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ken-do-nim
2009-10-24, 06:16 AM
My last 3.5 DM used to have a policy that really annoyed me for when a player didn't show up to a session:
1. The character was "called away unexpectedly" instead of letting someone else run him or her. This turned out to be a huge problem because the guy playing the cleric started being unable to show up, and we had no healing and no undead turning.
2. These characters would still earn 1/2 xp, because the DM didn't want the characters to fall too far behind the others.

So basically, if you knew a dangerous encounter was coming up, you could not show up for a session, know that your character would live through it because he wasn't there, and still get 1/2 the xp everyone else got. I don't think anyone ever missed a session for that reason, but still.

So how do you deal with characters of missing players?

Shpadoinkle
2009-10-24, 06:30 AM
I ask for up to date copies of the PCs character sheets for two reasons: situations like this, and so I don't accidentally throw them up against something I thought they were prepared for but totally weren't.

If a player can't make it to a session, I'll either come up with a reason for thier character to be absent ("Bob The Cleric, your high priest is deathlly ill, you should go pay your respects, and you've been asked to handle the funerary rites. It'll take about {however long the session lasts in game time,}) or I run the PC on autopilot out of combat, and in combat I ask for a volunteer to run them. If nobody wants to and it's not a huge deal for me to control one more character, I'll run the PC myself.

The character of an abesent player gets half experience for the session, and whatever money or items they get I leave up to the other players.

Kurald Galain
2009-10-24, 06:36 AM
if you knew a dangerous encounter was coming up, you could not show up for a session, know that your character would live through it because he wasn't there, and still get 1/2 the xp everyone else got.
If players are actually doing that, you've got bigger problems on your hands.

I've always ruled that if you don't show up, you get no XP either. If this means that one player is falling much behind the rest of the group, then again, you've got bigger problems on your hands than this one.

If the party is travelling, the character will of course still come along and stick to the background, doing basic combat things as necessary but nothing fancy. If the party is in a set location, the character will be busy with other stuff, but be accessible for e.g. healing magic if needed.

(edit) I do always ask for copies of character sheets, but this is primarily because some of my players used to forget their sheet at home frequently.

Quietus
2009-10-24, 06:59 AM
In my view, there are three ways of doing this.

1) Gray them out. The character is still "over there", but for whatever reason, they aren't contributing; A sudden stomach bug, disinterest in what's going on. They take no actions, they contribute nothing, and they gain no experience for the encounter.

2) Cardboard cut-outs. The character still contributes; They do what the players in general tell them to do, they'll perform basic duties, but they avoid the majority of the target's attention, and thus are less likely to die. In fact, in this case, I will only kill the character who's MIA if the rest of the party dies as well. Assuming success in all the party attempts, the character earns 1/2 experience for their reduced risk.

3) Full-action gaming. Their sheet is handed over to someone else in the group (of their choice, but someone who is proficient enough with the rules not to doubly bog the game down), who dictates the character's actions, optionally with input from the other players. I change nothing in the way I run the game, the character may die, but I do ensure the stand-in player isn't just abusing them by having the character act as free mobile cover. The character earns full experience.

In my current group, 1) is the standard. I'd be willing to put this list to them, however, and let them pick their own level of risk they're able to accept.

oxinabox
2009-10-24, 07:40 AM
As a general rule, whenm people have to leave a game early the standard phrase in our club (no just my campaigns) is:
"[insert character name here] takes out a ring and steps backwards into his pocket plane"

I don't see the fun in having your character livfe at the cost of 50% xp.
for one session ... well I guess it's cheaper than having raise dead done...
But "I die, let me die, let him live, you have always been there for me!"
Death should be self sacrifice, and you should then stay dead. *
Staying alive by missing a dagerso session means your basically killing off another PC.
If the combat was deadly dangerous (PK)with you there, then it's going to worse without you.

*not "Hmm i wonder what this poison is like..." :smallredface:

Domigorgon
2009-10-24, 09:14 AM
I usually let missing player's characters be played by someone else. This is more or less limited to battles, however, and I am generally careful not to kill the missing player's character. If the missing player has a good reason for not being present (i.e. an exam on Monday), i let his character get full XP. If, however, his explanation for not coming to the game doesn't sound too good to me (i.e. if he'd prefer to practice playing his guitar that particular afternoon), he won't get any XP.
Naturally, all present players have a chance to earn some bonus XP for roleplaying, which is something a missing player, well, misses out on.

It's worked fine with my players so far.

AstralFire
2009-10-24, 09:23 AM
If players are actually doing that, you've got bigger problems on your hands.

That, to the first post.

