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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7801416" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>Those are good ideas in terms of story flow and rationalization. I recall one D&D group I heard about, "The Band of the Red Band" who were under a curse, and individuals would vanish and re-appear unpredictably. And, that does work for any game to make a more episodic story that bends to the realities of getting a group of busy people together.</p><p></p><p>But as far as the system goes, yes, D&D is not nearly as flexible as it's sometimes given credit for, if you're not willing to just toss it out the window and run on fiat - and the insistence of some of the players on playing D&D, specifically, seems to suggest that might not go over well.</p><p></p><p>D&D has classes that are each very different, somewhat specialized, and bring different levels of power & flexibility to the table (some editions more extreme or formal than others, that way). 5e is one of the less formal, and not exactly the least extreme. A scenario that might be a speedbump for a Wizard, Warlock, Cleric, Rogue, & Fighter, for the Fighter & Rogue, alone, might prove impossible. Another, for the Wizard, Warlock & Rogue, by themselves suddenly much stealthier & more mobile, might be a cakewalk.</p><p></p><p> One option is to have a stable cast of characters, even if the cast of players isn't stable. For each character have an alternate, simplified, henchman-style version available for someone else to run secondary to their own character (or you to run as an NPC). 1e had orange half-sheets for that purpose. 4e had Companion Characters.</p><p></p><p>Don't worry about radically re-balancing a challenge because one player showed up instead of another.</p><p></p><p>For character-specific events, just don't set them up in one session and finish them in another. Take the advice you've gotten several times in this thread and run in a more episodic style: keep such development complete w/in episodes where the appropriate player is in attendance.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7801416, member: 996"] Those are good ideas in terms of story flow and rationalization. I recall one D&D group I heard about, "The Band of the Red Band" who were under a curse, and individuals would vanish and re-appear unpredictably. And, that does work for any game to make a more episodic story that bends to the realities of getting a group of busy people together. But as far as the system goes, yes, D&D is not nearly as flexible as it's sometimes given credit for, if you're not willing to just toss it out the window and run on fiat - and the insistence of some of the players on playing D&D, specifically, seems to suggest that might not go over well. D&D has classes that are each very different, somewhat specialized, and bring different levels of power & flexibility to the table (some editions more extreme or formal than others, that way). 5e is one of the less formal, and not exactly the least extreme. A scenario that might be a speedbump for a Wizard, Warlock, Cleric, Rogue, & Fighter, for the Fighter & Rogue, alone, might prove impossible. Another, for the Wizard, Warlock & Rogue, by themselves suddenly much stealthier & more mobile, might be a cakewalk. One option is to have a stable cast of characters, even if the cast of players isn't stable. For each character have an alternate, simplified, henchman-style version available for someone else to run secondary to their own character (or you to run as an NPC). 1e had orange half-sheets for that purpose. 4e had Companion Characters. Don't worry about radically re-balancing a challenge because one player showed up instead of another. For character-specific events, just don't set them up in one session and finish them in another. Take the advice you've gotten several times in this thread and run in a more episodic style: keep such development complete w/in episodes where the appropriate player is in attendance. [/QUOTE]
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