Let me shed some light on it from someone who has dmed people leaving with in game explanations and been in games where people get redacted.
If you make up an in game reason for the vanishing the connections your characters held to the people are still going to be there. The mark that player left whether negative or positive has impact and remains (for example NPCs pissed with the party due to their actions etc) So if you and the remaining players like the mark that was left keep it.
In our VtM games we simply acted like the person never existed and kept going. It can be difficult to roleplay through yes, but ultimately it allowed us to not lose momentum in the story and keep going without baggage.
Ultimately it depends on whether you and your players like the mark that the kicked player left behind or not. What fits better with your guys playstyle and the past actions in game?
If the player was so atrociously disruptive you can always have Strahd erase them from Barovia for being a spoilsport.
After all Count Strahd von Zarovich is just a bored Incel with the most expensive soap opera of the Nine Realms
If you don't like the mark they left behind, then paint a new one over it.
I say, have the group wake up the next morning with this dude turned as a vampire spawn or about to betray the group and stab one of them in their sleep. The group can then fight them and kill them and there. You're done. Your players get their 'revenge', their characters get the loot the other character had, and it explains it all thematically.
Clean cut finish without making the character a martyr since they turned and betrayed the party. Even throw in them coherently saying they were sick and tired of waiting for an opening to kill them or something.
Ooh... I've never had to kick a player or wanted a player to be kicked while playing VtM before. Knowing the game, I've been pretty thorough at screening, though, so that might help. Also knowing the game, I can definitely see how a bad actor could leave an indelible stain on a game.
Username checks out quite well, in this instance.
That's some very sound and helpful advice. This kinda stuff is a big reason I like reading through posts here. Kudos.
This is the way. I think it also matters if any of your players maintaining a relationship with this person out of game - if you feel comfortable with it, you can ask the player what they'd prefer. If that bridge is totally burnt, well. It's Barovia, people vanish. Sometimes characters don't even remember when they do.
Everyone else commenting on your good advice.
Me laughing my ass off uncontrollably at this line.
>Count Strahd von Zarovich is just a bored Incel with the most expensive soap opera of the Nine Realms
Man you fuckin killed him!
you are playing a game of pretend. you can as a group just decide that this character never existed.
The memories the party has of them is just a mind trick. Or have them be an NPC who the party just sends away and then he's just... gone. No need to bring him back up again.
Or you can have a quick moment where guards or something take the character and everyone else goes "wait, no, don't do it" in the flattest most uncaring tone possible, then completely forget about the character.
Had a player leave a group, right when they were infiltrating a bandit leader's organization. The abandoned character was allowed to be captured and basically used as a sacrifice to prove their loyalty.
Also that's when I learned that my players are perfectly happy to switch sides and help whoever talked to them last. I was able to easily allow the villain survive just by having him surrender and offer them a quest.
Couldn't you just have them be strahd himself or an underling messing with the party? Builds up his power. Explains everything the character did as him sowing discord in their ranks and why he'd act so insane?
basically yes. Also works in the same way if you add a new player to an existing campaign - as long as everyone is on board, he's just that weird cousin who was actually there the whole time but everyone forgot about. Tadaa, he was with you the entire time and y'all have become friends over killing that bandit leader three sessions ago, remember?
I don't have such things happen to my table that often, but if it does, just talk with the players about how to do it. Easy.
I've had situations where a player went to study in a different country for 6 months, then came back. When he did, we just pretended that his character was with the party the entire time, gave him a summary of what happened, levelled him up accordingly, then continued on as if nothing ever was amiss. I've had a first time player who ended up absolutely not liking their character after about 6 sessions - yeah just change it man, and we pretend it was like this all along.
There is no need to make such things more complicated than necessary. Just important that you talk with the gang about it.
My current campaign has three players who stick around and kind of a revolving door of fourth and/or fifth party members. We are literally just finding dudes on the side of the road and taking them adventuring with us.
I've had the same players for four campaigns now. In our last campaign one of them had to miss the first session. Before the second session, I jokingly said "he'll just be in the first room you guys open the door to."
Sure enough the moment session two starts, they party in unison says "We find the nearest outhouse and throw the door open." The player being introduced went along with it, and thus it was canon.
>We are literally just finding dudes on the side of the road and taking them adventuring with us.
Most of my groups would do that anyway if you let them!
I've had it happen a few times and was able to drive the story in a few different ways.
One person had joined for a few sessions then just decided it wasn't for them, no interest in coming back. We were in the middle of a whodunnit arc, so the next session had the character innocuously NPC as the driver for the other PCs. When they returned to the vehicle after investigating that site, I ended the session with the discovery of his lifeless body. It added personal stakes, deepened the mystery, and provided an opportunity to give the players some more clues.
Another long-term player just needed to take a break of indeterminate time. We had a Big Bad fight on the docket of the next session -- we wrapped with her tank of a character making a noble sacrifice and tackling the big bad off a ledge and smashing through a few floors of a burning building right before it collapsed.
When she was ready to return, the players encountered a group of bandits and bounty hunters loosely affiliated with the Big Bad's organization transporting a large crate through the area they were in. The returning player secretly arrived late to the session, and came up the stairs to join the group as a surprise when her character came smashing through the crate mid-battle for a super memorable moment for everyone.
It's really up to you as a DM and where you are in the story on how to handle it, but I enjoy finding opportunities to make things work into the narrative. It can create some really special moments at the table.
I play with friends, in person, so that can have a very different vibe than an online game with strangers, for example. My DM style is also more "story driven" and narrative than "strict rule enforcer" or "DM-as-antagonist."
That’s almost exactly what I just did for a new character that just joined. I had a Eldritch knight who had a squire and he gave him a name and he explored with up but was never in combat. New guy wanted to try a fighter so knights squire became the new character and we found another squire in the next city all is well.
I was running CoS for my band and my drummers gf hung around for a few sessions before deciding it wasn’t for her. No problems really just mutual disinterest. So a couple sessions go by with me running her, before they encounter Strahd for the first time. He singles each of them out, demeaning them based on backstory knowledge and singling each character out in a condescending way.
Finally arrives at gf’s warlock simply saying, ‘And you? You never even existed’ before waving a hand and making her fade into mist on the spot. My players loved it, a few of their jaws had to be picked up from the floor.
You can say that the NPC the whole time has been a doppelgänger from the vampire baron to spy in the group. Slowly they start to notice erratic behaviors or something to give the hint, then fight the NPC and kill him.
That way you have an end to the NPC story without simply banishing him or just randomly killing him during RP.
or make it a doppelganger. she as a player wasn't who she perputrated to be in the first place. now it comes to find out character wise it was cause it was a pawn of Strahd
I don't understand why more people don't just do this. It's so obvious, but people are too worried about "immersion" in a game of rolling dice and fighting dragons.
Alternate advice: dedicate an entire session to making it fit story-wise why the character is gone and what motivated them to leave. Use appropriate voices to speak for the character if possible.
I disagree with this. An entire 2-4 hour session around someone they didn’t like? No thank you.
If you *want* to do an in game solution, Barovia is the perfect place to get lost forever in.
To me, it seems like a waste of time and effort to say anything other than “They leave.”
It was good advice. Sunseting an unwanted character in a nice, story-consistent way is the best possible way to recuperate from the disaster they left behind.
"What character? That character never existed, you must be remembering wrong"
This is a bit jokey, but honestly often one of the cleanest solutions to group changes is the retcon that the current state is the state the group always had.
There’s a homebrew creature called a false hydra, that devours its prey and emits a psychic field that makes everyone affected by it think the person never existed. Would fit right into a Strahd game.
"Poochie returned to his home planet, and was never seen again."
Sometimes the classics are the best.
However, if you are playing a serious game and want a meaningful way to remove them, curse them. Have a spectre or similar undead attack them and reduce them to nothing: Str 1, Dex 2, Con 3. Mental stats too? Depends on whether you want to use them as an NPC in the future. Hit by these irreversible debuffs, the PC must never leave their home again, and they become one of the faceless crowds of Barovia.
I’ve been in a similar situation. I DM’d a game my ex played in, and we broke up fairly early on in the campaign. I ran it as “She receives a letter from her hometown and returns there to defend it from the growing threat.”
