What to do with Missing Players

Written by Harry

Oh the joy of a great scene! The excitement is fresh, the players are raring to go, the characters are set for action. Everyone is ready to explore the possibilities the scene has to offer. Game action begins rolling along and then suddenly…

…one of the players disappears.

Alright, no problem. You wait a day. Then another. Then you wait three or four days. The scene starts to lag and everyone realizes, “Hey. That player’s gone.” No one hears anything from the player and the scene is left with an inactive character and a gaping hole.

What Now?

What should you do in a case of a disappearing player? What if the character was integral to the scene or the current plot? Should you act as if this character never existed? Should someone create an in-game excuse for the player’s sudden disappearance?

I’ve been on both sides of this issue, as both player and Storyteller. No matter which side you’re on, it’s a frustrating situation and it’s also a little annoying. As a player, you’re left hanging and waiting on some action. As a Storyteller, you have to create a reason why the character isn’t active anymore.

In a best-case scenario, players who know they won’t be playing in the game anymore should be kind enough to notify fellow players and Storytellers of their retreat from scenes. This gives everyone ample time to fill in the blanks and work a solution into the story in a realistic manner.

Players sometimes find the commitment to a role-playing forum is more than they can handle. They’re often embarrassed to admit it. Sometimes it’s a lagging interest, because the game isn’t what they expected, but they don’t know how to tell others they’re just not having fun.

So, these people take the easy way out and just stop playing. More often than not, no one gets advance notice and no one ever knows the reasons for the disappearance. Not cool - but what can you do?

Storytellers are usually the ones who decide how to handle the issue. Here are some options a Storyteller might explore:

• Ignore it: Sometimes a character wasn’t all that important or impressive. The character may not have made much of a dent in a plot or scene. It’s sometimes easy to pretend that a character ever existed and just move on. Remaining players can use whatever past history they had with the missing character, but should move on as if the character was never really there.
• Create mystery: Sometimes a disappearance works well. It’s a timely moment and the missing character’s disappearance is discovered by remaining characters. That leads to extra plot and material for remaining players. What happened? Where did the character go? They may find the missing character and they may not. That character may have been murdered, taken by enemies or eaten by something that goes bump in the night.
• Use the character as an NPC: A Storyteller may opt to adopt a missing character and keep playing him as an NPC. If the character was a good one, why let him or her go to waste?
• Temporary absence: Some players who leave a game may want to return later when life is less busy. The character is written out of scenes, either by the departing player or Storytellers, and goes on a temporary hiatus. The character returns from his “adventures” at a later date.

For the most part, missing characters don’t interrupt flow of scenes or stories very much. With good storytelling strategies and so many options available, all it comes down to is using the imagination to make the disappearance work well. Most of the time, scenes don’t even skip a beat.

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