XP for Half-Attendance?

[Palanan]

My usual policy is not to award XP when a player has missed a session. But after last night, I have a small conundrum.

The party just finished a long combat scenario which stretched across the last two game sessions. One player was present for the first of these sessions, but he couldn't make it last night. I was running the character in his absence, and while I kept her mainly in the background, she did cast a spell which saved another PC's life.

So, I'm not sure which way to go here. I generally don't like making exceptions to rules, because all too quickly the exceptions become the rules. But it seems a little strange to not award full XP when the player was present for at least half the combat. Any thoughts on this?

[zergling.exe]

Give them 50% xp for their half participation, and a bonus 10% for their lifesaver moment.

Are PCs normally always present, or do they disappear when their player is absent?

[Nifft]

Give the party a pool of XP each session.

The pool of XP is smaller when one of the players is absent.

They will figure out how to deal with it, and there will be no PCs who are lower level than the rest (and therefore less able to contribute).

[KillianHawkeye]

Here's a question: How much XP would you give to a character who died in the middle of a combat encounter (assuming that they'll be raised relatively quickly but not until the battle is over)? Do they still get full XP, or are they penalized for their lack of participation?

In my opinion, it would be hard to justify giving the character whose player was absent for half a battle yet still remained useful less experience than a character who was dead or incapacitated for half a battle. Remember, you aren't awarding experience points to players, you're awarding it to the characters.

[Fizban]

Here's a question: How much XP would you give to a character who died in the middle of a combat encounter (assuming that they'll be raised relatively quickly but not until the battle is over)? Do they still get full XP, or are they penalized for their lack of participation?

Only characters who take part in an encounter should gain the commensurate awards. Characters who died before the encounter took place, or did not participate for some other reason, earn nothing, even if they are raised or healed later on.
. . .
If a character takes part in an encounter, even if she dies during the encounter, that character gets a share of the experience points. If a character dies and is raised, the awarded experience points are granted to her after she comes back from the dead (and after she loses the level from death, if appropriate).
The DMG is actually quite clear: while characters who refuse to participate or are dead before the encounter starts get no xp, any character that participates in a battle gets full xp. If the character participates it shouldn't matter if their player was absent- if you want to penalize players for not showing up by not giving their characters xp, you should not have those characters participate when the player is gone.

The character gains a full share of xp. The player's punishment for not showing up is missing the second half of the battle, which was probably awesome, and knowing that the heroic rescue was done by the DM instead of them.

[Zanos]

Normally, if people aren't there, I don't run their characters and they don't get XP or loot for those encounters, barring extenuating circumstances like the end of an adventure having all the loot and the player missing only that session.

Since you ran the players character in combat, and he was there for half the game, I'd just give the character full XP.

[Extra Anchovies]

Experience isn't granular. You get nothing for a while, then a bunch of stuff all at once. Being a few xp behind means you'll sometimes have to get through another encounter before you level up. Missing one fight's worth of XP will almost always not matter unless you enforce unreasonably strict conditions under which players can gain the benefits of their new levels (e.g. spend a week training your new skills).

Also, why are people on this forum so quick to advocate punishing their friends in a cooperative game? Everyone should be the same level unless one or more players want or agree to be lower-level than the others. If you don't show up to a session, then you don't get any story agency in that session. Sometimes it means not picking how loot is divvied up and getting left with the Gauntlets of Ogre Stench, and sometimes it means the other PCs get the whole party outlawed when you'd have stopped them. That's as much as it should be, really.

[Kish]

Give the party a pool of XP each session.

The pool of XP is smaller when one of the players is absent.

They will figure out how to deal with it, and there will be no PCs who are lower level than the rest (and therefore less able to contribute).



Also, why are people on this forum so quick to advocate punishing their friends in a cooperative game? Everyone should be the same level unless one or more players want or agree to be lower-level than the others.
Yes, these. Treating XP as a "reward" for something the player does is entirely the wrong way to look at it. It's good for the game for the PCs to all develop, at the same speed.

[Fizban]

Also, why are people on this forum so quick to advocate punishing their friends in a cooperative game?.
To get them to show up and play the game, or so the idea goes. Problem is, people that actually care about the game don't need the stick to make them show up, and people that don't show won't care if they're behind so the stick isn't a stick. As nice as it would be if people said "Sorry, I've got DnD that day," they never ever do. Nothing to do but pad the team with extra players if you can and let characters appear and disappear as needed.

