Have you ever had a player who knew they would be late ahead of time and planned on still coming to the session?

I have a player who is either not going to be able to play until our monthly August session, or he will be about 2-3 hours late for our June session, but therefore he will be able to come. (We had to skip this May and do 2 sessions last month since there was too much going on with graduations, weddings, etc.and each session last about 6.5 hours)

This particular player told me that he will be missing both the June and July sessions, which puts him at a disadvantage because I don't award XP to players that aren't at the table, and they get about 20-25 per session, so he will be at least 40-50 xp behind everyone else.

I was thinking about putting his character in a coma, or prison, or something along those lines that would explain his absence, and give the rest of the group the ability to save/rescue him depending on the scenario. In the June session he would be late and the rest of the group would start on time, begin the mission to save him, then hopefully if time lines up...they will be able to get to him just as he arrives at my house to play.

Has anyone else ever done this?

40-50 XP isn't as dramatic a difference as other systems. I'm running a campaign that mixes +20, +75 and +150 characters and as long as the characters have different functional areas you almost can't tell the difference.

That' said, it's kinda a bad call to penalize a player for not attending a session he actually can't attend.

Maybe you can not award for sessions he didn't attend, but also give and XP bonus to him alone when he returns? You know, allow him to catch up quick?

That' said, it's kinda a bad call to penalize a player for not attending a session he actually can't attend.

Maybe you can not award for sessions he didn't attend, but also give and XP bonus to him alone when he returns? You know, allow him to catch up quick?

I thought about doing that, but since we only play once a month I feel if you make other plans after we have already planned every session for the year, then you don't get the XP. We always play the second Saturday of every month and everyone is aware that the expectation is if you can't come due to extenuating circumstances or a very important even comes up (wedding, funeral, work, etc.), then you normally won't get the XP.

I know that some GM's will have a problem with that, but I like to reward players that show up and set aside the time to play since it takes quite awhile to build a session.

I know this may sound trivial, but his excuses for not showing up are honestly pretty lame and the group agrees on that point...so it's even more frustrating. Luckily after talking to him he said he can try to show up a few hours after the session starts so he will at least not be out of the game for 3 whole months. I'm curious if anyone ever lined up events like that and how it worked out.

Let the player make up some or all of the experience with "off the table" stuff. Ask him to write a short story explaining his character's absence, or do a back-and-forth e-mail chain that uses the power of narrative instead of dice to determine what he's been up to.

With this system, of all systems, I would strongly recommend you put the burden of the narrative on the player.

As for issues with PCs of unequal XP level, I have done this in the past:

- PCs earn 5XP per hour of actual play time.

- NEW players who come into the campaign start at 50% of the average XP of the current players, and earn XP at double rate until they catch up to the next lowest player.

- If you miss a session, find something to do outside the game to contribute, and it'll be worth 5XP per hour it took you. (Don't be a liar.) Do a write up of what your PC was up to; make an organized loot list for the party; illustrate a scene or NPC; make a party theme song or playlist; etc.

There is literally no point in rewards and penalties for players imho. The reward for us as games should be in the playtime and not in some xp. And if someone can only join late than it is very easy to find something for the character of that player to do, he could do the shopping for the group, he could be busy crafting, which can played in advance in a private session or he could be even scouting or monitoring a location, something which requires not much dice roles / table time, but requires a lot ingame time. The rest of the group can do something which requires a lot table time and similar amount of ingame time.

Crafting is here the easiest option.

All of my players are coworkers and we're all pretty close, so in the case that we have someone arriving late everyone else group plays their character. There is an unspoken agreement that they won't do anything 'rash' with the character if it isn't profoundly in character to do so. Everyone has a pretty good idea of what everyone else is going for with their characters, so it has yet to be an issue. That said, attendance is great so it doesn't come up often.

I frequently had players with Obligations outside the game, sometimes upwards of 10 points! When someone couldn't make it or had to show up late, I usually attributed it to a minor ailment and came up with a Dramatically Appropriate Moment for them to join the action. Fortunately we didn't run into moments that made this impossible.

