What is your favorite excuse why a character is not in the adventure?

[Stalker0]

Every gaming group has been there. You get your game ready to go and.....Bob can't make it tonight. The DM has to think on his feet to adjust the adventure and determine why Bob's character either isn't there or just isn't his normal boisterous self.

I have used everything from "he was there the whole time" to "ripped from reality by a demigod".

So what is your favorite excuse to use when the player can't run his character?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Genital herpes outbreak.

 

[Hussar]

Way back when, the group had a magic item called a Sheet of Smallness. Anything wrapped up in the sheet was affected by an Item spell (shrunk to 1/12th size and turned into a piece of cloth). We just allowed it to work on PC's. "Geoff can't come tonight, wrap him up in the Sheet of Smallness".

In our World's Largest Dungeon campaign, we had The Box. Liberally ripped off from Pratchett, the large chest with legs would come screaming out of the darkness, swallow up the PC and run away, whenever a player couldn't be there. When the player showed up the next week, the Box would return, spit up the PC (generally covered in goo, possibly with some extra goodies) at the feet of the party and run off again. If the player bowed out of the campaign, he just never came back from the Box.

 

[Quickleaf]

Genital herpes outbreak.

Sex marathon with the duchess.

Genital herpes may or may not have been involved.

 

[Ratskinner]

Zinc Deficiency

 

[Lanefan]

Every gaming group has been there. You get your game ready to go and.....Bob can't make it tonight. The DM has to think on his feet to adjust the adventure and determine why Bob's character either isn't there or just isn't his normal boisterous self.

No excuse required. The character continues to operate as it always has, run by those players who are present. This is made clear to all up front: miss a session if you like; if you pass along any instructions they'll be followed when and if they make in-game sense, but your character is otherwise at the mercy of those who show up. And the DM isn't going to change a thing.

Lanefan

 

[Sunseeker]

Bob is there, he just is having self-esteem issues and doesn't do anything useful.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

If there's no reasonable opportunity to call the PC away, then they become an NPC. The character basically becomes background dressing... like in The Gamers.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Bad clams.

 

[Jacob Marley]

No excuse required. The character continues to operate as it always has, run by those players who are present. This is made clear to all up front: miss a session if you like; if you pass along any instructions they'll be followed when and if they make in-game sense, but your character is otherwise at the mercy of those who show up. And the DM isn't going to change a thing.

Lanefan

Yes, this. No excuses are made.