Explaining an Occasional Player in Game?

[Stadge]

Hi Playground,

Just looking for some ideas really- I’m going to be running a new 5 edition D&D campaign in the new year, with a nice group, 4 I’ve ran games with before and 1 I haven’t but has played previously and I don’t imagine will be problematic.

Now the main reason for this is that one of my players has recently moved to another city- sort of. It’s a work thing, he’s back every now and again, and will be back properly in a year or so. Now he’s a fun player to have at the table and everyone is grand with him not being present for every session, so I really don’t want to not be able to include him, just trying to come up with some vague in-world reasons why his character might not always be around.

Its early days yet, I like to build stuff around the what the players want, and as I’ve got most of December off work the players are currently voting on 3 setting outlines and I’ll flesh out the one they like the sound of the most. So yes, setting isn’t finalised, nor are characters, so pretty much any reason is up in the air. Good excuses might even inspire him to go with that as the core idea for his class.
We’ve been spit-balling and we’ve thought of the following possible options:]

• He’s a spirit of some sort, perhaps bound to an item another player has and can only become corporeal under certain situations.
• He’s a druid that’s mostly stopped caring for the world, perhaps an old friend of another player, he spends most of his time wildshaping as a fairly benign animal and only deigns to change when he feels like it. Maybe even a hibernating animal in someone’s pack explains it further?
• He’s just a random mercenary, sure he likes the group, but he has other jobs and other adventures from time to time.
• Similar to the above, but he's sworn to a local ruler or organisation and isn't always allowed to join them.
• He channels a bit of Othar Tryggvassen and just has the bewildering ability to pop up in impossible places and make it out of places when needed.
• Tieflings could actually be more tied to Fiends and he’s literally summoned in.
• He’s some kind of golem/warforged, who’s ‘essence’ can be carried around and ‘downloaded’ into various suitable bodies found in places.

Any other suggestions?
Doesn’t matter how out there or silly they are, we’re a group that likes levity and really, we could probably handwave it, but it’d be fun to have a nominal reason.
I’ve mentioned having him teleconference in, but he’s not keen atm, but maybe after we start, he’ll change his mind.
I should mention, there's going to be a lot handwaved as he'll definitely be levelling up along with the party.

Cheers all!

[Kid Jake]

I was actually going to suggest 'random mercenary' myself. Narratively I'd frame it that he's working jobs that just so happen to parallel the other PCs on occasion, but easilly explains why he would pick up and take off while the fighter's getting eaten by a Bullette. He's got $#!* to do.

[DeTess]

Maybe he's someone wit the supernatural ability to get lost, causing him to turn up in the most odd places. This could be a curse that gets broken once the player is properly back in town again.

[Knaight]

It sounds like you've got a pretty thorough coverage on the more conventional side (though I'd add an independant adventurer who just works with the PCs from time to time, which is basically an offshoot of the mercenary idea, and maybe make note that a spy in particular could use an adventurer as a cover identity extremely easily), so I'll provide a few really out there options, to round this out a bit.

He's a time traveler, but not one that has any control over their timeline. One of the fixed points in time that he's connected to is the party's, and when he's in that timeline he's with them.

He lives on a different planet, but can project an image down that is pretty equivalent to being there. Unless something is in the way, and there's a lot of celestial bodies that might be in the way.

He's got a phylactery analog, but for living people. He's also occasionally extremely injury prone, to the point where he periodically gets killed by all sorts of things, revives, and has to get back to the party when possible.

[MoiMagnus]

We had the same problem, though it only occurred at high level, and he was a high priest of Bahamut.
The reason was either:
1) Called by Bahamut to deal with a greater problem.
2) Send by our group as a diplomat to the Celestian Alliance to get some help for our kingdom.
3) Actually captured or in trouble (so special quest to rescue him)