I always felt penalizing an absent player by withholding XP hurts everyone. For example, if player 'Joe' misses a session (to no fault of his own) and his character doesn't receive XP, then it's the overall group that suffers when 'Joe' needs to make a crucial roll and/or perform an crucial action that could save a fellow PC's life, or even the overall group. Now, 'Joe' not receiving XP is unfair to the other players in the group who didn't miss sessions.

Secondly, if you penalize the same player multiple times, who again to no fault of his own can't attend, it will get to a point that the player will lose interest. At best, your friend will now simply enjoy the game a lot less, but, at worst, this player may feel he can't catch up to everyone else and just quit. In my humble opinion, this is penalizing a friend for having a life.

Lastly, this is just a hobby. It's just a silly game. None of us can spend this magical XP in the real world. Real life issues and responsibilities are always going to trump sitting down and playing pretend. We do this because it's fun. To that end, I'd rather have a friend excited to sit down and spend some XP versus that same friend being bummed because he's penalized. The player being absent doesn't mean the character is absent. The GM can play the character (someone needs to guard the ship, right?).

Being forced to miss hanging out with our friends and missing a fun session is punishment enough. When my players miss a session, I just double their XP rewards until they are caught up with everybody else. This is working for us.

IMO, it all depends on why the guy is missing the game.

If he really wants to be there and he knows that certain personal or work-related issues will keep him from attending on certain dates, then I wouldn’t be inclined to penalize him too much. Several posters above have some good ideas on ways that he could make it up, including doing some things outside of the game.

But if he’s just lazy and can’t be bothered to show up reliably, then I think that hurts the game and everyone involved. In that case, I think you might want to consider whether you really want to game with the guy at all, but if you do then penalties for not showing up should definitely be strongly considered.

In the game I recently ran, we had some people who were more regular, and some who weren’t. If you showed up, you got XP for whatever happened that night, even if the XP wasn’t immediately awarded. If you didn’t show up, then your character was assumed to be in bed sick or something, and you didn’t get XP because you didn’t participate in the game.

We very rarely did anything with PCs when their respective player wasn’t there, but there were a few occasions.

Of course, this was for a game that was usually scheduled on a weekly basis, and sometimes I couldn’t be there myself, and not for lack of trying. We all understood that sometimes things happened, and I think we all understood that some people would be more reliable about always showing up. I don’t think anyone in our group had a problem with the way we handed out XP, and I think it was generally fair to everyone involved.

But if he’s just lazy and can’t be bothered to show up reliably, then I think that hurts the game and everyone involved. In that case, I think you might want to consider whether you really want to game with the guy at all, but if you do then penalties for not showing up should definitely be strongly considered.

That is the most silly thing I heard all morning, admittedly, I just had breakfast. What is the point to with an issue which lies not within the gameplay itself to punish with game mechanics. What is the point to punish here at all? Talk to the guy if it bothers you and that's it. If he is still fun to play with then play with him and if not then just stop doing it. There is literally no point for punishment.

Not that disagree on principle with withholding xp from inactive characters, but that is based on simulation aspects of the game purely and not on some silly out of game punishments for the player. Game night is leisure time and if your impression of a player is that is he is "too lazy" to show up to your session this usually means that your game is too boring for the player to waste his precious time with.

I always felt penalizing an absent player by withholding XP hurts everyone. For example, if player 'Joe' misses a session (to no fault of his own) and his character doesn't receive XP, then it's the overall group that suffers when 'Joe' needs to make a crucial roll and/or perform an crucial action that could save a fellow PC's life, or even the overall group. Now, 'Joe' not receiving XP is unfair to the other players in the group who didn't miss sessions.

I'm really not trying to feed the trolls, but I think I might have to in this case.

SemperSarge, for all that I agree with a lot of your post (you may have seen that I posted earlier that I also use the "double XP gain" method to help missing players catch up), you don't seem to know what the verb "to penalize" means.

The verb is a transitive verb both in the technical grammatical sense and in its connotation. When you penalize someone or something, you take an active response to the offending party's having committed some penalty-worthy act and you take a new action specifically in response. Benefitting someone else for something, especially if that benefit would have been awarded regardless of anyone else's action or presence, is not and cannot be, categorically, a penalty to someone else.