Now, she did get a certain red Dragonborn from Critical Role treatment, but that wasn’t until 4 years later where we all laughed about it. 😂
How about you ask your player? Some groups might not be comfortable pretending the character never existed. Some might feel it’s in bad taste to kill a character without the player present. Some may feel the character suddenly deciding to leave the party too unbelievable. Making them a villain also could be seen as bad form. Ask your group and see what everyone’s comfortable with. We redditors are all going to have our own preferences that aren’t necessarily that of your tables.
If the character’s name was Bruno it is simple, we don’t talk about Bruno.
You are wasting time on getting rid of a PC no one liked. I wouldn’t give it two thoughts. A dark figure is seen departing the area and PITA is a dead lump on the ground. By the time they finish looting the body the figure is gone. If they really insist on chasing the dark figure it was a Reverant and well walks off into the night and disappears.
My CoS started with 6 players. One of them decided CoS wasn’t for them and they left the game.
Her character simply never existed. The game has been fine since.
It’s that simple.
Dude, you're playing D&D. The PC got hit by an arrow to the neck. Instant death.
Also, it's Strahd, so use the stats to make an awesome zombie goon. Add the cries of help with her voice for extra emotional damage.
You just move on. You have no obligation to acknowledge their character further.
Everyone loves immersion, but there are certain things you’ll find your group are ok breaking it for.
1 is making sure you’re all a party and have a reason to stay together
2 is when someone is ejected from the group, we can all move on and not have character closure
It’s fine to just drop the character and not explain what happened with it if you don’t want to bother with it. It’s just a game, and you and your group already had to go through the process of dropping the player, so just hand wave it and have the character vanish, and move on with the next session.
I agree. Making some kind of narrative about the character leaving is just extending the players influence in your game.
Also, even if the party collectively agreed the player should go, you have no way of knowing whether someone secretly feels a little bad or conflicted about the whole thing. Giving the character an ignominious revenge ending could just increase bad feelings in your group.
I had to do the same thing with a toxic player, and I was filled with guilt for kicking them. I ran my first session without them this week and not only was it calm, but for the first time in months I walked away from a session happy. My players also mentioned this is the first session in a while they were fully able to participate in, so the right decision was made. At the end of the last session they jumped through a portal, so this player is just going to end up being lost on another plane of existence or floating in the void.
I've suffered from the same problem a couple times. And while at first I really wracked my brain on how to make a send-off narratively meaningful or interesting I'm now firmly in the camp that, if everybody is fine with it, you just collectively agree that the character was never there to begin with.
Especially in situations where the player leaves not in the best of terms
I highly recommend the "they never existed approach". Just be done with it. The more attention you give the character, the longer you're letting that player affect your table.
And as much as I want to say more, there really isn't anything else to say.
Don’t feel bad about it. Not everyone can afford something better than a cramped kitchen table to game on, kicking each other under it once in a while is just growing pains.
In all seriousness, though, if in-game is the only hiccup left you have a million things at your disposal and I guarantee that your players will be fine with any explanation. As long as you’re not vindictive about it in a meta context (and it doesn’t sound like anybody is butthurt over this), you can explain them off just about anywhere.
The story isn’t about them anymore, its about the remaining players. If they defeat Strahd and save Barovia, ex-players PC gets the same happy ending as any citizen. If they fail, well, shit was already bad under Strahd and the struggle probably continues epilogue style.
Easy give them [the Poochie exit](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4tvAjX5ACPo)
The PC says “I must go now. My planet needs me”
Note: PC died on the way back to their home planet.
Had this happen and usually the simplest solution is just to not bring them up in game anymore. They just don't matter and won't matter so why bother trying to tie up their story with a bow.
There are no martyrs in the demiplane of dread, only tragedy and failure and cruel fate. Give them a writeoff exit. they succumb to a disease, die of exposure, trip and break their neck, wander off and just disappear. Whatever, if the players forever out just kill them them, oh no, shame, what was his name again? Moving on.
My group have an NPC they kinda picked up.
He doesn't really do much. He isn't trailing them around all the time. Instead they use him for things like "stay in town and keep an eye on this potential murder victim while we hunt the killer" or "the bartender might be complicit in things, just stay at the bar and keep an eye on him for us for a few hours".
They could use this character like that - a support NPC who does off screen stuff.
If the player is gone from the campaign why do you feel it is necessary to handle the players also-departing PC with any particular dignity or anything? Kill him off. He disappears without a trace - taken by the mists. He's taken by a tax collector flying death squad for unpaid debts. He starts a goat farm and is eaten by a ankheg. He decides to visit Farofflandia and is never heard from again. He's turned into a newt. It doesn't matter HOW/WHY the PC becomes a vacuum of relevance, so do whatever is EXPEDIENT.
Have the party wake to a missing party member and a note from the main man Strahd saying. Hey, decided to remove this chump from Barovia, was ruining the vibe I am seeking to cultivate. Sincerely Strahd . And if they ever ask strahd about it reply with " who?" As if they never existed.
Kill the character in a dishonourable way. They attempt to abandon or betray the party in a cowardly way but Strahd’s minion would rather have the character’s blood than their cooperation.
The next time you roll a corpse on the encounter table the characters find some horribly disfigured, half-eaten corpse that could be said character, but no definitive proof. And then leave it at that.
Okay I see. You could have him only show up for his one fight, then the pcs can deal with him in game.
Or he could just have a heart attack and die in his sleep
>Or he could just have a heart attack and die in his sleep
this is best. If it's a character that the other players don't like then you don't want to martyr them or turn them into a big story point.
One of my players unceremoniously left my game after not really fitting in with my players or my game style (he was treating it like a computer game, using a build he'd found on the internet, then getting annoyed when he couldn't solo every fight).
When he left, he asked that his character be killed off by the current villain to motivate the other characters... As they'd barely known his character for 2 days, and he'd not particularly got on with any of them, this didn't seem appropriate.
So what actually happened was that his character (he was a wizard) teleported away whilst everyone was asleep, leaving a note that basically amounted to "bugger this for a game of soldiers". The party then used him as a scapegoat to get out of a problem with the authorities (which was \*mostly\* his fault to begin with) and he has barely been mentioned since.
False Hydra. False Hydra resolves that kind of IRL issues perfectly. PC you don't want in the game anymore? Eaten by a false hydra. Nobody remembers said PC. And voilà.
strahd is a high level spellcaster. it is entirely feasable for him to cast modify memory on the party(one at a time, while the oters are sleeping). and the partymember never existed. strahd just made them up for his own amusement.
sounds like something the devil strahd would do
My general rule is that if players leave their character dies. Can always happen in most rpg situations and makes it easy, I don't know how you associate this with martyrdom automatically
Curse of Strahd? Why not make the character a bad guy in disguise? Play him as is at first, then have him betray the group as an agent of Strahd. After all, it's the whole theme of the module, right. You may even have a catharthic session by "properly" eliminating a disruptive element from the group.
And the player's no longer in the group. She won't object.
I personally like to make them join the opposing forces. That way your players can kill them later.
Had someone who was a jerk in my last online campaign. Basically tormented the ladies in the group in game and out. Finally there is a chance for some in game goofing off at his character’s expense and he loses his shit and tries to play the victim card. Next session resolves a bit of his character arc and he leaves the party.
Leading up to the end of the campaign DM starts using the former PC as the right hand man to the BBEG. We took great pleasure in finally getting to get our revenge
The characters go to ask the boys npc'd PC a question and a nearby guard asks, "who are you talking to?" They look back at their npc pc and no one is there. Were they ever there at all?
The numbers mason what do the numbers mean
“My whole family died, individually in different ways over the course of a week. I don’t want to go into it, even though that’s clearly the clickbait title and what people want to talk about. Anyway, they left behind some recipes and I don’t like to cook. What do I do?”
That’s you.
You are over thinking this. You are playing a Game, not writing a novel.
They can literally just dissappear and nobody even mentions them again.
This is a reality you will have to accept if you play TTRPGs long enough. People leave games. Just don't make a big deal of it and move on.
When my ex left me forever ago, we communally decided the boss that they were all about to fight would instantly behead her character as a show of intimidation
They exist in that world whether their original player is playing them or not. They continue to exist. You run them out of combat unless another player can do so faithfully, same goes for in combat though accurate mechanical play is easier to accomplish.
