Tough DM call - how would you run it?

[Quickleaf]

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.

Have you ever read the Druid of Shannara by Terry Brooks? One of the protagonists, Walker Boh, suffers from a sort of slow-acting petrifying venom IIRC and eventually has to sever his petrifying limb to prevent it from reaching his heart.

How about adapting that? A shady NPC patron arranges for the PC-in-question to be restored to flesh...with provisional magic/alchemy...such that as long as the PC does as the shady NPC patron wants, then they will receive the second application of the magic/alchemy necessary to prevent the petrification from re-taking the PC. A two-part cure, essentially. All the while, the PC feels the "stone curse" slowly creeping back up their limbs...a haunting reminder of those many nights the PC stood immobile, petrified, gazing unblinking at (whatever he/she gazed at)...

 

[ccs]

If the returning player wasn't willing to roll up a new character to use for a session or whatever, then I wouldn't have scheduled a Sat game until you'd addressed the problem in play.

So what'd your DM come up with?

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

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).

In that case, a simply but costly solution would be best IMO. You don't want anything time consuming at all for the player who is waiting around. Since it would be difficult to hide the statue from the general eye of the public, I would have inserted a mini-adventure:

The party encounter an acolyte for a priest who has received knowledge of their problem. The priest has a salve that will restore their friend from stone, but it has a cost. He will need the party to then accomplish some goal for him. Perhaps an escort or delivery mission? Maybe they have a friend in trouble and want the party to act because the priest cannot directly intervene, like a hostage rescue mission? A little story telling, and *poof*, character returned from stone and little bonus side-quest to play! I would keep the side quest limited to maybe that session or one more, and then get back into the on-going storyline.

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.

I understand that situation, too. I usually run an NPC with my groups, something simple, so if a new player shows up or if a current character is not present, I ask them to play the NPC until I can work in the new character or return the absent one.

 

[Blue]

If the returning player wasn't willing to roll up a new character to use for a session or whatever, then I wouldn't have scheduled a Sat game until you'd addressed the problem in play.

That was addressed in the original post - the group couldn't make our normal play date because of holiday commitments and we found out we could do a weekend. It was not scheduled specifically so that player could be there, it was scheduled so the group as a whole could play that week. That a player who had been excluded for a while due to change in job, whom we wanted to see and they had been jonesing to play allowed him to come back was a bonus.

And "Sorry, person new to D&D. You can make the game you've been wanting to, and we want you there, but you can't come because we haven't turned you back" just wouldn't fly for so many social reasons.

So what'd your DM come up with?

I was holding off because I wanted to see other's responses. If I posted what he did, much of the discussion would be about criticism or validation of that as opposed to what you would do.

 

[Blue]

I understand that situation, too. I usually run an NPC with my groups, something simple, so if a new player shows up or if a current character is not present, I ask them to play the NPC until I can work in the new character or return the absent one.

This was a new player to D&D. Hopping to an NPC for a session would be fine for me, but he wanted to play his character. That is the game experience for him. He's just really getting a personality gelling, worked on a sketch while he couldn't play.

 

[MarkB]

It sounds like the group had good communication prior to the next game. I'd have proposed a suitable narrative solution in advance so that the players didn't have to work through it during the session itself, saving the player in question from having to spend however-many hours sitting it out.

 

[aco175]

Depends on what kind of story/adventure I was running. It it is a module like LMoP that is laid out and the PCs are on some kind of mission- I would handwave and allow the PC to join back in since having player sit around is not fun.

If the game was involving an open exploration of the world and not on a time sensitive mission, I would find a way to quickly bring them back in, like a fight with some cockatrices that could be used to revive him, or an encounter with a patron where another adventure could be taken from.

I once played in a 2e adventure at a convention where the first encounter I was petrified and just sat there the rest of the 4 hours since nobody found the hidden potion that would revive me. That taught me to always think about making things fun for everyone. I had another DM at a convention allow the mage to regain a couple spells before short rests were a thing. The mage used his 2 spells in the early part of the module and was not the dart thrower, which was not fun either, so I like what he did and what 4e/5e did with rests and spells.

 

[Oofta]

I'd go with the mysterious benefactor. What the motivation for doing it can be left vague for now (or never fully explained) but could be any number of possibilities. Maybe there's a cost and eventually the benefactor will want payback. Maybe it was a capricious fey that just did it on a whim and has forgotten all about it. Maybe the petrification was temporary and nobody realized it.

From a story perspective, the PC simply finds themselves un-petrified and rejoins the group with no explanation. That would let me make up something later on depending on campaign direction and what I think the player (and group) will enjoy.

Depending on how you want to run things, you could even have the PC have blackout periods when the player can't attend a game so that they can level up their PC to be close to the rest of the group. Or they just turn back to stone now and then. Build up the mystery, drop hints now and then. Listen to what the group discusses as possibilities and see if any of them sound fun and steal that idea.

Having a mystery with no immediate explanation can often be the best kind of mystery.

 

[SkidAce]

Quick resolution, minor price. Like exhaustion or something so the character can rp the "recovery" for a short amount of time.

Keeps things in the fiction.

 

[Krachek]

Give or sell to players a precious flask of oil that can return to flesh the character.
Can be an interesting hook for later in the story.