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

[Hardhead]

If a player can't make it, I give them a choice. Either their character can be written out, and recieve no XP, or their character can be run by me, and they can recieve 3/4 XP. However, should they choose to let me run their character, the character may very well die. Indeed, one of my players has missed several times. Two of those times, his character died.

 

[Geoff Watson]

IMC the PC of the absent player mysteriously disappears, and mysteriously reappears when the player shows up. They don't get XP or treasure, but I sometimes give catch-up XP if someone falls too far behind.

Geoff.

 

[mirzabah]

... *BOOM* Next round a druid with a potion of <i>see invisible</i> steps out of a tent and casts a <i>dispel magic</i> at the wizard, successfully dispelling the <i>improved invisibility</i>. Every remaining barbarian warrior starts shooting arrows at the wizard until there's only a bloody corpse flowing in the sky... The rest of the party is still 100 yards away and can only watch as the wizard buys the farm.

Wouldn't dispel magic kill fly as well as the improved invisibility? It would be the same outcome in the end I suppose, just less colourful.

As for absent players, I guess it's something you have to play by ear. On the one hand, I think it's generally best to leave the PC out of the game for that session. You may have to do a bit of in-game juggling to justify it, but it saves a lot of grief. On the other hand, if a player let's his or her PC be played in absentia, then he or she has to put up with the consequences. I don't there's any point in going soft on a PC just because the player isn't around. It's one small step from there to the land of the pushover DM.

On the other hand (hang on that's three hands already), killing a PC when the player isn't around is not good because you don't get to see the crushed expression on the player's pathetic little face

 

[blackshirt5]

If that's the way the dice fall, my players don't get special treatment for missing a session.

 

[shouit]

I have actually killed the character of a missing player because the guy missed constantly. I used it as a plot point for the group. Find the PC's murderer. They guy then proceed to beg to be let back, he overslept, and he played the same character, with all the opposite likes. dislikes, dress. He was a cowboy who wore black and had a horse named Devil's Bit, and his new character wore all white and had a horse named Gabriel, it turned out great. I was running Deadlands and it fit the kind of feel that the game had.

 

[Gizzard]

It depends on the situation.

Since we play once a month and everyone agrees on a date in advance we seldom have people drop. In the one case where someone called late with a sort of dorky excuse the group agreed to just play on with one of the other players playing the missing character.

That character actually ended up getting level-drained, which was sort of unfortunate. But, since the whole group saw what happened (Barbarian Charmed by Succubus) and that it wasnt vindictive or unlikely or due to bad play then it wasnt a problem. I suppose if the Barbarian had gotten killed then that would have stood too.

 

[Umbran]

Well, I'm being picky, but if it's being played by another player, it isn't an NPC. The difference is meaningful, in terms of placing blame

Personally, if a player's not available for a game, I generally either run a session in which that character does not appear in any significant role, or I don't run. My stories are usually highly character-driven, and so running them as NPC, or other-player character simply is not an adequate substitute.

 

[johnsemlak]

A DM I a playing under now has this rule: If a player is not present for a session, their PC dissappears. The PC reappears when the player returns. As he says, he's not so concerned with the continuity.

 

[Marimmar@Home]

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

Wouldn't dispel magic kill fly as well as the improved invisibility?

AFAIK you have to roll for each spell on the targetted person to see if it gets dispelled or not. The <i>fly</i> spell resisted the <i>dispel magic</i> while the <i>invisibility</i> was removed.


Having read the posts here I am astounded that so many of you have the PC run by the DM. Being a DM myself I feel burdened by having to play the absent player's PC and I feel kinda stupid to battle with the PC against my monsters, it's like playing alone.

I also tried withholding XP for absent players but that only lead to those players showing up even less frequently. The conclusion was that I award full XP for absent players since most of the time they have good reasons for not showing. If they ever started to become unreliable I would seriously suggest that they choose between their private life and the game. This may sound weird but it's usually not impossible to free two sundays a month for role playing. If that's not possible I have to assume a lack of interest in the game and it's always a pain to talk with a player about him giving up rpg. (Please keep in mind that the above is only applicable to my group, I am fully aware that others play far less frequently and still have a blast.)

~Marimmar

 

[Lygah]

We have the "two session rule", if a player misses two sessions in a row wiithout good reason, a kraken eats him, end of story. And yes, there are Krakens in the desert, they just don't like to be found unless hungry.