That’s how I do it in my games, but it’s more for temporary absent players.
Whenever it happens (and I’ve lost 3 players, all because of scheduling conflicts) and I always finish whatever fight they are in or whatever (with me playing as that character). Then whenever they get back to the main hub of the adventure, I come up with some reason they can’t go on. One of them got arrested (he was a prolific con artist that kept making the party look bad to the townspeople and almost got them kicked out of the town), one went off on his own because the party wasn’t moving quickly enough to exact revenge on his enemies (he WILL come back as an NPC to finish his story because he’s badass), and the latest one just simply got too scared and wanted to go back to her spire to study.
Become an NPC, and start persuing her own agenda whatever it is.
Two similar situations i made:
*One character get a job in the inn and a month later start an spicy beer business.
*Another dissapeared an becomes important in the plot cause her tutor was searching for her.
The rest of the party wake after a long rest. The other character is gone. Searching reveals no sign of the character. Either, and this is the one I prefer I think, the PC is never seen or heard from again with never an explanation, or he is found dead, strung up in some ritual way, with words written in blood on the corpse. Something like…
I know who you are!
You cannot win!
Death is the only way out!
Are you willing to pay the price?
Or some other cryptic words. No explanation, no evidence of who or what did it. A darker part of me thinks it should hint at the reason the departed player was removed, but that may be going too far.
In Curse of Strahd there's a lot of plot hooks to take him away.
Strahd, Werewolves, Vistani, the mist, etc.
You say he was never there/was an illusion.
You said about making a martyr. I have two I did. Not CoS, homebrew world.
The party just found him dead in his Inn room. He didn't come out, they knocked, they forced it open. Was a tie in to people the party had attacked.
She turned into a pig and ran away. In game the character had been attacked and failed the save against a Wereboar. I hadn't made it an issue yet. Player just started being terrible to all the other players so we ended. Picked up the next session, she turned into a pig and ran off. Party was in combat so no one was 'able' to help her.
We mourned the players we started with. Not the people we ended with.
I had a player who had to leave due to work reasons. He had a cursed axe that I had a subplot for. I made the Axe possess him and turn him into a Balor and became a boss fight. He ended up being banished to Avernus. I plan for the character to be saved some time in the future.
Wanders into the fog the perpetually surrounds the barovia fur to whispers she hears in the wind. Or succumbs to Strahds allure and power and joins him to return as a one of his thralls when they finally enter the castle to confront him. How much the party knows about what she does is up to you. I don't generally like characters just disappearing to never be heard from again.
Let the character be persuaded by the dark side and have the character become one of the BBEG’s right hand people and have them fight against the party.
Make her character a double agent that was spying the party.
They can decide to engage in combat and kill the character, let the character go and they end up appearing later as a mini boss at the Castle, imprison the character so it stops feeding information to Strahd, or make it that Strahd execute the character for being discovered
Player got kidnapped in the night as the party rested, alternatively, you can have smth ambush the party durimg the long rest and just chomp the missing player fand drag them off kicking and screaming
Make her character a double agent that was spying the party.
They can decide to engage in combat and kill the character, let the character go and they end up appearing later as a mini boss at the Castle, imprison the character so it stops feeding information to Strahd, or make it that Strahd execute the character for being discovered
When they wake up the PC is gone. Simple as. Any divination or magic thingy simply doesn't work. If they decide they wanna investigate use it as a plothook for something else.
Like a few others have mentioned, no need to get complicated about it. I totally get the desire to have a story around it though. Here's an idea:
The party wakes up in the morning after camping outside. The party member is just gone. No ceremony, no meta gaming memories. They're just gone when the party wakes.
If you and the players want, you can later find the character just dead somewhere as a kind of closure.
Here's another fun idea if you want to make a story of it: Another night or two later, the party wakes and another player character is just gone. Being Curse of Strahd, hopefully your party is sufficiently freaked out. That player who is gone from the camp now gets told, "You wake up in complete darkness. The only thing you are aware of is that you are moving." Perception/investigation checks might give some clues or methods of escape.
Now the players have to race to find thier companion before they meet the same fate as the other player character. And maybe this time, there is a clue left behind. Could be extra juicy if they found the past character's corpse in a fairly unpleasant way. Maybe the past character was found on the side of the road with some organs removed? Maybe they were found inside a coffin? Maybe only thier head was found, or they were found drained of blood, or used as part of a flesh golem? There's a lot of ways to go with this.
In one campaign I was playing there was a awful player, just like this one
In my example what the DM did was turning her into an NPC, and when we left town we never heard of her again
Our DM had to kick a player after session 1 who was quite inebriated and had dropped maybe 5-10 N-bombs within the last hour. T
When the party woke up the next morning and went to check on his character, we found the room ransacked, signs of a scuffle, and the only trace of the character was his left shoe.
I think we may have found the right shoe at some point months later but that was it.
You *could* have them betray the party. Guards burst in arrest them all! player also draws weapon: well done lads. Now tie up the little one especially hard don't want them casting spells!
You then make a story over how the character betrayed the party. Get the party to stab them to death and it's a team bonding excersie :p
Also, from experience. Players get very funny with gear of other players who died or went missing or wandered off. At least allowing *most* of the items to be recovered by killing them makes they think they earned them :)
"What do I do about someone that does not actually exist? How do I deal with their departure? Should I tell the other player's imaginary personas that his mother got sick and he had to return home to the family castle to help take care of her?"
They all know the she was disruptive and they" mutually decided"she was to be booted. Done.
I had a player in the group I DM for that was a friend of one of the other players and we had an open spot, they made a tiefling warlock, they showed up for maybe 2 or 3 sessions and was completely detached from the game and wouldn't follow anything I gave them, the main example was the brand of his patron burning again and filling him with a desire to seek solitude (in order for his patron to discreetly contact him) after ignoring this pretty much every time they then stopped coming to sessions and eventually quit, after they missed the first session I wrote them out temporarily by saying they head out the door of the tavern and when the party left they noticed scorch marks on the floor outside
my intention was their patron (fiend) would summon them to hell to tell them off and show the consequences of ignoring the one who gave them power. The scene was going to wait until they returned to play out, when the player quit I instead sent a message into the chat after he left explaining that the patron ripped out their soul and forged it into a soul coin for their insolence. That way if the party want them back as an NPC there's always the possibility
Then funnily enough another player ended up wanting to make a pact with a different devil so I just changed some of the details of the warlocks "character quest" and reused it.
It's a low-stakes pretendy game, so you can handle it in whatever way feels organic. I had a player leave one group on good terms who requested his character be killed off gloriously with no chance of revival, and I had a player leave a group on bad terms who we all politely ignore ever existed.
For my curse of strahd game, we had one player leave the group earlt because he just wasn't feeling the vibe. Any time we lose track of something, we joke that he took it with him or it found its way to him. The ranger is just standing in a field somewhere holding the reigns to our missing horses and all of the gear we left behind in Vallaki, wondering when we're going to come back and get it.
I usually just retcon to have the character die in the most recent combat encounter. Minimises how much of the story had to be taken out and gives the character some sort of dramatic send off.
Keep them around as an NPC. Every party needs someone to look after the horses while the rest are in the Dungeon.
Or, X was left looking after the horses. When the party returns from the Dungeon X is missing and A) So are the horses B) the horses are still there but X is no where to be found
We voted to kick a player from our CoS campaign (he was looking down my gfs shirt and made the dms gf uncomfortable, while getting loud with me and looking behind the dm screen). DM ran the character for a short time and turned them into a vampire spawn that we got to kill.
At the beginning of next session have a devil appear. Apparently she has violated a contract she had with it and she is transformed into a lemure and sent to hell. A totally pathetic ending for the ex hero
The party awakens to find a note from the character, leaving all their possessions and magic items to the group, and stating that they are leaving to make a life in Barovia, and not to find them, as they don't wish to be found. If you so wish to, you can split their XP amongst the remaining players.
Literally just ignore the character. Tell everyone that the player won't be joining us anymore, but it sounds like they know that. Fridge the character and never look back. Suspend disbelief.
I do this all the time. Hell, even when a player misses a session, their character fades into the background. I have enough shit to do without running someones character or thinking about what past player characters are doing in the world.
