How does your group handle an absent player?

[kronovan]

If I'm the GM/DM, I have a VTT on a big sceen at/beside the table for players that have to be home, but still able to play remotely. For 2 of the tables I GM, half the players have young families, so the VTT has been a terrific aid for accomodating them. Most of those player's spouses play too, so it isn't uncommon for them to hot-seat a few times over the course of the evening.

Otherwise, for players that can't make a session for another reason, we usually have another player run their PC if the owner is willing. All of my players' sheets are replicated in the VTT and updated weekly. So, with the ability to display any PC sheet on the big screen, it's minimal effort for another player to play them.

It's worked, because it's typically a minimal number of players (1 or 2) that can't make a session in-person. I've had the odd player that's consistently tardy, or wants to play from home more often than in-person. For them, I just suggest they move to one of my online VTT campaigns, which they have. I can't stress how much using a VTT like this has helped my IRL tables remain active/viable. Not to mention I get to use the VTT (FG or Foundry) running on my laptop as a GM screen.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Basically “went back to town for supplies”.

IE got called away to do something else.

 

[Thomas Shey]

With a single player, we almost always hand off the character to someone else; in rare cases we might have a character have a committment come up so they don't set off on a mission/job/adventure, but often there's enough specialization in character functions that this can leave an unfillable hole in the group's function, so we don't do it.

(I'm always a little startled when I hit people online who find this utterly unacceptable (as in "No one plays my PC but me"), as I've never hit that in the wild, but I'd guess it has something to do with other selection criteria tending to screen out people who are likely to feel that way.)

 

[pemerton]

It depends on the game. Eg in our Traveller game, the character are all part of a ship's crew, and so are all "there" where the ship is.

I quite like the Torchbearer 2e rule for this (from the Scholar's Guide, p 25):

If your group plays an ongoing game and a player misses a session, they get a little boost to help them catch up when they come back.

After the prologue, they tell everyone where their character has been. They should make up something cool but keep it short - and make sure it fits with the group’s current predicament.

Once they’ve done that, they may:

*Alleviate one condition (except injured or sick) in recovery order -hungry and thirsty, angry, afraid or exhausted
*If they have no conditions, restore a point of taxed Nature
*If they have neither conditions nor taxed Nature, they may note a test for advancement - pass or fail - for one skill or ability, or
memorize one spell or reduce Immortal burden by one​

This can be pretty fun. Here are some examples from our game, one fairly low key and one a bit more outre:

]We started with a recap from Golin's player. This allowed him to restore one point of taxed Nature. It also reminded everyone that the PCs were on the wharves of Nulb with Grud Squinteye, offsider to Tolub, the river pirate captain.

I then described Tolub's black-sailed river galley pulling up to the wharf, with Tolub - wearing his mail and carrying his battle axe - standing at the prow of the fighting deck. I also asked Korvin's player to tell us how Korvin - who was absent from our previous session - found himself on Tolub's vessel.

Korvin's player gave us a brief account of how - after the PCs had left the Moathouse - he had tried to sneak aboard Tolub's galley, and been caught, but talked his way out of trouble. He took a failed test for Criminal.

Fea-bella's player provided the prologue, and got to remove Hungry and Thirsty (yay? she only had Angry, Afraid, Exhausted and Sick left).

Telemere's player filled us all in on what had happened to him since he was last seen: he had been captured by the Gnolls (everyone knows that Gnolls hate Elves!) and put in a barrel, to be sold as cured meat! But the pickling process had not taken (Elves require more salt than that to be pickled!) and so he was still alive when the Dwarves in the Dwarven Hall opened the barrel - and out he stepped!

He took a failed test in Health for his troubles, which resulted in his Health increasing to 5.

 

[TheSword]

We currently contrive an excuse for why their character isn’t there. Including a retcon if necessary.

It’s absolutely fine if that is embarrassing for the character. In fact better if it is. Lost, fast asleep, locked in a cellar, distracted, misunderstanding with the watch, missed the stage coach. All suitable reasons.

 

[Lanefan]

What if I call the DM a couple days ahead of time to let them know I have a business trip?

Were I the DM, my response would be "OK, thanks for the heads-up. Any instructions for your character?"

Edit to add: I should probably mention that character sheets stay with the DM between sessions, for just this reason.

 

[Jahydin]

Maybe it's because we all play video games, but missing players have never been a big deal to us. They're just not there; drop-in/drop-out style. Does it make the session harder? Oh yeah, but I find that helps put friendly pressure on them to join. It helps I usually run with around 6 players, so one missing isn't a huge deal.

Fortunately, the only time I had to deal with chronically absent players was due to new relationships. Most of the time their dates would join us eventually though, even if it was just to hang out and make pizza runs for us, so nothing campaign wrecking.

 

[Corinnguard]

If my group (DM + 6 players) had one player being absent because of something in RL, we would still go through with our RPG session. The absent player's character would become just a part of the background until their return, at which point the rest of the group would give the player a recap of what happened during that session. If two players were absent, then there would be no session that night.

My DM uses the Benchmark approach to reward the entire party, so the absent players will still get to advance with everyone else.

 

[TiQuinn]

We’ve got a group that have been playing together for several years now. First, we don’t tend to have a problem with this. We all talk via Discord during the week and everyone keeps everyone up to date with their schedule. The DM’s standing rule is if two out of the five players are out, then we cancel or play something else (one shot, board game, etc). Late cancellations happen particularly due to work since we play mid week, but not often. They tend to happen in spurts. Again, everyone just tries to keep people up to date ahead of cancelling.

As for in game excuses, we just fade their characters into the background. They’re assumed to be there and participating but not in any noticeable way.

 

[Umbran]

For my gaming circles...

When a group is GM and 5+ players, we typically move forward if one player is absent, cancel for that week if there are two or more absent.

When a group is GM and 4 or fewer player, and one is absent, we typically cancel for that week.

My games are generally on a fixed schedule (like, "1st and 3rd Thursday of each month" so there is no rescheduling - we just skip one session, and wait for the next one to come around.