I don't see a problem with having xp totals off a bit, as noted it only matters for a fight or two and then they're caught up. Quite easy to cram in some extra xp if for some reason you really really need that one guy to get his next level before the boss fight or something. I'm more annoyed at the rending of verisimilitude caused by having PCs jump in and out of existence vs forcing the DM or other players to run extra characters, that aren't theirs, with the further burden of knowing they can't do anything that would irk the character's actual player, who didn't show up anyway. It may be a team game but this is one of the reasons to make all your characters as independent as possible: so when someone else doesn't show, you can just vanish their character and keep on with your own abilities.

[Sandsarecool]

Question: Is the player in question reasonably faithful to his table? If so, what was the reason for his absence? It's horribly unfair if you actively hinder someone because they had something important IRL to do; this should be met with the suggestions pointed out earlier by Extra Anchovies (Not picking what loot they get, etc).

Granted, if it keeps happening, stop giving him XP - but for a reasonably faithful player, missing a session should be painful enough. You don't need to keep throwing on penalties.

As for lack of verisimilitude... Screw that. Trying to both juggle that and the consequences of it (like this particular problem of yours, for example) is difficult, to say the least. Relax one or the other, and life will be much easier. Since you've kept his character around, he can argue that it was 'there for the fight' and therefore gains full XP. Giving him 50% would be easily justifiable if he melted into the shadows for the second session, but his argument can still stand (though I sense he won't really argue with you, for some reason). Don't, however, award the 10% extra XP Zergling.exe was advocating. That's unfair - those actions, even if in character, were yours, not his. This is far more likely to set a precedent than this current issue - everyone is going to want to have that heroic action for the extra XP. It gets awkward real fast (and looks like blatant favouritism, even if it isn't) to say to a player that their character doesn't get extra XP, because they didn't accomplish something 'above and beyond'.


To get them to show up and play the game, or so the idea goes. Problem is, people that actually care about the game don't need the stick to make them show up, and people that don't show won't care if they're behind so the stick isn't a stick. As nice as it would be if people said "Sorry, I've got DnD that day," they never ever do. Nothing to do but pad the team with extra players if you can and let characters appear and disappear as needed.
As someone who does decline things so that they're free for D&D (Granted, I never say D&D, just that I've already got something planned for that day), sometimes this thing called 'Real Life' is unavoidable. For example, I've missed out two sessions worth of D&D because I had to go see my mother in hospital (I don't want to elaborate further). I'd be REALLY [Insert profanity here] if I came back to that table to be way behind the other characters, whether that was in just raw power on on the progress of individual story arcs, especially if I was really invested in the game and did not want to miss those sessions.


I don't see a problem with having xp totals off a bit, as noted it only matters for a fight or two and then they're caught up. Quite easy to cram in some extra xp if for some reason you really really need that one guy to get his next level before the boss fight or something. I'm more annoyed at the rending of verisimilitude caused by having PCs jump in and out of existence vs forcing the DM or other players to run extra characters, that aren't theirs, with the further burden of knowing they can't do anything that would irk the character's actual player, who didn't show up anyway. It may be a team game but this is one of the reasons to make all your characters as independent as possible: so when someone else doesn't show, you can just vanish their character and keep on with your own abilities.
This... This depends on the table mentality and on how experienced the players are at the game. At the early stages, being behind a level really sucks, even if it is mostly psychological. At higher levels, you laugh at the BBEG for being defeated by such a low level character, making you wonder what you could have done if you at the same level as the rest of the party...
This extends to individual players too, of course.

[Echch]

If you don't show up to a session, then you don't get any story agency in that setting.

I don't know how OPs games run, but this is generally the worst kind of punishment in most games I've played.
I think you should give the PC the XP, given that said PC WAS in the fight. However, it wouldn't be a bad thing to impose a minor penality. I'm not talking about a 50% loss or something, but more along the lines of 10%. A motivator, but nothing crippling.

[Sandsarecool]

I don't know how OPs games run, but this is generally the worst kind of punishment in most games I've played.
I think you should give the PC the XP, given that said PC WAS in the fight. However, it wouldn't be a bad thing to impose a minor penality. I'm not talking about a 50% loss or something, but more along the lines of 10%. A motivator, but nothing crippling.
+1. It's odd; it sometimes feels that everybody is out to get everybody else on these boards...

[Fizban]

As someone who does decline things so that they're free for D&D (Granted, I never say D&D, just that I've already got something planned for that day), sometimes this thing called 'Real Life' is unavoidable. For example, I've missed out two sessions worth of D&D because I had to go see my mother in hospital (I don't want to elaborate further). I'd be REALLY [Insert profanity here] if I came back to that table to be way behind the other characters, whether that was in just raw power on on the progress of individual story arcs, especially if I was really invested in the game and did not want to miss those sessions.
There's "real life," which people will throw at anything, and then there's a hospital visit. I worded my statement rather strongly, but as you just said you yourself do decline other things for DnD it should be obvious you're not the type I'm referring to. What's considered a good enough reason will vary but I doubt anyone's going to disagree with that one. In any case it seems statistically unlikely that every player at the table is so committed in the face of lesser conflicts, and it only takes one who won't make the time in their schedule to require padding to compensate.