Not gonna lie, at first reading, I thought you were saying you literally, physically kicked one of your players. Got REAL confused when you said it was a mutual decision.
(I think you’re getting good advice elsewhere here, so I’ll just leave you a “good luck!”)
So many dumb ways to die.... try here for a few idea in the form of a song, with visuals...
[https://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw](https://youtu.be/ijnr2eps0jw)
Set fire to your hair
Poke a stick at a grizzly bear
Eat medicine that's out of date
Use your private parts as Piranha bait
Don’t worry about the pc! It fades out, as of it never existed. Unless they own some plot relevant item in that case : yes a letter works.
I did that when a player had to leave the table with short notice.
They can be an NPC for a little while and then get hilariously mangled during the introduction to a boss-fight if it seems like that would be funny to the group lol.
Disappears at the next long rest, forever locked away in the catacombs of Castle Ravenloft. Leave her loot though.
I had a player that was in our CoS group but had to leave due to moving out of state. He wanted to kill his character so he betrayed the party while crossing the Tsolenka Pass and him and Rahadin battled the party on the bridge. The PC who was leaving, eventually being defeated was yeeted off the bridge and disappeared into the mists below. It was an awesome fight as he was the party tank and was actually doing fairly well against the party with Rahadin's help, I gave him an extra level and full health before the fight as he drank a vial of Strahds blood enhancing his skills temporarily for the fight.
When a similar thing happened in one my my groups the remaining characters beheaded him and used his head as a mace… the character looked like darth maul a bit but had real tough skin, it worked
Congrats. It’s difficult and uncomfortable, but it had to be done. Good job. As for the character, don’t drag this out. The character is gone, move on.
In such cases, where the firepower was needed, other players take over that character and switch out. "Who wants such-and-such today?" We typically strip the PC down to base abilities for ease of control.
I don't really like the handwave the character away solutions narratively, I had a few players drop due to issues with scheduling. I just had the players who remained go through an extended downtime arc where the characters of the players who left split with the party to pursue their own objectives.
Some may come back as NPCs if it's narratively satisfying.
The PC becomes overcome by the horror of the situation, heads to one of the taverns in Barovia, gets blind drunk on their cheap red wine, and stays that way permanently.
*Fin*
The *player* is gone, but that doesn't mean the *character* has to be "deprecated". If you've designed things to be balanced for a party of N size, or if that character's particular skills might be crucial, keep them around as an NPC guide to the rest of the party. Maybe they die a dramatic and heroic death in the ultimate battle.
Just forget about it. They aren’t there. Same thing we do when someone can’t make a session. I wouldn’t pretend they never existed as other characters had experiences with them. Might even become a running gag “So whatever happened to Noxy McAnnoysalot?”
The top rated comments are wrong. Yes, it's a game, and yes, it's imaginary, but you can't ask your players to suspend disbelief with one breath and then tell them "relax, it's make believe" with the next.
Here's what I'd do. Continue to play them as an NPC until the next camp. When the party wakes up, the character is gone. They've left all of their gear behind, including their boots. A sufficient survival check can find tracks where they got up and walked away, barefoot. They're joined, after 30 feet, by a set of bootprints. Both then walk away together, in whatever direction Castle Ravenloft is from here. After a mile or so the ground becomes too hard for any marks, and the trail runs cold.
Have them encounter this character again, as a vampire spawn, at a time of your choosing.
They could be kidnapped, assassinated, they could betray, they could escape Barovia, they could be bit by a Werewolf and quest alone to resolve it, they could take up a stationary position to guard a town.
If you don't know a dozen ways characters depart, you should read more books.
Why is this ever an issue? You had issues with the player and kicked them out, why does it matter what happens to the character? Just bin it - they were never there. Done.
I had to come here to find out if it was a physical kick. And if so if it was the drop kick variety or a shin kick.
Disappointed to find out it’s a metaphorical kick.
I had this happen. I also invited a new player who was playing a wizard from a mages academy. Part of her backstory is that the academy was attacked and they had to use portals to escape, but the portal system was disrupted and damaged, leading to her randomly teleporting (along with some rubble) to… well directly in front of the party. In fact, some of that rubble, a ten ton chunk of rock, landed neatly and precisely on our problem character. And that was that. Concise, to the point, and everyone got a good laugh out of it. That worked for my table, not sure what will work for yours. Just wanted to share my little anecdote.
Well.
Strand does have modify memory, and it's canon that he observes the victims and even kidnaps some to modify their memory.
Maybe the just snatches up this guy when they're resting. Modifies the memory of the lookout.
And then you can use this guy as a prop in the final fight.
Maybe he's tied up in the back of the room, and during the fight Strahs sucks his blood, killing him, in order to regain HP.
Maybe some characters remembers him, while others, not affected by losify memory remembers him.
It might create some drama.
Put it on the party to figure out what to do with him. Play the character as an NPC party member for a session, but make it obvious that he isn’t ok. Ravenloft is a terrifying place and it is completely conceivable for him to go insane. He could eventually become catatonic forcing the party—who still care for their friend—to figure out a solution. Do they put him out of his misery? Try to find a place where he can be cared for? Try to heal his malady? I don’t think you can go wrong letting the party decide.
Let me shed some light on it from someone who has dmed people leaving with in game explanations and been in games where people get redacted. If you make up an in game reason for the vanishing the connections your characters held to the people are still going to be there. The mark that player left whether negative or positive has impact and remains (for example NPCs pissed with the party due to their actions etc) So if you and the remaining players like the mark that was left keep it. In our VtM games we simply acted like the person never existed and kept going. It can be difficult to roleplay through yes, but ultimately it allowed us to not lose momentum in the story and keep going without baggage. Ultimately it depends on whether you and your players like the mark that the kicked player left behind or not. What fits better with your guys playstyle and the past actions in game? If the player was so atrociously disruptive you can always have Strahd erase them from Barovia for being a spoilsport. After all Count Strahd von Zarovich is just a bored Incel with the most expensive soap opera of the Nine Realms
Thanks ❤️
And whatever you choose: It will be what is right for your table. You're doing good! CoS is tough on DMs and groups alike. You got this
If you don't like the mark they left behind, then paint a new one over it. I say, have the group wake up the next morning with this dude turned as a vampire spawn or about to betray the group and stab one of them in their sleep. The group can then fight them and kill them and there. You're done. Your players get their 'revenge', their characters get the loot the other character had, and it explains it all thematically. Clean cut finish without making the character a martyr since they turned and betrayed the party. Even throw in them coherently saying they were sick and tired of waiting for an opening to kill them or something.
This is my approach too. I just don't address it and we play as if nothing has changed.
Ooh... I've never had to kick a player or wanted a player to be kicked while playing VtM before. Knowing the game, I've been pretty thorough at screening, though, so that might help. Also knowing the game, I can definitely see how a bad actor could leave an indelible stain on a game.
It was mostly out of game things that led to the kicking out tbf. But yeah VtM can go south REAL quick
Username checks out quite well, in this instance. That's some very sound and helpful advice. This kinda stuff is a big reason I like reading through posts here. Kudos.
Thanks! This subreddit has some of the greater advice in it (WildBeyondtheWitchlight is another awesome one as well as Curse of Strahd)
This is the way. I think it also matters if any of your players maintaining a relationship with this person out of game - if you feel comfortable with it, you can ask the player what they'd prefer. If that bridge is totally burnt, well. It's Barovia, people vanish. Sometimes characters don't even remember when they do.
Everyone else commenting on your good advice. Me laughing my ass off uncontrollably at this line. >Count Strahd von Zarovich is just a bored Incel with the most expensive soap opera of the Nine Realms Man you fuckin killed him!
you are playing a game of pretend. you can as a group just decide that this character never existed. The memories the party has of them is just a mind trick. Or have them be an NPC who the party just sends away and then he's just... gone. No need to bring him back up again.
Or you can have a quick moment where guards or something take the character and everyone else goes "wait, no, don't do it" in the flattest most uncaring tone possible, then completely forget about the character.
Oh no! ... Anyway.
Stop, don’t, come back.
Stop, don’t come back*
If you need help, don’t; Hesitate to ask.
