This is a Twitter poll for #dnd DMs. How do you typically handle PCs when a player can't make your D&D game? If none of these apply, reply with your alternative.
— SlyFlourish (@SlyFlourish) March 31, 2019
In home games, someone else runs the PC. I haven’t been super comfortable with that in my current livestream campaign, so they’ve been essentially vanishing for a session.
I suspect it’s still some lingering unfamiliarity with the medium. Oh, so I answered "fade away" for the poll.
— Dan Dillon (@Dan_Dillon_1) April 1, 2019
Seems to be the most common answer. We’re all adults and recognize why we have to hand-wave the story. Mmm, you know what? Thinking through it more, it's XP. Not doing standard XP awards makes me less worried about the character being present and risking death for the XP share.
In my stream game I'm using story-based leveling (or "eh, fuck it" leveling) so it doesn't matter.
— Dan Dillon (@Dan_Dillon_1) April 1, 2019
Agreed. Back when XP and Gold were so critical, we felt we had to run each other’s PCs so they didn’t fall behind. That's exactly the deal, yeah.
— Dan Dillon (@Dan_Dillon_1) April 1, 2019
We still did even gold/loot splits, but XP was a by-session thing, if the PC wasn't there, they didn't reap the rewards.
— Dan Dillon (@Dan_Dillon_1) April 1, 2019