We’ve all had it happen. The day of the game your forum or email flashes with the news:
“Sorry everybody, I can’t make it…”
- “I gotta work late.”
- “I can’t find a babysitter.”
- “My kid/dog is sick.”
- “My wife is PISSED and I need to suck up!”
- “My car broke down.”
What do you do?
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Usually my groups are good about canceling in advance. Every once in a while, something will come up (or we’ll be too unfocused to play – sorry Hyb!) and we’ll play Rock Band or Guitar Hero, or flop on the couch to watch a movie.
In my old group, our gnoll had a Pothead Moment (similar to a Senior Moment!) and forgot to show up to the game. Since the plot Loky had planned revolved around the gnoll, we settled on playing Inn Fighting.
Tell us about your group – what happens if the game is canceled? What happens when someone unexpectedly doesn’t show?
About e
Although my old groups main serious campaign was a 2nd Ed Forgotten Realms campaign, we also tinkered with Shadowrun, Twilight 2000, MERP, Call of Cthulu, Robotech and Battletech, as well as a 2nd Ed Dark Sun campaign. If someone couldn’t turn up to the main campaign we would just sideline it for that weekend and switch over to another game.
We also had multiple DM’s so finding someone to host a game was never a problem either. Each was specialist at a certain game, but all knew D&D inside out, so we could run a sideline adventure in the Realms with backup characters if someone had a good idea for an adventure they wanted to try out.
It happened a lot to us last year. We battled on with diminished numbers when possible, and cancelled when there was no alternative. Missing PCs were run by the group and dubbed “pitfinder”.
Johnn Four´s last blog post..DM Tool: Scrabble Tiles for Your Minis & Battlemats
It depends, really. Usually if one person can’t make it we press on. Depending on the game the character will either just not be around, or perhaps will just become “greyed out” and be ignored by the world… if more than one is out, generally we don’t do much of anything. Sometimes we get together anyways for dinner, or to watch a movie but more often than not we’ll just do our own thing.
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It usually depends on how many people are missing. If it’s just 1, maybe 2, then we will push on. But if they are central to what is going on, we will usually find something else to amuse ourselves. Right now, I just mainly play in some online games… I miss my table top games…. *le sigh*
When we established our game group, we set a quorum. Since we only have 5 player characters, we set the quorum at 4. So…if more than one player calls in absent, we cancel and set up another date. Fortunately, since the group restarted in September, this hasn’t happened. We give the missing player the option to have someone run his/her character for them. That way they don’t miss out on experience.
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@ Johnn – Nice to see you in my comments!!
Pitfinder sounds like an awesome job. My group tends to make up some story about the missing characters involved in salacious deeds.
What they said. One player missing = press on, more than that and we reschedule or cancel. And if it’s *me* that can’t make it, and rescheduling isn’t an option…then the players usually get together anyhow and watch some DVDs.
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If I have more than 3 players, we still play. Less, we postpone. So it depends on how many call.
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We were constantly dogged with people missing game. We did a number of different things. Sometimes we would run alter reality campaigns with the remaining group, sometimes we pressed on with the current game and the missing PCs were just missing. Usually off on their own side quest of sorts or they would have the halo of protection and be little more then NPCs.
From time to time we would just sit back and socialize. Never really game, just crack open a cold one and enjoy some table-talk.
I found people running late as much of as bother as people not coming at all. What did everyone do about late players?
Hmm…it depends for me too. If the notification of being unable to come is early, we might cancel the game for the benefit of everyone and maintaining a little continuity of the game. If it’s too late, we will press on and either the absent PC turns into a slave or disappears into thin air.
I’m curious to see what happens if one player doesn’t make it and I run the remaining players through a simple one shot.
So I’m not sure where to place my vote really. There’s 3 options for me to choose.
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hmmmm….
generally we’ve gamed if only one person was going to be missing, and sometimes with two (though that is awkward). I think the only time we didn’t with one person missing is when it was the person at whose house we were supposed to be gaming and he hadn’t let us know in advance…. *sigh* you know who you are
but usually….ya. It’s been hard enough to work in time for games that we pretty much figure a short or unfocused game is better than no game at all.
Like other, I mostly let the game continue unless more than 50% of the group is missing. I’ve actually only had 2 out 6 people show up to a session once. The worst part was no one even called to tell me until after the session was suppose to start.
Even more annoying was people who make it to a session and then tell you after an hour that they have to leave soon, as they have to be somewhere. They could have told me before we started. There nothing like turning a 3-4 hour session to less then 2 hours without prior knowledge.
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I think it heavily depends on who is not able to be there, how important he’s currently for the plot and if the general opinion is we should push forward. We hardly make breaks for one player missing, that’s sadly the status quo in our group – someone almost everytime is missing, but on the other hand we’ve learned to handle it pretty well I think.
And it rocks it is pretty much rpg-lite 
This year my gaming group bought me the Descent Boardgame with Expansion Pack for those afternoons when we’re not able to play because a DM is missing and no one feels like gaming or too many aren#t around or something else happens.
TheLemming´s last blog post..Problems of an Epic Campaign
I try to only play ongoing games with people who are serious about the commitment. As a result, this only comes up about once a month in one game or another. Still, life happens. When I GM, I have a very strict policy; if one person is gone, they’re an NPC for the session, more than that and we cancel. This happens regardless of how important/cool/integral they are in this portion of the plot. In the case of a cancellation, I let people know ASAP, and usually we wind up hanging out and talking.
I make no exceptions to this rule. I’ve gotten a little flak for this, but I tell people upfront and they get to cope. Most notably, in one run of Dragonlance Chronicles (which I’ve run an embarrassing number of times), we had a Solomnic Knight who had spent a number of feats on mounted combat. He missed the ONE session where he got to fight from the back of a dragon. Really, though it doesn’t matter to me as a GM if you’re missing because you scheduled a date knowing there was a conflict or because your beloved grandmother suddenly fell very ill and you want to be at the hospital in case of the worst. As a friend, I care and later it may affect invitations to future games, but for the purposes of the present session it doesn’t matter.
People have made a commitment to be there not just to have fun but also to contribute to the enjoyment of others. This is collaborative storytelling. I feel it’s only right to cancel if enough of the collaborators are missing to ruin the game. Otherwise, game on.
I’ve had GMs who invent excuses ranging from “big pink chair follows the party to carry vacant PC’s” to creating entirely new plotlines just so the missing person can have a solo make-up session. I feel that either one is a real disservice to the other players and that other players rarely know the PC as well as the GM. Therefore, the GM should play the part.
I have long since given up on using any XP-leveling system and won’t dock people anything for missing. If it becomes a problem, I may have to ask someone to step out of the game. Fortunately, I have yet to be put in that position.
We play as long as 4 people can make it, otherwise cancel and sometimes get together for other games. We usually know in advance if we are going to be short players.