i have a session coming that a player is going to be absent from. i don't want to have the remaining 2 players or myself attempt to run the character as a standard player character, nor do i want drop the pc to the background.

has anyone attempted to come up with a happy middle ground?

I haven't tried it, but some initial thoughts are:

ignore any activated talents

allow only basic actions and mayne one more iconic action

the PC will not suffer and critical wounds, disease, mutations, or insanity (beyond the session) due to his absence. I think normal wounds are probably OK.

I almost always have the character run off and do something else..and we do not grant xp to a player who can't/doesn't show up. If they are crucial to be there, then we let people know that they are fair game to get killed off as well!

jh