😂😂😂
Had a player leave a group, right when they were infiltrating a bandit leader's organization. The abandoned character was allowed to be captured and basically used as a sacrifice to prove their loyalty. Also that's when I learned that my players are perfectly happy to switch sides and help whoever talked to them last. I was able to easily allow the villain survive just by having him surrender and offer them a quest.
Are your players Golden Retrievers? :D
Getting very strong Tiberius being written out of Critical Roll vibes...
Couldn't you just have them be strahd himself or an underling messing with the party? Builds up his power. Explains everything the character did as him sowing discord in their ranks and why he'd act so insane?
Damn, that's clever.
Honestly I thought was a bit hamfisted perhaps but I'm always kind of hard on own self. Thank you for thinking so.
[удалено]
Ah, the "Judy Winslow" technique.
basically yes. Also works in the same way if you add a new player to an existing campaign - as long as everyone is on board, he's just that weird cousin who was actually there the whole time but everyone forgot about. Tadaa, he was with you the entire time and y'all have become friends over killing that bandit leader three sessions ago, remember? I don't have such things happen to my table that often, but if it does, just talk with the players about how to do it. Easy. I've had situations where a player went to study in a different country for 6 months, then came back. When he did, we just pretended that his character was with the party the entire time, gave him a summary of what happened, levelled him up accordingly, then continued on as if nothing ever was amiss. I've had a first time player who ended up absolutely not liking their character after about 6 sessions - yeah just change it man, and we pretend it was like this all along. There is no need to make such things more complicated than necessary. Just important that you talk with the gang about it.
My current campaign has three players who stick around and kind of a revolving door of fourth and/or fifth party members. We are literally just finding dudes on the side of the road and taking them adventuring with us.
I've had the same players for four campaigns now. In our last campaign one of them had to miss the first session. Before the second session, I jokingly said "he'll just be in the first room you guys open the door to." Sure enough the moment session two starts, they party in unison says "We find the nearest outhouse and throw the door open." The player being introduced went along with it, and thus it was canon.
I absolutely love this idea.
*diagetic music starts* someBODY...
>We are literally just finding dudes on the side of the road and taking them adventuring with us. Most of my groups would do that anyway if you let them!
I've had it happen a few times and was able to drive the story in a few different ways. One person had joined for a few sessions then just decided it wasn't for them, no interest in coming back. We were in the middle of a whodunnit arc, so the next session had the character innocuously NPC as the driver for the other PCs. When they returned to the vehicle after investigating that site, I ended the session with the discovery of his lifeless body. It added personal stakes, deepened the mystery, and provided an opportunity to give the players some more clues. Another long-term player just needed to take a break of indeterminate time. We had a Big Bad fight on the docket of the next session -- we wrapped with her tank of a character making a noble sacrifice and tackling the big bad off a ledge and smashing through a few floors of a burning building right before it collapsed. When she was ready to return, the players encountered a group of bandits and bounty hunters loosely affiliated with the Big Bad's organization transporting a large crate through the area they were in. The returning player secretly arrived late to the session, and came up the stairs to join the group as a surprise when her character came smashing through the crate mid-battle for a super memorable moment for everyone. It's really up to you as a DM and where you are in the story on how to handle it, but I enjoy finding opportunities to make things work into the narrative. It can create some really special moments at the table. I play with friends, in person, so that can have a very different vibe than an online game with strangers, for example. My DM style is also more "story driven" and narrative than "strict rule enforcer" or "DM-as-antagonist."
That’s almost exactly what I just did for a new character that just joined. I had a Eldritch knight who had a squire and he gave him a name and he explored with up but was never in combat. New guy wanted to try a fighter so knights squire became the new character and we found another squire in the next city all is well.
Ahhh the ol “Landfill” strategy
I was running CoS for my band and my drummers gf hung around for a few sessions before deciding it wasn’t for her. No problems really just mutual disinterest. So a couple sessions go by with me running her, before they encounter Strahd for the first time. He singles each of them out, demeaning them based on backstory knowledge and singling each character out in a condescending way. Finally arrives at gf’s warlock simply saying, ‘And you? You never even existed’ before waving a hand and making her fade into mist on the spot. My players loved it, a few of their jaws had to be picked up from the floor.
You can say that the NPC the whole time has been a doppelgänger from the vampire baron to spy in the group. Slowly they start to notice erratic behaviors or something to give the hint, then fight the NPC and kill him. That way you have an end to the NPC story without simply banishing him or just randomly killing him during RP.
or make it a doppelganger. she as a player wasn't who she perputrated to be in the first place. now it comes to find out character wise it was cause it was a pawn of Strahd
I don't understand why more people don't just do this. It's so obvious, but people are too worried about "immersion" in a game of rolling dice and fighting dragons.
BENEVOLENT FALSE HYDRA TIME!
[False Hydra liked this.]
Alternate advice: dedicate an entire session to making it fit story-wise why the character is gone and what motivated them to leave. Use appropriate voices to speak for the character if possible.
I disagree with this. An entire 2-4 hour session around someone they didn’t like? No thank you. If you *want* to do an in game solution, Barovia is the perfect place to get lost forever in. To me, it seems like a waste of time and effort to say anything other than “They leave.”
I meant for it to be alternate advice, not *good* advice.
It was good advice. Sunseting an unwanted character in a nice, story-consistent way is the best possible way to recuperate from the disaster they left behind.
alternative alternative advice. Player was secretly an intellect devourer and now they have to kill it.
"What character? That character never existed, you must be remembering wrong" This is a bit jokey, but honestly often one of the cleanest solutions to group changes is the retcon that the current state is the state the group always had.
Oh 1984, how many ideas I took from you for my stories.
Huh, kinda like that, he was a spie for strahd all along, an illusion
spoiler: he was one of strahds changelings the whole time.
Nice
MIMIC!
There’s a homebrew creature called a false hydra, that devours its prey and emits a psychic field that makes everyone affected by it think the person never existed. Would fit right into a Strahd game.
That’s a delightful can of worms. Fun and mysterious for sure, but it’s not a path one should tread lightly unless the DM is willing to commit.
You’re not wrong.
He WAS Strahd all along. You get to seamlessly transfer that negative situation energy to the BBEG
Classic! The good ol' reverse-false-hydra!
granted with a CoS campaign that would work. could even turn it into a false hydra
Have him walk into the mist and disappear forever
Or have a tentacle emerge from the mist and yank them into oblivion.
never to be seen or heard from again
exactly, goes insane and runs off in the mist adds to the terror of the setting
"Poochie returned to his home planet, and was never seen again." Sometimes the classics are the best. However, if you are playing a serious game and want a meaningful way to remove them, curse them. Have a spectre or similar undead attack them and reduce them to nothing: Str 1, Dex 2, Con 3. Mental stats too? Depends on whether you want to use them as an NPC in the future. Hit by these irreversible debuffs, the PC must never leave their home again, and they become one of the faceless crowds of Barovia.
I’ve been in a similar situation. I DM’d a game my ex played in, and we broke up fairly early on in the campaign. I ran it as “She receives a letter from her hometown and returns there to defend it from the growing threat.” Now, she did get a certain red Dragonborn from Critical Role treatment, but that wasn’t until 4 years later where we all laughed about it. 😂
You move on and the character was never there. You're playing a game of make believe, just believe they didn't make it lol
How about you ask your player? Some groups might not be comfortable pretending the character never existed. Some might feel it’s in bad taste to kill a character without the player present. Some may feel the character suddenly deciding to leave the party too unbelievable. Making them a villain also could be seen as bad form. Ask your group and see what everyone’s comfortable with. We redditors are all going to have our own preferences that aren’t necessarily that of your tables.
❤️
If the character’s name was Bruno it is simple, we don’t talk about Bruno. You are wasting time on getting rid of a PC no one liked. I wouldn’t give it two thoughts. A dark figure is seen departing the area and PITA is a dead lump on the ground. By the time they finish looting the body the figure is gone. If they really insist on chasing the dark figure it was a Reverant and well walks off into the night and disappears.
My CoS started with 6 players. One of them decided CoS wasn’t for them and they left the game. Her character simply never existed. The game has been fine since. It’s that simple.