Other suggestions:
+ Fate continuously try to put him together with the group even though he does not have any (known) reason to be part of the main quest. So as soon as the current problem is taken care of, he leaves and try to goes back to the normal life he likes and want (until Fate strike back)
+ Some random NPC (like a cook) travel together with the group because "he want to go in an adventure!". But he is kind of useless for fight. Except when he his possessed by the spirit of his ancestor / a pharaoh / a god / a werewolf / ... He has absolutely no idea (in denial) that he is under regular possession of this spirit, and no control over it (nor when it happens). But this spirit seems to have the same interest as the group, so everyone is ok with this.
+ Double entangled campaign: This one is tricky to organize, but works quite well if the the absence/presence are regular. The PCs are playing two groups of adventurers, very similar from each other, except from one character which is absent in one group. The two group live in different eras / universe / ... and the plot link those two worlds together. I will take a more precise example: The PCs play both in the "real world" and in "dream land". For some reason, their dream are linked and they remember them after waking up. They've made a friend in the "dream land", who does not seems to exist in the real world. For solving some problems in the real world, they will have to act in dream land, or reciprocally. They don't chose when they enter "dream land" (complex rules of magic, so does not occur at every long rest) and when they wake up.

[Pelle]

The character has a boring day job that he needs to maintain, and can't always get a day off to go adventuring.

[Kid Jake]

The character has a boring day job that he needs to maintain, and can't always get a day off to go adventuring.

Oooh, or an extremely overbearing wife.

"Look guys, when you asked if I wanted to help slay a dragon you said I'd be home by nine. You KNOW how she gets when I'm late! Last time she emptied all the chamber pots into my bag of holding..."

[Pelle]

Oooh, or an extremely overbearing wife.

"Look guys, when you asked if I wanted to help slay a dragon you said I'd be home by nine. You KNOW how she gets when I'm late! Last time she emptied all the chamber pots into my bag of holding..."

Yeah, that's fun. Or maybe the character is divorced, and some of the time it's his turn to have the kids.

[DMThac0]

I had a character that had a day job, which explained my absence a lot: He took the entertainer background and was a gladiator. I played him along the lines of a Wrestling icon, he'd just so happen to be appearing as the "Iron Ursine" in the local town, but sometimes he'd be able to pop in and help the party out with problems. Worked well since it was Horde of the Dragon Queen and I was given a tie to Leosin to make it more realistic that my character would have information to get him to where he was needed to go.

--

Another thought that I rather like, and would love to play, is to do a spin off of Fizban from the Dragonlance novels. Have him be an absent minded person who wants to help out, but just happens to have really strange luck. At the end of a session, whether it be in the middle of combat or not, and you know the player will be missing, have a strange, very strange, situation occur to remove him from the game.

Fighting a group of Gnolls out on the plains, the session is coming to an end, and out of nowhere a Roc swoops down and grabs the character out of the fray...where the heck is he going?!

The party is in the middle of talking to the local thieves guild, game is wrapping up, have the player exclaim "Oh, I remember now!" and accidentally cast plane shift.

[Kid Jake]

Yeah, that's fun. Or maybe the character is divorced, and some of the time it's his turn to have the kids.

"Give thanks to whatever fiend ye worship heathen, for my blade must be sheathed unbloodied once more. Derenthar is en route to my abode as we speak, and I must pick up fish sticks for his supper."

[Nifft]

With the right background / class options, the "missing" character might be some kind of scholar / academic / Indiana Jones type who goes with the party on explorations for the purpose of research -- but even at the adventure research site, the scholar may need to take a day or two off to study & document the runic inscription / ancient bones / cryptic riddle / ridiculed crypt / bonafide ankh / indescribable ruin / etc. which was discovered in the previous session.

Why was the character not present for the first day of exploration? "Had to teach a class, told you I'd show up late."

[Kid Jake]

You could also go the Harmonquest route and have the visiting player play a different character every time he sits in. A hired merc, a summoned critter that sticks around for some reason, a treant that wants the undead wizard you're hunting out of his forest, etc...

[Thinker]

My main group frequently has different people who can or cannot make each session. Since our sessions are only ~2 hours long, we often have people who start an adventure and then aren't there to finish it or people who weren't there at the beginning of the adventure, but are there to finish it. Our solution is to simply not consider it a problem. There doesn't need to be an in-game reason.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

• Tieflings could actually be more tied to Fiends and he’s literally summoned in.

I've done the reverse of this before for a player who would have to regularly miss every third or fourth session due to a rotating work schedule. The PC was a half-fiend sorcerer whose true name had been recorded in the Conjurer's Guide to Extraplanar Servants, basically a big reference book given to apprentice wizards and available in most major arcane libraries that listed lots of outsiders and what kinds of tasks they're good to summon for.

