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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 7792003" data-attributes="member: 53980">I give absent players full XP. They miss out on loot however, unless the other players are feeling particularly generous. I usually come up with a brief description of an adventure that the PC went on while absent, which both explains where the XP came from and allows me to drop hooks and seeds for future adventures.I do this because gaming is (or at least should be) fun. As such, it's "punishment" enough for the player to not be able to play. I certainly don't want to create some perverse incentive for them to skip out on real world obligations, just so that they don't fall behind in game.Part of the reason is that I've seen this sort of thing turn into a vicious cycle. The player misses a session or two, causing them to fall behind. When they return, they feel less competent than their companions, which dampens their interest in the game. This causes them to miss more games, further reducing their interest until they drop out entirely.That said, 5e tends to be fairly forgiving in terms of level disparity. However, that doesn't mean that the player will feel it is. Objective truth and subjective feelings don't always align.One possible suggestion, if you don't like the idea of giving "free" XP and your players don't mind homework, might be to have the player write up what their character was doing while absent in exchange for the XP. That way if the player doesn't care about level disparity they don't need to do it, while someone who does can spend a bit of free time to close the gap, while possibly also giving the DM new material to incorporate into their game. Just a thought.</blockquote>

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