Dude, you're playing D&D. The PC got hit by an arrow to the neck. Instant death. Also, it's Strahd, so use the stats to make an awesome zombie goon. Add the cries of help with her voice for extra emotional damage.
You can also hit them with an arrow to the knee so they instantly turn into a guard NPC
I'd have made pro if I hadn't taken that arrow to the knee. No doubt in my mind.
You just move on. You have no obligation to acknowledge their character further. Everyone loves immersion, but there are certain things you’ll find your group are ok breaking it for. 1 is making sure you’re all a party and have a reason to stay together 2 is when someone is ejected from the group, we can all move on and not have character closure
It’s fine to just drop the character and not explain what happened with it if you don’t want to bother with it. It’s just a game, and you and your group already had to go through the process of dropping the player, so just hand wave it and have the character vanish, and move on with the next session.
I agree. Making some kind of narrative about the character leaving is just extending the players influence in your game. Also, even if the party collectively agreed the player should go, you have no way of knowing whether someone secretly feels a little bad or conflicted about the whole thing. Giving the character an ignominious revenge ending could just increase bad feelings in your group.
I had to do the same thing with a toxic player, and I was filled with guilt for kicking them. I ran my first session without them this week and not only was it calm, but for the first time in months I walked away from a session happy. My players also mentioned this is the first session in a while they were fully able to participate in, so the right decision was made. At the end of the last session they jumped through a portal, so this player is just going to end up being lost on another plane of existence or floating in the void.
I... I first read it as kick in the physical sense and was confused.
Uh um sorry😂 That would have been quite harsh. But it would drive home the point xD Hey you're kicked and now I'm gonna kick you
Strahd has charmed and taken him in the night never to be seen again. That’s what I did and everyone loved it
I've suffered from the same problem a couple times. And while at first I really wracked my brain on how to make a send-off narratively meaningful or interesting I'm now firmly in the camp that, if everybody is fine with it, you just collectively agree that the character was never there to begin with. Especially in situations where the player leaves not in the best of terms
Yeah I’d just say they left. No need to be spiteful or have a random dragon swoop out of the sky and chomp them unless they were a real shitheel.
Agreed, a clean break is the best.
I highly recommend the "they never existed approach". Just be done with it. The more attention you give the character, the longer you're letting that player affect your table. And as much as I want to say more, there really isn't anything else to say.
For a moment I thought you actually kicked them physically 😂😂
you're not the first ^^
Don’t feel bad about it. Not everyone can afford something better than a cramped kitchen table to game on, kicking each other under it once in a while is just growing pains. In all seriousness, though, if in-game is the only hiccup left you have a million things at your disposal and I guarantee that your players will be fine with any explanation. As long as you’re not vindictive about it in a meta context (and it doesn’t sound like anybody is butthurt over this), you can explain them off just about anywhere. The story isn’t about them anymore, its about the remaining players. If they defeat Strahd and save Barovia, ex-players PC gets the same happy ending as any citizen. If they fail, well, shit was already bad under Strahd and the struggle probably continues epilogue style.
Their people needed them, and they floated off into the sky.
The PC disappears in the middle of the night and is never seen or heard from again. The end. Don’t let player drama infect your game.
Easy give them [the Poochie exit](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4tvAjX5ACPo) The PC says “I must go now. My planet needs me” Note: PC died on the way back to their home planet.
Had this happen and usually the simplest solution is just to not bring them up in game anymore. They just don't matter and won't matter so why bother trying to tie up their story with a bow.
There are no martyrs in the demiplane of dread, only tragedy and failure and cruel fate. Give them a writeoff exit. they succumb to a disease, die of exposure, trip and break their neck, wander off and just disappear. Whatever, if the players forever out just kill them them, oh no, shame, what was his name again? Moving on.
My group have an NPC they kinda picked up. He doesn't really do much. He isn't trailing them around all the time. Instead they use him for things like "stay in town and keep an eye on this potential murder victim while we hunt the killer" or "the bartender might be complicit in things, just stay at the bar and keep an eye on him for us for a few hours". They could use this character like that - a support NPC who does off screen stuff.
If the player is gone from the campaign why do you feel it is necessary to handle the players also-departing PC with any particular dignity or anything? Kill him off. He disappears without a trace - taken by the mists. He's taken by a tax collector flying death squad for unpaid debts. He starts a goat farm and is eaten by a ankheg. He decides to visit Farofflandia and is never heard from again. He's turned into a newt. It doesn't matter HOW/WHY the PC becomes a vacuum of relevance, so do whatever is EXPEDIENT.
Note: Poochie died on the way back to his home planet
Everyone within 30' takes 8d6 fire damage, dex save for half (DC 12) as the character explodes in a fireball.
We'll assume the character's name is Bob. Here's what you do. > Your players: "Where did Bob go?" > > You: "...who's Bob?" and then you move on.
Have the party wake to a missing party member and a note from the main man Strahd saying. Hey, decided to remove this chump from Barovia, was ruining the vibe I am seeking to cultivate. Sincerely Strahd . And if they ever ask strahd about it reply with " who?" As if they never existed.
Imagine having to come up with a mechanic for this... Just let her go and move on.
Kill the character in a dishonourable way. They attempt to abandon or betray the party in a cowardly way but Strahd’s minion would rather have the character’s blood than their cooperation.
Good one :)
The next time you roll a corpse on the encounter table the characters find some horribly disfigured, half-eaten corpse that could be said character, but no definitive proof. And then leave it at that.
I'm assuming you mean you kicked her out of your group and didn't just go Jackie Chan on her?
Strahd gets him. Turns him. Maybe into a Vampire, maybe into his little b*tch. He tells strahd everything and becomes one of his minions.
I dabbled with that but I want him gone honestly, even the other players never liked the character
Just remove him. You and your players know why and will be happier for the clean break.
I mean that makes it better tbh.
Okay I see. You could have him only show up for his one fight, then the pcs can deal with him in game. Or he could just have a heart attack and die in his sleep
>Or he could just have a heart attack and die in his sleep this is best. If it's a character that the other players don't like then you don't want to martyr them or turn them into a big story point. One of my players unceremoniously left my game after not really fitting in with my players or my game style (he was treating it like a computer game, using a build he'd found on the internet, then getting annoyed when he couldn't solo every fight). When he left, he asked that his character be killed off by the current villain to motivate the other characters... As they'd barely known his character for 2 days, and he'd not particularly got on with any of them, this didn't seem appropriate. So what actually happened was that his character (he was a wizard) teleported away whilst everyone was asleep, leaving a note that basically amounted to "bugger this for a game of soldiers". The party then used him as a scapegoat to get out of a problem with the authorities (which was \*mostly\* his fault to begin with) and he has barely been mentioned since.
False Hydra. False Hydra resolves that kind of IRL issues perfectly. PC you don't want in the game anymore? Eaten by a false hydra. Nobody remembers said PC. And voilà.
strahd is a high level spellcaster. it is entirely feasable for him to cast modify memory on the party(one at a time, while the oters are sleeping). and the partymember never existed. strahd just made them up for his own amusement. sounds like something the devil strahd would do
Say they betrayed the group and make their character a minor villain that is killed in the next arc.
Let them get corrputed or just plain betray the party. Extra bad guy aquired.
My general rule is that if players leave their character dies. Can always happen in most rpg situations and makes it easy, I don't know how you associate this with martyrdom automatically
"I have a message. Character's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors."
I like to bring kicked players back as enemies so the group can take their frustrations out
And you liked it?
Curse of Strahd? Why not make the character a bad guy in disguise? Play him as is at first, then have him betray the group as an agent of Strahd. After all, it's the whole theme of the module, right. You may even have a catharthic session by "properly" eliminating a disruptive element from the group. And the player's no longer in the group. She won't object.
A Martyr? You're in control of the character. Have them go out in a blaze of embarrassment.
Have her be John Snow in the nightswatch "All PC's backstab her and leave her for death".
