Running the Game - How I Handle Players Leaving

When you run tabletop games long enough, you might find that some players might struggle to get to the table. Lives change over the course of an adventure, and with some campaigns take years to finish, it can affect playing. You might do your best to keep the group moving, and having solid rules about cancellations, but life can happen and people will need to step away. When that happens, it can cause a lot of chaos at the table. If you have a plan, however, you can make this transition as smooth as possible.

Players Not Characters

As a minor note, this is about PLAYERS leaving, not player-characters. While the two have a lot of overlap, I wanted to focus on the actual person playing at your table and how to handle that. In the future, I will go into how I handle characters entering and leaving a campaign.

Life Happens

Players leaving is a natural part of the game. Tables might play together for years, and during that time, lives can change. Younger groups might move apart because of either entering or leaving college. Even with a set of digital tools, it might not fit everyone’s different schedule. Members of the table can have something change in their lives. Employment, marriage, having children, needing to move, it can all affect availability for someone, yourself included. 

Talking Out of Game

Once you know a player cannot play or they are having issues with making it to game night, you will want to have an out of a game conversation with them, preferably one on one. You can start discussing availability and what this means for your player going forwards. I try to focus on answering two big questions before proceeding: When will they be unable to play anymore, and do they think this is permanent?

When

The first question I want to ask the player is “When will this schedule change take effect?”. Sometimes a player might know weeks or months ahead of time. I had a player who was having their first child and gave me a heads up a few months ahead of time. Other times, a crisis might arise where a player might suddenly not be able to make sessions for the foreseeable future. A sudden emergency in the family or medical issue can cause a player to cannot play suddenly. Finding out how much time you have before this person is unavailable will help you decide how to approach the situation. If more time is available, you can work more with the player. But if time is short, you will want to focus on handling the process more swiftly.

Temporary or Permanent?

The second question I ask is will this change be permanent and does the player foresee themselves coming back to the table in the future? In my experience, most schedule changes have been temporary. A player needs to take time off to adjust to a change in their life, such as the arrival of a new member of the family, and then will return to the regular schedule. This situation has arisen for me in the past. A few times, however, it is a situation where the player will most likely not return. Knowing this helps me figure out the best way to deal with the character, and how permanent a departure you want to have happen.

Next Steps

Once I know when and how long a player will leave my table, I can start working on the in-game and out-of-game steps I want to take in order to keep the game running smoothly, moving forwards with everyone enjoying themselves. Each element will help make this a smooth experience and make sure that everyone understands what this change means in the future.

Out of Game

It is very important to communicate both to the player and to the party about this outside the realm of a normal session play, so that you can address this as players at the table, not just characters in your tabletop game. You can call a meeting on a night when you normally do not play, or discuss it during a game the night before or after a session. You can also send out a message via text or discord if you use either for organization and campaign communication. However you end up doing it, I find it best to separate what I want to talk about into two groups. I have items I specifically want to talk about with the player leaving and I have items I want to talk to the remaining table about.

The Leaving Player

When you figure out how to handle a player leaving your table, you will want to sort out some specifics with them before they leave, mostly focused on what will happen to their character and their character’s possessions once they leave the game. Coming up with this outside the realm of the in-game play will ensure that transitioning the player out of the campaign will be as smooth as possible. A lot of these choices will heavily rely on those two questions we initially asked when we found out that the player would leave, especially on how permanent the character leaving will be.

Determining what happens to the character can heavily depend on whether the player foresees themselves coming back to the table. If they do not think they will come back or they do not want to come back to the same NPC, it might make the most sense to have a more permanent departure. I usually work with the player on this, and try to make something collaborative that we both find satisfying and in line with the game itself. Killing off an exiting player’s character can be an exciting plot hook, but it can feel cruel and final if the player is not in agreement, like an eviction notice from your table. You want to make sure that whatever you choose also fits the story you are telling. It might not make sense for the character to retire to run an orphanage if you are traveling through the 3rd layer of the Infernal Plane. A collaborative narrative element between both yourself and the player will make sure that this goes smoothly.

I like to make sure the leaving player understands they are always welcome to return to the table if their situations change. Even if a player sees themselves never returning, situations can change that in the future. Having the chance for the player to return for a session or two because fate benefited them can even be fun for all involved. So I let the player know they can always come back and if they do, just let me know and I will work something out. If they were an enjoyable member of the party when they previously played, it will always be fun to have the possibility of them returning, even for one night.

The Party

Once I have sorted out the details with the departing player, I want to address the rest of the group and let them know what is happening. Once I have a basic grasp of when the player will leave and for how long I will want to approach the table, let them know, and then let them know any next steps that we will take out of the game, either in the meantime or before proceeding with our campaign.

Since having a player leave can change up a lot of elements in the game, doing a Session 0-2 at this moment can keep communication between everyone clear and consistent. This out of game debrief can provide additional feedback if anyone else has any. Taking the time to debrief the party on what they have achieved so far, what they hope to achieve soon, and what the long-term goals everyone has can help make sure that whatever changes will come about because of the player’s departure, that those goals can either be slightly adjusted or entirely preserved, and what changes might have to allow that.