Anyway, I usually puppet missing players, both as DM and as a player, though I'm inclined not to puppet them for particularly massive battles.

I don't hand out experience points. I think experience loss is a cruddy mechanic, and I don't use any thing in any games with use experience loss - so players are not disadvantaged for showing up or not showing up. I just give level-ups when I feel the players have experienced enough and gotten enough time to rest and reflect on those events.

boomwolf
2009-10-24, 09:59 AM
I tend to turn them into "assisting NPC's"

They are there, they contribute, but they don't do more then what obviously need to be done, and the focus more on self-survival then being helpful.

End result-its like your player was replaced by a noob. all ability is still there, but not used to its full extend.

KillianHawkeye
2009-10-24, 10:29 AM
One of the DMs in my group has a tendency to kidnap the players' character when they can't make a session. This usually results in the group having to spend an extra session rescuing their character when they do come back.

FMArthur
2009-10-24, 10:31 AM
The implicit rule in my group is that if you miss a session, you come to the next with a new character sheet; they don't usually try to get them killed, but even the frailest of characters is usually going to be the one who leads the charge when the player is absent. If you tell everyone well ahead of time that you can't make it, the character is away attending to personal matters for the session and returns at the same level as the others.

I suppose this could be abused for 'free XP', so that a player doesn't have to come and enjoy a session with the rest... I don't run games so tedius that this is an issue.

Thajocoth
2009-10-24, 10:38 AM
I'm running a game with 8 players. There's never more than 5 at once. There are 3 people who're always there. What I do is simply: The other players are inactive. Each player has an alternate sub-character that's not quite as good as a regular player. If only 2 or 3 people show up, everyone who does show up plays both their main character and their sub-character. The sub-characters were all decided by me, and the players got to choose who they wanted.

Also, everyone in my gains always has the exact same amount of XP.

Thrall_Of_Ao
2009-10-24, 11:20 AM
This has always been a difficult issue for me as well.

First of all, this is assuming that what constitutes a missing player is an individual that gave no notice of being unable to attend the game.

On one hand, as a GM, I don't want another player to control the PC because they might "do something they wouldn't do". This varies game system to game system.

On the other hand, I don't particularly want to run the PC either. With all the other responsibilities of a GM, one more is superbly unfair and tends to make me even more irritated at the missing player.

I find that I generally play it by ear, using one of the three options already mentioned in this thread.

1. Let another trusted and experienced PC run the character.
2. The player is "called away" with appropriate IC explanation.
3. The PC becomes my NPC for the session, usually doing very little, but almost never using "player only" resources. This can be a positive and negative thing, but I think it's fair.

If they miss more than one session in a row (even if they have a good reason), I find a way to make their PC leave the party asap until further notice. This also tends to make me irritated at the player (unless aforementioned good reason was really good. Like a death in the family...and pictures to prove it).

If they're an inconstant player, I begin to see their PC as fair game (after duely warning the player) and begin to do interesting things to them, as most appropriate to the plot and my own devious whims.

I find, more and more, that players enjoy a challenge more than a cake walk. If you let them walk all over you, they tend not to respect you and it becomes a vicious circle. Have a player wake up in a cold jail cell and see if they'll miss another session because they [insert crappy excuse here].

-TOA

PS This does not apply to late PCs in my game.
(statement turned into further rant)
I can understand that, as long as it doesn't happen every week. Why? Besides the fact that I tend to run a little behind (I try, but it happens) and hence have some sympathy, I notice that it's a self correcting problem.
I usually wait no more than 15-30 min. for someone to show and I make sure everyone does all the pre game prep in the mean time. Which means, their being late almost doesn't matter to the game.
I personally find it more annoying when I show up to a game that was "waiting" on me, only to discover they still have 20 min. of stuff to resolve before the actual game could start!

If a PC tends to be cronically late, the suffering their PC goes through, combined with the irritation of the players, tends to make them change, or, withstanding that, leave the game.
Yea, that's right, I don't have a problem booting people either (once again, after fair warning).

Kylarra
2009-10-24, 11:47 AM
2) Cardboard cut-outs. The character still contributes; They do what the players in general tell them to do, they'll perform basic duties, but they avoid the majority of the target's attention, and thus are less likely to die. In fact, in this case, I will only kill the character who's MIA if the rest of the party dies as well. Assuming success in all the party attempts, the character earns 1/2 experience for their reduced risk.This is what we usually do, although exp remains constant.

ken-do-nim
2009-10-24, 01:15 PM
Here's a funny (as in, I can laugh about it now, but then I was furious) story from my childhood. This was about almost 25 years ago playing AD&D. I couldn't make it for a session, so I gave my character to a friend to play. I assumed he'd treat my character well, but here's what he did.