The PC was sick of being summoned and had specifically decided to become an adventurer; while full outsiders' true names are fixed, a half-outsider's true name would change with life experience as it learned and grew, so if he went adventuring and grew and changed a lot in a short time period the recorded true name would quickly "drift" from the recorded version and he couldn't be summoned anymore. Unfortunately, as a PC-classed half-outsider spellcaster he was far too useful a minion to leave alone, so wizards would quickly research his new true name and spread it around if the one in the Guide wasn't working.

So he'd be with the party for a few sessions, and then at the most inconvenient moment he'd feel a tingling sensation and have just enough time to get out a "Oh, come on, I was just getting--" before he was planar bound by some wizard halfway around the world. He'd pop back in a few hours or days later, sometimes back with the party if they were in the same place, sometimes far enough away that he'd have to trek back to the party, always getting back just in time for the next session. He'd be safe for a little while, and then the cycle would repeat.

Not only was it an excellent explanation for his disappearances (he was being teleported away against his will, so the "But how and why would you ditch the party in the middle of a dungeon?" question didn't come up), but I also gave him short summaries of what he was called away to do so he could grumble about them in-character, and on occasion I slipped in Easter eggs or plot hooks into those summaries to help the party if they were stuck or indecisive.

[Son of A Lich!]

They simply call him Barkeep...

Once encountered at a lonely tavern in the middle of nowhere, this well dressed man behind a bar offered to let the players drink "On a Running Tab". whether liquor, beer or wine, This man, known only as "barkeep" was clean, well-spoken and uncomfortably calm and served the absolute finest drinks the players have ever enjoyed.

When they offer to pay, he insists that he will take payments until they can reach the full amount, no matter how much they try to pay.

A few days later, in the middle of a dungeon, they come into a room and despite it having no reason for existing... There is a Bar along the right side of the room. The same bar that they visited in town. Barkeep is on the other side. When asked to help the party out with the exploration, he insists that he must tend to his bar, "I AM a barkeep, sir..." but he will be here if they need him. and sure enough, whatever room they go into, the magical bar is on the other side.

In combat, his abilities are nearly divine to behold. Goblins run up, and he nonchalantly lays down a handkerchief. They start to climb over the bar and he knocks them out, smashing a liquor bottle over their head and all the bits of broken glass neatly fall into the handkerchief. He folds it up and throws it away. The other goblin hops on to the other side of the bar, and he glares at it for a second, explaining that they must remain on the business end of the bar, before the goblin immolates and he grabs a broom.

However, if they aren't fighting Barkeep, he just has unseen servants serve fresh drinks.

Using detect magic on Barkeep, or his bar, reveals heavy conjuration, abjuration, and transmutation; If you use true sight, everything looks almost identical, but he will apologize for using a minor glamour to make the brass look a little more nicely polished.

Any questions about who he is or what he is will just be hand waved and turned around on the party. "Are you a Demon? An Angel?" "Are you having trouble with Outsiders as of late?" "Are you a Ghost?" "I don't serve ghosts, they have a terrible habit of being unable to pay or enjoy my services." "What's your Name?" "They simply call me Barkeep"

He pops up occasionally, in the strangest of locations; in the wilderness, in a Lich's laboratory, under the ocean, on a ship. Other NPCs either don't know who your talking about, or don't find it strange that he is there and whenever it comes to splitting up the loot, he nonchalantly pulls out an abacus and a long Long Ledger and awaits his portion. Even if the party pays him well above his fair portion, he dryly comments on how little it is, but very indirectly "Oh, 213 gold... well... Thank you... ... Of course, I wouldn't want to put a damper... on YOUR expenses..." "Well... I suppose you are trying." "whoa... slow down, you keep this up for a week and you even have a whole percent off of your tab".

...

In reality, just let your player play a lore bard with an immortality boon and a obligation to stay behind his magic, teleporting bar. Anything that requires a range of touch, just let him deliver it via Unseen servant, like the Wizards and their familiars, and flavor it with a beer or drink. If you let "Barkeep" know the relevant info about the quest before the session, he can relate everything back to serving these big important NPCs 'A number of years ago' and cites what kind of alcohol they preferred back in the day. And you have a friend that is always helpful to the PCs, can be at literally any scenario, never has to worry about resurrections, always deserves part of the loot, has fun helping the party and gets to look cool without stealing the spotlight from the rest of the party.

