How do YOU deal with player absences?

[LawOfTheLand]

So Marin and I are putting the finishing touches on our latest project (which you can see in the Interest Checks right now!) when a thought occurred to me. It is inevitable in the course of an RP that players become unavailable for one reason or another, leading to time locks or worse, plot holes. The question then becomes: How does one deal with this OOC absence in a way that breaks the fourth wall only as much as necessary?

I imagine the best answer would have something to do with what was happening in the story when the player decided to leave the game, and as such, the best answer is setting-dependent. On another level, however, you want the action to keep going, and aside from Tiko's Orsa of Terminus that has an extensive waiting list of applicants, what's the best OOC failsafe against this eventuality to keep the story rolling?

[RedRaine]

A demon lords comes down from the sky and eats them. No one ever mentions them again.

...

Quite frankly anyone that does the whole 'oh they were probably like this' or 'they died' or any half-assed explanation like that obviously needs to do a little work on their storytelling capabilities. The best way to deal with those absences is to literally take that character on temporarily. If the person abandons the rp then they should at least take the responsibility in allowing others to help redirect their characters otherwise.

This temp control shouldn't last -too- long. You can't play them forever. In this time you should either:
a) hunt down for people who can take the character on
or
b) lead the character far enough in which they either have to disappear, or leave the group.

In the pokemon world this is easily done. People eventually have to part ways if they find reasons they need to. Like they want to become a pokemon breeder or take up photography or have unfinished business in the city. Simple nuff. And if anyone wants to bring that character back in the future it's just as easy as a 'they coincidentally meet'. Yay~

[Adrian_S]

As an experienced GM of both tabletop and online roleplaying games, I find that if a player is unavailable, you write them out of the story for the time being until they return and penalize them. If they cannot dedicate the time to the roleplay, they cannot be given the same chance of completion or "victory" as everyone else. To give you a quite recent example:


I'm currently running a tabletop game called "Glorious Iron". It is a World War Two strategy game in which several people I live around gather at my home and we wage war against the opposing faction. during the game, each player represents a country and tries to win the war, not only in favor of their alignment (Allied/Axis), but in favor of their country (occupying the most land by the end of the war).

A few months ago, my "England" player was unavailable for that week. So, as the GM, I wrote England "out of the war" for that week. It was decided that the English front had been attacked viciously and lost communication. So, because "England" could not participate, a third of his units were lost in an Axis offensive and he was pushed back.


Although it may seem harsh to do so, if a player can not post or participate at least twice a week then they should not have dedicated their time to the roleplay in the first place.

[VitaminHeart]

It's all very well saying that people should post frequently, but sometimes real life has to take priority, speaking as someone who's recently had to neglect my RPs due to a sudden death in the family. I think a GM has to be a bit flexible regarding the circumstances, and be mindful of there being a difference between people not posting because they can't be bothered and people not posting becuase their appendix burst and they're in hospital.

Personally, when I'm participating in an RP and I know that I'm going to be adsent for a while, I'll put my characters somewhere out of the way, send them on a trip, or otherwise put them out of action for a while. It leaves the character open for return, but means people can carry on without quite comfortably and still have it make sense. I encourage other participants to do the same. Not neccessarily kill off characters but just put them on a bus, or staying with a friend a few towns away, or sick with the flu until their creator gets back from their trip/technological problem/exam season/crisis.

[Mr_Doomed]

It's always important to keep the possibility of rejoining the roleplay upon their return open for the player. It isn't fair to punish them because their power was out for a few days or they just can't dedicate themselves to it for a while. If they are punished, they might not want to continue playing when they rejoin. Real life is ten times more important than whether your character is going to ask the love of their life to marry them or whether the alien race will find you hiding under the truck or not.

I was in a roleplay that had found it's way to the very end and by this point we had dwindled down from about six players to only three. The first left really early in the roleplay so it was easy to just assume that he went about his life in the secluded camp he lived at. The second had told us that they were never going to come back and we made the implication that her character had died. This left room for them to come back in case they ever did want to. The third person didn't give us any notice. They just disapeared from the entire thing. He wasn't too involved to begin with, but he had left at an important part. Lucky for us, the rest of us survivors did a time skip two month later in the story. We just assumed that this person couldn't make it through the tough training that our characters had gone through.

In the end of this roleplay, the remaining characters found themselves face to face with the villain of the story and a fight broke out. Sadly, one of us three became inactive all of a sudden and right during the climax too! We took the liberty in our posts to note that his character hadn't been doing anything and was just watching at the sidelines. Finally, there was a big explosion and he had disapeared from the area as if he had fled.

There is a sequel to this roleplay that is currently active with many more active members too. During the sequel, about a month after the person had disapeared, he showed up to explain that his computer has been totaled and he couldn't get online for the time he was gone. Now that we decided to make this roleplaying game into a trilogy, the player has decided that he will bring his character back then. In the meantime, he is writing a journal explaining what he has done while he is away from all the action.

So this is why people shouldn't be punished. There's no reason to do it. Just put them out of the action and if they ever show up again you can put them right back into it all in an instant.