D&D 5E How to add new PCs mid quest?

[doctorbadwolf]

New guy was tracking down a clue about the missing family. It either led him to the same dungeon the PC's are going to, or he got spectacularly lost while following the clue.

They encounter each other wandering around. (Cue: "Greetings strangers...I notice you are lacking a [my class] in your group. We should join forces." "Excellent suggestion. Let's be best friends.")

This, but with the flashback/frame story interlude. Boom magic!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

MORE INFORMATION:

The Party: The party was composed of three members. Two of them hated each other deeply. After one ambush from their nemesis, one of the died but was immediately resurrected by a wish they had kept from a previous adventure. The party member didn't want to be resurrected (it had been his second death and he started to believe that people should not be resurrected after death). I DM that a wish is capable of bringing back the dead, regardless their permission.
Angry, the party member that was brought back decides to leave the party and the quest as he cannot forgive them for ignoring his wishes of staying dead.

The Quest: The party needs to heal a friend of theirs. The only healer capable of the magic needed to heal her gave them a quest in return. They need to fetch an artifact of her god from a certain dungeon. The party was still traveling to the dungeon when their nemesis ambushed them. The dungeon is a long forgotten and abandoned place.

The New Guy: The new guy is a worshiper of the Raven Queen. His goal in life is to (aside from following the commandments of the Raven Queen) is to find the missing family of his best friend (who died).

Sorry for triple post, but it seems like my suggestion, combined with Caliban's, would suite perfectly here.

They continue on, a man down, a wish lost, angry and discouraged, and run into an old friend, who is there on his own secret business. Roll Credits on surprised faces, party member saying, "Frank? What the f-"
Next session starts with flash back. When flash back resolves, cut back to just after the wtf moment. Be sure to tie the flashback adventure in to the reason he is there, for bonus points!

I just did this as part of relaunching my Eberron campaign, and to deal with new players joining the campaign after the first adventure had begun, which was itself a framing story where two PC's were telling the story of how they met an DMPC to an old recurring ally and sometime DMPC, in a tavern in Sharn, on Rememberence day.
Now it's a flashback in a flashback, as one of the PCs recalls how she met the people who they've just run into, who are caught up in the Thelanis Manifest Zone effect that is playing out an old fairy tale near the Cyre border, at the same ruined tower where she met them 2 years before!

Soon, they will all meet again in the current year, at the Remembrance day celebration, and the mystery of the Prophecy Mark they found in the tower, and how it relates to they labyrinth and the treasure within that is the center of the Thelanis Manifest Zone story. They'll have little time to wonder at the intricacies of prophecy and destiny, though, as they chase doom through and over the streets and towers of Sharn!

 

[MarkB]

The Quest: The party needs to heal a friend of theirs. The only healer capable of the magic needed to heal her gave them a quest in return. They need to fetch an artifact of her god from a certain dungeon. The party was still traveling to the dungeon when their nemesis ambushed them. The dungeon is a long forgotten and abandoned place.

The New Guy: The new guy is a worshiper of the Raven Queen. His goal in life is to (aside from following the commandments of the Raven Queen) is to find the missing family of his best friend (who died).

Turns out this healer also happens to know a clue to the location of New Guy's friend's family. New Guy visited her a few days before the party did, and she sent him on the same quest. She didn't mention it to the party because she figured he'd probably wound up dead by now. In fact, he's been scoping the place out, but couldn't find a way to make it in and out single-handed.

 

[GlassJaw]

Tied up inside burlap sack.

 

[ccs]

MORE INFORMATION:

The Party: The party was composed of three members. Two of them hated each other deeply. After one ambush from their nemesis, one of the died but was immediately resurrected by a wish they had kept from a previous adventure. The party member didn't want to be resurrected (it had been his second death and he started to believe that people should not be resurrected after death). I DM that a wish is capable of bringing back the dead, regardless their permission.
Angry, the party member that was brought back decides to leave the party and the quest as he cannot forgive them for ignoring his wishes of staying dead.

The Quest: The party needs to heal a friend of theirs. The only healer capable of the magic needed to heal her gave them a quest in return. They need to fetch an artifact of her god from a certain dungeon. The party was still traveling to the dungeon when their nemesis ambushed them. The dungeon is a long forgotten and abandoned place.

What?? The party had a WISH in their pocket capable of raising even the un-willing dead & they go on an adventure to obtain something less potent?
Just toss the new PC right in without any explanation. The existing members likely won't even wonder why he's with them/how he got there.

 

[Lanefan]

What?? The party had a WISH in their pocket capable of raising even the un-willing dead & they go on an adventure to obtain something less potent?
Just toss the new PC right in without any explanation. The existing members likely won't even wonder why he's with them/how he got there.

Just call it a random wild-magic side effect of the wish...

 

[schnee]

Wounded, being chased by a group of monsters. After a short skirmish, determine his/her other party is lost and they are after the same thing.

 

[Yunru]

Death, the barkeep, drops him/her off.

 

[Henry]

Paizo's Hell's Rebels campaign had the best framing device I've yet seen -- the PCs have initiated a rebellion, which grows from a few dozen partisans to (by the end) hundreds or even thousands of members. The Schroedinger's PCs are members of the rebellion, and working on the sidelines for the same goals; should a PC fall, one of the other partisans rises to fill the need for a strong leadership position. You've always known them, supposedly, even if they've only recently been "on camera."

But the device I've most commonly used is the "off-camera friend." It makes trust a bit easier.

 

[Henry]

But to cover another point: it's one of the two or three things I always concede to "metagame over game." In the end, we ARE playing a game, and the point of ruining fun for a player at the expense of continuity isn't worth it to me. I once made a player (a friend) sit at a table, to a game he had driven two hours to play, and watch everyone else because it wasn't plausible for his character to be in the action yet, and I regret it to this day. If I have to make a player wait for more than five minutes for gaining agency in the game they took pains to attend, I'm doing something wrong.

To a lesser extent it's why I dislike "save or suck forever" spells. If they get a save each round, all good, at least they make one roll. Recently, I played a game where I failed a save in round 2 of the combat and spent the next three hours of real time (the rest of the session) as an iron statue. Hey, it's the rules, it's the system I signed up for, and the table was still some fun to watch due to the RP with the villain afterwards, but I won't lie and say it wasn't a sucky result for the night. I don't even have problem with things like Slow spells or Fear spells, because I still have fun playing my reactions, but rules that make a player passive at the table for hours still need some thought.