D&D 5E Involving players whose PCs have been killed/sidelined

[S'mon]

It's not good when a PC dies an hour in to a 4 hour session and player has nothing to do.

What are some good approaches to dealing with this?

Especially, I'm thinking what the GM can do that doesn't involve too much of a mental overhead
for him/her. What have you tried, and what works particularly well in 5e?

 

[ExploderWizard]

I usually keep a few unused NPCs in a folder for such situations. So if the party already has an NPC with them then the player can take over. If not, and the party is in a location to stumble across an NPC who may be lost, a captive, or whatever, then I can introduce one of the inactive NPCs.

If the party isn't in a place to meet a new NPC then I will let the player run the best/baddest of the monsters for the rest of the session.

Of course, if the player prefers to just work on a new character and watch, then they have that option.

 

[Caliban]

When a PC has been deemed unworthy by the dice gods and their remains end up as an addition to a monster's treasure horde, their player (aka "the Unworthy One") will need to earn the right to create a new character.

As such, they are offered a number of activities that allow them to both remain involved and show their dedication and loyalty to the gaming group:

Acting as my personal dice caddie and researcher - giving me the dice I call for and looking up rules and monster for me so I can focus on running the game.

Transcribing the events in the game as they happen - bonus points if they also write up their character's death with an analysis of what they did wrong. Penalties for spelling and punctuation mistakes.

Preparing snacks and drinks for myself and the players who still have living characters.

Massaging my shoulders and fluffing my pillows.

A few game sessions of this and they will have enough points to unlock a new character slot and will be allowed to create a character rejoin the active PC's.

It's all very fair and spelled out in the group charter.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Make a new character, play the ghost of the dead character, play npcs (not just combat, full control, so they might end up as a new party member).

 

[Ganymede81]

I might let the dead PC act as a "voice from the heavens." While they can't influence the game world directly, they can still freely discuss the game and strategize with the other players. It can be fluffed as premonition, flashbacks, whichever.

 

[iserith]

Have backup characters at the ready that can easily be tapped in.

The way you do that is to set up "trap doors," that is, pretext for the backup characters to be around, but not currently active, such that you can bring them in quickly and get the player back into the primary mode of participation in the game. These backup characters might be part of a caravan of which the PCs are a part, another adventuring party that is shadowing the PCs, trusted hirelings that step up to be adventurers, or the like. Most issues DMs have with bringing in a new character involve continuity - how did this dude just come out of nowhere? Well, set up the pretext for it to happen ahead of time and that won't be an issue.

This is D&D. Death and sidelining happens. If that's a problem, plan for it ahead of time.

 

[Satyrn]

I hand the player the newspaper's movie listings and show him the door.

 

[mellored]

I let them play a random NPC.

A few times that NPC became a PC later. Other times they just die.

 

[Soul Stigma]

When a PC has been deemed unworthy by the dice gods and their remains end up as an addition to a monster's treasure horde, their player (aka "the Unworthy One") will need to earn the right to create a new character.

As such, they are offered a number of activities that allow them to both remain involved and show their dedication and loyalty to the gaming group:

Acting as my personal dice caddie and researcher - giving me the dice I call for and looking up rules and monster for me so I can focus on running the game.

Transcribing the events in the game as they happen - bonus points if they also write up their character's death with an analysis of what they did wrong. Penalties for spelling and punctuation mistakes.

Preparing snacks and drinks for myself and the players who still have living characters.

Massaging my shoulders and fluffing my pillows.

A few game sessions of this and they will have enough points to unlock a new character slot and will be allowed to create a character rejoin the active PC's.

It's all very fair and spelled out in the group charter.

That's funny stuff!

 

[sheridanwilde]

I've had a similar situation crop up, though fortunately I'd prepared for it through necessity.
When we started the campaign we knew that two of our players wouldn't be able to make it for the first few sessions (one would arrive in week three, the other was packing for a month-long holiday in the US on the day of the first session) so I included a few NPCs so that I wouldn't have to throw very low CR creatures at them for the first four sessions. We're also all adults with adult-lives and spread around our region of the country. One player has a one-year old daughter and another baby on the way, one player has been badly affected by engineering works on their rail route and has to take a break (the alternative is to face three or four hour rail replacement services and night buses home each week) and another player has just started a new job working different shift patterns each week, so I've known from the start that it'd be quite usual to have players missing (if we only played when we could all make it we'd probably only play ten times a year).
So that I'm not constantly RPGing one of these NPCs against myself I'd been handing the NPC's character sheet to one of the players to RP each session until the full complement of players was present, and allotting XP accordingly (NPC started as a 0th-level commoner and is now a 3rd-level fighter).
Now that they've left 1st level behind them tailoring CR isn't such an issue, but they're on a long journey so the NPCs are still around. One of the two starting PCs has just this week gone been petrified for 24 hours, so the player has been given the NPC stats to fully charsheet up and play. By the time the paralysed PC can move again they should be in a city.