what to do with players that cant play?

[rossik]

i finally got to DM a od&d adventure (a "lets play now!" kind of adventure), and i got 5 players, one of each class, except halfling.

3 of them are 14-16, and have lots of free time...the others are 20 and 26, both with litte time.

same to me, i cant play every saturday. maybe once a month.

but what to do with the character of some player that cant come to the game?

i mean, we are going to play once a month, should i level up the character from the player that eventualy cant come too?

 

[thedungeondelver]

i finally got to DM a od&d adventure (a "lets play now!" kind of adventure), and i got 5 players, one of each class, except halfling.

3 of them are 14-16, and have lots of free time...the others are 20 and 26, both with litte time.

same to me, i cant play every saturday. maybe once a month.

but what to do with the character of some player that cant come to the game?

i mean, we are going to play once a month, should i level up the character from the player that eventualy cant come too?

Be in contact with the players. Set up a mailing list, and at least a week before the game send out an all-hands to make sure everyone can make it. Then, if someone can't, go one-on-one via email and ask them what they'd like their character to be doing. If they definitely want them "in the adventure" run them as NPCs, do your best, and press on.

That's what I do; my group is largely in their 30's and 40's, so real life tends to intervene with a bit more regularity, and we work around it.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

Are group plays every other week, so what I do on the off week is send out a "Whats Happening in the Realms" news letter. Basically it lets the players know what going on in the Forgotten Realms: Heres an example:

"Shadowdale:
Rumor's are flying about that their is a War brewing between Drow Houses, their are the Drow that support Lolth, the Spider Queen and a new faction that is supporting Karansallee, the Drow goddess of Murder and the undead. Storm Silverhand, a member of the elite Harpers say's this is very unusual and bears looking into, more so due to the frequent raids on surface targets by the Drow.

Waterdeep:
The disappearance of several street urchins in the last week has prompted the head of Waterdeeps Church of Helm to order an investigation of these dissapperances. Father Savalas, head of the Helm Church in Waterdeep suspects slavers from Skull Port are behind these actions and is lobbying Waterdeeps Lord Captains Counsil to allow his Paladins to go down into that den of inequity and do some major clean up operations.

The Misty mountains near Silverymoon:
Within the Misty Mountains, is the Hall of the Dwarven Kings, now in the hands of the Goblinoids. Dwarf Lord Grungi Orcslayer is trying to patition the Queen of Silvery Moon for help in exploring and recovering his heritage. "

This way you stay in contact with the players and also give them choices where they might want to go during the campaign.

Hope that helps.

Scott

 

[Balgus]

give him a choice -
1 - NPC and give his char to a good friend.
2 - he is invisible - and gains everyting as a player (XP and gold)
3 - he is on a side adv and can join when he comes back... and if he does not make up with one-shots on the side, he doesnt get the XP

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

 

[rossik]

my situation remembers me "the gamers" berserker character

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I try to end each session with the PCs leaving the dungeon or returning to a base of some sort, so that if a player is missing his PC can just "stay home." Of course, that's not always manageable (especially if your game is highly "story oriented"). If a PC must be included when the player is absent, I run the character. The character gets 1/2 normal XP.

 

[T. Foster]

If you're playing "let's play now!" OD&D you should probably be running short self-contained adventures where the characters are assumed to return to their home-base at the end of each session, rather than an extended epic, so cycling players in and out depending on who shows up to each session shouldn't be a credibility-breaker ("as we left off last-time you were holed up in an extra-dimensional space on the Elemental Plane of Fire and suddenly you notice that Krago the dwarf is with the party again, despite having not been seen in 3 months -- he must have been tagging along the whole time and nobody noticed!"). Therefore, the answer is simple: if the player doesn't show up to the session, his character stays home and misses out on the adventure, and if this happens frequently enough his character will begin to fall behind in levels.

This isn't such a big deal in OD&D as in later editions, because 'party balance' isn't as important (sure it's usually a good idea to have as broad as possible a mix of classes/races, but not in the sense of "this adventure is impossible unless the party has at least one fighter, one cleric, one mage, and one thief") and mixed-levels also aren't such a big deal -- characters 2 to 3 levels apart can typically still adventure in the same party without either the higher level character(s) totally dominating or the lower level character(s) getting incinerated at the first combat/trap. Plus, given the exponential XP charts and fractional XP adjustments in OD&D, lower level characters will tend to level-up proportionately faster than their higher-level companions, allowing them to close (or at least narrow) the gap.

This is, IMO, a much better solution than having the absent players' characters tag along as NPCs.

 

[rossik]

well, they went to a village, adventured, then returned. i will elaborate this generic village to be theyr HQ for now.