How would you decide this?

[Nail]

Sounds like a "new group" problem, then. People don't know what to expect. Especially in those sorts of situations, you've got to stay calm and given people the benefit of the doubt.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Now, not only did we see this as a spectacularly bad idea, but as a misuse of the Fates card, which says "Avoid any situation you choose...once". Using this card to avoid death? Fine. Using it to force the rest of the group to replay an encounter that you missed, just so that you get a share of the treasure and experience? No.

Actually, I could easily see the card being used to avoid a situation where everyone else in the party levels up, but you don't. That sounds like a fine situation to want to avoid.

HD tried to argue that this is "exactly" (his word) the kind of thing the card was meant for, but none of us are buying that.

Of course you aren't. Because as you already mentioned, you don't want to do the combat over. It'd be additional risk for your characters and even if you all won again, you'd get less xp, because you'd have to share it with HD's character.

Out of curiosity, are you guys friends in real-life? Or is this game the result of a gamers-seeking-gamers ad, or a bulletin board at a local comic shop? It seems that if you guys actually liked each other, you'd just give HD the xp and move on.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

double post

 

[Chimera]

Out of curiosity, are you guys friends in real-life? Or is this game the result of a gamers-seeking-gamers ad, or a bulletin board at a local comic shop? It seems that if you guys actually liked each other, you'd just give HD the xp and move on.

Group assembled on-line.

It's not about the experience. I don't care about getting less experience. I don't care much about the treasure either - as I said, I was already looking at giving him a chunk of my share.

It's about personal responsibility and accepting the consequences of one's actions. He decided to take his character out of the game, so he misses out
on the rewards that came with what he chose not to be a part of. It's that simple.

That he not only chose to try to weasel out of this decision, but chose to whine about it in public and not simply accept the share of treasure that we were willing to give him (the amount of which was unspecified) gave us all a very bad impression of the kind of person HD is.

I wrote more, but I've deleted it. And with that, I'll bow out of this thread. I think the dirty laundry has been aired enough.

 

[frankthedm]

what i want to know is how the hell was he contacted during game? unless he was rude and did not turn off his cell he should have been unreachable.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Actually, I could easily see the card being used to avoid a situation where everyone else in the party levels up, but you don't. That sounds like a fine situation to want to avoid.

But use of the Fate card is an in-character decision, and XP are a metagame concept. (Although Item Creation fuzzies the border a little.)

Think of it from an in-character point of view. Your buddies find you at the Undercommon-as-a-Second-Language institute, and say "Hey, guess what - we just trashed a couple of fiends... it was really, tough, too!"

Can you see an in-character justification to burn a one-shot artifact to undo their success?

-Hyp.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Can you see an in-character justification to burn a one-shot artifact to undo their success?

"Wish I coulda been there!" ?

 

[ThirdWizard]

If a "friend" of mine tries to tell me, in regards to my game, that "if it's not in writing, it doesn't exist", then I'm going to ask him to take a hike. Who is taking things "far too seriously" when they display this kind of attitude?

Of course. I would be far more diplomatic about it within my gaming table. The distinction here is that I'm being frank about my feelings. If it was in game, I would point out that I was never informed of this rule and that it would be a good idea in the future to have a print-out of such rules so that this problem wouldn't arise in the future.

Otherwise, how can I know that such a rule wasn't created on the fly? Also, I never had any input on the table rules before they were applied to me, and never got to offer my own oppinion into the matter. I believe that players should have input on how the meta-game procedes, because that's not an effect on the character, but instead the player, which are two completely different things.

I might go too far in my table rules documentation, but not having any can only lead to player ignorance of the rules, which is something to be avoided at all cost!

I'm not saying I disagree with the ruling. It's somewhat like how I run things. But, HD didn't know the rule. The quesion becomes, was this miscommunication avoidable?

 

[Hatchling Dragon]

I'd be a lot more annoyed about the player drowsing off during the game than I would be about him having to leave to go to work. That sort of thing happens. When it does in my game, I generally give half xp (or what's appropriate from the build up) and the PCs generally give equal shares of the treasure.

I did appologise personaly on the phone to the DM for doing just that as I didn't want him to think he was in any way boring me (definately not the case), and he was very nice about the whole thing. I'd been trying to arrange things so that I had as much rest as possible before a sessoin to avoid this very problem, this time I just couldn't make that happen and was in bed late and up very early the day of the game. This problem (no sleep) was a big part of why I dropped out of my last group.

I'll also point out that if a player aired their dirty laundry in public here at EN World, instead of to me as the DM, I'd be pretty damn upset. That's one of those things that I just wouldn't do. But each gaming group is different!

I'd sent an E-mail to the group already, but nobody had responded (it was very late Sunday night), with my position on the matter as well as stating that I was going to seek the ENworld's public opinion on if I was wrong or not. How that went is a matter of public record of course, I was dead wrong and eventualy realised it.

HD, since you've resolved the issue, do you want this thread closed?

Yes please, I was going to suggest it the next day but I fell asleep and forgot about it. I'd have checked back before now but I figured the thread would wither after two posts from the me saying I'd realised my mistake and was wrong. So naturaly it kept going

Hatchling Dragon

Edit in bold: I thought I'd put that part in the first time, but evidence shows this wasn't so.

 

[Storyteller01]

I agree that, if a character did not take part in an encounter than they should not get experience...

But...

to leave someone out who had to leave unexpectedly has to have breeched some kind of etiquette...

If this is the case, see if your DM will allow you exp for people you con or charm into doing something (not everyone fights for a living).