What do you do when players don't show?

[JVisgaitis]

What do you guys do when your players unexpectedly don't show up to your session?

We used to institute the "tending the horses" or the "magic bathroom" rule. If a player didn't show up he just wasn't there. Unless he needed to be in which case we would magically pop in and pop out when needed. If more then two people were missing, we just played a boardgame or something else that night. While not very realistic, we didn't have people wasting the characters magic items or doing things he wouldn't. Plus, I'm a lazy DM and I often forgot the other character.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

We game as long as we have 2/3rds of the party present. One or two missing isn't too bad as we've got about 4-5 left to game when they're not there. And even with one game sorta centering around one PC at the moment, the DM can "wing it" with the rest of us until that player is back the next session. Other than that, most of our games aren't one character specific.

 

[Oryan77]

I will game with at least 3 out of 5 players. Any less and we cancel. Sometimes I'll run solo games for the remaining players if they still want to game that day.

I've started using a new method when we game without players where the missing PC's are technically with the group but the attending players can't interact with them. This is just so I don't need to come up with reasons why the PC's are missing. That just gets too complicated and sometimes impossible to do. I tell them to imagine it this way: if the players were there, there would be more or harder enemies to balance encounters out. So just assume the missing players are with the group fighting "missing" NPC's. If you need any specific talent of theirs, they are unable to help for various reasons (failed attempts, spell failures for whatever reason, ran out of spells fighting "missing" NPC's, ect ect). The missing players don't gain XP, but they also don't lose supplies.

It's not exactly realistic or completly logical, but it "can" make sense. Mainly it's just to help continue the game without bothering with pointless scenarios to compensate for missing players.

 

[twofalls]

I have unusually dedicated gamers, they basically always show. I think that we are so bonded as groups, and RL is such a stress that gaming is a big priority for all of us. We all are married and have families and need our fantasy time. Both my game groups are filled with amazing folk.

 

[Greylock]

My group is in the odd situation where 4/5ths of us are ready and willing to game this coming weekend, and are lathering to play this one particular campaign. Unforunately, the missing fellow is the DM. Now, we could play our usual game, in which the missing fellow is a PC, but the DM of that campaign is the one who is most earnest about going to kill hobgoblins as a PC in the "particular game" referenced above.

Ahhhh, life is a cabaret....

 

[Hypersmurf]

We have five players. If two can't make it at all, we reschedule. If one can't make it, we'll play. If two can't make it for the whole session, but can be there for part of it, we'll probably play.

Characters are always present, and generally run by committee. We try to play them approximately to personality.

... just the most generous, self-sacrificing, obliging version of their personality

Missing players tend to find that their characters paid for everyone's rooms, opened all the doors and chests, and covered retreats. (Oddly, there's also a tendency to come back and discover your character caught a disease - filth fever, or mummy rot, or devil chills, or whatever. It isn't planned that way - just that for some reason, when someone's missing, they end up diseased!)

-Hyp.

 

[BSF]

Generally speaking, I run a game for the players that are available. I may or may not scale it down though. We play 3 fridays a month and try to coordinate our off night around known absences. On months where we have a 5th friday, we decide as a group if we are playing an extra session. Once or twice, we have played each friday of the month because everyone was available and everyone wanted to game.

But when people doen't show, their PCs aren't there. They don't do anything! My biggest concern is if a session where the PC should have been there (due to being in the middle of something from the previous session) and the rest of the party is a TPK. Then I am not sure what I will do.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Characters are always present, and generally run by committee. We try to play them approximately to personality.

... just the most generous, self-sacrificing, obliging version of their personality

Heh. Heh.

We do that, except that the characters are run by a randomly selected player or a volunteer. Last time someone missed, he found that several charges on his items were gone, and he was at negative hit points being dragged back to town. We have, in fact, had someone come back to find their PC dead.

On the plus side, they get full experience for a missed session. Which, in some cases is more than when they are present...

Oh, and we play as long as 2/4 players are present.

 

[Hypersmurf]

We have, in fact, had someone come back to find their PC dead.

Heh.

Zob was a fighter in 1E, in my parents' group (before I began playing with them).

Zob had an unfortunate tendency to die, a lot. (He started at 1st level with an 18 Con. By the time we moved cities and left that group, it was down to 10.)

One evening, Jon, his player, had to go into work for a few hours. "Look after Zob for me," he told everyone.

When he returned, he asked "How's it going?"

"Uhhhh... you died."
"Oh."
"Uhhhh... twice."

-Hyp.

 

[Crothian]

I was playing a character that wasn't my own a week back. The other character the player had had just died so this was the first time the character was played and I was really rotective of him becasue I didn't want to get his character killed without him even playing it.