What does your group do when someone can't make it?

[Kiero]

I've seen all sorts of convoluted answers about who should be playing missing characters, or whether they should be rewarded in their absence and so on.

The way my group does it is really simple: if someone can't make it, we don't play. For me it's bonus time back to spend with my family, since I'm out a lot of weeknights doing stuff anyway.

What's the standard practise in your group?

[Tyndmyr]

If too many can't make it, we don't play. If it's one or two, we work up some reason why they can't come with on the wild adventure. It might be something as simple as visiting family to see if they're ok, or a wizard studying scrolls, or feeling a bit poorly and and recovering from the stabbing/rough life of adventuring. It varies wildly.

The less notice given, the more, er...inventive....we tend to be with the excuses. Don't tell us at all, and you may come back to find out that you're engaged in a quest to find your missing pants.

[Katana_Geldar]

The less notice given, the more, er...inventive....we tend to be with the excuses. Don't tell us at all, and you may come back to find out that you're engaged in a quest to find your missing pants.

You sure you're not one of my players? Missing pants are a running gag with us.

It depends on what game we're playing, really. I do like to have a quorum before we know what game we'll play. Paranoia can't be done with any less than six, for instance.

[Tyndmyr]

You sure you're not one of my players? Missing pants are a running gag with us.

It depends on what game we're playing, really. I do like to have a quorum before we know what game we'll play. Paranoia can't be done with any less than six, for instance.

I did check your location when you said that, tbh. The pants became a huge running gag with us. It was all the barbarians fault, really.

[JadedDM]

Basically, I make a judgment call. Which is what a DM does all day, isn't it?

If, for instance, it's only one player and everyone else is here and really eager to play, we'll go without him/her. I'll NPC the missing player's character, or find some convenient excuse for the character to be missing.

On the other hand, if most of the group doesn't show, or maybe the rest of the group isn't really in the mood (one is sick, one has a big final to study for anyway, etc.), I'll probably just cancel.

There are numerous other factors, too, of course. What if I've had to cancel the last three games for various reasons? I'll be hesitant to do so a fourth time. And so forth.

[LansXero]

Most of the time we ask everyone if they´ll make it; if they wont, they give their sheet to someone else and he runs the character for that session. Very rarely will I as DM run someone's character; it feels like a conflict of interests; and if the session ended in a location where its illogical that the character would just blend with the background or leave, its better if its friends control it. That also helps make the players familiar with what their allies can do, and thus planning things as a team and making turns go faster.

[Draconi Redfir]

No one ever seems to question why our paladin or rogue or whatever tend to disappear every other day or so. We usually have at least three who have been there from the start (Me and two others, though two of our characters died so we really only have one character from the beginning) so it's all good.


I think one excuse that was made once was the "orb of randomness" which randomly pulls adventurers from one place and puts them into another group. And this isn’t questioned for some reason.

[Kurald Galain]

It depends on what game we're playing, really. I do like to have a quorum before we know what game we'll play. Paranoia can't be done with any less than six, for instance.

Why not?

To the OP's question - usually, if one player can't make it, then that character forfeits all treasure and XP for that session, and is considered absent (or, if that wouldn't make sense for the plot, tags along but doesn't do anything much). If two players can't make it, we cancel.

[Katana_Geldar]

There are six MDBs for Paranoia and it works best with a full party.

[valadil]

I play in groups of five. We usually try and reschedule. We'll play with one man out, but not two or more. In the unlikely event that people bail without warning, I'll GM anyway. I'm not delaying my game on account of someone who can't even tell me they can't play.

[Cealocanth]

Due to one of my players stuck transferring between a home across the town and across the street from where we play due to divorce complications, I quite often have at least one player missing. The common practice among my group is to have a trusted player, or the DM, play their character while they're gone and catch them up on it later. Their character also gets xp and the like as if they were there.

I don't like this system, and I would prefer to simply not play, but that would mean we would play every 3 months or so instead of every other Saturday.

[Tanngrisnir]

I play in a group of 5: 1 DM and 4 players. If one of us can't make it, their character is either played by the other person in the group who best knows how to play that particular class, or the group as a whole decides what they do. We avoid overly dangerous situations (like "Let's just send Mark's character in to trigger the traps, he's not here to stop us") because that's just mean and stupid. We don't have them do anything important or make any major decisions, and they don't use any 'once only' items.

If two people can't make it, we play some other time.

[Warlawk]

For us it kind of depends who can't come and why.

