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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 8821165" data-attributes="member: 97077">Our group (which has 3 DMs) handles this two different ways:1. In two of the three games, the game runs for 4 hours and we stop as close to end time as possible. Often that's a cliffhanger (e.g. fight about to start), but sometimes it's not. If a player can't make the next session and we're in a dungeon or the like, that character just fades to the background. They are "there," but not really.2. In one of the games, the conceit is that after about 3.5 hours of play time, we turn around and head back to town. There's potentially a random encounter on the way back, but we have ways to mitigate those chances if needs be. Once in town, we go through a phase where we split loot, award XP, level up, and set goals for the next session. If that means we end about 15 minutes early, that's okay.Episodic games can be very hard to plan out to end on time. Ask anyone who wanted to run a one-shot and underestimated how long it would take to get through the prepared content! (Now they are stuck with no ending or have to run additional sessions.) As such, I recommend more of an open world or at least an open adventure location rather than episodic games, particularly if player attendance is a challenge. You go in with the army you have and you play until session's end.</blockquote>