When PCs Die When the Player's Not There
- Thread starter ptolemy18
- Start date
National Acrobat
First Post
2 Options
You get two options in our group.
You either select a player to run your character in your abscence, dealing with whatever happens, gaining xp, etc. as if you were there or;
Your character stays at the inn, or in the cave or guards the horses, getting absolutely nothing in the way of rewards or xp for the night.
You get two options in our group.
You either select a player to run your character in your abscence, dealing with whatever happens, gaining xp, etc. as if you were there or;
Your character stays at the inn, or in the cave or guards the horses, getting absolutely nothing in the way of rewards or xp for the night.
Psion
Adventurer
May sound like a broken record, but I don't run PCs in NPC mode. If we are pushing ahead with an adventure and the player voluntarily hands over control to another player, then that's another matter -- at least they decided to take that risk.
Otherwise, I usually explain them out of the current session as logically as possible, aand wouldn't kill such a character unless there was no other logical outcome to events (like the game world exploding or something.
)
Otherwise, I usually explain them out of the current session as logically as possible, aand wouldn't kill such a character unless there was no other logical outcome to events (like the game world exploding or something.
)
When I GM, if a player is absent, I will give my copy of his character to another player to play. However, the actual playing of the character is more of a joint effort, meaning that I reserve the right, as GM, to veto any action the temp player may have the character perform. If the character would not (from my own experience with the player/character) act in a certain way, then the temp player is not allowed to make the character act that way.
I also will not kill, rob, or otherwise do something nasty to a character whose player is not there unless it is done equally to the WHOLE party. However, I have no compunctions against hurting the character. Nice nasty wounds are par for the course.
Since I use a system with very nasty criticals, it is quite easy for me to adjust a death crit to something like coma for 3 days.
In regards to the situation as described...
1) The trogs climbed a wall and in through windows while carrying large 2 handed weapons? And done it quickly enough that the did not have time to warn the other players? So they could either climb very fast one-handed, or they had to draw their weapons AFTER climbing in the window. Either way, the character should have had plenty of time to retreat more than just 5'. If I had been GMing, I would have point blank asked the player if he was going to retreat further or not (when I question a player's action, that means I think their action is a bad idea and am giving them the chance to correct it).
2) A simple "I think Bob would have his character retreat further and switch weapons at this point" could have possibly salvaged the situation. The missing player IS one of your players. If the character's actions were not in line with what the missing player would have done, you should have questioned the actions of the temp player.
The way I see it, as GM, you have the responsibility to make sure that any temp player plays the character of a missing player as closely as possible to how normal player would have. A bow against a great axe, in melee range (and a single 5' step IS withing melee range) does not sound like something that a normal character would attempt, especially not one where the player has asked you how close to levelling up he is.
3) I view killing (or doing anything permanently nasty to) a character whose player is not there as railroading. In short, the player had no options. Yes, he missed the session. From your comments, he was not happy about having to miss, and was worried about his character. He contacted you before the session in regards to it. From the comments you made, I infer that his missing the session was not something he wantd to do. Yet, the player to whom the character belonged had no options. He asked that nothing really bad happen to his character. This gave you, the GM, permission to make sure that the character did not do something that was going to kill him. Sorry, but you failed him in this. Big time.
First, YOU sent the trogs with the great axes through the window after the character. Second, from your description, the character only had about 30-40 HPs, and you still sent a trog with a great axe (high damage average) after him. Instead of making it a killing attack, you could have made it a subdual attack. The trogs could have decided to use him for some nasty ritual, and thus decided to knock him out instead of killing him outright.
Also, you were given an excellent suggestion up above. Have the character wake up, undamaged, and turn the "why" of it into a plot point. Have him search out and discover why this happened. Perhaps the trogs did a ritual on his corpse, and implanted the mind of one of their own, buried deep, as a sleeper agent against hte surface world (and have him start doing nasty things while he thinks he is asleep - the trog having taken over his body while his mind sleeps).
Perhaps he awakes with a strange amulet that he cannot remove. And once they get back to town, he starts getting followed by members of a strange cult who want to use him in a ritual to bring forth their "dead" god. They had performed a ritual previously whose culmination co-incided with the moment of his death, so he was randomly picked.
There are numerous ways to void this death without retconning anything that has already happened. The best way is always to turn it into a mystery for the players to solve. This is ALWAYS a good thing as the players become MORE involved and feel that their characters are more a part of the game world.
Overall, I would say that you did make a few mistakes here, but they are correctible without "undoing" anything that happened in the previous session...
I also will not kill, rob, or otherwise do something nasty to a character whose player is not there unless it is done equally to the WHOLE party. However, I have no compunctions against hurting the character. Nice nasty wounds are par for the course.
Since I use a system with very nasty criticals, it is quite easy for me to adjust a death crit to something like coma for 3 days.
In regards to the situation as described...
1) The trogs climbed a wall and in through windows while carrying large 2 handed weapons? And done it quickly enough that the did not have time to warn the other players? So they could either climb very fast one-handed, or they had to draw their weapons AFTER climbing in the window. Either way, the character should have had plenty of time to retreat more than just 5'. If I had been GMing, I would have point blank asked the player if he was going to retreat further or not (when I question a player's action, that means I think their action is a bad idea and am giving them the chance to correct it).
