How does your group work around people missing sessions?

>>52305474
we play deathwatch so it's pretty easy

In my group people rarely miss sessions, and if they do it's only for that one session, only that person, and not multiple sessions in a row. So we have a buddy system. If you are absent then your buddy controls your character for you(and vice versa) during combat and partially during roleplaying (no non-character appropriate actions). Having an even number of group members makes this key.

>>52305474
Somebody else takes over their character. As a DM, I try not to target the absentee character too much, so it won't die when it's player is not even at the table.

>>52305474
Someone else temporarily takes control of their PC, with their permission. If not that, then the PC is quietly shuffled into the background with an in-game excuse of some elaborate kind.

>"Yes, Jeff, your character spent the whole shadowrun in the corporate bathroom. The guards didn't think to look there, they were too busy putting out the lab fire and collecting blood samples."

>They are at the back of the marching order
>They may be skipped in combat if the person controlling them takes too long planning their turn

>>52305474
Depends, if I'm running a crawl, then they are in the nearest safe area.

If I'm running something more story based then I usually ask what they want their character to be doing on the side. Working on something, research, shaking down perps, buying stolen goods, stuff like that. I make a couple skill rolls on tjs side appropriate to what they where doing, then give them some experience and next time they play I give them a list of what they made, learned, bought, ect.

>>52305474
They go into t-pose.

We play a board game, or watch a movie or something. We try not to play without everyone. And they cant play without me. When Im not running, Im (inevitably) the face and mixed up with all the plots, so everything starts happening, and everyone freaks out.
They tried without me once,and the next week they had decided to make the last session non cannon because they managed to fuck everything up.

>>52305474
Honestly it tough, we debate wether or not to run depending on where we are in the game, if I think they will die without everyone then we run something else that week. Luckily I'm a GM of many systems and good at running impromptu games

if it's a 4 player game and 1 is missing I cancel

if it's a 5 player game and 1 is missing, I provide a convenient excuse for the character to be busy elsewhere

>>52305474
If it brings the number of players to 2, we don't play. If it's 3 players, we ask those three players if they wanna go for it anyway, and usually they do (unless it's been a rough week or whatever).
If it's 4 players, then we definitely play, every time.

Otherwise, we play and the missing players' characters tag along and fade into the background. If something happens where we know those characters would've absolutely done something or other, we come up with a reason why they get knocked out, poisoned, succumb to wounds from a previous battle, or whatever.

>>52305474
My group is fucking shit so we rarely have everyone in one game. Apart from the DM there are only two people who show up most of the time, and one of those is me. The rest just drops by whenever.

Most of the time when we have 3 players or more we just improvise and/or have people playing multiple characters. If we get 2 or less players we just call the game off.

It fucking sucks but I think everyone who cares about the game has just given up on ever having a good group so it's like, whatever if it's this or nothing I'll put up with it. And the people who only show up sometimes obviously don't care very much in the first place. I often think the only reason the group still exists in the first place is that everyone's too lazy to find/make a better group.

>>52305474
We have 2 games running simultaneously. I'm usually the one who can't make a session, so they play a shadowrun campaign when I can't make the Rogue Trader session.Works out pretty well cause during the school year (I go to Uni in a different city than them) they just mostly count on me not being there and run weekly sessions that I can sometimes go to, and then between terms or during breaks we do full-weekend sessions cause I may not be able to make it for a while

We also all know how to play and run a bunch of rules-lite stuff for playing one-shots for when we need a break from the campaign or people are missing

>>52305474
The character does nothing of worth for the rest of that session, as if the player was shy and didn't know what to do.

If there's combat, they just fade into the background like an NPC. They do not roll initiative, they do not make actions, and the enemy will focus exclusively on the rest of the party.

If EXP is being tracked, or we level up, the player will receive their cut when they return. I'm not in the business of punishing players who can't make it to a session and I'd rather they show up because they want to, rather than to earn EXP.

If it's down to 1 person, I will just cancel, otherwise we'll run. It helps that I generally have a party of 2-4 people anyways so it's not that big a deal so long as there's more than one person in the party.

Lastly, if you miss three sessions in a row, and I'm given no indication as to why, your character is quietly retired.

>>52307830
Why not just run a campaign with a smaller group?

>>52307374
how player-dependent do you usualy make the campaigns?
I have pretty chill sessions with like a group of 4 guys where only 1 or 2 are there at the same time.

>>52305474
Depends on the game

My dad's party had absent players turn into little floating balls of light, which as a child I thought was stupid and now think is perfect for 'wilderness and dungeon' type games.

For really character and story heavy stuff I generally have to cancel if a player is absent, or if the situation is appropriate, I go for 'side session' for the characters who do show up. They have to be proactive with what they want to do, but they just can't do anything drastic that would essentially leave the absent player 'behind' too far in terms of time, distance, or story advancement