I'd like to consider this more of a discussion thread rather than an advice one. The topic at hand, do you think there should be written rules that prevent actions/consequences to PCs that are absent from a game?
I'm wondering if there are any hard-written rules from the DMG, sage advice, Adventurer's League, anything about the following situation:
A player, named Shelly, is absent from her usual weekly game session. At the beginning of the session, the DM informs the other players that an assassin has killed Shelly's character in the night. Then the game goes on. Shelly returns for the next session intending to play her character. The DM informs her that the character is dead and unplayable, and she would need to make a new one. Shelly didn't know that her absence meant her character would be killed. So, she asks where in the rules it says that her absence means her character would die. The DM says there are no such rules, but that her character was simply attacked in the last session, reduced to 0 hp, and then attacked again and again until the character failed all death saving throws, per the rules.
I realize the above scenario (though it is also an account of a true story) is all bad manners, poor play, and atrocious behavior perpetrated by the DM. I realize that most of the common sense advice would amount to, "don't play with someone who does this," but I'm looking for a discussion about rules. Like, if there was a line in the DMG or PhB that stated, "DMs cannot take actions against PCs who do not have active players guiding their actions" would that be reasonable, unreasonable? What do you think?
What the books already say on the matter is, in my opinion, already the best that can be done. Specifically because it doesn't waste effort trying to provide a one-size-fits-all rule that numerous groups would choose to ignore, and instead provides encouragement to choose what fits your group and fosters your preferred play-style and offers suggestions (all of which, on the topic of missing players at least, are not the kind of thing a DM like the one Shelly had to deal with would come up with - which is a subtle effort on the part of the authors to get DMs to not be jerks).
Uh huh. This is definitely something that belongs to the DM, and should only be guided by the DMG (and similar resources). As Aaron has pointed out, the guidance given there is pretty good (and evidently murdering the PC is not part of that guidance). The basic rules and PHB are a bit vague when it comes to what a PC is allowed to do to another PC (absent or not), and are silent on what a DM is allowed to do to a PC (because a DM can do literally anything they want - with only player revolt and loss of friendship as consequences).
If I were to give advice (which you specifically didn't ask for - but this is the internet so suck it), then clearly the best option for a missing player is that the character is also absent. They left on a personal quest, stayed behind in town to help the peasants with the harvest, went to deliver the macguffin to the Queen, suddenly went missing, whatever. No PC can interact with them, any attempt to find them fails, any message sent to them goes unanswered until the next session, etc, but luckily they left behind any vital quest-related objects they were carrying at the time. Then the character reappears just as suddenly in time for the next session, no questions asked unless anyone wants to role-play it, or the DM takes the opportunity to introduce new plot hooks relating to the absence. Whether they get catchup XP is another thing.
There can't be a rule like that since the DM is not restricted in any way. The DM could just do the same when the player is present. It's the old "stones fall - you die" trope. The environment is completely under the control of the DM and there is no way to restrict that control without upsetting the whole game logic.
As for absent players: I just have them plop in and out as necessary. Leaving them in the town can be bad, since, if a possible dungeon is not finished till the next session, the player can't really participate if he is able to attend the session. It's just a little suspension of disbelief. The fact that real life may always interfere with the game makes this a fundamental necessity in my games.
I personally dislike the "left in town" unless the player is gone for a while, like on actual vacation and will miss a few sessions. If the player is out sick that day, I usually effectively throw the player into "hammer space". The character is technically "there" but they aren't "there". They won't participate in combat, NPCs don't address then, but next week the character is there when the session starts. Yes there is some small suspension of disbelief, but it's better then making up lots of excuses to get "around" suspension of disbelief.
The only caveat is if the missing player is the only Wizard, and they need a "Detect Magic" or has specific skill(s) that were literally needed for the session. Then the PC's AI will pipe up with that.
Of course this assumes a game like D&D where the party is almost never more then 20' from each other vs a came like Vampire: The Requiem where players are often doing their own thing.
Well, if you are playing Adventurer's League then I think it is pretty simple. If the player isn't there then the character isn't there. The DM and/or party get to be inventive and come up with an explanation of why the character is missing that session and additional reasons when and if they turn up again.
