Quest rewards and player attendance

[lolcat]

Greetings playground!

Not a specific problem this time but more of an open question/poll: How do your groups handle quest rewards and shifting player attendance, meaning not all PC's being played at points when rewards are handed out? Specifically, do all PC's gain the same amount of GP etc. even if they are not around, do you just use a communal "party loot" pot...? How do your groups handle that?

Looking forward to hearing your approaches!

[Railak]

My group likes to keep the party at the same exp, but other than that if our group feels like saving some money/items for the person who didn't show the DM leaves that to the party. And it's actually a very often occurrence with our group.

[nedz]

I used to be old school and award XP etc. based strictly on which PCs (and hence players) were around. But these days we keep all PCs the same since a balanced party is more fun and players do have real lives.

[Kraynic]

I only give xp to characters that were actively being played. I do xp each session, so it isn't a big deal to do. As far as loot goes, each group is different. Some players share everything equally and try to get items to the person that can use them the most/best. Others will keep and hoard anything the other players don't know they have. Once I give something to the players, it is all up to them on how they deal with it.

I expect that the way xp is handled probably says more about the game system being run than anything else. Some systems can handle a certain amount of level disparity without much of an issue. Others really need everyone to be at the same level to function without being too deadly to anyone behind. If you are running the latter type, you will do whatever it takes to keep everyone together on xp.

[nedz]

I expect that the way xp is handled probably says more about the game system being run than anything else. Some systems can handle a certain amount of level disparity without much of an issue. Others really need everyone to be at the same level to function without being too deadly to anyone behind. If you are running the latter type, you will do whatever it takes to keep everyone together on xp.

this to a degree

My old school approach is what I used when we played AD&D, the current method is for 3.5

BUT player attendance was much more reliable also: now we all have other responsibilities so not everyone can make every session.

[Aotrs Commander]

I used to be old school and award XP etc. based strictly on which PCs (and hence players) were around. But these days we keep all PCs the same since a balanced party is more fun and players do have real lives.

Ditto.

For our regular weekly games (wherein we only have a couple of hours to play), we have always had a "the DM keeps the character sheets" rule, wherein if a player wants to keep their ow sheet, they have to provide the DM with a spare copy to tide over when they aren't there. (We have one chap who does that, but he's only rarely away and he's very keen, so he always lets us have a copy ready!) So the character's always there, regardless. (You couldn't do it any other way, since 50% of the time, it's the in the middle of a combat when we finish the session...)

I track XP on a spread sheet for the party - actually, as all we run there are PF adventure paths (when I'm DMing), it's the same one I used to calculate up stuff for expanding the combats for seven characters. (Well, actually, now, I do it for eight - bit of latidue in case we have someone come - and they get a bit of extra XP.) Far less time wasted calcualting individual XP, telling the PCs what it was, having them write it down... That time is better spent before the game, pre-rolling and organising the iniatives for every combat in advance, which is another five minutes time we don't need to waste on a Monday night during actual playtime!

For the day quests (which I DO write myself, but takes lots of Mondays to do so - this year, the big two-parter weekend one for my 40th in a couple of weeks, I started writing in about February and only finished a couple of weeks ago!), we don't even bother - the DM decides when we level up. (It's arbitarily a lot quicker than it would be on a weekly quest in terms of actual time spent playing characters, of course). We replaced 3.X's XP costs with PF's gold, so that helped to sidestep the issue.That said, it was always kind of arbitary when we played Rolemaster as a weekly game anyway, so that's never been much different.

(And because I Am A Pedant, when I run the Dark Lord's Black Ops party, the PCs even get propely paid and such, as I run it on an actual advancing timescale and am prepared to work out how many day's pay the get...)

Days quests, then, doesn't matter, since the party levels up when the DM says (whether their character was involved in the last advanture or not, depending on who could make it that time.)

[Quertus]

I suppose it depends on how you answer two questions:

Do you care about Balance?

Do you care about "earning" things?

If you care about Balance, you give rewards to everyone, to keep them even.

If you care about "earning" your rewards, you only reward the characters who were present.

If you care about both, you either a) make sure all characters are present (whether their players are or not), or b) make the players who've fallen too far behind (or, alternately, I suppose, the ones who've pulled too far ahead) bring a new character who's more on par with the party.

[nedz]

Actually it's more about how the games are set up.

In one of my groups we have alternating DMs; where several of us take it in turns to DM an adventure. So what do you do about the DM's character ?

We avoid the DM PC issue by having this character sit out the play — so if we used the old school method then your PC would be penalised because you were DMing. Whilst this game only runs if everyone can make it, the other group which runs if 3 or more players can make the game. If we still used the old school method then we would have some players who characters were so far behind that they would simply drop out.

[DeTess]

For games like DnD I generally keep levels equal, but loot is based on who is present.

For monster/mission-of-the-week systems like shadowrun I hand out rewards to those that are present, though I might later give someone that missed a couple of sessions some stuff to catch up if that seems necessary.

[EisenKreutzer]

I give absent players any xp they missed during that session, and also try to make sure they get gold and item rewards equal to what the other players got.
We’re adults, and I don’t think people should be punished when real life, which is more important, gets in the way of our hobby.

[King of Nowhere]

If a player skips a session, the rest of the party uses the character.
It would break immersion to have the character not there just because a player has problems.

So, everyone gets the same xp and loot

[Telonius]

We've been using a mostly XP-less scheme. Level up at various points in the quest. Ditching XP hasn't really been much of an issue. For crafting, we've been using 1 XP = 5 GP. People usually have a lot of fun at the game, so missing a session is punishment enough in itself.

Generally if one person has to miss, one of the players (usually either me or the other more experienced gamer) takes the extra character, and we play on. If two miss, we cancel the session.

[Elkad]

Either leave your sheet with another player, or you miss the rewards.

[Afghanistan]

We've been using a mostly XP-less scheme. Level up at various points in the quest. Ditching XP hasn't really been much of an issue. For crafting, we've been using 1 XP = 5 GP. People usually have a lot of fun at the game, so missing a session is punishment enough in itself.

I've been doing much the same. My player's are excessively busy, some working multiple jobs or having multiple previous commitments. So I think it is largely unfair to penalize them for having to fulfill those commitments over coming to what is essentially Sunday dinner with the friends.

[Clementx]

I keep sheets in case anyone misses a session. If the party needs a spell or skill of the absent player, it turns out the character has been tagging along, and someone else references and rolls for it. The character gets a small xp reward for being useful. Otherwise the character is off doing something else and doesn't participate in combat/social encounters, and doesn't get xp from that.

If I don't get adequate notice before an absence, the character sleeps in, watches camp, falls in a hole, or something else dull. If I get better warning, I work with the player to find something interesting for the character to do. Narratively, it is nice to parcel out information to one person or have a cutaway scene. a little RP scene via text. Maybe they just use item creation feats or craft skills to work on something. Either way, the more effort the player puts in, the more xp/gp they earn for themselves.

I encourage the party to divide loot evenly, unless there has been a significant absence. In that case, I can refer to the respectively xp earned to suggest a different allotment of shares. If you miss the dragon fight, you still get a share of the hoard it you helped deal with the hundreds of kobolds and traps with no treasure on then leading up.

[Kelb_Panthera]

We only have 3 players for the time being so we generally call off the session if someone can't make it.

Loot is handled by the players without DM input for the most part. We try to divide it as evenly as we can, cashing out the stuff nobody wants and dividing the cash evenly. If there's something you want to keep, you count its full value against your share unless it's a special DM thing.