(By the way, I keep having this vision of a player who winks in and out of existence as you play...)

To me XP is a pacing mechanism more than a reward system.

Rewards are generally in-game things be it cool stuff, friends and allies, fiefdoms, titles, or just having changed the the game world in a meaningful way. We recall stories of the time the PCs saved the city or befriended the count or found a strange artifact or slew the giant terrorizing the area. I don't recall anyone ever reminiscing about the time they got 500 or whatever XP.

So I wouldn't sweat it. If awarding XP in absentia is working, then keep it. They may get XP like the others, but they're missing out on all those cool things that they can only get in play.

Quote from: Will;813923(By the way, I keep having this vision of a player who winks in and out of existence as you play...)

Sounds like bad wiring. Keep a multimeter at the table.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;813929We recall stories of the time the PCs saved the city or befriended the count or found a strange artifact or slew the giant terrorizing the area. I don't recall anyone ever reminiscing about the time they got 500 or whatever XP.

Yeah, I generally have no clue how much XP I need till next level and neither am I jonesing for what perks will come 2, 3, 5 levels future. I'm thinking in terms of the setting and our goals... not my bonuses and hit points and 'feats'.

Quote from: Will;813913Simlasa: Well, in a system where power level isn't quite so exponentiating, getting more XP would be a perk rather than turning the game into The BMX Bandit and the Angel Summoner.

I've always favored RPGs with low power ramps... where the wild dogs stay dangerous and the farmgirl with a bit of luck can take out the big bad villain. Generally I prefer gains in 'power' to be within the setting, rather than increasing stats and 'powerz'.

For my D&D campaign, I use my usual approach - XP is earned by session for the group as a whole, with each person there getting a share and each person not there getting half a share (which I do not apply any prime requisite bonus to since it is "XP by association" rather than action).

Of course, I'm using the old school D&D XP tables that are individual by class and double every level, so this approach doesn't really lead to as disparate of power levels because people can catch up.

For example, right now I have four PCs in my campaign and we've had five sessions.

* The rogue PC has been at every session. He has around 3350 XP and is level 3.
* The sorcerer PC has also been at every session. He has around 3500 XP because of his higher prime requisite bonus, but is only level 2 because his class needs a lot more to gain levels.
* The priest PC has missed two sessions, so his total is just over 2900 XP. But because he is a priest, he is nearly at 3rd level.
* The warrior PC has missed one session, but it was a big one. He has just under 2700 XP and is level 2.


I've used a similar approach in my various past D&D campaigns as well as my Rifts campaign (where I used more individual XP, so the "base award" for a session was half of what the person who earned the lowest XP for the session was).

In our Cthulubusters campaign, you didn't get any experience if you didn't show up, but as someone else said experience is rather incidental in CoC rules anyhow.

You could just run his character as an NPC and let him earn experience and keep pace. He would probably fall only a little behind the others. Is level all that big a deal? Never has been in my games.

The good news is that in 5e a difference of say 3 levels is not a game breaker usually.

If the player is missing sessions then they are missing sessions. You can buffer them a little by having the group use the character as an NPC, but not too much.

You could do away with EXP totally and use the optional milestone system where X progress through the campaign means everyone is Y level no matter. The missing PC could be off on some side quest or otherwise weaved into the story why they are not there.

I hand out XP for achievement, not for just showing up.  (And really especially truly NOT for not showing up.)  I see no reason why I should screw the creative problem-solvers, the brilliant roleplayers and the skilled tacticians by proclaiming their contributions no different from the wallflowers who limit their involvement to rolling dice when it's their round in combat.

Folks who've openly demonstrated that they've felt slighted by not getting every benny everyone else gets have been, historically, invited to either step up their game, live with getting less XP, or seek a gaming group more likely to give them what they want.

As far as attendance goes, a player who misses as much as a third of my sessions is on thin ice, and the only exception I've ever made was for my oldest friend, who was dying of diabetes and missed sessions for things like "Bob?  Dave won't be able to make it this weekend.  He had a heart attack during his procedure day before yesterday, died on the table, and is still in ICU." §  For anyone else, chronic and frequent absences provoke me to invite the player to give me a call when he or she can commit to regular attendance again.

That being said ... really, is the level disparity THAT bad?  Jhkim suggests that a 15-pt gap in GURPS is nothing much, and it isn't: the largest gap there's ever been in my GURPS campaign is over a hundred points, which at the rate I hand out XP represents roughly two years' worth of sessions.  (Players switch groups, they come, they go, they retire characters, they ask to play old characters from decades ago.)  And I've no problem with that ... the nature of GURPS means that the grizzled veteran and the untried rookie can compete without either one feeling hard done by.

§ - Wish I was making that up.  I'm not.  Thank heaven for the wild success of his double transplant.

It depends on a system for me, I'd say. In ones where the character progression is slow anyway, such as CoC, I just don't bother and play as it is - if he's around, he gets the XP. In case of D&D or say, Warhammer, I'd probably give him same XP as everyone else, if I use the "count everyone's xp and divide equally" method, or give him lowest earned XP minus X if I count XP individually.

How do I deal with it?

We live with it.  Not there, no XP.  And I hate "everyone levels up together" with the blazing heat of a billion exploding galaxies.

I don't hand out XP, I hand out levels. Survive X adventures, gain a level. Its worked fine for me.

I also agree with Doctor Jest. The in-game rewards are more important than XP and those can only be gained by attendance.

I have one consistently intermittent player who has missed about half of the sessions of the current campaign. I equally divide experience for everyone who shows up, whether they show up late or leave early. For anyone who can't make it they get half of a share of experience. So far with the 6 way split with full attendance and half of a 5 way split when he can't game, and no experience for the first two sessions, his character is only a single level behind the rest of the group, rest of which finally all leveled to the same level.

More importantly no one seems unhappy with this state of affairs.

Quote from: Old Geezer;814017How do I deal with it?

We live with it.  Not there, no XP.  And I hate "everyone levels up together" with the blazing heat of a billion exploding galaxies.

Welcome to the club. But not all DMs roll that way.

Actually, my current policy is that if one player doesnt show then I just call off till next week. The group really shines with everyone there.

Quote from: Ravenswing;814001As far as attendance goes, a player who misses as much as a third of my sessions is on thin ice, and the only exception I've ever made was for my oldest friend, who was dying of diabetes and missed sessions for things like "Bob?  Dave won't be able to make it this weekend.  He had a heart attack during his procedure day before yesterday, died on the table, and is still in ICU." §  For anyone else, chronic and frequent absences provoke me to invite the player to give me a call when he or she can commit to regular attendance again.

Well, it isn't like this - but as I said in the OP, the player in question is currently having to travel for his job - so he is actually hundreds of miles out of town when he can't make it.

Quote from: Omega;814032Welcome to the club. But not all DMs roll that way.

Actually, my current policy is that if one player doesnt show then I just call off till next week. The group really shines with everyone there.

If I did that then we'd never get a game in.