The party is deep in the Underdark, walking down a dark tunnel. The party finds a dragon sleeping on his pile of treasure on the side of the tunnel, only the dragon is protected by iron bars that go floor to ceiling, spaced too narrow to fit through. My character happens to have a way to turn ethereal, so my friend sent my character through the bars ethereally. Once he rematerialized on the other side to gather up the treasure, of course the dragon woke up and ripped my character to shreds while the party watched in horror from the other side of the bars.

Totally Guy
2009-10-24, 01:39 PM
What I do is simply: The other players are inactive.

Also, everyone in my gains always has the exact same amount of XP.

That's the way we handle it. I'm easy.

But next time I run a game it'll be using an alternative system... in this system the characters skills go up as they use them. So it'll penalise them. Which isn't really my plan...

Glass Mouse
2009-10-24, 01:55 PM
A similar problem was recently discussed in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128506).

Could be worth checking out (though there are good ideas here already :smallsmile:).

Gnaeus
2009-10-24, 02:14 PM
It depends on frequency and reasons for absences, and number of players.

In a really small game (1 to maybe 4 (if they are reliable) players + gm) you can reschedule. If someone doesn't show, play a boardgame or a 1 shot.

In a large game where players are regularly missing and you know that they will be, I try to arrange the plot in such a way that it makes sense that characters will be absent. For example, the party are agents for an adventuring society who are usually assigned together, but sometimes are assigned separately. In this case, I warn players before hand that the party might not always be balanced, and I encourage them to be prepared for missing adventuring roles (like no tank or no cleric.) This is essentially how things like Pathfinder Society organized play works. I try very hard in such games to basically finish whatever plot I have in each session.

If players miss games and I don't like the reason, I kill their characters. For example:
Me: "Hey guys, Bob called and said he is way too sick to come."
Player: "No way, man. I passed Bob playing frisbee with Fred on the way here. He is fine"

or.

Me (on phone): "Hey guys, we are about to start. You coming?"
Player: "Is that TODAY? I can't come. I just got into a group for my MMO".

Those PCs met with extreme reactions in game.

Foeofthelance
2009-10-24, 02:38 PM
So how do you deal with characters of missing players?


I'm currently running a game between my classes; it runs about 3-5 hours depending on when we start, but people are always coming and going when they have to be somewhere else. So the general answer is the character falls unconcious (and can be killed) but gets treated as being there for any encounters. But since loot has to be divided immediately...

dragonfan6490
2009-10-24, 09:59 PM
In my group, we do one of the following:

The character is taken out of the party for a side quest, which happens during a solo session. This is only done if it can be justified in the story.

The character is put under the control of either another player or the DM and acts as a full party member.

The character is put behind the scenes to guard the horses or perform basic combat duties, such as healing or buffing.

In all cases, the character recieves full experience from the nights events.

jmbrown
2009-10-24, 10:06 PM
Always, always, always absent characters are played by the DM which usually ends up as me. There's a reason I ask for a back story and a paragraph on your personality; not so much for yourself but for when you're absent and I'm running your guy.

I always hated, with a fiery passion, the "dude stands in the corner and does nothing" or "mysterious circumstances spirit the character away until the next session when he magically returns unscathed." One of the DM's I played with told me a story how a group used to do that and he got so pissed his character basically said "Guys... we have to investigate this fog that's swallowing our friends!" Totally derailed the game until he confronted the DM and said "look, this is stupid. Just play the absent characters."

Yeah, when you don't show up your character is in my hands. I don't make him spend resources or act out of character. If you played the guy as an ass who kicks down doors and sleeps out in the open while naked then that's exactly how I'll play him.

Solaris
2009-10-24, 10:19 PM
Always, always, always absent characters are played by the DM which usually ends up as me. There's a reason I ask for a back story and a paragraph on your personality; not so much for yourself but for when you're absent and I'm running your guy.

I always hated, with a fiery passion, the "dude stands in the corner and does nothing" or "mysterious circumstances spirit the character away until the next session when he magically returns unscathed." One of the DM's I played with told me a story how a group used to do that and he got so pissed his character basically said "Guys... we have to investigate this fog that's swallowing our friends!" Totally derailed the game until he confronted the DM and said "look, this is stupid. Just play the absent characters."

Yeah, when you don't show up your character is in my hands. I don't make him spend resources or act out of character. If you played the guy as an ass who kicks down doors and sleeps out in the open while naked then that's exactly how I'll play him.

