I am running a game and I ask that the players leave their character sheets with me. In the event that they cannot make the next session, another player will play the character. In my last session, one player was missing AND he had taken his sheet home to level up. We struggled for a few encounters then I decided that the PC would mysteriously vanish. Now, I need to come up with a legitimate reason for this to happen.
Can anybody give me a suggestion (or 3)?
Thanks!
I am running a game and I ask that the players leave their character sheets with me. In the event that they cannot make the next session, another player will play the character. In my last session, one player was missing AND he had taken his sheet home to level up. We struggled for a few encounters then I decided that the PC would mysteriously vanish. Now, I need to come up with a legitimate reason for this to happen.
Can anybody give me a suggestion (or 3)?
Thanks!
A moustache-twirling villain shows up, Dominates the character, and holds him hostage, forcing the PCs to do his dirty work/take all the risks/venture into the dungeon for X. If the player comes back before the <cough> railroading is over, he breaks free of the Domination and makes it back to the party - and you can fight the villain.
He falls down a pit trap/chute to another section of dungeon. Only works in multi-leveled dungeons, but hey.
He is charmed by a nymph/dryad/succubus, who releases him after a short period (hey, natural 20 on Diplomacy!). Or a brass dragon that wanted to talk to somebody.
He took a blow to the head, got amnesia, and wandered off. Then he got better.
He fell through a dimensional tear into the Ethereal Plane, and has been following the PCs around ever since. But they can't see/hear him until they find the mysterious, limited charges, see-into-Ethereal magic item. Then they can find the dimensional tear again so he can pass back through to the real world.
Depends on what type of location the PCs are at, and how realistic you need the excuse to be.
Someone realizes the party forgot to leave someone to guard the horses.
The PC really has to go drop the kids off. A real five-alarmer. Gains the staggered condition afterward and all that.
The PC just kind of hangs out in the background during fights. You can handwave that he's fighting, but hits no one and no one hits him.
Zo
|
We go with the 'quest for the Golden Fleece' standard of people just sort of fading into the background and then mysteriously being back again when needed. The player-less PC becomes Argonaut number 32, who isn't mentioned until his power is needed, and then is utterly forgotten for the rest of the tale.
Or, in Monty Python terms, the PC becomes Father Maynard, head priest of the delegation of clergy not seen until the Holy Hand Grenade is needed, and never seen thereafter. :)
|
Or as a sort of "punishment" :), the PC goes off on an important personal side quest, finishing it and returning just as the player returns.
Unfortunatly, the player doesn't know exactly what happened, only he went to do something and for some reason, (to be decided by you at any later time desired) doesn't remember a thing about it.
Said PC is missing about 20 GP per level (living expenses or what not), and might be missing a few potions or (fairly common cheap things like that), but has others and absolutely no idea what they do. . .
Maybe they have a label written in a language (in their handwriting too), that they don't know.
Creative Director
|
Well... you know, more or less, what level and class and race the missing PC is. Just whip up a copy of that character so you'll have the stats handy and use that to run the PC. It's okay if the stats don't precisely match the actual PC for a session. I think that this is a much better solution than arbitrarily "punishing" the player for forgetting to leave his sheet by having his character get pulled into some weird plot twist. It also keeps the current adventure on track, since I suspect that if the other PCs see the missing PC get pulled away into some mystery hole or whatever, they're going to be distracted and want to go after him rather than stay focused on the adventure at hand.
This is why I have my "missing man" rules for my campaign. I generally assume that a character is always present with the rest of the adventurers.
If the player cannot make the session, the character is with the party, but the only actions the character can take are to move and to aid another, and I don't use any modifiers. In other words, they have a flat 50% chance to aid another, and they roll a d20 for initiative.
The rest of the group determines what the character does on their turn in the initiative. Sometimes is handy to have the character flank for another character.
Essentially, this way the character "did something," (Thorgald and Vraid teamed up on the ogre and dispatched him) without needing Thorgald's stats.
The PC wakes up in a bucket of ice with a scar on their back. Now the PC's must stop the kobold kidney heist cartel.
Its rare, in our game, but yeah, I go with the "off to find the loo" excuse. In our game we only push verisimilitude so far. I'm way too busy to even try to mock up a stand-in character (the party is pushing 20th level now), so if the character isn't there, he's not there.
There have even been a few times when it would have been nearly impossible to try and shoe horn in a game excuse (when the party's gone traipsing off to the Negative Energy Plane, for example) so we don't even try.
Greg
If the player cannot make the session, the character is with the party, but the only actions the character can take are to move and to aid another, and I don't use any modifiers. In other words, they have a flat 50% chance to aid another, and they roll a d20 for initiative.
Interesting. Never thought of that. Would I be right in assuming the character doesn't get XP for the game?
How do you handle the character getting attacked? Do all NPCs ignore him? What about area affect spells?
Just curious,
Greg
Interesting. Never thought of that. Would I be right in assuming the character doesn't get XP for the game?
How do you handle the character getting attacked? Do all NPCs ignore him? What about area affect spells?