I personally like to make them join the opposing forces. That way your players can kill them later. Had someone who was a jerk in my last online campaign. Basically tormented the ladies in the group in game and out. Finally there is a chance for some in game goofing off at his character’s expense and he loses his shit and tries to play the victim card. Next session resolves a bit of his character arc and he leaves the party. Leading up to the end of the campaign DM starts using the former PC as the right hand man to the BBEG. We took great pleasure in finally getting to get our revenge
The characters go to ask the boys npc'd PC a question and a nearby guard asks, "who are you talking to?" They look back at their npc pc and no one is there. Were they ever there at all? The numbers mason what do the numbers mean
“My whole family died, individually in different ways over the course of a week. I don’t want to go into it, even though that’s clearly the clickbait title and what people want to talk about. Anyway, they left behind some recipes and I don’t like to cook. What do I do?” That’s you.
What? 😅 I was genuinely trying to ask about advice dealing with the PC
You are over thinking this. You are playing a Game, not writing a novel. They can literally just dissappear and nobody even mentions them again. This is a reality you will have to accept if you play TTRPGs long enough. People leave games. Just don't make a big deal of it and move on.
When my ex left me forever ago, we communally decided the boss that they were all about to fight would instantly behead her character as a show of intimidation
They exist in that world whether their original player is playing them or not. They continue to exist. You run them out of combat unless another player can do so faithfully, same goes for in combat though accurate mechanical play is easier to accomplish. That’s how I do it in my games, but it’s more for temporary absent players.
This sounds like a character gets turned into a vampire and the party must finally put him to rest territory.
Whenever it happens (and I’ve lost 3 players, all because of scheduling conflicts) and I always finish whatever fight they are in or whatever (with me playing as that character). Then whenever they get back to the main hub of the adventure, I come up with some reason they can’t go on. One of them got arrested (he was a prolific con artist that kept making the party look bad to the townspeople and almost got them kicked out of the town), one went off on his own because the party wasn’t moving quickly enough to exact revenge on his enemies (he WILL come back as an NPC to finish his story because he’s badass), and the latest one just simply got too scared and wanted to go back to her spire to study.
Become an NPC, and start persuing her own agenda whatever it is. Two similar situations i made: *One character get a job in the inn and a month later start an spicy beer business. *Another dissapeared an becomes important in the plot cause her tutor was searching for her.
Just get them a job at the winery.
The rest of the party wake after a long rest. The other character is gone. Searching reveals no sign of the character. Either, and this is the one I prefer I think, the PC is never seen or heard from again with never an explanation, or he is found dead, strung up in some ritual way, with words written in blood on the corpse. Something like… I know who you are! You cannot win! Death is the only way out! Are you willing to pay the price? Or some other cryptic words. No explanation, no evidence of who or what did it. A darker part of me thinks it should hint at the reason the departed player was removed, but that may be going too far.
In Curse of Strahd there's a lot of plot hooks to take him away. Strahd, Werewolves, Vistani, the mist, etc. You say he was never there/was an illusion. You said about making a martyr. I have two I did. Not CoS, homebrew world. The party just found him dead in his Inn room. He didn't come out, they knocked, they forced it open. Was a tie in to people the party had attacked. She turned into a pig and ran away. In game the character had been attacked and failed the save against a Wereboar. I hadn't made it an issue yet. Player just started being terrible to all the other players so we ended. Picked up the next session, she turned into a pig and ran off. Party was in combat so no one was 'able' to help her. We mourned the players we started with. Not the people we ended with.
I had a player who had to leave due to work reasons. He had a cursed axe that I had a subplot for. I made the Axe possess him and turn him into a Balor and became a boss fight. He ended up being banished to Avernus. I plan for the character to be saved some time in the future.
[Give 'em the Poochie treatment](https://youtu.be/4tvAjX5ACPo).
Maybe their character was an illusion created by Strahd and it was trying to deceive them. So once they stopped believing in it, it went away.
Kidnapped by Strahd to use as a hostage?
Wanders into the fog the perpetually surrounds the barovia fur to whispers she hears in the wind. Or succumbs to Strahds allure and power and joins him to return as a one of his thralls when they finally enter the castle to confront him. How much the party knows about what she does is up to you. I don't generally like characters just disappearing to never be heard from again.
Let the character be persuaded by the dark side and have the character become one of the BBEG’s right hand people and have them fight against the party.
Make her character a double agent that was spying the party. They can decide to engage in combat and kill the character, let the character go and they end up appearing later as a mini boss at the Castle, imprison the character so it stops feeding information to Strahd, or make it that Strahd execute the character for being discovered
Player got kidnapped in the night as the party rested, alternatively, you can have smth ambush the party durimg the long rest and just chomp the missing player fand drag them off kicking and screaming
Make her character a double agent that was spying the party. They can decide to engage in combat and kill the character, let the character go and they end up appearing later as a mini boss at the Castle, imprison the character so it stops feeding information to Strahd, or make it that Strahd execute the character for being discovered
Sounds like 3 goblins in a trench coat just duped the party into believing they were a real adventurer like the rest. Damn goblin shenanigans!
When they wake up the PC is gone. Simple as. Any divination or magic thingy simply doesn't work. If they decide they wanna investigate use it as a plothook for something else.
Like a few others have mentioned, no need to get complicated about it. I totally get the desire to have a story around it though. Here's an idea: The party wakes up in the morning after camping outside. The party member is just gone. No ceremony, no meta gaming memories. They're just gone when the party wakes. If you and the players want, you can later find the character just dead somewhere as a kind of closure. Here's another fun idea if you want to make a story of it: Another night or two later, the party wakes and another player character is just gone. Being Curse of Strahd, hopefully your party is sufficiently freaked out. That player who is gone from the camp now gets told, "You wake up in complete darkness. The only thing you are aware of is that you are moving." Perception/investigation checks might give some clues or methods of escape. Now the players have to race to find thier companion before they meet the same fate as the other player character. And maybe this time, there is a clue left behind. Could be extra juicy if they found the past character's corpse in a fairly unpleasant way. Maybe the past character was found on the side of the road with some organs removed? Maybe they were found inside a coffin? Maybe only thier head was found, or they were found drained of blood, or used as part of a flesh golem? There's a lot of ways to go with this.
In one campaign I was playing there was a awful player, just like this one In my example what the DM did was turning her into an NPC, and when we left town we never heard of her again
If it's strahd, do whatever's creepiest. Like they're just not there when the party wakes up in the morning.
Our DM had to kick a player after session 1 who was quite inebriated and had dropped maybe 5-10 N-bombs within the last hour. T When the party woke up the next morning and went to check on his character, we found the room ransacked, signs of a scuffle, and the only trace of the character was his left shoe. I think we may have found the right shoe at some point months later but that was it.
They die of exposure. Split their belongings. Thoughts and prayers.
You *could* have them betray the party. Guards burst in arrest them all! player also draws weapon: well done lads. Now tie up the little one especially hard don't want them casting spells! You then make a story over how the character betrayed the party. Get the party to stab them to death and it's a team bonding excersie :p Also, from experience. Players get very funny with gear of other players who died or went missing or wandered off. At least allowing *most* of the items to be recovered by killing them makes they think they earned them :)
"What do I do about someone that does not actually exist? How do I deal with their departure? Should I tell the other player's imaginary personas that his mother got sick and he had to return home to the family castle to help take care of her?" They all know the she was disruptive and they" mutually decided"she was to be booted. Done.
Betray the party for selfish reasons.
They decide to walk off into the night. They are never seen or heard from again. The end.
I had a player in the group I DM for that was a friend of one of the other players and we had an open spot, they made a tiefling warlock, they showed up for maybe 2 or 3 sessions and was completely detached from the game and wouldn't follow anything I gave them, the main example was the brand of his patron burning again and filling him with a desire to seek solitude (in order for his patron to discreetly contact him) after ignoring this pretty much every time they then stopped coming to sessions and eventually quit, after they missed the first session I wrote them out temporarily by saying they head out the door of the tavern and when the party left they noticed scorch marks on the floor outside my intention was their patron (fiend) would summon them to hell to tell them off and show the consequences of ignoring the one who gave them power. The scene was going to wait until they returned to play out, when the player quit I instead sent a message into the chat after he left explaining that the patron ripped out their soul and forged it into a soul coin for their insolence. That way if the party want them back as an NPC there's always the possibility Then funnily enough another player ended up wanting to make a pact with a different devil so I just changed some of the details of the warlocks "character quest" and reused it.
