How to facilitate different people at each session?

[HotRoute]

Hi!

I have a rather large group (7 players) and they can't all make it each session. Out-of-Character, we're fine with that concession. How do you handle this In-Character? Between adventures at the moment, the party is on a forest trail in the middle of nowhere. How do you bring characters in and take others out in such a situation? How do you explain this in the narrative?

[Malimar]

Hi!

I have a rather large group (7 players) and they can't all make it each session. Out-of-Character, we're fine with that concession. How do you handle this In-Character? Between adventures at the moment, the party is on a forest trail in the middle of nowhere. How do you bring characters in and take others out in such a situation? How do you explain this in the narrative?

In one campaign, I had a bunch of people who couldn't make it every week, so I based the whole campaign around the PCs having and trying to cure "the flux (http://luduscarcerum.blogspot.com/2012/07/on-flux-storms.html)", a condition where they pop out of and back into existence "at random" (if the player isn't there one session, their character is fluxed out for the duration of that session).

Ultimately it didn't work very well and I wouldn't recommend it.

[erikun]

Are you playing a game system which requires characters of certain skills in the party? (i.e. D&D requires healing spells)

If not, then you could reasonably just make the party a group working together, and have the non-participating members busy with other things when their players are not available. For example, if we are talking about Shadowrun, then the non-participating PCs were either addressing personal concerns or were off on their own side jobs during the session, and so that is why they were not available. You might want to make up a roll or some quick reasoning as for why they weren't there - in Shadowrun it might be a mission, while something like RuneQuest might just have them involved with local people - just as a way of simply explaining what happened with just one roll. This works if you can wrap things up by the end of a session, rather than end a session halfway through a battle.

If it is a more involved situation where PCs cannot sensibly swap between session - such as the party in a dungeon and staying down there for several gaming sessions, or the end of the world situation - then you'll need some other reasoning as to why some party members aren't available. Perhaps, especially in the dungeon situation, the other party members are a separate group holding up the rear and/or securing the last area for a safe retreat. As such, they wouldn't immediately be available and it would make sense that the active party would be mostly on their own, even with the other party members still technically being there. This requires a bit of suspension of disbelief, since it would involve them not catching up or not arriving in the middle of a PC battle, but it's probably the best solution I would come up with as to why the group is still all there without always being together.


If your system does assume the party has specific skills (i.e. Cleric healing) and none of those players are available that game session, then I'm afraid I don't have a good solution for you. You could have a NPC Cleric as part of the party who will sub when the PC healers aren't available, although that is a patchwork solution at best. There's also the option of just running something different - run more of an intrigue session where the PCs aren't in combat - rather than something which requires critical party members there.

[hymer]

Have you considered a West Marches (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/) style participation?

[Nupo]

One way to handle it is to have a "base." It could be a town, stronghold, ship, whatever. Just a place that every session begins, and ends at. Each session those that show up go, all the rest remain at the base. Yes, some adjustments to how the campaign, or "Adventure Path" progresses will have to be made, but if everyone is on board it's not that big of a deal.

[Quertus]

There are several ways to handle this.

Make each session episodic. You start in town, you end in town. Whoever is there is whoever is there for that episode.

Have all the PCs be there, whether their players are there or not.

Have the PCs of the players who aren't there ghost out. Usually, this is more figurative, but I personally love the literal version mentioned above.

And, I've got a new one: make the bodies and personalities independent variables. Whoever is there, has won control and is inhabiting the bodies that comprise the party. Or, for more consistency, everybody has a "PC" and an "NPC" personality; when the player is gone, the NPC personality traits over.

Ones where a party of X is always a party of X is easiest to balance encounters for.