Looking for some DMing opinions

[blissinfinite]

We've just played out 20th session last night (sandbox style). For the most part the game has gone pretty well but last night brought up a couple of issues. I'm just looking for some opinions on how some of you might handle these same situations with the players.

The rundown: The last 3 game sessions involved the exploration of a small ruined temple and a search for a Crimson Skull. During these 3 sessions, various players missed one of the 3 sessions for personal real-life reasons. Most of my sessions continue right where the last session left off so sometimes it's a bit of a challenge getting a PC back into the fold after a missed session. Many times I give the player the NPC to run or something like that.

Hasn't been much of an issue until last night.

In the previous session, the player playing the thief had to miss, so his character was left behind to watch over the camp. Last night when he was back, I had him play one of the NPCs as the party only had to clear out the last two rooms of the dungeon. AS it turned out those last two rooms offered quite a reward in experience. Since his character wasn't part of the party at the time I didn't award his PC experience for that session event though the player was present. He seemed a bit put off by that. Also, the player playing the magic-user didn't show up until after they PCs left the dungeon so he didn't receive the experience points for last the final exploration even through his PC was present and his Player wasn't.

Keep in mind that everyone of my players has plenty of real life responsibilities and they do make the effort to be present at every session.

Question: How do you/would you handle that type of situation where players miss the game for legitimate reasons and their PC is our of the scene so to speak but the player returns to run a npc? As a DM is that being too strict in a bi-weekly game where real life takes precedence over gaming? Do you give PCs experience only for the the portion of the adventures they actively participate in or as a group whether the PC is involved in every situation of not?

I feel that I may be too rigid in my 'rules' to account for some of these situations.

Thoughts?


Situation 2: We had a PC death last night. This was a favorite character in the game. He died more of a gaming mechanic over-site. Our sessions are 2 weeks apart. The player didn't look over his character sheet and was running around with only 5 HP left. When he got into a fight with a living statue, he died. Now, IMO, the player did have every opportunity to look over his Char Sheet and heal his wounds with a healing potion but that didn't happen. That character, in game, most likely would have been quite aware of his wounds and done something about it. Now the character is dead. Would any of you thrown the player a bone or let things play out the way they did?

Opinion: In a game that meets bi-weekly and where my players do show up to most every session but at times miss for very legitimate reasons, should there be more flexibility in the game for these situations?

Looking forward to hearing some thoughts on this.

[Finarvyn]

I throw away realism and just play.

What I do is to have missing characters simply not be there when their player isn't there to call the shots. My players are used to "well, I hope we don't need a cleric today since Alan's not here" and we don't worry about continuity.

Kind of like the berserker character in The Gamers where he is just standing around, then the player arrives and he becomes awesome and active, then he just stands around again when the player leaves.

If somehow a character dies when that player is absent, I just assume that the character is stunned or unconscious and can be revived next time.

Again, for me play is more important than realism.

If a crisis arises where that character is needed (such as an undead thread where only the cleric can save the day) I always reserve the right to run him as an NPC just long enough to get the group past that tricky spot. Or I encourage them to run away until next time.

[EdOWar]

I generally agree with Fin, playing is more important than realism, most of the time.

But that doesn't help you out now. In situtation 1, I'd give the thief character at least some of the experience (maybe half, or a bit more). The thief wasn't there, but could have been, and the thief's player was there. With the magic-user's character, I'd give the full XP he was due...the character was present even if the player wasn't.

In situation 2, it kind of sucks, but I'd say the character is dead. It'll teach the player to better watch over his PC. You could say that the character would have noticed his hurt and done something about it, but this isn't necessarily true. Sometimes people don't notice just how badly they're hurt until it is too late. If it's a major sore point with the player, then at the very least incapacitate his PC instead of killing him. Maybe cause some kind of serious injury as well, like a broken arm, to drive home the point that he needs to be more mindful.

[coffee]

I'm in a similar game, which meets twice a month. I have a terrible time as a player remembering what happened the previous session, let alone whether I have any damage or anything. (And I'm the Cleric!)

For situation two, my suggestion, and I think I'm going to mention this to my DM also, is to have a rundown at the beginning ("When last we left out intrepid heroes..."), and specifically look at who is down hit points, spells, etc. That way, nobody has to suffer the same fate. (Although we have the ability to forget having taken damage between fights on the same night, so there you go.

As far as situation one goes, I got nothing. Sorry.

[blissinfinite]

Again, for me play is more important than realism.

Thanks Fin, for that. It seems so obvious but I somehow just missed that concept while I tried to keep a 'realistic' unity from game to game. Sometimes I get too serious in the game.

I think session recaps at the table are a good idea but instead of me, the DM yapping my head off, I'll have the players do it. It will get them involved right away and focused on the game. At the beginning of a session table-talk is a bit of an issue and jumping into the game is a bit abrupt.

The dead character may get another chance, we'll see. He was burnt pretty badly (molten rock and all).

[tombowings]

Aug 17, 2010 10:55:37 GMT -6 blissinfinite said:

Again, for me play is more important than realism.

Thanks Fin, for that. It seems so obvious but I somehow just missed that concept while I tried to keep a 'realistic' unity from game to game. Sometimes I get too serious in the game.

I think session recaps at the table are a good idea but instead of me, the DM yapping my head off, I'll have the players do it. It will get them involved right away and focused on the game. At the beginning of a session table-talk is a bit of an issue and jumping into the game is a bit abrupt.

