Santicorn 25- Writing a Character Out
So someone flaked last minute, while your glorious heroes are in the midst of an epic and important adventure. You don't want to wait until next week, it would be a damn shame to waste anybody's precious time. You're here to game! So, how do we explain their character's disappearance, in a relatively unsilly manner? Personally, I just don't worry about it. One of the big benefits of this medium is that you can ignore story discrepancies. But this was my Secret Santicorn assignment, so I'll give it a shot! Some of these are taken from a discussion on The OSU's Tabletop Gaming Association discord.
Their character...
- Was called away on some other urgent mission that connects with one of the factions they're affiliated with or for some other deeply personal reasons. It's now that player's responsibility to come up with a short and interesting story about it next session. Maybe even give some XP for the trouble.
- Succumbed to wounds from a previous battle that didn't seem as serious as they could have been. They are now back in the closest settlement, nursing their wounds.
- Had or received a prophecy marking their doom. This prophecy could have included other characters as well, but leads this character to believe that their presence is the cause.
- Has lost some key resource or power, temporarily. A cleric may struggle with their faith, a magic user may have lost their connection to the magical world.
- Had their things stolen on the way over to the dungeon. They'll be back quickly, they swear.
- Went ahead to scope out the area. They haven't returned yet. strange....
- Fell behind and encountered some of the big bad's big goons. They won the fight, but lost valuable time.
- Encountered something strange and dangerous. Real x-files shit. They may have stumbled into a portal to another plane or entered a time bubble.
I tried to be mostly generic with all of these, but spruce them up to fit your setting and adventure. If you work with the player after the fact, you might even introduce some interesting adventure hooks.
Lastly, a final option suggested to me by a former president is to simply not remove the character from play. Tip toe around their existence and try not to kill the character or anything like that, but they can still prove useful to the game. Play them like a very important retainer. Thank you, Mr. President.
That's all I got.
Happy Holidays!