As for the story, the only times I've heard of that sort of thing happening it was due to personal issues between the player (or players) and DM. It has never had anything to do with events in game. In addition, depending on the circumstances and people involved, such a situation can actually be classed as bullying or harassment, especially if the other players at the table were complicit in killing off the character of someone that they didn't really want to play with in the first place but were too cowardly to actually just bring it up for discussion (which is probably the most common reason for such an action especially with more immature players).
Anyway, how to handle missing players is entirely up to the DM. The usual approaches are:
1) DM NPC - since the DM should know the characters stats and usual play style they can be played as an NPC but likely receive no XP or treasure from the session. The character could still potentially die but the character is played as if the player was there (though usually more passively - they won't be playing a leading role) so instant death due to hidden assassin is much less likely.
2) Character is not available - devise some in character reason for the character to be missing. Arrested for being drunk and disorderly, caught stealing something, requested by their church/organization/patron to run an urgent errand, (or our current favorite) ate some bad fish tacos and just can't manage to get out of bed. At its most basic level you don't even need an explanation, the character is just not there. They earn no XP or treasure but also won't suffer any consequences.
If you have an on-going campaign it can be best to agree in advance whether absent characters will be treated as NPCs or as busy doing something else.
I personally dislike the "left in town" unless the player is gone for a while, like on actual vacation and will miss a few sessions. If the player is out sick that day, I usually effectively throw the player into "hammer space". The character is technically "there" but they aren't "there". They won't participate in combat, NPCs don't address then, but next week the character is there when the session starts. Yes there is some small suspension of disbelief, but it's better then making up lots of excuses to get "around" suspension of disbelief.
The only caveat is if the missing player is the only Wizard, and they need a "Detect Magic" or has specific skill(s) that were literally needed for the session. Then the PC's AI will pipe up with that.
Of course this assumes a game like D&D where the party is almost never more then 20' from each other vs a came like Vampire: The Requiem where players are often doing their own thing.
I wanted to post again to add that I do a similar thing at my table - if a player is absent, their character is present with the party (or doing whatever it was the character was planning to do in those games that are less party-is-doing-things-together-all-the-time in style) according to the narrative, but is mechanically absent.
The general "cover" being that there are more monsters or whatever present that the character is off-screen dealing with, and their fate matches that of the rest of the party if possible (example: they won't end up dead unless the entire party has ended up dead, and even then only if it actually makes sense).
1) DM NPC - since the DM should know the characters stats and usual play style they can be played as an NPC but likely receive no XP or treasure from the session. The character could still potentially die but the character is played as if the player was there (though usually more passively - they won't be playing a leading role) so instant death due to hidden assassin is much less likely.
2) Character is not available - devise some in character reason for the character to be missing. Arrested for being drunk and disorderly, caught stealing something, requested by their church/organization/patron to run an urgent errand, (or our current favorite) ate some bad fish tacos and just can't manage to get out of bed. At its most basic level you don't even need an explanation, the character is just not there. They earn no XP or treasure but also won't suffer any consequences.
Sans AL, as the rules are clear.
For your 1st point, I don't like the idea that the PC doesn't get XP/Treasure. IF the PC can die and is being "remote piloted" by the DM or another PC, then that character had risk and deserves equal treasure. That said, aside from the 1 AL game I'm in, I've only ever been in cooperative parties so we split treasure even if a character isn't there assuming they are there. They are part of the party and so get a share.
For the 2nd point. I've never been a fan of this, because it turns the player missing INTO the plot of the day. If you're counting XP instead of milestones then they won't get a share of XP, as for treasure it's up to the party. As stated above, I the group I usually play we count all players equally, but we also usually divide by players +1 "the party" gets a share to handle expenses for the group. That's a Player group decision to divide up treasure. The +1 is less important in 5th as wands of cure light wounds or potions of heal aren't the most common ways to handle healing... magic item sacristy went way up in this edition.
1) DM NPC - since the DM should know the characters stats and usual play style they can be played as an NPC but likely receive no XP or treasure from the session. The character could still potentially die but the character is played as if the player was there (though usually more passively - they won't be playing a leading role) so instant death due to hidden assassin is much less likely.
2) Character is not available - devise some in character reason for the character to be missing. Arrested for being drunk and disorderly, caught stealing something, requested by their church/organization/patron to run an urgent errand, (or our current favorite) ate some bad fish tacos and just can't manage to get out of bed. At its most basic level you don't even need an explanation, the character is just not there. They earn no XP or treasure but also won't suffer any consequences.
Sans AL, as the rules are clear.
