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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whimsical" data-source="post: 4598458" data-attributes="member: 3976">I use the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrodeger%27s_cat" target="_blank">Schrödinger's cat</a> method: the character is there and also not there.The way I describe it is as thus: if you were watching a video of the events of your game, for some reason you never see the character of the missing player in the shots for the encounter. But there was no previous scene that showed the character separating from the party. He just happens to not be in any of the shots for this encounter. But no other character notes his lack of presence.What this means in game terms is that the character is not played, but he still gets XP and treasure. Why? Because of how easy 4th edition has made adjusting an encounter. By finding the XP budget for five characters instead of six for that level of encounter and then redistributing the monsters for that encounter so that it meets the new XP budget. Much like <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/4195/dam.htm" target="_blank">Richard Simmon's Deal-a-Meal</a> program.This has worked out great. A player in the past has asked why the absent player gets XP and treasure when he's not there, and another pipes up "What? Didn't you see the wizard take out that soldier and three minions all by himself behind the camera guy?"A few sessions later, another player comes up with the idea that the missing character is the one holding the camera. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />So, this is my most elegant solution to a problem that defies elegant solutions.</blockquote>

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