folks missing

[bolen]

what do other people do if someone has to miss the gamming night?

 

[Furn_Darkside]

what do other people do if someone has to miss the gamming night?

We have a small group- so we go out and eat, catch a movie, or play board games.

FD

 

[Crothian]

what do other people do if someone has to miss the gamming night?

We usually don't play unless it's going to be more then one session missed in a row. Personally, I perfer to play around the mssing character. It's not that hard to do.

 

[Piratecat]

Either I or another player play their PC for them.

 

[Dr Midnight]

Piratecat, what if the character dies? Do you hold to the death and have the player just cope with it? I had a big falling out once with a former DM of mine who let someone else play my most beloved character (Dr. Midnight) and he died under this careless player's control.

In my current group's games, we just come up with some excuse for the character to run off for the session's in-game length.

 

[Darkness]

In most games, I share DocMidnight's take on this.

In D&D, though, death isn't very permanent except in the lower levels, so...

 

[the Jester]

Check out my story hour. You prolly can't even tell how often not everyone was there. Their characters just kinda "phase out"- maybe they stay behind to watch the mounts, or they go to town, or they're down with the flu, or they have terrible contipation.

The exception is if the party's in a trapped kind of situation they can't get out of.

 

[Nightstorm]

well it's complicated. I have something called Given Experience points and Earned Experience Points. BUT the important thing is that I (the DM) plays the charater to keep the story going. Now what happens to your character while youre not there, depends on why youre not there. (evil laughter is heard)

 

[Cedric]

If you aren't there, your character is "Guarding the horses!". Now we just have to hope we never have a TPK while someone is away...not sure how I'd handle that really.

Cedric

 

[jmucchiello]

Piratecat, what if the character dies? Do you hold to the death and have the player just cope with it? I had a big falling out once with a former DM of mine who let someone else play my most beloved character (Dr. Midnight) and he died under this careless player's control.

Depends on what you mean by careless. The DM will override any suicidal tendencies that crop up only when the player isn't around. If the character dies through no fault of the substitute player, he dies. This isn't a problem though since we are pretty free with the raise dead/ressurection spells. I think the only time this happened 2-3 other characters died or fell during the combat and the survivors managed to get all of the bodies out intact.

Actually having someone else play the character is fun especially if the character has personality quirks the normal player plays with gusto. There's nothing like hearing someone saying someone else's catch phrases around the gaming table. I think it adds to the enjoyment.

Usually we fade the character to the background, but if the player's character is the main front line fighter, he has to fight.

Oh, I forgot, habitual absenteeism is grounds for the DM to lift the suicidal tendencies ban.....

Joe