E.g.: if I give my players--Bruce, Diana, and Clark--XP for a session they play in, but I do not give XP to Lex because he was not in that session, I am NOT penalizing Lex. I would have to specifically alter the norms of the situation in order to penalize Lex by, say, giving extra XP to Bruce, Diana, and Clark; or by imposing Setback dice on Lex for his PC having missed an important rest period or some such. I think (hope) we would all agree this would be draconian and none of us would consider it.

But I will not abide a player at my table who expects to earn things he or she has not earned, simply because other people have taken an active effort to earn those things. If we were talking about earning credits, I think there's a different (stronger, perhaps) argument to be made in the case of material rewards like credits or gear, but that doesn't change the issue I take with your point of view.

XP, as a resource, is limited, but not finite. In economic terms, the Russian and Chinese investors buying up all the real estate in Manhattan and central London is a problem, because the less-than-grotesquely-wealthy are literally and physically running out of places to live. In this case, the gain of some does materially mean a penalty to others, and the others have a right to feel entitled to pick a fight about it. XP is not something you can actually have stolen from you by direct or indirect means, even symbolically.

No player in an RPG has the right to take umbrage at the GM and his or her fellow players for what they earned in their hobby, and this kind of so-called "player entitlement" is as pernicious and immature as any other petty jealousy, and as likely to sow discord among people who invest a lot of time, care, energy, and imagination in their hobbies.

I always felt penalizing an absent player by withholding XP hurts everyone. For example, if player 'Joe' misses a session (to no fault of his own) and his character doesn't receive XP, then it's the overall group that suffers when 'Joe' needs to make a crucial roll and/or perform an crucial action that could save a fellow PC's life, or even the overall group. Now, 'Joe' not receiving XP is unfair to the other players in the group who didn't miss sessions.

I'm really not trying to feed the trolls, but I think I might have to in this case.

SemperSarge, for all that I agree with a lot of your post (you may have seen that I posted earlier that I also use the "double XP gain" method to help missing players catch up), you don't seem to know what the verb "to penalize" means.

The verb is a transitive verb both in the technical grammatical sense and in its connotation. When you penalize someone or something, you take an active response to the offending party's having committed some penalty-worthy act and you take a new action specifically in response. Benefitting someone else for something, especially if that benefit would have been awarded regardless of anyone else's action or presence, is not and cannot be, categorically, a penalty to someone else.

E.g.: if I give my players--Bruce, Diana, and Clark--XP for a session they play in, but I do not give XP to Lex because he was not in that session, I am NOT penalizing Lex. I would have to specifically alter the norms of the situation in order to penalize Lex by, say, giving extra XP to Bruce, Diana, and Clark; or by imposing Setback dice on Lex for his PC having missed an important rest period or some such. I think (hope) we would all agree this would be draconian and none of us would consider it.

But I will not abide a player at my table who expects to earn things he or she has not earned, simply because other people have taken an active effort to earn those things. If we were talking about earning credits, I think there's a different (stronger, perhaps) argument to be made in the case of material rewards like credits or gear, but that doesn't change the issue I take with your point of view.

XP, as a resource, is limited, but not finite. In economic terms, the Russian and Chinese investors buying up all the real estate in Manhattan and central London is a problem, because the less-than-grotesquely-wealthy are literally and physically running out of places to live. In this case, the gain of some does materially mean a penalty to others, and the others have a right to feel entitled to pick a fight about it. XP is not something you can actually have stolen from you by direct or indirect means, even symbolically.

No player in an RPG has the right to take umbrage at the GM and his or her fellow players for what they earned in their hobby, and this kind of so-called "player entitlement" is as pernicious and immature as any other petty jealousy, and as likely to sow discord among people who invest a lot of time, care, energy, and imagination in their hobbies.

This was the best and most hilarious response I've received on these forums. I love you guys.

But if he’s just lazy and can’t be bothered to show up reliably, then I think that hurts the game and everyone involved. In that case, I think you might want to consider whether you really want to game with the guy at all, but if you do then penalties for not showing up should definitely be strongly considered.

That is the most silly thing I heard all morning, admittedly, I just had breakfast. What is the point to with an issue which lies not within the gameplay itself to punish with game mechanics. What is the point to punish here at all? Talk to the guy if it bothers you and that's it. If he is still fun to play with than play with him and if not than just stop doing it. There is literally no point for punishment.