Just curious,
Greg
I used to not give them XP for the session, but I found that it was kind of a pain to keep everyone an appropriate level for the AP if someone missed at the wrong time. That having been said, I used to do it that way, and except for trying to juggle what level the encounter should be for in pregenerated adventures, it works fine.
What I started doing for attendance was to give an action point to everyone in the group that did make it for the evening when someone misses. We don't normally use action points, so its the only way the group gets them.
NPCs don't specifically target the missing PC. Nothing can harm them, unless the rest of the party is killed. If the rest of the party is killed, the "hollow PC" is considered to have died as well.
I had this happen once so far in my campaigns. Its been much easier to deal with than constantly trying to come up with a reason for why a character isn't present for a session.
he was summoned by a Summon Humanoid spell by an angel or demon or what ever and got whisked away then had to catch up to the other players...
After reading the Sagiro Story Hour at EN World, I thought of this type of angle immediately.
For those of you wanting more background, the character is a female elf Wiz7/Rog1. The PCs are currently exploring an ancient temple of Gozreh on the (OD&D) Isle of Dread. I'm using several of the scenarios from the updated Isle from Dungeon Magazine, when it was used in one of the early Adventure Paths. Recently, another NPC met his maker at the hands of an advanced shambling mound, so maybe the disappeared PC was called away by the ghost of the dead NPC? Also, this elf has always been described as "different" and "doesn't fit in" when compared to other elves. It may be time to pull that plot string and see where it takes us.
And thanks for pointing out that this may be railroading and/or punishing the player. I didn't see it like that. I couldn't see the forest for the trees and all that. The game has been meeting regularly for the past year and this is the first instance of this happening. Oh well.
I used to not give them XP for the session, but I found that it was kind of a pain to keep everyone an appropriate level for the AP if someone missed at the wrong time. That having been said, I used to do it that way, and except for trying to juggle what level the encounter should be for in pregenerated adventures, it works fine.
My standing rule is 0 XP if character is absent, and 1/2 XP if character is there but player isn't. But then I haven't run an AP yet (plan on starting Age of Worms sometime this summer) so I may have to toss that rule out. We'll see.
What I started doing for attendance was to give an action point to everyone in the group that did make it for the evening when someone misses. We don't normally use action points, so its the only way the group gets them.
Interesting. We use the Dork20 card deck - which give "specific" actions (immediate hp, re-rolls, etc), but I never thought of using it in this way. If the XP penalty becomes a pain, I may use this instead.
NPCs don't specifically target the missing PC. Nothing can harm them, unless the rest of the party is killed. If the rest of the party is killed, the "hollow PC" is considered to have died as well.
That's what I assumed. I try very hard not to kill any character whose player is absent but it can be tough. I've actually almost killed aPC once recently, and if he didn't have a particular power active (he's a psion) he would have been dead for sure. The player playing the PC had him doing so much damage in the situation that it made no sense for the monster to ignore him. Hated to do it, but in the heat of battle, I couldn't see another alternative. Fortunately, his redipsi saved him.
I had this happen once so far in my campaigns. Its been much easier to deal with than constantly trying to come up with a reason for why a character isn't present for a session.
Thanks for elaborating. When we start up fresh at 1st level for AoW, I'm really going to consider this. (We are all older, many with families, so 100% attendence is not possible a lot of the time.)
Greg
We struggled for a few encounters then I decided that the PC would mysteriously vanish. Now, I need to come up with a legitimate reason for this to happen.
First, how much of a deal do you want to make out of it? Finding a legitimate reason for him to disappear and reappear is one thing, but finding a legitimate reason for him to disappear and reappear AND bare absolutely no consequences on the game or players is another...
The missing player's race, class, and alignment could help us come up with better diversions.
How long was he/she missing? If they didn't miss much, it's not such a bad situation to GM. If they missed a large chunk of the plot, maybe they really had somewhere else to be? For Lawful characters, perhaps a family obligation, or they had to serve on a jury. For chaotic characters, well, there's always the brothel.
In my group, if the player's not there, the character isn't either.
In the long term, this hasn't really mattered for XP, since I give out flat XP per session. I just have a lower bounds on level difference - if someone misses too many sessions their character can end up being bootstrapped a level.
I've never tried to offer any explanations for the disappearance/reappearance of the characters - that's just an artifact of the fact that it's a game that not every player can make every time.
What I've never allowed is for one player to run another player's characters. While it's usually not a problem, I've seen it turn out badly.
The missing player's race, class, and alignment could help us come up with better diversions.
How long was he/she missing? If they didn't miss much, it's not such a bad situation to GM. If they missed a large chunk of the plot, maybe they really had somewhere else to be? For Lawful characters, perhaps a family obligation, or they had to serve on a jury. For chaotic characters, well, there's always the brothel.
I'm reminded of another forumite's approach (Kirth, I think):
The missing player is killed at the first opportunity in the most gruesome way possible. He reappears, alive, at the start of the next session and nobody ever says anything about it. :)
I have a rather large group with a lot of young players. On any given session, we will be missing upto half of the players.