2) A simple "I think Bob would have his character retreat further and switch weapons at this point" could have possibly salvaged the situation. The missing player IS one of your players. If the character's actions were not in line with what the missing player would have done, you should have questioned the actions of the temp player.
The way I see it, as GM, you have the responsibility to make sure that any temp player plays the character of a missing player as closely as possible to how normal player would have. A bow against a great axe, in melee range (and a single 5' step IS withing melee range) does not sound like something that a normal character would attempt, especially not one where the player has asked you how close to levelling up he is.
3) I view killing (or doing anything permanently nasty to) a character whose player is not there as railroading. In short, the player had no options. Yes, he missed the session. From your comments, he was not happy about having to miss, and was worried about his character. He contacted you before the session in regards to it. From the comments you made, I infer that his missing the session was not something he wantd to do. Yet, the player to whom the character belonged had no options. He asked that nothing really bad happen to his character. This gave you, the GM, permission to make sure that the character did not do something that was going to kill him. Sorry, but you failed him in this. Big time.
First, YOU sent the trogs with the great axes through the window after the character. Second, from your description, the character only had about 30-40 HPs, and you still sent a trog with a great axe (high damage average) after him. Instead of making it a killing attack, you could have made it a subdual attack. The trogs could have decided to use him for some nasty ritual, and thus decided to knock him out instead of killing him outright.
Also, you were given an excellent suggestion up above. Have the character wake up, undamaged, and turn the "why" of it into a plot point. Have him search out and discover why this happened. Perhaps the trogs did a ritual on his corpse, and implanted the mind of one of their own, buried deep, as a sleeper agent against hte surface world (and have him start doing nasty things while he thinks he is asleep - the trog having taken over his body while his mind sleeps).
Perhaps he awakes with a strange amulet that he cannot remove. And once they get back to town, he starts getting followed by members of a strange cult who want to use him in a ritual to bring forth their "dead" god. They had performed a ritual previously whose culmination co-incided with the moment of his death, so he was randomly picked.
There are numerous ways to void this death without retconning anything that has already happened. The best way is always to turn it into a mystery for the players to solve. This is ALWAYS a good thing as the players become MORE involved and feel that their characters are more a part of the game world.
Overall, I would say that you did make a few mistakes here, but they are correctible without "undoing" anything that happened in the previous session...
DragonLancer
Hero
ThirdWizard said:
Amusing aside, thats what my group does. If its the beginning of an adventure then sure, the character can be left behind to catch up next session. But if its already in the middle of a quest, then he stays with the party and is played by another player. As DM I veto anything I think is out of character, but if the character dies then he dies.
Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
Glyfair said:
He's below-decks, incapacitated by sea-sickness.
He's below-decks, heroicly manning the pumps to keep the ship afloat.
Generally, though, we just ignore it. The story's important, sure, but not as important as having fun with my friends and not screwing them over because real life intruded.
ForceUser
Explorer
In our group, as a general rule, the integrity of the story of the campaign is more important than the fate of any one PC. If, for example, the absent player's PC is the party cleric, and the party is engaged in a huge brawl with pirates on deck, we're not going to explain him away belowdecks just to keep him safe for the session. After all, a PC whose player IS present could die without healing. Of course, if there's a logical story reason for him being there--I.E., the party wizard is easily dealing with the pirates--then maybe the cleric goes below to pump the bilges. If it makes sense and is generally in-character, then sure, we'll do what we can to keep him out of harm's way. The absent player's PC is certainly not going to suddenly become the party button-pusher, potion-taster, and lever-puller (unless that's his normal role).Patryn of Elvenshae said:
But, yeah, to us, the overall story is what's most important. It sucks if the player misses a cool story moment for his PC, and we'll try hard to accomodate players who can't make it by rescheduling or whatnot. But ultimately, the integrity of our cooperative storytelling effort comes first.
DonTadow
First Post
I see the main reasoning behind the playing the character while there not there is for XP purposes. I"m not as stern and rigid on XP nor do I go by the calculas like way of caculating XP. All my players are more into roleplaying as opposed to stats so XP is usually a third thought for most of them. Roleplaying, Loot, XP (their train of thinking).
The PCs of the possibility of a flat 5,000 xp per session divided among the group evenly. I just rate whatever hte PC's attempt to do. They can get just as much XP for running from an obviously high cr encounter as they would defeating several slightly slower ones. They can role play a whole session and still have the possiblity of receiving the max. It makes for a looser game and doesn't force anyone to "have" to have their character there. Again I say, a character is a personal thing, I couldn't see anyone allowing someone to play their character unless it was dire circumstances.
The PCs of the possibility of a flat 5,000 xp per session divided among the group evenly. I just rate whatever hte PC's attempt to do. They can get just as much XP for running from an obviously high cr encounter as they would defeating several slightly slower ones. They can role play a whole session and still have the possiblity of receiving the max. It makes for a looser game and doesn't force anyone to "have" to have their character there. Again I say, a character is a personal thing, I couldn't see anyone allowing someone to play their character unless it was dire circumstances.
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