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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 2550758" data-attributes="member: 5143">I don't give XP to people who don't show up, regardless of the reason.  I don't play their characters in the game either.  I don't like the hassle of having to run an NPC and the game at the same time.  Plus, most of the time the players have their characters and they didn't show up.In certain, specific circumstances, I've allowed a character to be played as an NPC and got full XP for it.To me it comes down to this:  If you are there to contribute to the group with fighting prowess, magic, and such and face the same risk of dying as everyone else, you get XP.  You don't get any for not showing up.  I also don't want to start trying to compare what is considered "acceptable" and what isn't.  We arbitrate things fairly.  If you show up, you get XP, if you don't you get none.  That way, I will allow each person to consider what they consider a higher priority than the game.I consider the game to be a lot like a sports team.  I played on a curling team, when someone didn't showed up, it meant we had to cover for them.  It was harder to win, you have people playing positions they aren't used to.  Same thing happens when a player doesn't show up.  The party has to face the same challenges with less party members, it becomes harder.  They get more XP (it is split less ways) and the person who didn't help gets none.As has been said before, it is about rewarding people for showing up, not punishing them for not coming.  Missing one session isn't going to put you so far behind that you can't play anymore.  If you are using the system from the DMG, the person who missed will eventually catch up.  If everyone will miss a certain number of sessions due to "emergencies" each year, then in theory, everyone will stay fairly balanced.  If someone misses too many sessions, their character falls behind.  In my experience, people can make time for a game, if they miss so often that they feel punished, its because they aren't trying to show up or they really don't have time to play.On the other hand, I don't believe in ACTUALLY punishing people.  We had a player miss quite a few sessions in a row because he changed work schedules and couldn't make it to the game time anymore.  When his schedule changed again, we gave him enough XP so that he'd be 1 level lower than the lowest level person in the group so he wasn't so far behind as to be ineffective.  On the other hand, we had another player who missed nearly every game session for the whole summer, citing the reason "I like to go camping when it's summertime, I will be gone every weekend".  He decided he liked camping more than showing up for the game.  No problem, his choice.  We discussed it though, and since we cancelled the game on a number of weekends due to his absence, we voted to remove him from the group and replace him with someone who had been begging me to play.As for the chess analogy.  It is slightly flawed.  Assume instead that you meet weekly for a chess game against someone.  You don't show up one week.  They win by default, you aren't there to play.  You didn't LOSE.  However, you had no chance to win either.  If winning mattered to you that much, you'd show up.  If the games were just for fun anyways, they you don't care that you didn't win that game.  You show up for the next game and play, not caring that you are a win behind.</blockquote>

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