How does your group handle an absent player?

[gnarlygninja]

A game I'm in had this come up recently, because a player showed up late, and the (to me) strange decision the DM made to deal with it made me start thinking about this. The majority of the groups I've played in would just have another person play the character or sometimes come up with a reason for the character to be absent. I remember when I discovered Pathfinder had magic items specifically designed around this issue (I can't remember what they are now as I haven't played Pathfinder in about a decade) I was very confused by them until I started talking about TTRPGs in the wild and saw how...peculiar some groups are. Once a group briefly adopted the stance that if anyone would miss the session, we wouldn't play, which is to me the worst way to deal with it. I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts and experiences.

 

[payn]

I ran for a long time with 6 of us. 1GM and 5 of players. If one player had to miss, we played. If two cancel and reschedule.

We didn’t use any punitive systems like less xp or less loot or anything. Everyone wanted to be there and absences were rare.

 

[Retreater]

It depends on the number of players we have. For the most part, we play without them. We're all busy adults, and when you start late or begin cancelling sessions for every time a player can't make it, you end up having very little time to play.
If it's a planned absence and they want to leave their character for another player to control - and both parties are cool with it - then I'll let them do it. Otherwise, they go in the "player character bag of holding" - which means they get no rewards or harm while in the stasis.
In the case of a TPK, any characters in the bag of holding also die.

 

[Lanefan]

I ran for a long time with 6 of us. 1GM and 5 of players. If one player had to miss, we played. If two cancel and reschedule.

We didn’t use any punitive systems like less xp or less loot or anything. Everyone wanted to be there and absences were rare.

We do much the same, only our quorum is more-than-half (i.e. if there's 4 or 5 players we sail with 3; if there's 6 players we sail with 4, etc.).

The absent players' characters are assumed to still be present, contributing as normal, taking risks as normal, gaining xp and loot etc. as normal. They are played by either a designated player (if the absent player made said designation) or by the group as a whole. And yes, this means your character can die* in your absence, if a situation arises where it very likely would have died* anyway even had you been there playing it.

Any instructions given by the absent player are followed as best as reasonably possible, with all involved knowing full well that unforeseen situations are inevitable and no instruction set can cover everything. If a player just no-shows without warning and doesn't give instructions, however, then that character's fate is left in everyone else's hands.....

Exception: if the party is in between-adventure downtime it's usually pretty easy to ignore the absent players' characters...but it also often means the lack of players for those characters creates a holdup as the party can't really get back into the field before everyone has done their downtime activities (treasury claims, training, etc.).

* - or have other Bad Things happen to it.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Depends on the number of absent players (the group is 8 people: GM + 7 players), and how log in advance they say they will not show up. But if up to 3 players are missing we still play. the characters belongin to the missing players, will be present, but inactive. they will not contribute in combat, but will not be injured either. They can use some out of combat-abilities.

And since we use milestone for level advenacement when playing D&D (and other games that use it), they will advance with the others, so the player will have to level up the character once they are present again. And we will hand out loot to them as well.

If we have advance knowledge that many or some key persons will be missing, then we might do a oneshot in something else instead of the nromal campaign. So in our Wuxia-campaign, we have hade soem oneshots where we played some other premade characters who did a quick thing somewhere else (or even in previous times).

 

[billd91]

If a player is absent but we have enough of a quorum to play, the affected PC just kind of hangs out in the background - not really taking part in anything. For my 6 player group, if 1 or 2 are missing, they just carry on as if they're a 4-5 PC group until the player is present.

until I started talking about TTRPGs in the wild and saw how...peculiar some groups are.

There are times I feel that's an understatement.

 

[Morrus]

We have a formal HR process, starting with verbal warnings, escalating to written warnings, before the final sanction, which is ejection into space.

 

[soviet]

Normally the PC just sort of hangs out in the background. Only rarely (and out of necessity) would another player roleplay them, although in combat we would normally have someone operate them (probably ineptly).

Sometimes if the PC is the focus of the pending session, and those moments cannot be deferred, their absence would prompt a cancellation, but that's pretty rare.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I was very confused by them until I started talking about TTRPGs in the wild and saw how...peculiar some groups are.

For some perverse reason, I love these kinds of stories. I'll make the s'mores while you work on your delivery.

 

[gnarlygninja]

For some perverse reason, I love these kinds of stories. I'll make the s'mores while you work on your delivery.

The strangest thing I've personally experienced was when a few friends of a friend were invited to pad out an IRL game. The first time we rolled for initiative they all gathered their belongings, stood up, and then seemed very irritated that the rest of us remained seated and stared at them in confusion. The group they had all been part of for years made the players rearrange their seats at the table to represent initiative order, and they apparently thought this was the default behavior.