What do you do when players don't show?

[francisca]

So, what's my story. What do you guys do when your players unexpectedly don't show up to your session?

Depends. On the rare occasion that they all *need* to be present, we play board games, or munchkin, or an old-school gamma world game, etc...

Usually, the PC goes along for the ride in zombie mode providing missle fire cover, pulling rear guard duty, and the like. The PC then gets half XP for the session, and slim pickins if there was any treasure to dole out.

 

[WayneLigon]

If one or two people are missing, we'd hand their sheet to someone else to be played. Any more than that, and we'd probably cancel the session. Doesn't happen very often, though.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

We go with the "two down, no play" rule in our group.

 

[sniffles]

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.

That sounds a lot like our group - and though twofalls and I are in the same city, we're not part of the same group! There must be a lot of dedicated gamers in Portland! It helps that only one member of the group has kids.

I can't imagine ruling that an absent player's character is not there. Most of the time our games end mid-adventure and it would be difficult to reintegrate the missing PC back into the party. Usually we "Mark" them until the absent player returns. Most of the time they just become mindless zombies. The GMs in our group dislike having one player run two characters, and none of them are good at running PCs as NPCs.

We would also consider it the height of rudeness to kill a PC because the player was absent - even if the player had a reputation for missing games without notice. If someone just stops showing up, his PC is usually retired from the game. Recently we suffered the death of a PC whose player had dropped out of the game - we haven't got back to that situation yet, but knowing us, we'll try to have him raised!

We typically have 6 players in most of our campaigns, but we seldom run a game if more than one player is absent. Instead of substituting another game, the session is usually cancelled. We're not fond of one-shot games, and the player who has a plentiful supply of board games is the one who's most likely to be absent.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I don't have a problem with no-shows these days, but when I had a gaming group of five or so, I made sure that each adventure began and ended back at home base (in this case, a pirate ship, so it was a mobile base) even if the actual plot was still going. That way, anyone who didn't show "stayed below deck," and I didn't have to deal with continuity issues of people dropping out in the middle of the adventure.

 

[Henry]

Round Robin GM'ing!


WHAT IS ROUND ROBIN GM’ING?
Round Robin GM’ing involves a rotation of GMs whereby each successive GM picks up from where the last GM left off. Everyone at the table takes turn GM’ing, and when they GM, the character that they were playing becomes an NPC for the duration of their GM’ing window.

Let me give my testimonial by saying that this activity is da bomb. I wouldn't necessarily do it for every one-off session, but it comes highly recommended by me to stick in the quiver, along with board games and other activities.

 

[werk]

As DM, I keep all the character sheets. This prevents any unauthorized editing during downtime and means that I always have all the characters in the party, even if I don't have all the players. I would give the other 4 players the option to play the two chars, if they do not, then I would run them as NPCs (which is to say tag-alongs). Or the 4 players could run a side mission seperate from the other 2 if appropriate.

Also, we communicate through email a good bit, so I would have advance notice that they were not going to be there and could plan the session accordingly. A 'no call/no show' is a good way to get a bite out of your ass IMC.

 

[Arnwyn]

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

As long as I have 3 (out of my 5) players, we continue with the campaign. The characters of the missing players are played by the players who did show.

 

[Xath]

One of my groups will play with one person down, but not two. (out of a group of 6 players). We don't "Mark" them; they're usually off doing something else.

My other group will play if there are at least 4 people there (out of 7.) Sometimes they're "Mark"ed, sometimes they fall into a magical sleep and have to fight their way out of a parallel universe. It depends on what's going on in the campaign.

 

[Mystery Man]

If 2 or more are not making it, I cancel.