GM: Sigurd, your muscles groan as you slowly hack and climb your way up the slime-covered pit. When you reach the top, you tie the rope from around your waist to a tree and in a few minutes everyone is back at the surface, dirty and bloody, but with your prize. As you look around at the swamp you emerged into, you realize you are hopelessly lost.

"Okay, this is a good point to call it quits. We'll stop here and continue next week. I'll have the experience points figured out by then, and you guys will be able to ......

Player One: "Uh, I've got this Tae Kwon Do tournament next week, I can't make it."

GM: (sighs) "Okay, we'll take a week off and pick up the week after."

Player Two: "Hey, I've got to visit my grandparents in Montana that week. "

Player Three: "And I've got to house-sit my mom's Dachshund.

GM: "Aargh! Okay, three weeks! We'll try again in three weeks!"

Player Four: "Uh, guys..."

Does the above conversation sound familiar? Let's face it, blessed rare are the gaming groups that have consistent, regular attendance by all their players. This becomes particularly true with older group members who have to deal with jobs, spouses, and other responsibilities. What's the answer? Wait until all the players can play? Of course not. In fact, the absence of a player can lead to choice opportunities for the Game Master to enhance his story.

Solutions for Rare Player Absences

There are many options for the GM when a player cannot make a game session. The first is to let another player play the character. This is tempting for the GM because he does not have to take responsibility for the character, or figure out a way to get him out of the story for the evening. However, this solution is not suggested! First, it causes the absent player great anxiety as he imagines the surrogate taking great risks with his character or just rolling poorly. If anyone should be rolling the dice to determine the character' s fate, it should by the creator.

Second, it's disruptive for the party to now be dealing with Mike-Dax instead of Jadzia-Dax. The characterization of the character will be inconsistent if not mildly stereotypical or pejorative of the absent player's style. No matter how the character is played, no matter how much trust the absent player has in the surrogate, the absent player will be unhappy with the turn of events.

Another possibility is zombification. This is when the GM takes over for the player and runs the character as an NPC for a session. The absent player can take comfort in the fact that as an NPC, the character has immunity from harm (if the GM is merciful). The character becomes passive, silent, tends to stand in the back and only acts upon the suggestions of the other characters, much as a "hireling" would behave.

The GM can, on occasion, use the character to make suggestions to the others when the party seems bogged down or indecisive. Now this is acceptable for the once in a great while absence, but still isn't making the most of the moment. Let's look at some more creative outlets.

The first is scut work, a less-than glamorous name for very important tasks for the temporary NPC character. One example of scut work is maintenance. Spaceship repairs from the last battle or selling recently-acquired booty can leave the party's hands free for more entertaining pursuits. Another possibility is research. Tracking down those strange runes on the amulet at the library can be an excellent excuse for the absent character to wander off while the rest off the party interrogates the professor of the occult and his living paperweight. Use the player's absence as a way to get through the slower parts of the story.

A second use of an absent player is plot device. The obvious "McGuffin" is to have the character kidnapped, and have the players rescue him in that game session. The next game session (when the absent player is back) the entire group can clean the clock of the offending villain. Or better yet, have the character disappear, only to appear during the next gaming session, his entire memory a blank and his only clue a strange scrap of cloth with an arcane symbol on it.... The absence could be the impetus for an entire story arc in itself.

The Guest Star

The best way to explain the Guest Star technique is with an example. My spouse (love ya honey!) likes to role-play now and then. Illness, exercise, dreaded shift work, other responsibilities and general disinterest have kept her from our regular gaming sessions. Now how do you, the GM, handle the player who is more absent than present? Do you ban her from the game, citing this as the cause? Of course not. You use her as a Guest Star.

To continue with the above example, my spouse played Desiree, a callous city thief. Desiree showed great disinterest in the party, who regularly disrupted her livelihood, but had a soft spot in her heart for the "hard luck cases." Desiree would put the party up when they were in town, maybe do an quick job or two for them; but when the action started getting hot, she would head for the hills (usually taking a chunk of the party's treasure with her).