I host, so obviously if I am too sick or something to game it's off. My wife has gotten stuck working a couple of gaming nights but is home before the session is over. She has been our scout so has just been run as taking 10 on all skill checks and during combat she is either watching our flanks (DM just says after combat OK, she mowed down a handful of mooks that were trying to circle in behind you guys) or mows down mooks if we are in a situation where she couldn't really do that.

Obviously if the DM can't make it the game is off for the week, usually if the DMs wife is out we cancel as well since it is usually because of a bad migraine or something and he wants to be around if she needs anything.

Our 5th member has been absent a couple times, and it's been about half and half if we game without him or not. Just kind of depends what is coming up in the campaign, and how everyone else is doing.

I guess the rule of thumb is if you aren't there either the DM or one of the players will keep track of your sheet and you are assumed to take 10 on everything and most be ineffective/absent during combat.

[Welknair]

If it's just one or two, then their characters are played by other players. Usually this results in the absentee characters being uncharacteristically quiet for the session, but still participating in encounters.

As said, if too many can't make it, we don't play. Super Smash Brothers, re-watching Dr. Horrible, watching Youtube videos, and testing out other game systems are all good fillers.

[ScottishDragon]

You sure you're not one of my players? Missing pants are a running gag with us.

It depends on what game we're playing, really. I do like to have a quorum before we know what game we'll play. Paranoia can't be done with any less than six, for instance.

You should see ou group. Th runnig gag is the sorcerer enchants someone to run away naked. I always think about the guard that will wake up,naked ,wet and in a dark sewer.
And what my group does if no one shows up? Well we only have five people so if 1 doesn't show we usually play witought him,and if 2 we play a random sidequest and a little cod or halo.

[Daftendirekt]

A mix of "we just aren't meeting this week" or, if the DM has something he wants to try out, "Let's do a one-shot".

[Dsurion]

Well, we've always found something appropriate to the situation. If we know someone is having their last session with us, they'll die in a heroic or hilarious manner, like the Skald who valiantly took a cannonball to the face charging a tower alone. Or the nymphomaniac who simply dies of exhaustion.

Depending on who's missing for a single session, we'll try to slog it out and come up with an entertaining excuse for why they're busy, like being carried off by Fey/cockroaches/whatever, or cancel and meet and do whatever else. The more popular options so far seem to have been Smash Bros., Conquest of the Empire, and going out into the back yard for fencing. The other group favorite is seeing exactly how long it takes to get kicked out of Wal-Mart... Conspicuously whenever I'm not there, ha. There are other times where we'll just order some food and watch a movie. We all have our own list of "must see" films, but except for me and one other person, nobody's list seems to have anything similar. Fancy that. Makes for a diverse pool to things to watch, though.

[Oracle_Hunter]

To start with, I always make sure the group has agreed to a quorum beforehand. If fewer than X Players can make a session, then the session is canceled. You'd be surprised how many people don't use this rule.

When a Player is missing, we just make him "vanish" for the duration. It's an Acceptable Break From Reality and it's just plain simpler than bothering to NPC him. As a DM, I try to tweak the encounter difficulty down but I don't always do so. Oops

For the few games where simply everyone must be there or there's no game, I do two things. One, I let everyone know before we start that this is the sort of game I'm running. Two, I keep the number of Players as small as possible - no more than three, preferably.

[Ozreth]

With at least 3 players we play.

[Velaryon]

I usually take things on a case-by-case basis.

Sad to say, some players are more vital than others to our campaigns. For instance, the guy whose house we play at is pretty important - without him we usually don't game because most of us don't have convenient setups for gaming. Then there's another guy who rarely does much of anything anyway. If he doesn't show, we play anyway because sadly it's not that different.

When we're missing a player whom we can game without, we will either pass his sheet to another player (if we have it), or come up with a reason why he doesn't do anything (if we don't). Either way, they get the base XP for that night, but miss out on extra XP gained from good roleplaying, which sometimes comes out to quite a bit.

There have been a couple of times when I had one or two players who were free on Saturday but not Sunday, while the others were free on Sunday but not Saturday. On those occasions I actually split the party in half and ran separate sessions for each half of the group.

[Yora]

If only one player is absent (or two in a large group), I usually say that the characters were still present, but they just never got the spotlight during that session. That the other players had to made without their characters during the encounters simply gets ignored.
The next session we give them a recap and tell them the new facts their characters now know about.

Always worked well, never got any complaints. (Not that I ever get any complaints about anything. My players are always far to content with going with anything I propose.)

[Volthawk]

If just one person isn't on, we just act like he's there, but not active. The DM plays him in combat. If we're down to two people, we usually don't play, although once we've gone on with two (was a side-quest type thing, anyway).

