Most groups play once a week, some play more depending on how much time everyone has to get together. Some groups get together even less, maybe twice in a month or once a month might be the amount of time they can spare for gaming. There a couple of things you can do in your group to keep the fun flowing and not even notice old empty chair over there.
Now these rules could be things like:
The Autopilot Character – The character fades into the background and follows the group on auto pilot. This allows the player’s character to remain with the group and no one has to really account for him. He will be there, but not really be there.
The Runaway Character – Suddenly the character decides he wants to run off and do a side quest. The party experiences this character getting all wild eyed, talking about needing to get away and then runs off, slipping away from the party.
The Sudden Quest Character – The character decides that his deity has given him a spiritual quest to go on to find himself. The character parts ways with the party saying he will be back soon (aka next game).
The DM Controlled Character – The DM decides to be nice, and runs the character as if it was an NPC for the night. Yay, extra work for the DM!
The Body Snatcher Character – Another player runs for this character. We always called it the body snatcher character because the character was there, and basically was acting the same, but something was just off about the character’s personality. Cute little hat tip to the movie. *Grins*
The Sudden Death Character – The character has a heart attack or dies or somehow gets killed before anyone can do anything. Kinda mean and cruel huh? I’ve seen this happen when I was younger. I had a DM who liked to just kill characters. Hey we were kids.
What are some of the things you do to keep the game going when someone can’t play? Post a comment below.