I do the same thing. Someone who's absent but rarely, I (the DM) run their character as I've observed them running it.
Different scenario if he's a once-in-a-while player. Those I update (level and treasure) every time the party levels so they're about the same place the group is, but they only show up when they're playing. I run mostly urban or urban-based campaigns, so it works out better than "We randomly find this dude we keep running into".

Grynning
2009-10-24, 11:00 PM
We didn't take our 3.5 games too seriously, so we usually just handwaved away absences. One game though, we had kind of a meta-game joke in the form of an item that our DM gave us - the Tome of Missing Party Members. Basically whenever someone was gone for a session, the book would eat them and they'd be stored in an extradimensional space. Then the next session they showed up for, the book would start to jump around and shake, until we opened it and it would spit them out. It was silly but we all got a kick out of it.

Ormur
2009-10-24, 11:05 PM
I've played two sessions with an absent player and both went as smoothly as could be expected (although she lost out on a lot of plot). It was our meatshield melee character in both instances. In the first session the character had a hangover during the first part when we went shopping/role playing. Last session did end with heavy drinking. When it was time for stuff that might involve battle we woke here up and the DM played her as uncharacteristically quite but otherwise well.
In the second one it so happened that she had died last session and we had all split up so there was a very good reason for the character not being there. However it did take her more time to recover after being raised than by RAW while we did some RP stuff after hauling the body back to civilization.

If there is a good in-game reason for the character not being there then it's okay by me. But contrived disappearances when the character might be needed aren't good. It shouldn't be that hard for the DM to play someone's character if need be.

Zeta Kai
2009-10-24, 11:08 PM
I run the PC as a DMPC as best I can. It annoys me, as I'm already busy running everything else, so I roll on a chart at the beginning of the session to see what happens to them during the game.
{table=head]D20|Result
1|Death (-10HP)
2|Dying (-1HP)
3|Mauled (25%HP)
4|Wounded (50%HP)
5|Scratched (75%HP)
6|Level Lost
7|Random Item Lost
8|Polymorphed (bad)
9|Cursed
10|Diseased
11|Poisoned
12|Ability Damaged
13|Nothing! (Lucky You!)
14|Minor Treasure Gained
15|Minor XP Gained
16|Beneficial Spell
17|Polymorphed (good)
18|Random Item Gained
19|Level Gained
20|Wish Granted[/table]
My players are aware of this, & they sometimes get to roll this themselves, if an absence is planned ahead of time. I've refrained from rolling on a few occasions; it's cruel to do this to a player going to a funeral, a hospital, etc.

Katana_Geldar
2009-10-25, 12:43 AM
What I do with the PC usually depends on whether they have told me or not beforehand they are not coming. If they do, I try to accommodate it. This is Star Wars, they have a ship so they spend the time in the ship when not there (unless I made them crash the ship somewhere...:smallwink:).

If they don't tell me, they can get left behind at the last planet the players were at and usually had something embarrassing happen to them.

There's also a third category: players who have to leave permenantly mid-game. Sometimes they ask for a kill, and once I gave a noce burial. Another involved a corpse being disemboweled that resulted in attracting animals and starting a few forest fires. :smallsigh:

I blogged this recently, actually.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-25, 10:42 AM
If it can be worked in in a logical fashion, I have the character unable to join the party. I do try not to design encounters that require the presence of everyone, but be aware that no-shows can change the difficulty level. Fortunately, with less people to divvy up the xp, they will get rewarded appropriately.

I do give out half xp to people that don't show, to mitigate the "people falling behind" issue, and I've never had problems with people not showing up to avoid danger. This is probably because the players often don't know in advance what the exact level of danger is, and if they're already there...they probably are at a point where it wouldn't make sense for the character to leave, so another player of their choice runs the char.

Frankly, I wouldn't want to miss the boss fights as a player anyhow. They're often the more interesting parts, and often have the best xp and treasure. Only getting half xp intentionally sounds like a bad long term strategy, since you'll fall behind as surely as if you die occasionally. Plus, it raises the group risk of failure/slow progress, assuring less xp in general.

ken-do-nim
2009-10-26, 10:55 AM
Thanks for all the thoughtful replies. Here's what I think after reading them:

1. A player can designate someone else to play their character. DM must make sure the other player does not abuse this by making the character take unnecessary risks. Full xp.
2. If it makes sense within the story, the player can opt for his character to stay home (no xp). If this leaves the party critically short of an important role, then another player's character can be temporarily granted leadership and selects a cohort to bring along to fill that role.

I guess I don't see the place for 1/2 xp. If someone misses a lot of sessions and falls behind, they are always welcome to come over for solo sessions (in which they too get temporary cohorts).