Not that disagree on principle with withholding xp from inactive characters, but that is based on simulation aspects of the game purely and not on some silly out of game punishments for the player. Game night is leisure time and if your impression of a player is that is he is "too lazy" to show up to your session this usually means that your game is too boring for the player to waste his precious time with.

My group and I had a similar problem with one of our friends. He was undependable and would arrive late to sessions... if he arrived at all. It was indeed a bummer that negatively impacted our sessions. Anyway, we found out many months later that he was having marital problems. We quickly went from being annoyed at him to feeling guilty we weren't more supportive friends. Gaming was a lot easier when we were in college with a lot less responsibilities and obligations.

Every GM is going to do what works best for them and their group. As long as everyone is having fun then we're doing it right. It's just a game. One solution we had was for the infrequent player to play a NPC. Or, in this case, change the PC into a NPC. If the player showed up, then he could play his character. Regardless, the character continued to earn XP normally. I found this kept the character beneficial to the group versus an underpowered concern or hindrance. Eventually this player needed to exit the group, but life trumps hobby.

To each their own. Personally, I just don't see XP as all that important. Awarding 5 XP an hour, plus a little bonus for reaching milestones, sounds great. Story and plot is more important to me personally. With that focus, I have avoided many of these XP issues and our focus stays on having fun.

Ender07, on 11 May 2016 - 10:29 AM, said:Ender07, on 11 May 2016 - 10:29 AM, said:

Ghostofman, on 11 May 2016 - 10:05 AM, said:Ghostofman, on 11 May 2016 - 10:05 AM, said:

That' said, it's kinda a bad call to penalize a player for not attending a session he actually can't attend.

Maybe you can not award for sessions he didn't attend, but also give and XP bonus to him alone when he returns? You know, allow him to catch up quick?

I thought about doing that, but since we only play once a month I feel if you make other plans after we have already planned every session for the year, then you don't get the XP. We always play the second Saturday of every month and everyone is aware that the expectation is if you can't come due to extenuating circumstances or a very important even comes up (wedding, funeral, work, etc.), then you normally won't get the XP.

I know that some GM's will have a problem with that, but I like to reward players that show up and set aside the time to play since it takes quite awhile to build a session.

I know this may sound trivial, but his excuses for not showing up are honestly pretty lame and the group agrees on that point...so it's even more frustrating. Luckily after talking to him he said he can try to show up a few hours after the session starts so he will at least not be out of the game for 3 whole months. I'm curious if anyone ever lined up events like that and how it worked out.

If I have a player who came always late because he have other obligation before the starting time of the game session, I would work with him so he could be here on time, either switching date or starting hour. Penalizing him is a terrible idea. Like SemperSage said, you penalize him for having a life outside your gaming group.

Missing a session means missing the fun. If you cannot make it, you are not part of the awesome stories, silly jokes and all the rest that makes this hobby great. I see no need to refrain from granting the same XP to all players in addition to that. Players who miss sessions are already heavily penalized in the fun department. I have experienced a player missing a session with one of the most awesome moments, which still gets referenced almost 15 years later, and I know that this alone sucks.

That goes for regular rounds. I have run open tables and the like in which only attending players earned XP, which was simply due to a 50+ player pool in a strict sandbox campaign.

This was the best and most hilarious response I've received on these forums. I love you guys.

A fine re-trolling, SemperSarge. Love and kisses right back atcha.

I've gamed with players who were consistently 30 minutes late. It got to the point to where told them the game started 30 minutes earlier and they would show up when the game really started.

Thank you for all the responses thus far, you guys are great!

I feel that this topic went off on the "should I award XP," instead of "Have you ever had a player arrive mid-session?" though...

On that note, I do have to make a comment on the XP portion...I agree more with BrickSteelHead's statement that when you withhold XP, it's not a penalty (see above), but at the same time I give them opportunities to earn the XP out of game by posting a short story to Obsidian Portal or posting a game summary, and now I have a few more ideas of what I can have people do.