When the party headed off on their "epic quest," Desiree secretly followed, surreptitiously assisting them, even foiling an ambush on one occasion. In gaming terms, she was the perfect character for the rarely-present player. Shifty, streetwise characters are one of the best Guest Stars, as their attitudes don't make them prone to "team spirit," but their skills can be invaluable when they're around.

Other possible Guest Stars include:

Droids: Droids are always being left behind on the ship for one reason or another (see Scut Work, above). However, a Droid could always disobey his master's orders and head out after the party, particularly if he suspects that they are in trouble. Particularly stubborn droids could also follow their own agenda or ideas (such as delivering secret messages to hermits on desert planets ... )

Another country's agents: Also known as "Felix Lightner Syndrome." If you're CIA, he's MI5, and vice versa., Another country's agent is always turning up, following a similar path to an identical goal. Not always the most helpful PC either, particularly if you're MI5 and he's KGB...

The Enigmatic Stranger: Good for horror or superhero campaigns, the Guest Star is a mysterious, often supernaturally powered figure out to surreptitiously assist the party, feed them plotlines, or just lend that helping fist now and then. Enigmatic Strangers are often equipped with powers such as invisibility, extra-dimensional teleportation, and flowing capes.

The Intelligent, Talking Magical Item: Hey, don't laugh, it works! The magic item Guest Star is great for the rarely there player. Make sure the magic item is useful so the party will keep an object that seems to express its opinion seemly at random. Examples of this are an amulet that produces light continuously (solving the "how many torches left" issue) or detects magic. Summoned golems and dancing swords let the Guest Star participate in combat, if he's got the inclination.

Campaign Suggestions

The Guest Star is a good technique for the infrequent individual, but what if the entire group is less than reliable? Believe it or not, this group can work, if the correct campaign is chosen. The wrong campaign can just lead to you, the GM, becoming highly frustrated and possibly prematurely ending the game. Let's look at what works best for the "floating group."

Urban campaigns: Cities (past, present, or future) are great campaign locations on their own, particularly with a rich and well-developed setting, but are also perfect for floating groups. The strength comes in the GM's ability to "shuffle" players in and out of the storylines without having to invent implausible rationales for a character's absence. This strength of urban campaigns doesn't have to be limited to cities, but any campaign where there exists a regular setting that occurs in every game session (such as a spaceship or military base).

Episodic campaigns: One of the worst things that can happen is when the player who, since he wasn't there last session, is forced to sit out a portion of the gaming session until the GM can work him in (if ever). This is waste of the player's time and leaves him pretty frustrated and feeling punished for his previous absence. While this may seem a tremendous restriction on the GM's storytelling ability, the episodic campaign (where each gaming session comprises an entire story) is easier on the GM, and more rewarding to the players involved.

Genre specifics: While certain types of campaigns are better for the floating group, certain genres of games are better suited to the floating group as well. In superheroic campaigns, the rotating cast is a genre staple, not just a strength. Games that de-emphasize group cohesion work better for the floating group. This may seem counter- intuitive for GM's, who have been taught all along to create some "group concept" to tie the PC's together, not to strive so hard for this.

An excellent example of this type of game is Vampire: the Masquerade, where the real challenge for the Storyteller is to get all the players together for a session. Another, very different, example is Robotech by Palladium Games, where the party can play members of the RDF, thwarting Xentraedi or Invid plots each session, then returning to the base when they're done. In both cases, each PC belongs to the larger group, but is not a required participant in each game. (Don't assume, however, that other games by the same publisher works as well as games that do. Werewolf. the Apocalypse and Rifts, both done by the same publishers respectively, are examples of bad games to run for the floating group).

Conclusion

Few things can be more frustrating to a GM than an absent player, but with the proper flexibility, absenteeism can be turned into a positive campaign element. The key to dealing with absenteeism is pre-planning, both for the session and the long-term campaign. Talk to your players before you begin a campaign to get an idea of what kind of commitment you can expect from them, and communicate your expectations of them. Insist that players who will be absent give you some advance warning; not only is it helpful to you, but it's just good manners.

While not all absences can be predicted, having a few on-hand strategies for dealing with absenteeism guarantees a smoother-running, more enjoyable session for everyone.