[Tectorman]

There's "real life," which people will throw at anything, and then there's a hospital visit. I worded my statement rather strongly, but as you just said you yourself do decline other things for DnD it should be obvious you're not the type I'm referring to. What's considered a good enough reason will vary but I doubt anyone's going to disagree with that one. In any case it seems statistically unlikely that every player at the table is so committed in the face of lesser conflicts, and it only takes one who won't make the time in their schedule to require padding to compensate.

I'm sorry to say that I've actually seen worse. I was in a group a few years back and one player who otherwise had regular attendance could not show up one session because his mother had died and he and his brother had to take care of things like funereal arrangements. Nevertheless, no showing up, no XP. It was very clearly communicated by that DM that when faced with the choice of playing D&D and dealing with the death of a parent, the dead parent was apparently supposed to take a back seat. I actually have no idea how the player took it, but I would have been livid.

[Segev]

I'm sorry to say that I've actually seen worse. I was in a group a few years back and one player who otherwise had regular attendance could not show up one session because his mother had died and he and his brother had to take care of things like funereal arrangements. Nevertheless, no showing up, no XP. It was very clearly communicated by that DM that when faced with the choice of playing D&D and dealing with the death of a parent, the dead parent was apparently supposed to take a back seat. I actually have no idea how the player took it, but I would have been livid.

I don't think the message is "D&D should take precedence." I mean, are XP really THAT important? I missed some XP in the one game I'm in that awards them when my Dad died, but I hardly think it was that big of a deal. Nobody was mad at me; XP are just awarded based on what you do in the game session, so if I'm not there, I didn't get any.

I suppose it really depends on whether XP are an "entitlement" that everybody gets in equal measure just for showing up, or a "reward" that individuals get for specific actions in the game. (And yes, "for general participation" XP do happen, even in the latter case...but even then, if you're not there to participate, why should you feel gypped?)

Admittedly, this is in Rifts, using the actual mess of the Paladium system, and levels are less critical to power than in D&D. But if it's 3.5 D&D, then being a session behind on XP just means you earn more XP if people actually do get a level ahead of you.

[Echch]

But if it's 3.5 D&D, then being a session behind on XP just means you earn more XP if people actually do get a level ahead of you.

Wasn't there some D&D3.5-Society thing? Like Pathfinder Society, but for D&D? IIRC, that existed at some point in the past and you had to retire your character if said character ever reached level 20, meaning that multiclassing and crafting was incredibly desirable as it would allow you to play longer?

...Yeah, sorry, that was kinda off topic. What I wanted to say was: If there ever is a difference in levels, the system awards more XP to close up the gap, making it only a problem if you are a compulsive crafter or miss out on 3 or more sessions.

[Segev]

only a problem if you are a compulsive crafter

*looks up from enchanting a spellstone* What? I'm not compulsive. I could stop any time I wanted to! oooh, that'd be GREAT as a contingent spell....

[Sandsarecool]

Okay... I've started to derail this thread. Let's put it back on track before anything gets more out of hand.
I've no time to type in anything useful, but I need to say this before we destroy the purpose of this thread.

Either way, it would be helpful if the OP could elaborate further. Give us more information, if you would?

[stanprollyright]

Also, why are people on this forum so quick to advocate punishing their friends in a cooperative game? Everyone should be the same level unless one or more players want or agree to be lower-level than the others. If you don't show up to a session, then you don't get any story agency in that session. Sometimes it means not picking how loot is divvied up and getting left with the Gauntlets of Ogre Stench, and sometimes it means the other PCs get the whole party outlawed when you'd have stopped them. That's as much as it should be, really.


To get them to show up and play the game, or so the idea goes. Problem is, people that actually care about the game don't need the stick to make them show up, and people that don't show won't care if they're behind so the stick isn't a stick. As nice as it would be if people said "Sorry, I've got DnD that day," they never ever do. Nothing to do but pad the team with extra players if you can and let characters appear and disappear as needed.

Negative reinforcement doesn't actually work. Whether your player is flighty or their mom is dying, continuing the game without them AND making their character weaker makes them less invested in the game, not more. I'd rather postpone a week than have that player and/or character miss out on the current adventure's climax.