The dead character may get another chance, we'll see. He was burnt pretty badly (molten rock and all).

You could have him come back with some sort of permanent injury, like a leg that was fully consumed and crystalized by the molten rock.

[coffee]

Aug 17, 2010 10:55:37 GMT -6 blissinfinite said:

I think session recaps at the table are a good idea but instead of me, the DM yapping my head off, I'll have the players do it. It will get them involved right away and focused on the game. At the beginning of a session table-talk is a bit of an issue and jumping into the game is a bit abrupt.

Sounds like a plan. That way, the transition from table talk to gaming is smooth, and everybody knows where they are.

[snorri]

I tend to consider characters start any session with full hps. No in-game rationnal, just the session kicker to avoid that kind of trouble.

But I must admit I also often play with the "return to full hp after any fight, excpet when a PC is at 0 or below" method, which makes tracking of xp loss very easy - just od it during a fight.

[kenmeister]

I start every gaming session asking the player who keeps track of everyone's hit points to review the current totals. I had a character of mine die once because I the player forgot how low he was on hit points and I don't want it to happen to any of my players.

[capvideo]

In our current game, we had one player who often couldn't make it; the players have been visiting different realities off of the world tree, so I decided to have that player's character exist when he shows up, and not exist when he doesn't. The in-game reason being that (a) the big villain caused him to get caught and executed after a bit of arson, but ensured that the execution occurred in a pocket reality. The PC's reality was wavering back and forth between the two.

Later, that player's entire family started gaming with us; this meant three PCs instead of just the one. Now we just say that the six PCs often don't stay together. This is easy enough to believe in the wilderness, and we assume that nothing interesting happens to the PCs of players who aren't there; when the players show up, the groups merge again.

We'll probably do the same thing in the dungeon. It happens often enough in Scooby-Doo. In that case, though, I'll probably have them be in an adjacent room when the players show up, just for the antics it will provide.

Jerry

[giantbat]

What would Gygax do?

Award experience to a character not present?

Restore to life a character who perished from straightforward depletion of hit points?

Encourage the characters of whinging players to listen to the world's smallest violin, infested with ear seekers?

[Falconer]

When I think of “sandbox” play, I imagine it assumes that there are multiple parties doing different stuff in the world concurrently, so at any given session it can easily be some players from one group and some from another group with plenty of missing people. In other words, every PC is not supposed to be at every session. This is simple if the assumption is that 1) the PCs at the end of any given session end up in some sort of town, and 2) that there is no one major goal in the campaign. There can be multiple major goals which adds to the tense excitement and even competitive nature (ooh, I can’t miss tonight because I want to be part of the group that finally gets the Codex of Infinite Planes!). It also makes the game feel more like “a world” (i.e. sandbox) rather than “a story”, because each time you get together you have to consider the passage of time since you last played, account for your activities during that time (travel, commerce, building), you get to listen to rumors and receive messages and physically witness evidence of things that happened while you weren’t personally “on stage,” etc.

Sometimes it is just logistically impossible to get the party back to town at the end of a session (they are in the middle of an elemental node, for example), and you do want to “just pause” the game. In that case, when the next session comes around and you can get together more-or-less the same group, if there are one or two players who are absent then I do just “fudge it” and teleport their characters back to town and probably award them their XP from the previous session, the next time you see them. If more players show up, you can either fudge it and pretend they were there all along (but they only receive XP for when they were there), or (and this is preferable albeit a little time-consuming) find a way for the party to communicate their location to them or otherwise figure out a way through honest gameplay for them to join up with the group.

For more inspiration, see the DMG section on Time in the Campaign.

[thegreyelf]

We always say that when a player isn't there, one of two things happens:

1. The character vanishes (and later re-appears, of course) in a poof of logic
2. The character turns into an intelligent, natural-seeming, amber glow that follows the party around and doesn't do anything.

[coffee]

We had that problem on occasion in various groups I've been in.

In one group, if the player wasn't there, his character was just hanging out in "the celestial waiting room". No xp if you're not there.

In my current AD&D group, if the player can't make it, somebody else plays his character (keeping as close to the established personality as possible -- when in doubt, we discuss it). That takes care of the "continuity", but I don't recall if the player misses out on xp. (I can't be fure because I've never missed a session -- not bragging, just no life.)

[blissinfinite]

I've had a discussion with my players and I think we're going with having the missing player's PC be a NPC with the one caveat being that the NPC Player Character can't die if the player is not there. That might be odd in a situation where there is a TPK, and there may slight variations to this declaration. Also more importantly, that doesn't mean that countless other things short of death can't happen to him/her. I think that will help keeping the serial styled game going without much problem.

That doesn't mean that a player can't say that his PC is hanging back for a while to study spells or whatever.

I think experience will be distributed amongst all the PCs with only some exceptions. Again, real-life takes presence over gaming and I don't feel that penalizing a player for missing a session for that reason should come into play. Also this is a bi-weekly game and we've played for about 10 months. We have 4 level 3 characters, 2 level 2 and a single level 1 character so I think the game pace has been perfect for our group. I don't want to slow that down unnecessarily.

As for the dead dwarf; he's dead. PC death needs to happen regardless of favorite character status. If PCs don't die, what's the point of playing. This has been our 3rd PC death with plenty of close calls along the way. The death of a character is always a very memorable experience, it's up to the rest of the party to decide what to do with the body.

[MilkManX]

Necromancer!!

;D