[Gnoman]

Both the game I DM and the one I play in are very large online groups. (there's about 9 players in the former an at last count 14 in the latter) In mine, I just assign the character to another player for the session (if mid-adventure, otherwise they stay at the base), and cancel if there's less than 1 player for every two characters. In the one I play in, there's no subtlety. your character just *poofs* into existance when you show up, and any tim you're not there counts as downtime for your char.

[TheCountAlucard]

Depends on the number of people missing out of the group, and how much notice they give... though in certain games, what role the missing characters play is also factored in.

Shadowrun, for instance. Don't try and do a run without your mage. Or your hacker.

[some guy]

When one person can't make it and tells it when there's enough time to reschedule. We reschedule, but rescheduling is a pain. When someone notifies it 1 or 2 days beforehand, I try to find an alternative but that rarely works.
If more than one person can't make it, the session is cancelled.

With D&D, the missing character is there, not doing that much, but participating in combat. When faced with big decisions I call or message the missing person. The missing person gets full xp and loot, because his/her character may perish during play.

With CoC, the missing person's character is presumed to have busy day at work, taking a break from the horrors. Because the character is not in danger of being eaten or losing sanity, the character also doesn't gain experience (I play d20 CoC).

[Choco]

Well, when I'm DM'ing we usually keep playing if we have at least half the group. If we were in the middle of an adventure then the missing people's characters become temporary DMPC's unless another player wants to take them over. If we are picking up at the end of a previous adventure, then those who show up basically do a 1-session sidequest.

As for when I am not DM'ing, it varies wildly by group:

3.5 group: The DM is usually the one to cancel, so obviously we have no game. However, when he is there and someone else cancels, we still play and the missing people's characters are just kinda there doing background tasks.

4e group: We keep playing if only 1-2 people cancel with the missing player's characters also going missing (DM makes up some excuse, usually quite hilarious) and those of us there basically have an "XP grinding" session.

[Cyrion]

If it's just one person we'll usually run anyway, but with two or more out from our small group, we typically cancel or find an alternative.

How I handle it as DM depends on what's going on- for journeys between, short adventures near home base, in town, etc. we can usually find a plausible excuse for them to be absent and simply insert them back in the next session. For dungeon crawl kinds of things, sometimes they get played as an NPC and sometimes they get kidnapped and rescued conveniently at the end of the session.

It also depends on how much notice I have of someone not showing. If I've got enough notice to work things out smoothly, then life goes on as normal. If you're a sudden no-show for no good reason, I'll figure out a way to catch you up with the party, but you may not like it. I had one guy decide 15 minutes before the game (the party was leaving on a sea voyage) that he just didn't feel like it, and to get him back with the party, when he returned he woke up on a foreign shore, naked and next to a badly mauled corpse. He discovered shortly thereafter that he was a werewolf. It fit the current plot and got him caught up to the party, and gave his character some good side-plot motivation.

[Zuljita]

I just consider the missing player "off camera" they are tagging along but for some unspecified reason, whenever they would act, they are busy dealing with something else. I keep xp consistent between all party members for easy bookeeping but you dont get cash for missing a session. that said, if i inserted an item into lewts that clearly should go to the warlock and she isnt around to claim it, she will prolly snag it from the group the following week.

[eepop]

If I have enough notice for prep time, I like to prepare a "flashback" session. Some event that the characters present would have been at, but not the missing characters.

That way we still get to play, and we're not stretching believability.

Its helpful if you talk with your players occasionally, and ask them what some events would be in the characters' past that they might like to explore more. Hopefully you can have some notes about different situations for different party configurations. Then when the situation comes up, you just need to flesh the idea out.

One possible problem with this method is that the in game rewards can be hard to spin. They get to spend some time fleshing out their characters, but it can be a bit reality straining to give them any loot or xp. It is helpful if one of the main prizes to their current endeavors could be information, as thats something they get to keep. Maybe there are details they can pick up from this previous event that they can recognize as having an effect on their current situation. If you do want to give them loot, its often easy enough to tell them that they left it at home when packing for this adventure. This works best obviously when the loot is something situational, or bulky, like an Apparatus of Kahwalish.

Also good, but with a similar structure, is dream sequences. The players not there are the ones that are keeping watch! This is particularly good if people are going to be late, them showing up is just them falling asleep on watch. Loot can be given by revealing a secret door or some such in the dream. Then the next session when they are sneaking through a dungeon, they get deja vu and see the exact place where there had been a secret door, and sure enough, there it is: with a coin with the image of their deity sitting on top of the pile of loot.

[CigarPete]

We have seven players + DM currently. If one is missing, someone else will play their character in combat and the DM generally chips in their piece in RP. They get half XP from the session. If DM, no session, since we play at his house