How to justify this?

[Inevitability]

Okay, here's the issue. I am currently DM'ing a PbP game (standard dungeon crawl, nothing fancy) but one of the players has suddenly disappeared.

This has happened before, where a dwarven barbarian's player suddenly was gone. I justified it by saying he was going to track down some escaped enemies. To keep the party on the same level (the barb was a big source of their damage) I decided to give them a small drake as companion.

Now, another player has stopped posting. He was playing a cleric, and his well-timed heals have saved the party a few times already. I do not want to take over this character, so I've decided to create a new application thread.

However, how am I supposed to justify the disappearance of one, maybe two (the dragon may get out too) party members and the appearance of two to replace them? Any ideas?

Please help a DM in need.

[Tegu8788]

The bad guys had prisoners. The party frees them.

[Gavran]

Rocks fell?

Have the players not been gone long enough that you're worried they may come back?

Or, if not actually inside a dungeon situation, something more important per their personal motivations came up that they left to deal with?

[Inevitability]

The bad guys had prisoners. The party frees them.

A quite obvious solution, and one I already have considered. If I can't come up with something else, this will be my backup plan, I guess.

Rocks fell?

Er... Is this serious? If it is, I don't think randomly killing off two party members is going to work while maintaining enough suspension of disbelief. I prefer to keep things realistic.

Have the players not been gone long enough that you're worried they may come back?

Or, if not actually inside a dungeon situation, something more important per their personal motivations came up that they left to deal with?

Player #1 has been gone from the site since the 29th of April. The chances of him coming back are quite slim, and even if he were to do so, I doubt I'd allow someone who's went AWOL two months ago to return into the game and expect that I rewrite stuff so it makes sense again. (I already have planned a few things regarding his character)

Player #2 hasn't posted for about two weeks, but I am kind of tired of people leaving without notice.

The players are already into a dungeon, so that wouldn't work.

Wait, just got an idea. Some time ago, the players fought some Dire Rats. Their drake companion (this was their first fight with him) was a nice help there, but got bitten several times. Maybe I should wing things a bit and say he has caught a bad case of Filth Fever? Then the cleric stays behind to care for him. How about that?

[charcoalninja]

Without knowing what tier you're in I can't get too specific, but the cleric receiving a sending from his church commanding him to go and aid them in a holy mission of some sort is the easiest way IMO.
RE: Fith fever. It won't work if the Cleric has the Ritual since it's literally ZAP! you're better.

[Gavran]

It was half serious. I mean, I wouldn't literally apply falling rocks of course but assuming the characters aren't so well developed that they have built in motivations other than "continue the adventure!" (in which case you'd presumably be pulling those strings, or sharing that information here [happy to look over any information on the characters if you think there could be something there, for the record])... well there aren't a whole lot of good reasons to turn around and bail in the middle of a dungeon situation, you know?

So when you consider that the players have lost interest/internet/free time/whatever, my thought is how can the characters still be useful to the story/game and, well, I think a nice dramatic reveal for some horrible creaure that takes them during their watch or something is as good a use as any.

I see your concerns about the suspension of disbelief but anything that you do is going to be obviously constructed because the players left, right? So I say have fun with it. Take over the character for a day, the beast comes when they're on watch and the character is gone when they wake up. Maybe you dropped some hints that the character was frightened/having doubts. Maybe some of the loot is missing, so it seems like they just took it and ran. Then it comes again the next night and you can have a cool encounter.

Or, hell, go really crazy with it. Replace the character with a shapeshifter. Leave very subtle hints but act like you're just piloting the character until the moment is right. Then it reveals itself and tries to sacrifice them for its unholy master / rob them and book it / confess that it just wants to know what a bunch of adventurers are doing in its home and that it didn't mean to hurt the <PC>, it just didn't have any other way to communicate with / understand them.

I suppose what I'm saying is we need details to give really good advice on what's appropriate to happen, but also that appropriateness isn't as vital because you're just trying to make the best of a bad situation and all the players know it.

My last piece of advice is a lot simpler: ask your players. Let your current players decide what happens with the missing players' PCs, and let the newly recruited players decide how they join the party. Make it part of the recruitment and it doubles as a good way to screen for investment too.

And for what it's worth, I and nearly everyone else feels your pain with vanishing players. Getting a PbP to stick is hard.

[Inevitability]

RE: Fith fever. It won't work if the Cleric has the Ritual since it's literally ZAP! you're better.

We're still level 1, so no ZAP! rituals for the cleric. I think I'm going with the filth fever solution. Thanks for everyone's advice and support!

[Dimers]

I know I'm a bit late to the party,* but ... one thing that I've seen done well in the past is having the new PCs come across the fresh tracks of the existing party entering Place Of Danger (in this case, the dungeon). They come in to warn the party "Hey, this place is dangerous if you're not a professional adventurer!" And then of course find out that they're professional adventurers. Why not team up, try to clear this place out for the safety of the common people and loot?

That setup says the newcomers know the local area, which is nice for later DM-mouthpiece use. And it also says that they're goodhearted badasses if they're willing to enter Place Of Danger themselves to warn travelers.

I got nuthin' for removing the nonposting people, but I like the filth fever idea.

*I swear to Bahamut I didn't mean to make that pun.