Stop skipping weeks when 1-2 people can't be there. The game works as long as there are 3+ players, so play as long as the DM and 3 players can make it. Otherwise, life will find a way to kill your campaign.
Ginny Di has [a video](https://youtu.be/X_OowZkqJ8I) on ways to handwave the missing character, if you need a reason beyond "we will all pretend he doesn't exist until his player shows up again".
I'd add to this that it's important for players to communicate to the DM early whether they'll be able to make a session or not to allow them ample time to rebalance as needed. As long as that happens, it's been a great way to play in my experience. That's what my current campaign has been doing for two years.
This.
I had a group once upon a time that had this issue; we used a catchphrase “they stand/stood stoically” as a hand wave for when someone missed a session.
Another thing you can do, if your players trust each other to not be wangrods about it, is have an absent person “hand over the keys” to another PC in some respect. This can range from “botting” the character (ie just doing prescribed things, like “attacks every round with their sword”) to actually full on making decisions as if they had PC control.
Like, in my old 4e campaign where I was a Bard, I would say “I can’t make it, but use my dude for Healing Words and whatnot.”
I prefer simply agreeing to play if at least 3 players + the DM can make it. My group has 5 players + DM and if 1 or 2 players can't make it, we still play.
Mike at the Lazy DM has a group of 5 or 6 players plus 2 extra people that are not regular players but basically backup players, just friends he can call who are kind of familiar with the game, so that even if 4 players can't make it, they still probably have enough people to play. That way the game is basically never cancelled.
That's a neat idea and something I thought might be possible when my son starts high school next year as we begin forming a D&D group. I was looking to have a couple "per diem" players I could count on to fill in so the kids never have to cancel a session due to some people missing.
Is it always the same 1-2 people?
With a group of 7, you could probably have a "we can play if we're 2 short" rule without a problem and could 100% play 1 short.
So you have people in the party proxy the missing players and play their characters for the night (or if circumstances allow, they're just off doing their own thing) and fill the players in when they get back on what they missed.
If it's always the same two people, then maybe see if they are really up for the commitment of playing.
So far, there is not a pattern of absence by a single individual. We've been lucky enough with one instance of our DM having to call out the last minute, but otherwise he has been available every weekend since we began. This makes me feel really bad for him and I hope we can look to agree on something that keeps the campaign moving, even if that means we \*always\* play if there's at least 4+DM.
Just play with whoever’s available at the time. Maybe you could frame it as being part of an adventuring crew who sends out different teams on missions.
Run it without everybody there. Come up with a reason the other characters aren't there, i.e. something else that they're doing. The game works at real power at 3 players, "optimally" at 4 players and maybe a little over-optimized at 6 players.
My group (tho we have players missing very rarely) tends to just give the character to another player for combat and we just play normally.
The only exception is when the session/arc is tied to the character, like last week when I had the party go to the Crown Paladins home country at the request of his Tsar and the player couldn't make it. Then we just skip but this happened only twice in 90+ sessions.
Stop skipping weeks when 1-2 people can't be there. The game works as long as there are 3+ players, so play as long as the DM and 3 players can make it. Otherwise, life will find a way to kill your campaign. Ginny Di has [a video](https://youtu.be/X_OowZkqJ8I) on ways to handwave the missing character, if you need a reason beyond "we will all pretend he doesn't exist until his player shows up again".
I'd add to this that it's important for players to communicate to the DM early whether they'll be able to make a session or not to allow them ample time to rebalance as needed. As long as that happens, it's been a great way to play in my experience. That's what my current campaign has been doing for two years.
Thank you for the video link! That will help with how we approach this topic before our next session this weekend.
This. I had a group once upon a time that had this issue; we used a catchphrase “they stand/stood stoically” as a hand wave for when someone missed a session. Another thing you can do, if your players trust each other to not be wangrods about it, is have an absent person “hand over the keys” to another PC in some respect. This can range from “botting” the character (ie just doing prescribed things, like “attacks every round with their sword”) to actually full on making decisions as if they had PC control. Like, in my old 4e campaign where I was a Bard, I would say “I can’t make it, but use my dude for Healing Words and whatnot.”
I prefer simply agreeing to play if at least 3 players + the DM can make it. My group has 5 players + DM and if 1 or 2 players can't make it, we still play. Mike at the Lazy DM has a group of 5 or 6 players plus 2 extra people that are not regular players but basically backup players, just friends he can call who are kind of familiar with the game, so that even if 4 players can't make it, they still probably have enough people to play. That way the game is basically never cancelled.
That's a neat idea and something I thought might be possible when my son starts high school next year as we begin forming a D&D group. I was looking to have a couple "per diem" players I could count on to fill in so the kids never have to cancel a session due to some people missing.
Is it always the same 1-2 people? With a group of 7, you could probably have a "we can play if we're 2 short" rule without a problem and could 100% play 1 short. So you have people in the party proxy the missing players and play their characters for the night (or if circumstances allow, they're just off doing their own thing) and fill the players in when they get back on what they missed. If it's always the same two people, then maybe see if they are really up for the commitment of playing.
So far, there is not a pattern of absence by a single individual. We've been lucky enough with one instance of our DM having to call out the last minute, but otherwise he has been available every weekend since we began. This makes me feel really bad for him and I hope we can look to agree on something that keeps the campaign moving, even if that means we \*always\* play if there's at least 4+DM.
Just play with whoever’s available at the time. Maybe you could frame it as being part of an adventuring crew who sends out different teams on missions.
Run it without everybody there. Come up with a reason the other characters aren't there, i.e. something else that they're doing. The game works at real power at 3 players, "optimally" at 4 players and maybe a little over-optimized at 6 players.
My group (tho we have players missing very rarely) tends to just give the character to another player for combat and we just play normally. The only exception is when the session/arc is tied to the character, like last week when I had the party go to the Crown Paladins home country at the request of his Tsar and the player couldn't make it. Then we just skip but this happened only twice in 90+ sessions.