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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Delemental" data-source="post: 2402580" data-attributes="member: 5203">It seems as though your players realize something that perhaps you yourself have missed - there is no point in making an effort to have a contiguous storyline or complex character backgrounds in an adventure that is essentially a killer dungeon.The first thing you have to figure out is "Is everyone having fun?"  It sounds like you want a little more, but maybe your players are content with the status quo.  Maybe they like hacking their way through this adventure, and aren't that concerned about the illogic of having characters with no connection to the original plot.  If this is the case, then you need to ask yourself if you can live with that, and not worry so much that it doesn't make sense.If it turns out that everyone in the game would rather have things different, then you should talk with your players about what that is.  The one suggestion I would make is that if you are wanting to have characters continue on and develop something of a connection to the story and each other, then you need to tone down the lethality of the adventure.  Players build connections to characters over time, and it won't happen if they end up dead after 1-2 sessions.  If this adventure is as deadly as you have suggested, then your players may be saying to themselves "why bother raising a character I've only had for a week or two, when they'll come back a level lower and be more likely to die faster the second time around?"As far as the no-shows, just have them accompany the party as NPCs.  Get a copy of everyone's character sheet for reference.  You have several ways to handle this; you can treat them as fully active characters who get full XP and treasure (but risk dying in combat just like anyone else), but what I'd suggest is giving the characters of missing players half XP, but giving them a measure of protection (they don't really contribute much to combats, but monsters generally don't target them, most traps miss them, etc).  That way, players who miss sessions have an incentive to be there (to get full XP) but have less of a chance of coming back to a dead character.</blockquote>

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