For your 1st point, I don't like the idea that the PC doesn't get XP/Treasure. IF the PC can die and is being "remote piloted" by the DM or another PC, then that character had risk and deserves equal treasure. That said, aside from the 1 AL game I'm in, I've only ever been in cooperative parties so we split treasure even if a character isn't there assuming they are there. They are part of the party and so get a share.
For the 2nd point. I've never been a fan of this, because it turns the player missing INTO the plot of the day. If you're counting XP instead of milestones then they won't get a share of XP, as for treasure it's up to the party. As stated above, I the group I usually play we count all players equally, but we also usually divide by players +1 "the party" gets a share to handle expenses for the group. That's a Player group decision to divide up treasure. The +1 is less important in 5th as wands of cure light wounds or potions of heal aren't the most common ways to handle healing... magic item sacristy went way up in this edition.
Hi! I just wanted to say that I completely agree with you. In a homebrew game, whatever the players and DM agree to do is fine (though it is a good idea to decide that in advance so the players aren't surprised). The character of a missing player can participate or not, and the character could receive anything from no XP and treasure to full XP and a full split of the treasure. In an ongoing campaign, it can be a bother if a character falls behind the average level of the rest of the party because they miss a session or two so it can be advantageous to have characters of missing players tag along as full NPCs who also receive a full share of the XP.
However, I'd like to re-iterate that the tale of the DM from the OP, where the DM kills the character off because the player is absent, is absolutely not the way to deal with an absent player.
I'm of the mind that if it makes sense for the character to have an 'out' for the session, the DM should write such a thing in, and the character is not present for the session, period. However, in some situations this gets wonky. The group was traversing a dungeon, or was out in the wilderness, or just about to start a boss battle. Should that happen, the character gets remote controlled by either the DM or one of the players (if one of them is familiar with the character, and it won't slow them down), and the character does nothing outside of a combat situation. We're all pretty well up on how each player approaches combat, so it's expected that whoever is playing that character to play them similarly, to the best of their abilities, and the group can contest a choice as they might contest a rule.
If the game uses XP, and if the character is being remote-controlled in this way, they share in any group combat XP as normal. However, they wouldn't be able to earn any social/exploration XP, or solo XP. If they were absent entirely, no XP. But that's why I enjoy using milestone. The boons that a player gets for showing up are gear, potions, and magic items -- and of course, NPC interactions, and potential allies. And the fun of playing. d:
The responses regarding how to handle player absence are good, but I think the OP is looking for discussion on how to handle problem DMs who would do this. It doesn't matter how many other options you present to a DM who has it stuck in their mind that they have the "right" to kill a PC belonging to a player who is absent.
Can it be addressed in the DMG more explicitly? Probably. The 3.5 DMG2 had lots of advice on running the game for different types of players, and being a DM in general. It couldn't hurt to add a statement like...
Remember that a game of Dungeons & Dragons is a collaboration between the Dungeon Master and the players. Your role as a Dungeon Master is never to punish players. Absent players can be challenging for moving a story ahead, but your players have invested their time into creating a character to help tell that story, and they are full partners in that undertaking. A player's character should never suffer consequences if the player is not present, unless you have spoken with the player ahead of their absence and agreed on something that helps the story. Perhaps your absent player has agreed that their character has been kidnapped in the night and held hostage, and the other members of the party will need to find them, or perhaps they have been found dead, but with a message or clue that helps the other party members to bring them back to life before the next session. Otherwise, simply assume that the character in question has decided to go off on a small side quest, or, just "pretend" they aren't there for that session.
It could also be addressed in a similar way in the PHB.
Remember that a game of Dungeons & Dragons is a collaboration between the players and the Dungeon Master. Absent players can be challenging for moving a story ahead, but a player's character should never suffer consequences if the player is not present. If you must be absent for one or more sessions, speak to your Dungeon Master ahead of time, and agree on something that helps the story. Perhaps your character has been kidnapped in the night and held hostage, and the other members of the party will need to find them, or perhaps they have been found dead, but with a message or clue that helps the other party members to bring them back to life before the next session. Otherwise, simply assume that your character has decided to go off on a small side quest, or, just "pretend" they aren't there for that session.
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"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
IMHO, in general, don't ever kidnap or kill players off when they have no chance to react to it.
As for absentee character from the game, definitely try to work it out with your players for some special explanation, otherwise a "fade to the background" or side quest generally works.