Superglucose
2009-10-26, 11:12 AM
I always do half exp because otherwise I find that missing one or two sessions can easily leave you several leavels behind. I offer a lot of roleplay XP and encounter XP because the people I game with tend to love leveling up. As in like, the process of dreaming of new and amazing things you can do with your character.

If I have players several levels behind, things get bad.

ken-do-nim
2009-10-26, 02:40 PM
I always do half exp because otherwise I find that missing one or two sessions can easily leave you several leavels behind. I offer a lot of roleplay XP and encounter XP because the people I game with tend to love leveling up. As in like, the process of dreaming of new and amazing things you can do with your character.

If I have players several levels behind, things get bad.

That's ... that's pretty darn fast levelling. 4-5 sessions per level is more to my liking.

Telonius
2009-10-26, 02:47 PM
When one player is not there, we NPC him. When two or more don't show, the game is called off that week.

The players have two incentives to show.

1). D&D is awesome, and they're missing out on fun if they're not there.
2). I have a D&D Mini-sized figurine of Ned Flanders. Missing players must live with the shame of knowing that their great hero was represented by Ned for a session.

pasko77
2009-10-26, 03:03 PM
So basically, if you knew a dangerous encounter was coming up, you could not show up for a session, know that your character would live through it because he wasn't there, and still get 1/2 the xp everyone else got.



You know, it's not a contest.
Why worry if other characters don't die?
As long as the DM is good ad their job, encounters will be tuned accordingly to the PCs current forces.

ken-do-nim
2009-10-26, 03:22 PM
You know, it's not a contest.
Why worry if other characters don't die?
As long as the DM is good ad their job, encounters will be tuned accordingly to the PCs current forces.

It's not so much a contest as this:

Bob and Ted show up to the game. Dave stays home. Missing Dave's character, Bob and Ted's characters have a ferocious battle with the BBEG. Bob's character lives and earns 10,000 xp. Ted's character dies and earns zero (and loses a level when raised). Dave, whose character did not come to the session, gains 5,000 xp. Does that sound fair?

AstralFire
2009-10-26, 03:25 PM
This is hitting on a more general issue with experience points, of course.

Tyndmyr
2009-10-26, 04:05 PM
It's not so much a contest as this:

Bob and Ted show up to the game. Dave stays home. Missing Dave's character, Bob and Ted's characters have a ferocious battle with the BBEG. Bob's character lives and earns 10,000 xp. Ted's character dies and earns zero (and loses a level when raised). Dave, whose character did not come to the session, gains 5,000 xp. Does that sound fair?

Should participants earn no xp for an evening in which they died? At most, it would only be a loss of that encounter's xp, and it's a rare night that has only one encounter.

My group typically awards xp to everyone who participated in an encounter, live or die. XP gain takes place post-rez for the fallen. The reasoning is that failure can teach as much as success, and at any rate, they did contribute. From a crunch perspective, tanks tend to die first, and this prevents them from suffering.

Come to think of it, our xp system is a wee bit convoluted. The "non participants get half xp" system only applies to encounters in which everyone fought. If someone kills something solo for whatever reason, with nobody else participating, nobody else, present or not, gets the bennies.

pasko77
2009-10-26, 05:50 PM
It's not so much a contest as this:

Bob and Ted show up to the game. Dave stays home. Missing Dave's character, Bob and Ted's characters have a ferocious battle with the BBEG. Bob's character lives and earns 10,000 xp. Ted's character dies and earns zero (and loses a level when raised). Dave, whose character did not come to the session, gains 5,000 xp. Does that sound fair?

Well, first of all, the algorithm is wrong, both PCs should earn the same XP, since they both contributed to the fight.
Anyway, my feeling is that you missed the point in asking if this is fair.
If it was a contest, no, it wouldn't be fair. But, again, it's not a contest. Fluctuations in power level among the players happen. If the DM is not an axxhole, they will be able to keep entertaining sessions. Of course the whole point is how good the DM is.
If you are unhappy with the current reward distribution, my advice is to talk about it, out of session, with the DM and choose a different algorithm of distribution.

Friv
2009-10-26, 05:57 PM
I've always tried to keep IC and OOC stuff as seperate as possible.

Because of that, if someone can't make it one week, we either give their character a reason to be doing something else (if the story makes sense for it), or have them come along as an NPC. No one's ever died that way, although one guy got a bit mauled. To be fair, so did the rest of the group.

I give full XP to the whole group evenly, though. It just makes it a hell of a lot easier to plan challenges, and I don't feel like punishing myself for other peoples' lack of attendance.