D&D General How do you explain PC absences when a player has to miss a session?

[Lanefan]

One interesting approach is to implement something one of my groups calls "fate of the party." Absent PCs continue to play, and may even act recklessly if the group deems it to be in-character. However, to avoid players coming back to discover that their character died, the PC cannot die unless the party wipes. The gain just enough plot armor to survive even if KO'd.

It's obviously open to abuse, but with the right group it can be a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too solution.

Sounds good, though I'll see your point about possible abuse and raise it to say that sooner or later it's inevitable that someone will try to abuse it.

We generally have it that if you're not there your character is just as (but no more than usual) susceptible to death or other Bad Things as it'd be if you were there; dice can be a beast sometimes, and this is accepted by all involved. That said, you're also just as susceptible to Good Things happening should they arise.

That, and in these days of instant communication via text message it's rare that if some truly earth-shattering decision needs to be made we can't at least try to get a few shreds of input from the missing player.

 

[R_J_K75]

If they are absent on rare occasions I don't bother with an explanation and award them XP. If they are absent frequently then I will not award them XP for sessions they miss. If they are absent habitually, they aren't invited back and I run a cut scene for the other players showing their horrific and gruesome demise.

 

[Bupp]

This also gives you an option to run a solo adventure with the player that had to miss a session, even if its a quick one off via email, chat, or text.

Give them a reason to miss the session narratively, but help keep XP totals close.

 

[mikebarnes]

It's easy, you don't! I remember one time a friend of mine had to withdraw from a game because he had previously installed a pc optimization software that started updating automatically during the game. It was a good lesson for both of us because I was intending to install similar software in my pc. So before deciding what will be the optimization software I want to use for my computer, I did a search online, to look for reviews that might help me. At A critical review of PC optimization software | Thinkmobiles I found a very well written, comprehensive article about some of this software, and because it was so easy to understand, it didn't take me too long before I made my decision.

 

[Tonguez]

Dysentery
or was it his turn to guard the horses?

 

[Richards]

For us, it depends upon the campaign and the adventure. We run a single homebrewed adventure each session, so it's usually not difficult to come up with a reason why any specific PC isn't around for this particular session, because there's usually a span of "off camera" time between our adventures and sessions, so something could have easily come up for that PC since the last adventure. (In fact, one recent campaign specifically was geared around us doing secret missions for the king, so whichever players showed up that week sent their PCs on that secret mission and the no-shows had their PCs doing lesser, more boring "off-screen" missions.) Every once in a while, though, we'll have a series of adventures all strung together with no time-span between them (like a four-session delve into wildspace or a five-session series of linked adventures in Gamma World), where it's easier for someone else to run a missing player's PC for that session.

Johnathan

 

[ccs]

In my Sunday game its incredibly rare for a player to miss a session. In this group we just bust out a boardgames for the evening..

My Thursday game is much more prone to someone being absent- shift changes/overtime for some, kids for one, two sometimes have school(college) reasons.
In our last session the clerics player was absent.
Conveniently the party is in Waterdeep enjoying some downtime. (Though im TRYING to get them involved in Dragon Heist). So he's just off doing his own thing for a bit while the other three take care of some of their own goals. Worked out that it was just one less person I had to shift the spotlight to.

But how it gets handled in the Thursday game varies by the situation the pcs are in.

I think I'm going to do something much more concrete though in a future campaign.
I'm going to steal an idea from the DC Comics character Adam Strange (who steals the idea from Warlord of Mars).
Very early on the PCs will find them selves summoned into an adventure far far away. Adam Strange? He's hit by a sci-fi energy beam & transported to an alien planet ala Warlord of Mars.
Well D&D has all kinds of magic, Summon spells. Horns of Valhalla, various cards, etc. so....
When someone's missing? They'll get summoned off to Far Far Away. When they return? Their character is sent back to the party.

 

[Flamestrike]

Absent PCs fade into the background.

 

[Olrox17]

If a player is missing a session, its character will be played by one of the other players in combat.

If it is necessary for the character to speak, the DM will handle it. The Dm already handles hundred of Npcs after all, one more character doesn’t make much of a difference.

 

[Coroc]

I've seen a lot of ways to handle this mess. The in-universe justification (a sudden stomach bug). The handwave (he's just over there, not participating). The cancelled session.

How does your group handle it? Do you employ a mix of strategies, or do you tend to favor some particular option?

Comic for illustrative purposes.

He fell asleep in the restroom?

Nah, if everything else fails, he walks along behind the group, but if you rule it like that, he cannot show up after a TPK to get his comrades resurrected . If it is an open environment (e.g. Town), he is on vacation or what have you, if it is some remote hostile place, like the underdark or another plane with dangerous environment, then only the "run along"- option is viable.