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

[LordEntrails]

As for XP, every PC has the same amount. I don't care if a player (and there character) is only there for half the adventure. I've played in games when each PC gets different experience based upon if they are their (and even what skill checks they succeed at!) and even though 5E is very forgiving, it sucks to be a level or 3 behind the highest level character.

It makes you feel like a second class character/player. Their is no reason, in my group, to punish players who can't make a game. Missing the game is punishment enough.

 

[Bacon Bits]

As for XP, every PC has the same amount.
[...]
Missing the game is punishment enough.

Definitely. I also don't want to encourage people to do things they shouldn't. Individual awards just encourage competitive play, and it's supposed to be a cooperative game.

The reason I never want to tell anyone is that I just don't want to deal with thinking about the PCs being different levels. It's just one more thing to think about during encounter planning. It only makes it a smidge more difficult, but I'd still rather not bother.

 

[Li Shenron]

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?

I always use the "fade to the background" option. The PC is still there but is on one of those days when they don't have much to say or good ideas to bring forward. If the party needs something that the PC specifically have or can do, such as a key healing spell, the DM can assume the PC contributes with that.

 

[billd91]

It's pretty much fade to background for us too. The PC with the absent player just kind of hangs out, makes no decisions, interacts with no one - unless there's something about them absolutely crucial to a situation. For those circumstances, we will trot them up to the front for the group's need then send them back to the background.

 

[plisnithus8]

In our last campaign when we were traveling together, we had a rock that magically drew in absent players' PCs and popped them back out when the player(s) returned. Other characters carried it around. That way they didn't know what happened and appeared wherever the others ended up.

In our new Eberron campaign, we are pretty localized so PCs can go off and do their own thing and return pretty easily. However, we are about to enter an Inception type scenario (illithid's sending them to get an atropin from the Temple of the 9 Gods inside an NPC's head). When a player misses, their PC dies in the dream. If death happens in the dream, the PC can't go back in as themselves; there are other avatar's (lower leveled) they can use to re-enter the dream.

 

[generic]

I generally just handwave it away, because every other solution which I've implemented just leads to a reduction in immersion, enjoyment, and general fun. Having to explain the absent player's in-game predicament destroys immersion faster than not explaining it ever will, IME.

 

[Eltab]

One time when I missed the first half of a hard fight, my character announced her return with "I took care of the guys who were trying to sneak up behind ... Oh you kept a few of yours for me!"
Another player who was playing a Wild Magic Sorcerer "got tangled up inside his own Rope Trick spell" for the session he had to miss.

 

[Draegn]

Mostly just say the character is off doing a downtime activity. However, there is the one character that routinely gets a pitchfork wedding for getting the innkeeper's daughter pregnant.

 

[Shiroiken]

PC is present, but handling other aspects of the adventure (combat= off screen enemies, social = hunting down red herring clues, exploration = covering the rear). If the campaign is location based (e.g. Baldur's Gate), then the PC is off handling other thing unless it's mid-adventure.

 

[The Green Hermit]

If we are in town/safe spot, they decide to stay behind for some reason and will catch up later. Otherwise, they come along, but they don't actually partake in any of the action, nor do they gain loot or XP.