Starting a campaign with my wife, and some friends. My wife being the most of the fence and mentioned maybe missing a session or two. So I just want to have some creative ways in my pocket to handle missing players and what ways to make it entertaining!
Thanks
After 15 years of playing I came to the very easy conclusion that, at the start of the game we talk about how we as a group would like to handle a missing player. What the group wants is often the best way.
My personal preferred method I always suggest along side that is “If a player is not there, their character is not there and we don’t try to explain it in game, we just play.” - it is in my experience by far the best way, not “But Pyke should still come with us and help us!” hour long discussions. No “Well sorry Dave, last session when you weren’t there, Gimmerleaf died.” garbage. No one is going to spend that PCs resources or make a judgement call on “what that character would do” or how they would react to things.
It keeps the agency squarely on that players court while letting the rest of you just keep playing without having a bunch of in game worries about an IRL issue that is not under your control.
Yeah trying to have the missing players’ PC still be “there” inevitably causes the party to want the DM to do the work of RPing that character.