That DM approach is absolutely horrible, murdering players without them having any recourse is not cricket. Sure the DM can just 'rocks fall, everyone dies' but why would you play such a game?
Generally I do one of 2 things if a player is absent: Option A: their character is 'off camera', that is to say they fade into the background, helping in fights against other off camera mooks or by supporting fire. It's assumed that if the party survives, the absent player survives, may get lightly wounded but nothing serious. They don't use spells or consume any items/potions because they aren't overtly contributing .
Option B; another player (or the DM) runs the characters, major life choices aren't undertaken but tactical choices including spells, expendature of charges/consumables happens as normal.
Option A is easier but may require adjusting encounters, option B runs the risk of 'misplaying' the characters personality and/or using up consumables/spells as well as an increased chance of death BUT if the player trusts the group it works really well.
Hi everyone!
I'd like to consider this more of a discussion thread rather than an advice one. The topic at hand, do you think there should be written rules that prevent actions/consequences to PCs that are absent from a game?
I'm wondering if there are any hard-written rules from the DMG, sage advice, Adventurer's League, anything about the following situation:
I realize the above scenario (though it is also an account of a true story) is all bad manners, poor play, and atrocious behavior perpetrated by the DM. I realize that most of the common sense advice would amount to, "don't play with someone who does this," but I'm looking for a discussion about rules. Like, if there was a line in the DMG or PhB that stated, "DMs cannot take actions against PCs who do not have active players guiding their actions" would that be reasonable, unreasonable? What do you think?
Would love to hear the community's thoughts.
What the books already say on the matter is, in my opinion, already the best that can be done. Specifically because it doesn't waste effort trying to provide a one-size-fits-all rule that numerous groups would choose to ignore, and instead provides encouragement to choose what fits your group and fosters your preferred play-style and offers suggestions (all of which, on the topic of missing players at least, are not the kind of thing a DM like the one Shelly had to deal with would come up with - which is a subtle effort on the part of the authors to get DMs to not be jerks).
Uh huh. This is definitely something that belongs to the DM, and should only be guided by the DMG (and similar resources). As Aaron has pointed out, the guidance given there is pretty good (and evidently murdering the PC is not part of that guidance). The basic rules and PHB are a bit vague when it comes to what a PC is allowed to do to another PC (absent or not), and are silent on what a DM is allowed to do to a PC (because a DM can do literally anything they want - with only player revolt and loss of friendship as consequences).
If I were to give advice (which you specifically didn't ask for - but this is the internet so suck it), then clearly the best option for a missing player is that the character is also absent. They left on a personal quest, stayed behind in town to help the peasants with the harvest, went to deliver the macguffin to the Queen, suddenly went missing, whatever. No PC can interact with them, any attempt to find them fails, any message sent to them goes unanswered until the next session, etc, but luckily they left behind any vital quest-related objects they were carrying at the time. Then the character reappears just as suddenly in time for the next session, no questions asked unless anyone wants to role-play it, or the DM takes the opportunity to introduce new plot hooks relating to the absence. Whether they get catchup XP is another thing.
The fundamental rule of "Don't be a d**k" seems to be highly applicable to this situation.
There can't be a rule like that since the DM is not restricted in any way. The DM could just do the same when the player is present. It's the old "stones fall - you die" trope. The environment is completely under the control of the DM and there is no way to restrict that control without upsetting the whole game logic.
As for absent players: I just have them plop in and out as necessary. Leaving them in the town can be bad, since, if a possible dungeon is not finished till the next session, the player can't really participate if he is able to attend the session. It's just a little suspension of disbelief. The fact that real life may always interfere with the game makes this a fundamental necessity in my games.
That's awful.
I personally dislike the "left in town" unless the player is gone for a while, like on actual vacation and will miss a few sessions.
If the player is out sick that day, I usually effectively throw the player into "hammer space". The character is technically "there" but they aren't "there". They won't participate in combat, NPCs don't address then, but next week the character is there when the session starts. Yes there is some small suspension of disbelief, but it's better then making up lots of excuses to get "around" suspension of disbelief.
The only caveat is if the missing player is the only Wizard, and they need a "Detect Magic" or has specific skill(s) that were literally needed for the session. Then the PC's AI will pipe up with that.
Of course this assumes a game like D&D where the party is almost never more then 20' from each other vs a came like Vampire: The Requiem where players are often doing their own thing.
