Tough DM call - how would you run it?

[Blue]

Played ina great game today and I think our DM made a great call for a tough situation, and I'm wondering how others would have dealt with it.

The situation: Several (3+) sessions ago, one of our party of 5th level characters got turned to stone. Purely by the dice, nothing meta. However, the player of that character also started a new job that had them working Friday nights when we played for an not-short but not indefinite period of unknown length.

The characters, not having the ability to change him back, searched for a solution but time wasn't of the essence because it made a great excuse for the absence of the character during the absence of the player. We had a lead ona quick resolve, but also had talked about essentially sending the statue back to a powerful patron one character had in another nation via ship.

When trying to coordinate around the holidays, we found out that we can do some Saturdays, and the player can be back. We found this out during discussions at the end of the previous session / firmed up between sessions so there was no in-session time to deal with returning the PC to flesh prior to the player's return.

What do you do as a DM? Picture a spectrum from 1-5:

1. Hand wave the turning to stone and that the players didn't resolve getting them back so that the returning player can pay the whole session. Acknowledge there was a meta reason for the slow return and assume that the characters would have acted with more haste.

3. Give the characters several quick ways to resolve it building on what little they had done that will take from 10 real minutes to half the session - but they all have costs with the quickest being especially ruinous (basically bankrupting the characters, taking a magic item, and several non-magical but rare trophy ingredients like dragon teeth). Acknowledge that we want the returning player to play, but not letting the other players off the hook for not having a solution ready, even if it was for meta reasons.

5. Leave it up to the characters and what they had done to resolve, and if the returning player sits out that's on them - they got turned to stone in the first place. Player agency is king - one got turned to stone because they didn't fight smart enough, and the others didn't resolve how to turn them back. Don't railroad through a solution.

Or maybe a different answer then fits with or in-between these.

EDIT: This came up a few times, let me add it here. the player is a new player to D&D. The experience he's looking for is playing his character. He's been working on him while gone, sketching him and refining his personality more. So while it's a perfectly valid solution to have a player run an NPC (or spare character if we had one), in this particular case that wasn't an option. It is a great idea to get them back playing immediately, I don't want to discount it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Need more information. Specifically...

You guys didn't rush/choose the quick solution because the player was going to miss some games. Okay, fair.

But what was the in-character reason? Why didn't the characters view this as something to be done ASAP? Or (as option #1 implies) did nobody even try to come up with one, leaving it a 100% OOC meta-decision?

 

[FrogReaver]

Hand wave or a quick solution at the start of the session

 

[Mepher]

I would go with the quick solution with a heavy price.

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

Just to make certain I understand your group's current situation and have some questions:

Has the statue already been sent to the powerful patron?
Where is it in regard to the other players?

Without knowing those, I couldn't really tell you how to handle that in particular.

Now, on to the more general problem of what to do with the now-present player with the not-present character:

If anyone has more than one character and is willing to share, offer one of those characters to the other player to manage until his character is brought back in.
Make an NPC vital to the current adventure for the player to control instead.

For an EXTREMELY similar situation a couple days ago: three PCs were turned to stone by a Medusa. The remaining four eventually found her place and the potions that could restore their comrades. However, one player (controlling two characters) had both his PCs turned to stone (out of the three), so another player loaned him one of theirs to play until the others were brought back. Everyone still got to play and they succeeded in restoring the stoned PCs.

I find it ironic you have this dilemma considering what just happened in my group LOL!

 

[TwoSix]

Gotta go with 1. Let's be honest, dealing with missing players can be a hassle, and having a in-story reason to not worry about his character's absence was a boon for everyone. There's no reason to punish the guy because the rest of you had a reason to not prioritize getting his character fixed up. Besides, if the player's already dealing with scheduling issues, no need to punish him further by having him sit around during a time when he's actually able to make it.

Of course, in my game, if one of us got turned into a statue, there'd be a lot of "Boy, that's a really heavy statue to have to drag back to town" and someone handing that player 4d6.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, since nobody else is waiting for the extra info...

I would say option 1, but just how expensive I'd make it would depend on what the IC reason was (if any) for the delay. It'll be expensive regardless, though.

Or...

Option 0: Have the PC revert to flesh without the characters knowing why or how, and make it a plot point.

 

[Blue]

Need more information. Specifically...

You guys didn't rush/choose the quick solution because the player was going to miss some games. Okay, fair.

But what was the in-character reason? Why didn't the characters view this as something to be done ASAP? Or (as option #1 implies) did nobody even try to come up with one, leaving it a 100% OOC meta-decision?

The lack of urgency was 100% OOC. If we had a solution, it would have been really odd in character not to use it immediately. The characters did spend some time researching solutions but were not ready for the immediate return. As a matter of fact, the "send to the powerful patron via ship" plan we were about to execute was pretty exclusively to put the timing of the return into the DM's hands, but would have been in-game weeks minimum.

 

[Shiroiken]

As the DM in such a situation, I would pull of something about a 4. A strange person has heard of their plight, and is offering to help... for a price. The price is not in gold or magic, but something more. There are many different options the DM could go for, but my favorite would be the following:

Mysterious benefactor offers to restore the petrified PC, if they agree to a magical contract. Upon the restoration, the party will undertake a quest (possibly after the DM's current adventure), and deviation from that quest will have consequences (I like petrifying the offender, myself). The purpose of the quest is not revealed, nor will the benefactor reveal himself/herself, but the contract (if the players actually read it) states exactly what the party has to do.

The purpose of the quest is to open a gateway that will allow the benefactor to enter the Material World unbound, rather than using an avatar (which they did previously). A lesser Devil Prince, Demon Lord, or Noble Efreet are really good options for this. They're powerful, but nothing would stop the PCs from figuring out how to stop the being once they materialize. Or they could choose to accept the punishment, rather than risk the world.

A twist on this would for it to be a Solar that is obsessively dedicated to the purity of Lawful Good. Once in the material world, it would begin "purging" it of creatures that do not live up to its standards. It would start off will only evil things, and the party might be fine with it, but eventually it would start on neutrals, and then even CG and NG beings. At some point the player are going to realize that they've made a horrible mistake and attempt to stop it. This twist works well, because it gives the party time to gain levels doing other adventures while the Solar begins its crusade.

 

[Blue]

Just to make certain I understand your group's current situation and have some questions:

Has the statue already been sent to the powerful patron?
Where is it in regard to the other players?

Sorry, I wasn't clear. It had not been sent to the patron. We had been getting ready to do that, mainly to put the return timing into the DM's hands. But it would be a minimum of several in-game weeks (that the party couldn't spend this session, we had made powerful enemies in the city we were, and had people hunting us for the artifact we had).

If anyone has more than one character and is willing to share, offer one of those characters to the other player to manage until his character is brought back in.
Make an NPC vital to the current adventure for the player to control instead.

We didn't have any spare characters, and the returning player was interested in playing their character (they could have rolled up a new one). They are a new player to D&D, and "sorry, you can't play your character even on this special session you can make after being bummed for two months not being able to play" would not have flown.

That's just in this case - that's a perfectly viable solution and I would have taken it up if I was the petrigfied character.