Lanefan
Victoria Rules
It's only a punishment mechanic if it's used as such.This is a player problem, in my opinion. You shouldn't have to use punishment mechanics to get a player to show up to the game. I'd also argue that such use is a bad reasoning for the inclusion of a mechanic.
And because I know I'll get push back on calling XP a punishment mechanic. I want to clarify that a "punishment mechanic" is any mechanic used to "punish" players for out of game behavior. XP could be one here, and not in another instance.
Here, if Bob is late we just start without him, with someone else (or a committee) playing his character. The character still gets xp as normal for what it does in the fiction, and is still expected to be as active as if its player was present.
The punishment part comes when Bob finally does show up and gets glared at by all involved when he asks for a recap of what he's missed.