Well, if you are playing Adventurer's League then I think it is pretty simple. If the player isn't there then the character isn't there. The DM and/or party get to be inventive and come up with an explanation of why the character is missing that session and additional reasons when and if they turn up again.
As for the story, the only times I've heard of that sort of thing happening it was due to personal issues between the player (or players) and DM. It has never had anything to do with events in game. In addition, depending on the circumstances and people involved, such a situation can actually be classed as bullying or harassment, especially if the other players at the table were complicit in killing off the character of someone that they didn't really want to play with in the first place but were too cowardly to actually just bring it up for discussion (which is probably the most common reason for such an action especially with more immature players).
Anyway, how to handle missing players is entirely up to the DM. The usual approaches are:
1) DM NPC - since the DM should know the characters stats and usual play style they can be played as an NPC but likely receive no XP or treasure from the session. The character could still potentially die but the character is played as if the player was there (though usually more passively - they won't be playing a leading role) so instant death due to hidden assassin is much less likely.
2) Character is not available - devise some in character reason for the character to be missing. Arrested for being drunk and disorderly, caught stealing something, requested by their church/organization/patron to run an urgent errand, (or our current favorite) ate some bad fish tacos and just can't manage to get out of bed. At its most basic level you don't even need an explanation, the character is just not there. They earn no XP or treasure but also won't suffer any consequences.
If you have an on-going campaign it can be best to agree in advance whether absent characters will be treated as NPCs or as busy doing something else.
That said, aside from the 1 AL game I'm in, I've only ever been in cooperative parties so we split treasure even if a character isn't there assuming they are there. They are part of the party and so get a share.
As stated above, I the group I usually play we count all players equally, but we also usually divide by players +1 "the party" gets a share to handle expenses for the group. That's a Player group decision to divide up treasure. The +1 is less important in 5th as wands of cure light wounds or potions of heal aren't the most common ways to handle healing... magic item sacristy went way up in this edition.
I'm of the mind that if it makes sense for the character to have an 'out' for the session, the DM should write such a thing in, and the character is not present for the session, period. However, in some situations this gets wonky. The group was traversing a dungeon, or was out in the wilderness, or just about to start a boss battle. Should that happen, the character gets remote controlled by either the DM or one of the players (if one of them is familiar with the character, and it won't slow them down), and the character does nothing outside of a combat situation. We're all pretty well up on how each player approaches combat, so it's expected that whoever is playing that character to play them similarly, to the best of their abilities, and the group can contest a choice as they might contest a rule.
If the game uses XP, and if the character is being remote-controlled in this way, they share in any group combat XP as normal. However, they wouldn't be able to earn any social/exploration XP, or solo XP. If they were absent entirely, no XP. But that's why I enjoy using milestone. The boons that a player gets for showing up are gear, potions, and magic items -- and of course, NPC interactions, and potential allies. And the fun of playing. d:
The responses regarding how to handle player absence are good, but I think the OP is looking for discussion on how to handle problem DMs who would do this. It doesn't matter how many other options you present to a DM who has it stuck in their mind that they have the "right" to kill a PC belonging to a player who is absent.
Can it be addressed in the DMG more explicitly? Probably. The 3.5 DMG2 had lots of advice on running the game for different types of players, and being a DM in general. It couldn't hurt to add a statement like...
It could also be addressed in a similar way in the PHB.
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
Good quotes from the OG!
IMHO, in general, don't ever kidnap or kill players off when they have no chance to react to it.
As for absentee character from the game, definitely try to work it out with your players for some special explanation, otherwise a "fade to the background" or side quest generally works.
That DM approach is absolutely horrible, murdering players without them having any recourse is not cricket. Sure the DM can just 'rocks fall, everyone dies' but why would you play such a game?
Generally I do one of 2 things if a player is absent: Option A: their character is 'off camera', that is to say they fade into the background, helping in fights against other off camera mooks or by supporting fire. It's assumed that if the party survives, the absent player survives, may get lightly wounded but nothing serious. They don't use spells or consume any items/potions because they aren't overtly contributing .
Option B; another player (or the DM) runs the characters, major life choices aren't undertaken but tactical choices including spells, expendature of charges/consumables happens as normal.
Option A is easier but may require adjusting encounters, option B runs the risk of 'misplaying' the characters personality and/or using up consumables/spells as well as an increased chance of death BUT if the player trusts the group it works really well.
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