[Keltest]

Sounds like a character who really enjoys the Magic Bag of Holding Characters Who's Player Didn't Show Up Today.

Sometimes its better to just wink and move on. If you make it a whole thing, theres a good chance one or more players will get distracted trying to figure out all this filler stuff, whereas blatantly handwaving it means people will leave it alone.

[Kami2awa]

Just treat his or her absence as a continuity error.

[LordCdrMilitant]

When I have missing players; I usually say: "They're on the ship/at the base/etc., doing paperwork." It gets a decent laugh.

We've also made jokes that "[player] has disconnected. His body turns greyscale and freezes in place, and then disappears."

[Lunali]

Final Fantasy style: everyone's there all the time but only the currently selected party actually does anything.

[Geddy2112]

My table has frequent absences as two people in my group have to travel for work, meaning we could be missing up to half the time. So we have dozens of ways around this.
-One time a character was a pathfinder vigilante, and they were always in their vigilante identity with the party. If the player was absent, the social identity of the character was an everyman, nobody knew the identity of the man behind the mask.
-In Pathfinder, Druids at mid level turn into trees, their animal companions become figurines and they can mask their presence magically, effectively becoming undetectable. One player was gone for a couple months after establishing this hiding in character, so we just joked that every tree we passed was them, watching over us.
-Final Fantasy style as mentioned-everyone is there, but only a few characters are doing stuff.
-Base of operations. If the party has a wagon/ship/safe house/etc, the absent player's characters are hanging out there.
-Pathfinder has the scar of destiny, which causes people to randomly appear/disappear.
-Further expanding on the scar of destiny, we did a campaign where the planar barriers were broken so planes randomly opened and interacted, causing people/monsters/things to randomly come in and out of the material world. Characters fell into these if their player was absent.
-With a little magic and planning, you can live in a bag of holding. Make sure the absent PC's have air and toss em en.

[jiriku]

• He could be in the middle of making a powerful magic item or researching a new spell, and spending most of his time working in his lab or researching in the local library.
• He could frequently be the guy who gets chosen to guard the camp or scout the surrounding countryside.
• He gets sick easily, and is often incapacitated with the flu / dysentery / whatever -- and he is distrustful of magical cures for disease and prefers to "tough it out."

[Stadge]

Argh! Work hugely got in the way of me, well, doing anything, but thanks so much for all the suggestions!

Talking through some of these ideas with the player in question and he's sounding pretty keen.

[Tvtyrant]

I've done the reverse of this before for a player who would have to regularly miss every third or fourth session due to a rotating work schedule. The PC was a half-fiend sorcerer whose true name had been recorded in the Conjurer's Guide to Extraplanar Servants, basically a big reference book given to apprentice wizards and available in most major arcane libraries that listed lots of outsiders and what kinds of tasks they're good to summon for.

The PC was sick of being summoned and had specifically decided to become an adventurer; while full outsiders' true names are fixed, a half-outsider's true name would change with life experience as it learned and grew, so if he went adventuring and grew and changed a lot in a short time period the recorded true name would quickly "drift" from the recorded version and he couldn't be summoned anymore. Unfortunately, as a PC-classed half-outsider spellcaster he was far too useful a minion to leave alone, so wizards would quickly research his new true name and spread it around if the one in the Guide wasn't working.

So he'd be with the party for a few sessions, and then at the most inconvenient moment he'd feel a tingling sensation and have just enough time to get out a "Oh, come on, I was just getting--" before he was planar bound by some wizard halfway around the world. He'd pop back in a few hours or days later, sometimes back with the party if they were in the same place, sometimes far enough away that he'd have to trek back to the party, always getting back just in time for the next session. He'd be safe for a little while, and then the cycle would repeat.

Not only was it an excellent explanation for his disappearances (he was being teleported away against his will, so the "But how and why would you ditch the party in the middle of a dungeon?" question didn't come up), but I also gave him short summaries of what he was called away to do so he could grumble about them in-character, and on occasion I slipped in Easter eggs or plot hooks into those summaries to help the party if they were stuck or indecisive.

This is now my favorite character. It really plays up how different a Tiefling is from an actual mortal without it being all hellfires and souleating.