My main question was regarding the issue with the player coming 2-2.5 hours late to the session and making things line up with the story that he can arrive and then play pretty quickly when the storyline revolves around possibly saving/rescuing him. Although after reading through this, I will give him the option to write something else up and I can go a different way...I just think that making this a rescue type mission to save "one of their own" might be a fun way to drop him into the fray a couple of hours in.

Has anyone ever had to time things just right so these types of moments lined up with real-life in your games?

My main question was regarding the issue with the player coming 2-2.5 hours late to the session and making things line up with the story that he can arrive and then play pretty quickly when the storyline revolves around possibly saving/rescuing him. Although after reading through this, I will give him the option to write something else up and I can go a different way...I just think that making this a rescue type mission to save "one of their own" might be a fun way to drop him into the fray a couple of hours in.

Has anyone ever had to time things just right so these types of moments lined up with real-life in your games?

I've found that I can't count on that sort of timing working out. If I know someone's going to be that late, I'll generally state that their character is present but not at the fore. In a discussion they're just encouraging others to make the decision, and in fights they're taking care of other enemies just off screen. If they can still show up and contribute, then as far as I'm concerned they get the full XP of the session. And if it's a consistent issue, I'll talk to them about moving the start time or the like. I just can't anticipate the pace of how a game's going to unfold, especially if we're heading towards the end of an arc and stuff like pacing and where the PCs are going is reactionary to player decisions.

However, if they're going to miss most of the session (ours tend to last about four hours every other week) and it's a one-time thing, I'll tell them not to worry about making it to game. If something's interfering that much, they're not likely to be in a good mood when they get to the table, and if the session's already three-quarters done or more they won't feel good about it even if whatever caused them to be late was positive. If they're really worried about XP I can work out something one-on-one, and if I know a player's going to be absent it's easier to plan something like "They've been captured" or "They're off on a separate mission."

It all comes down to being flexible and understanding. Besides, which kind of GM do you want to be perceived to be: the guy who's there for his players, or the tyrant of the table?

Has anyone ever had to time things just right so these types of moments lined up with real-life in your games?

I have tried it, but it rarely works out. These days I usually have the character of the absentee linger in the background, or do something off-screen. In important scenes, I might narrate a bit according to the actions of the PCs; for example, in combat the character will fare about the same as the rest of the PCs, but no dice are being rolled.

If a new player enters a campaign, I try to get the new character into the game as soon as possible, so that everybody at the table can play. Sometimes the players' fun trumps plot.

So I was just told by another one of my players that they could be late by an hour or two to the next session (he said he is not sure and may be on-time but he doesn't know), and we already have one person who is not showing up. That leaves 3 of 5 players available...would you still go ahead and play, then just wait for the player to show and continue as usual...or cancel the session entirely?

considering you just play once a month and for like 7 hours, canceling or waiting would be stupid. Go ahead and play.

On another side, your game session are probably too long. You and your players are no longer kids. it is normal to not have always 6-7 hours of free time a saturday for roleplaying because of job, kids, etc. The fact that you have now a second player that could arrive an hour late seem to illustrate that problem.

So I was just told by another one of my players that they could be late by an hour or two to the next session (he said he is not sure and may be on-time but he doesn't know), and we already have one person who is not showing up. That leaves 3 of 5 players available...would you still go ahead and play, then just wait for the player to show and continue as usual...or cancel the session entirely?

Do you own Imperial Assault or X-Wing? That's usually what me and my group play while waiting on everyone else.

While it is true that it would be frustrating to have to cancel because of attendance, when you have only 3 people there it becomes a bit more difficult to plan a full session when people can't show.

And yes...we are no longer kids, but we all didn't start playing RPG's until Nov. of 2014, we don't have any kids of our own, and we planned all of our sessions for the same day every month to accommodate all of our on-calls, weekend hours, and stuff like that... Plus we like to get together for awhile once a month because this is usually the only time that all of us guys get to hang out as a full group. If we tried to run it any more often with shorter sessions, attendance would be even worse.

This is really the first time this happened in terms of attendance problems, and like I mentioned in my original post, we have 1 person who has had unexpected work conflicts when he wasn't supposed to be working, 1 person who had a couple family get-togethers come up, and then this other guy who has another obligation to attend to...but it all has come up very recently and we never had issues with our core group of 4 that we started out with.