from time to time it happens, bad dice rolls and all.

 

[Stone Angel]

Usually I let some other player run the missing persons PC. I always have final say on the missing characters actions I.E "No the wizard will not charge the Fire Giant with his dagger"

But it always seems that if you miss a session you get obliterated for instance the guy who plays a monk got clobbered for 62 points of damage from an Ettin barbarians G. Club when he was at 18 h.p. Don't blame me I just threw down the dice.

 

[Arnwyn]

Another player will control an absent player's character. However, the DM will keep an eye on that character to ensure that he isn't made to do anything tremendously stupid, or overused as fodder. However, characters of missing players can (and do) die. Oh well.

That character, though, does not get any XP (that is a reward for those players who attend the session). Treasure is not the DM's concern - it's divided based on who can use what the best.

The hint? Show up.

(If the absence is due to a real emergency, such as injury/medical or a death in the family, then the character won't die unless there's a TPK. Anything else, though, and that character is fair game.)

 

[Ravellion]

Yup, they die on occasion. Nothing shall hinder continuity! It is the holiest of holies!

I try to protect him a little bit, but that cannot always be done.

Rav

 

[Psion]

Never. If possible, I find some way to intelligibly work the PC out for the session, and award half XP.