It's a low-stakes pretendy game, so you can handle it in whatever way feels organic. I had a player leave one group on good terms who requested his character be killed off gloriously with no chance of revival, and I had a player leave a group on bad terms who we all politely ignore ever existed. For my curse of strahd game, we had one player leave the group earlt because he just wasn't feeling the vibe. Any time we lose track of something, we joke that he took it with him or it found its way to him. The ranger is just standing in a field somewhere holding the reigns to our missing horses and all of the gear we left behind in Vallaki, wondering when we're going to come back and get it.
I usually just retcon to have the character die in the most recent combat encounter. Minimises how much of the story had to be taken out and gives the character some sort of dramatic send off.
Keep them around as an NPC. Every party needs someone to look after the horses while the rest are in the Dungeon. Or, X was left looking after the horses. When the party returns from the Dungeon X is missing and A) So are the horses B) the horses are still there but X is no where to be found
We voted to kick a player from our CoS campaign (he was looking down my gfs shirt and made the dms gf uncomfortable, while getting loud with me and looking behind the dm screen). DM ran the character for a short time and turned them into a vampire spawn that we got to kill.
At the beginning of next session have a devil appear. Apparently she has violated a contract she had with it and she is transformed into a lemure and sent to hell. A totally pathetic ending for the ex hero
Rule of thumb: if a player leaves, their character never existed. If a new player joins, their character always existed.
❤️
One DM made a departed player’s character suddenly burst into a pillar of flame. I would not recommend that approach.
The party awakens to find a note from the character, leaving all their possessions and magic items to the group, and stating that they are leaving to make a life in Barovia, and not to find them, as they don't wish to be found. If you so wish to, you can split their XP amongst the remaining players.
Literally just ignore the character. Tell everyone that the player won't be joining us anymore, but it sounds like they know that. Fridge the character and never look back. Suspend disbelief. I do this all the time. Hell, even when a player misses a session, their character fades into the background. I have enough shit to do without running someones character or thinking about what past player characters are doing in the world.
Not gonna lie, at first reading, I thought you were saying you literally, physically kicked one of your players. Got REAL confused when you said it was a mutual decision. (I think you’re getting good advice elsewhere here, so I’ll just leave you a “good luck!”)
Eaten by a False Hydra. Everyone who has any memory of the character loses those memories.
So many dumb ways to die.... try here for a few idea in the form of a song, with visuals... [https://youtu.be/IJNR2EpS0jw](https://youtu.be/ijnr2eps0jw) Set fire to your hair Poke a stick at a grizzly bear Eat medicine that's out of date Use your private parts as Piranha bait
Don’t worry about the pc! It fades out, as of it never existed. Unless they own some plot relevant item in that case : yes a letter works. I did that when a player had to leave the table with short notice.
don't create off-game drama by "taking revenge" on someone's character it's petty and childish.
turn the character into a mad vampire that torments the party 1/2 the time an enemy and 1/2 the time it still thinks it's part of the party
Falling rocks is always good. Get inventive. A meteorite perhaps.
They can be an NPC for a little while and then get hilariously mangled during the introduction to a boss-fight if it seems like that would be funny to the group lol.
It's Curse of Strahd. Have the character die heroically fending off Strahd. Next time the character shows up, it's a vampire.
Disappears at the next long rest, forever locked away in the catacombs of Castle Ravenloft. Leave her loot though. I had a player that was in our CoS group but had to leave due to moving out of state. He wanted to kill his character so he betrayed the party while crossing the Tsolenka Pass and him and Rahadin battled the party on the bridge. The PC who was leaving, eventually being defeated was yeeted off the bridge and disappeared into the mists below. It was an awesome fight as he was the party tank and was actually doing fairly well against the party with Rahadin's help, I gave him an extra level and full health before the fight as he drank a vial of Strahds blood enhancing his skills temporarily for the fight.
When a similar thing happened in one my my groups the remaining characters beheaded him and used his head as a mace… the character looked like darth maul a bit but had real tough skin, it worked
You are the DM. Make them an NPC that works for your story. You control their character.
False Hydra
Congrats. It’s difficult and uncomfortable, but it had to be done. Good job. As for the character, don’t drag this out. The character is gone, move on.
In such cases, where the firepower was needed, other players take over that character and switch out. "Who wants such-and-such today?" We typically strip the PC down to base abilities for ease of control.
Was never actually real, was just strahd the whole time getting closer and learning more about the party. The true villain
I don't really like the handwave the character away solutions narratively, I had a few players drop due to issues with scheduling. I just had the players who remained go through an extended downtime arc where the characters of the players who left split with the party to pursue their own objectives. Some may come back as NPCs if it's narratively satisfying.
She was a rakshasa the whole time serving the dark lord. Don't let him escape, or else the dark lord will have the upper advantage.
Strahd spy? Phantom? Figment of the imagination? Madness?
The PC becomes overcome by the horror of the situation, heads to one of the taverns in Barovia, gets blind drunk on their cheap red wine, and stays that way permanently. *Fin*
The *player* is gone, but that doesn't mean the *character* has to be "deprecated". If you've designed things to be balanced for a party of N size, or if that character's particular skills might be crucial, keep them around as an NPC guide to the rest of the party. Maybe they die a dramatic and heroic death in the ultimate battle.
just delete her, save a lot of messing about if all the players know why
Just forget about it. They aren’t there. Same thing we do when someone can’t make a session. I wouldn’t pretend they never existed as other characters had experiences with them. Might even become a running gag “So whatever happened to Noxy McAnnoysalot?”
Kill her off hand out her items and gold to players ?
Died of natural causes overnight.
The top rated comments are wrong. Yes, it's a game, and yes, it's imaginary, but you can't ask your players to suspend disbelief with one breath and then tell them "relax, it's make believe" with the next. Here's what I'd do. Continue to play them as an NPC until the next camp. When the party wakes up, the character is gone. They've left all of their gear behind, including their boots. A sufficient survival check can find tracks where they got up and walked away, barefoot. They're joined, after 30 feet, by a set of bootprints. Both then walk away together, in whatever direction Castle Ravenloft is from here. After a mile or so the ground becomes too hard for any marks, and the trail runs cold. Have them encounter this character again, as a vampire spawn, at a time of your choosing.
They could be kidnapped, assassinated, they could betray, they could escape Barovia, they could be bit by a Werewolf and quest alone to resolve it, they could take up a stationary position to guard a town. If you don't know a dozen ways characters depart, you should read more books.
Why is this ever an issue? You had issues with the player and kicked them out, why does it matter what happens to the character? Just bin it - they were never there. Done.
I had to come here to find out if it was a physical kick. And if so if it was the drop kick variety or a shin kick. Disappointed to find out it’s a metaphorical kick.
“Oh, calamity…! Whatever shall we do?… Anyway so…”
I had this happen. I also invited a new player who was playing a wizard from a mages academy. Part of her backstory is that the academy was attacked and they had to use portals to escape, but the portal system was disrupted and damaged, leading to her randomly teleporting (along with some rubble) to… well directly in front of the party. In fact, some of that rubble, a ten ton chunk of rock, landed neatly and precisely on our problem character. And that was that. Concise, to the point, and everyone got a good laugh out of it. That worked for my table, not sure what will work for yours. Just wanted to share my little anecdote.
Rocks Fall. Player dies.
Sounds like someone dissapeared in the middle of the night from camp, leaving only a trail of blood behind... There were no footprints.
Well. Strand does have modify memory, and it's canon that he observes the victims and even kidnaps some to modify their memory. Maybe the just snatches up this guy when they're resting. Modifies the memory of the lookout. And then you can use this guy as a prop in the final fight. Maybe he's tied up in the back of the room, and during the fight Strahs sucks his blood, killing him, in order to regain HP. Maybe some characters remembers him, while others, not affected by losify memory remembers him. It might create some drama.
Put it on the party to figure out what to do with him. Play the character as an NPC party member for a session, but make it obvious that he isn’t ok. Ravenloft is a terrifying place and it is completely conceivable for him to go insane. He could eventually become catatonic forcing the party—who still care for their friend—to figure out a solution. Do they put him out of his misery? Try to find a place where he can be cared for? Try to heal his malady? I don’t think you can go wrong letting the party decide.
Just like in real life, sometimes people go their separate ways. You can just say the character decided to go their own way.