How to handle missing players?

[Victim]

In one group, someone else plays your character if you're gone. If you die, tough, but the DM informed everyone in advance.

If I know I'm going to be absent, I try to find someone to play my character, so as do avoid having an idiot play my character. My wizard survived an entire summer with me away, so I think picking out someone to play my character is a good idea.

RBDM = Rat Bastard Dungeon Master.

Other times, missing characters are just ignored, unless they have some crucial skill. They take no damage, and use no space, but don't do anything in combat either.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The first group I played with tended to be very casual about campaign continuity If a player didn't show up, the character wasn't with the party that session. If he showed up next time, the character was back. Easy

These days, I tend to have another player babysit the character. From a RP perspective, the character usually becomes something of an automaton... but the babysitter will dictate combat actions and so forth.

In a first edition game some fifteen years ago, one of the characters was a fighter named Zob. Zob was hopelessly unlucky. He was generated with a Con of 18. By the time the campaign wrapped up, it was down to 10, from resurrection penalties. (He got more use out of a Ring of Regeneration than anyone I've ever seen! )

One session, Zob's player had to pop out to work for a few hours. "Look after Zob 'til I get back," he told us.

On his return, he asked "So how'd it go?"
"Um... you died."
"Oh."
"Um... twice."



-Hyp.

 

[thundershot]

I had one player for a while who couldn't come every time, and we were aware of it, so I gave him a magic cursed ring. At random intervals, he would switch places with a Sahuagin (sp?) woman who was out to slaughter the PCs. So he never got to stand watch at night, since the curse could kick in and she'd kill them in their sleep. It was interesting... When he was available again, the plot still continued, and eventually the two were fused together. He's very vain, so it was torture being a half-elf/half-female sahuagin... Eventually he was returned to normal, but the memories will always haunt his character..


Chris

 

[Airwolf]

Rule 1: Unless half (in our current party the half is 3 characters) of the characters can't make it we play.

Rule 2: Having someone else play a missing PC is wrong, IMO.

The adventure (campaign, etc) belongs to the DM, the characters belong to the players. If the player knew in advance that they weren't going to be there and wanted their character along, I would run him/her as an NPC. The NPC wouldn’t really do anything unless asked and would not be a central part of the session.

Recently I DMed a session where a player was absent who was to play a central part in the adventure that day. I quickly made a few minor changes and we went on without his character. Later I talked with him and filled him in on what the party had done in his absence. Then I told him what I had planned, boy was he sorry he missed.

The long and short of this post is letting another someone play a character that is not his/her own and then allowing them to play the character in such a way that the character dies (even if they thought they were playing in-character) is out of line on the part of the DM. No matter how good the player is they will usually play the character different than the owner would have in a given situation.

That's my take from this side of the monitor.

 

[Deedlit]

How I do it.
If in the middle of battle, have the character act as NPC for that battle only, then go off on his own, not telling anyone what they are doing. Otherwise, they do something away from the party.

 

[willpax]

I use a combination of several of these guidelines.

First, if at all possible, I try to have most of the players there. We have had to cancel once (the party wizard's player's wife was having ababy; we thought it only proper to let him go to that instead). We only get to play rarely, so it's a bigger deal than it might be for other gamers.

Second, if the plot allows it, any absent players have their characters absent themselves through flu, some side job, or something.

Third, if the plot does not allow it, another player "babysits" that character, but basically plays him on autopilot (doesn't take the lead, only uses skills and combat as needed). I will make a point to not target these quasi-pcs with lethal force (although I will often "take them out" early in a nonlethal way). I haven't told my players about that part of the policy.

Fourth, any characters who don't have players present get only half experience for the session. That wrinkle hadn't been mentioned by anyone yet, but I think it's only fair to trade a bit more safety for a bit less reward. This policy you should inform your players of before you actually need it.

 

[Kyramus]

This really comes down to what the situation is before you handle a missing player.

I have managed to use them as NPC's when they are not around, or in some cases they come down with some sort of sickness and the group needs to bring them to a city or temple.

In one case, they thought they had left a complex via teleport, when in fact nothing of the sort happened. So in that particular instance, I just left the two characters out of the picture til later when they returned.

As for killing and not killing pc's. I don't subscribe to the "Can you put them somewhere safe? Like Player 2's house in the game?" That's just stupid and not very character like , not to mention it means death don't happen in the game.

One of my players didn't like dying when he isn't around too, but then he got over it and kept playing.

Sooner or later one or more of them will die. There is a war after all.

(grins)

 

[jmucchiello]

If in the middle of battle, have the character act as NPC for that battle only, then go off on his own, not telling anyone what they are doing. Otherwise, they do something away from the party.

I disagree with this. We have someone else play the character, usually on autopilot. Although if the character has a habit of wading swordfirst into battle, that's how the sub will play the character.

But, he just wanders off without telling anyone would be totally out of character for most of our characters. When someone plays a wanderer, we let them go. They get into trouble we might bail them out. There is a reason the 6 of us are going into the dungeon together. Stick together and we might survive. Loners have no place in D&D style gaming. If there's combat, everyone has to wait while you and the DM dice off. If you go alone into the king's chambers for a tete-a-tete well the other players are twiddling their thumbs while you are RPing. We don't get to play that often. None of us have time during the week to do solos with the DMs. We game as a group. The characters work as a group. If a few players are missing, the group still feels whole because someone is doing the missing player's character as the missing player would, accent and all if necessary.

 

[Hypersmurf]

... because someone is doing the missing player's character as the missing player would, accent and all if necessary.

Aia.

We had a character who was a ditzy blonde elf. The (male) player did her voice in a falsetto... sort of a cross between Dame Edna, and Phoebe from Friends.

Problem was, the voice was contagious... we'd often end up with four of the five players and the DM having a spontaneous OOC conversation in falsetto - hating ourselves the whole time - until we could snap out of it and the game could continue.

It was horrible!

However... if the player was missing, we never had any trouble playing the character on his behalf...

-Hyp.

 

[boothbey]

Missing Players

Whenever possible, the character of a missing player will find some reason to not be around for that adventure.

If it is not possible for the character to leave then it goes into a quasi npc mode. Party requests actions of the missing character and if I, the dm, think the action likely or possible for the character that action will be taken.

My foremost rule for this situation is, a missing player's character can not die. Through experience, the group I run for has learned not to exploit this rule. The character can be captured, change sides, screw up (which can lead to present members character deaths), etc.

When things go amusingly bad, it sometimes falls to the character that was missing one week to come back and have to be the one to save the entire party the next week when he comes back.