On a current mission, they were guarding a caravan. I ruled that the absent players were on the end of the caravan fighting basically the same mobs that were raiding the caravan and therefore too busy to help the PCs who were present for the evening.
That way I gave all characters the same XP for the evening. They are only 2nd level, so every little bit makes a difference.
An old DM of mine used a "PC Bag of Holding." Whenever a session started and a player (or more) wasn't there, their character would jump into the PCBoH, and we'd get on with it. It made it unnecessary to worry about the character's whereabouts, and easier to explain what happened the session before.
Not a real realistic approach, but simple.
Hail! I hate the moments where a player is missing. As a rule of thumb, I typically just don't play if 2/4 players are MIA or whatever and use the time to play Three-Dragon Ante while discussing what the players would like to see or accomplish in future games, or requests they may have for play styles or what-have-you. If it's just one player, I try to think of something for that specific moment:
"The three of you see a fork in the tunnel. *Player4* offers to go whichever opposing direction you choose. In {X amount of time} you agree to meet back and discuss your findings..."
-or-
"Suddenly, you hear a quick-ended yelp! You jerk your head back just in time to see *Player4 disappear into a wall behind you. A secret passage?!"
-or-
"In the aftermath of the battle, you all realize *P4 has vanished! You agree that *P4 had perhaps chased after one of the enemies and have gotten lost or is too far to be of any immediate aid..."
With more players, and different schedules, it's best to think Ad Hoc of everything and make best of what you can do.
The missing player's race, class, and alignment could help us come up with better diversions.
The character is a female CG elven Wiz7/Rog1.
I think I will take some advice I see floating around and not get too specific about the reason. Instead, I think I will say something like this:
"You find yourself lying on the hard ground, waking up with a massive headache as if you had imbibed too much dwarven ale back in Rockhome. Rubbing your eyes, you quickly focus on the faces of your friends all surrounding you and staring at you with looks of shock and surprise. You last remember walking into [current location] and resting after a brutal fight with some feline-shaped amber golems. Then, like a thick ocean fog, the details begin to come back to you. You are someplace else. Here, the world seems to whisk away your aches and pains and gives you a feeling of general happiness. Eloy, your fallen companion, is here. You remember him telling you something important, but you can't remember anything. You can still vaguely see him; his mouth is moving but no sound is coming out. He seems very animated and is gesturing wildly. He holds up 3 fingers, pointing to each in turn and again speaking without a sound. Wait, are there more people nearby? It is all so blurry and confusing. "
This will allow me an opportunity to drop some plot points at later stages of the campaign. I don't have to flesh those out now. And as for the "how" of the disappearance, do I really need a concrete reason in a world full of magic and monsters?
The character is a female CG elven Wiz7/Rog1.I think I will take some advice I see floating around and not get too specific about the reason. Instead, I think I will say something like this:
"snip"
This will allow me an opportunity to drop some plot points at later stages of the campaign. I don't have to flesh those out now. And as for the "how" of the disappearance, do I really need a concrete reason in a world full of magic and monsters?
I've use that once or twice myself, and it has been used with my character a few times when the nature of my work forced me to miss quite a few games. Use the excuse that one character was away to bring some info that the player missed or that you need to bring them back on track.
To a certain point, you can make it clear to your players that "something to that character happens, he/she missed part of the action for legitimate reasons and now he/she back. Please don't make a fuss about it."
Kirth's approach (as mentioned by Evil Lincon a few posts above) says just that, in a more blatant way...
I'd just ignore it. The character is assumed to have been present and doing Stuff, but didn't have any speaking lines. Award XP for a X-1 member party (where X is the normal number of party members).
This may be more difficult if the missing character is pivotal. The main arcane spell-caster or cleric could be difficult. Otherwise, run a session that's a little harder than normal.
The missing player is killed at the first opportunity in the most gruesome way possible. He reappears, alive, at the start of the next session and nobody ever says anything about it. :)
This will work for me. ^_^
...Calling Creatures: The second effect of the gate spell is to call an extraplanar creature to your aid (a calling effect). By naming a particular being or kind of being as you cast the spell, you cause the gate to open in the immediate vicinity of the desired creature and pull the subject through, willing or unwilling.
Have the PC gated by some mundane looking guy(native to the Astral Plane and on the Astral Plane), into a rather plain looking room (on teh Astral Plane). Then the PC is asked questions for a few hours that seem very mundane. "Two weeks ago you bought 50' of rope. When you bought this rope you failed to buy a grappling hook from that store, and had to go back later to buy the grappling hook. Please tell me how you felt about the need for a second trip and how it has impacted you on a physical, economical, and emotional level."
As the PC answers the rather mundane fellow just takes notes in a book and says things like "I see, and how did that make you feel?"
Now can be used as a plot device. "Why is someone gating members of our party from time to time." Or just a red herring. Maybe said mundane looking 17th lvl guy enjoy playing jokes on lower level PCs by gating them and asking them stupid questions to make them wonder what evil he is up to.
Since you can gate twice your level in hit dice if you need two party members removed then that can happen as well.
In the end the mundane looking fellow uses modify memory to erase the occurance, but leaves little bits and pieces just for the sure humor value.