Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ForceUser" data-source="post: 202772" data-attributes="member: 2785">I used to struggle with this as a DM. No longer. Here's what I do: the character is there whether the player is or not. If we're in the middle of a dungeon crawl and the player's not present, I will RP the character or allow another player to play it in addition to his character. We make decisions for the character based on what we think that player would do if he were present. The character is just as much at risk of death as normally, and it's just as likely he'll be injured or killed as when the player is present. The character will gain one-half normal exp for the session, just like an NPC cohort. The encounters are what they are and will not be altered on the fly because so-and-so is missing. If the player gave specific instructions on what his character would do while he's gone, we follow that. If for whatever reason the character is not present for that specific adventure, then perhaps the players who are present should reconsider assaulting the Rotting Palace of the Lich King until their cleric is back from semenary next week. Or maybe they can ask a different cleric to join them. Or maybe they'll go without the cleric anyway. It's up to them. But I don't bend the laws of physics or destroy suspension of disbelief because a player can't make it. That's less work, true, but it's cheesy and makes the game just a little less fun for everyone else. If I have less than half my group present I'll cancel the session.</blockquote>

Verification