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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 9279158" data-attributes="member: 6796661">Thinking over the past 10 years, this has only kinda been an issue one time.  I have a core group that attends nearly every session. But I've had other who join only occasionally, or who had to drop out.  Generally, there characters just kinda fade out of existance.  If they join again and want to play the same PC, we level up the character to be closer to the rest of the active PCs levels. I ask them what there character has been doing while they were away, generally far from the area of the current adventure, and what brought them back. As for active players who want to switch PCs, that generally doesn't come up, except when there is a PC death, or, in my last campaign where most players had a second PC who survived the first session funnel, where the inactive PCs were just taking care of the stronghold while the other PCs were out doing missions. The one time a situation like what is being discussed in these threads came up is when an active player who had played for the first year of the campaign had to drop out because of work and life conflicts. The issue was that his characters back story was tied heavily into the background of the stronghold the players took over and their rights to it. I asked him if he was okay with his PC still being used in game as an NPC who would basically be the castellan of the party's stronghold.  He was okay with that.  When he returned later in the campaign, he has the option of playing with his old PC but instead rolled up a new character.  If he hadn't agreed to that, for some reason, while I don't feel I have any duty to not to use his character as NPC, I most likely would have had the character leave the area and disappear from the campaign. If I ever run into the situation where a player leaves the gaem but still wants to dictate what that PC is doing in a campaign the player is no longer active in, expect that PC find himself mysteriously plane shifted. Where do? Don't know. That's up to the ex-player to determine in his own campaign. If an active player wanted to run a new PC, I would probably work with the player and what he wants the old PC to be doing in the background.This bigger issue has been when a player of an active PC has to miss a session. Depending on the campaign it can often be easy to have the PC go off on its own.  But there are times when a session ends in a spot where that just doesn't make sense. Especially in the rare case where a session ends mid-combat. With my current group, there is a husband wife team where if one can't make it the other with play the missing spouse's PC. The other players are generally not comfortable playing two PCs, so I'll play the missing person's PC as GM, but I try to find a way to get the PC to leave the group at the earliest opportunity that it makes sense.</blockquote>

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