In Game

Now that we have talked about the out of character, out of game elements that need to take place, we can talk about the in game elements that need to be handled. In the game, I focus on how the story and party itself will change with that player character leaving the group. The player leaving the table means that, through some means, that player’s character will leave the party for the foreseeable future. This can cause a lot of mechanical and narrative changes to the group, so it is important to have a general idea of how to approach this situation, and what steps you will need to take for the party to continue onwards once this change happens.

Mechanical

On the mechanical side of the game, I will look at the role the character serves in the party, and what the party relies on them for regularly. 5e as they designed it is pretty forgiving on party composition. I have seen campaigns run and complete without a designated healer or melee “tank” character, albeit there are adjustments. But for your party, they might feel differently and want to adjust accordingly. Especially with smaller groups (4 players or fewer) losing a person can change a lot. Encounters can become harder in the future with fewer bodies at the table, and they may have concerns.

To resolve any concerns on the mechanics side of the game, I will usually offer one of two options, or both. If the change will be permanent, I often will start with offering the party a chance to adjust their character sheets a small amount to adjust for the change in party composition. A normally aggressive fighter might want to change a feat that allows them to mitigate damage in combat. A less charismatic character might want to take on an ability that allows them to serve better in the absence of the main party face. While I offer the party a chance to adjust, I try to keep this somewhat minimal. You do not need to excel at an ability to be passable at it. I also think that these new party weaknesses can also provide a great place to fail forward, allowing the party to narrate out how they handle not being as charismatic or as bulky as before. That being said, the end goal is to make sure everyone has fun. 

If this change is more short term, I will often offer an NPC to fill the role that the missing character filled. Either a monster with some minor homebrew adjustments, or the 5e Sidekick Stat blocks prove very useful in this situation. When I bring an NPC into the group, I usually try to follow a few rules. First, I want to make sure that the NPC does not steal the spotlight too much and becomes a DM-PC. This character fills the roles that the PC filled previously and we want to make sure this character does not exceed that too much. This new character can have a story, but you will most likely want them to be more reactive than proactive out of combat. If the party decides that their new companion’s troubles are interesting enough to deviate from that current game, you can always present this as a side-quest, but I try to avoid this approach most of the time. You will also want to decide how the new character interacts in combat. Will you control this character on top of the enemies, or will you give control to one of the party members? Running the character yourself can make for a more realistic feeling character, but it adds to your plate. Sometimes players can feel overwhelmed with choices when given a second stat block to handle. If you offer this character’s control to one of your players, I recommend giving it to a more experienced one, or someone that can multitask very well.

Narrative

As well as mechanical, a player leaving brings narrative changes to the group as well. When that character leaves, all the hooks, secrets, and knowledge they have goes with them. This can leave the party in a weird position, especially if the party’s current quests heavily relies on this information. Inter-party bonds can become complicated when one player involved drops out as well, so it is important to figure out how the role play proceeds with a player leaving.

In order to resolve these situations, I will often try to work with the player to get an idea of how their character would want to proceed in a situation like this. If time allows, I give them the chance to narrate how their character would pass along any important information or items, and what last words they might say to the members of the party. How this goes will usually depend on how permanent this departure will be for the player, and what the player departing means for the character. If the player plans on coming back and the character will still be around, I like to lean more towards notes and packages for the party. The player can write something up that gets given to the party or a particular player in session. 

If the departure will be more permanent, or the player decides that if they come back, their character will not, I would like to give the chance for a goodbye in session. It can serve as a way for both the PC and the player to say goodbye, as well as offer a more complete chance to pass any useful elements onto the party. Sometimes these particular sessions can provide interesting hooks that come into play down the road. The collaborative efforts of the party might focus on an especially heartfelt goodbye and create something powerful to build off down the road.

Future of the Campaign, Future of the Table

Will all of this done, this can make sure the future of your campaign and your table remains moving secure. However, sometimes a player leaving might mean the end (or pause of a campaign). If you have an especially small group losing that one player might move things out of balance. Or if the campaign followed a lot of that specific character’s plot points, it can feel empty without them. If the game was about one player becoming the champion against darkness, and they leave, it might feel odd continuing on without them. You can, but sometimes it might not make the most sense. At that point, you can always pause or end the game.

If you think the player might come back, putting that story on hiatus can make sense. Taking a pause can give everyone a bit of a break, including you as the main story teller. This can be an excellent time to try something else. It can even help you avoid the pitfalls of GM burnout, which can be much more likely with the added responsibility of having to adjust to the changes in the table. Taking a pause can give you and the group to take a breather, and jump into different roles for the time being.

If the player does not plan on coming back, however, and your party does not want to continue, it might be time to consider ending the campaign. While this does not always happen, this is a possibility to consider. The stories we tell can be as much the people who tell them as the characters we make. When one of those players leaves, it might just not feel the same. Before deciding to end it, I recommend a few things. First, take some time away from the game. Either a hiatus, or doing something else in the meantime, get some distance from the game. Even with the most amiable departures, it can make emotions and stress levels run high. A cool off time can help. I also recommend having a discussion with the group. Either together or one on one, see what players think about moving forward with the story once they have had some time off. It may turn out that the party wants to move forwards after having some time to consider. Ultimately, it is important to give this some thought.

Final Thoughts

The process that I wrote above makes a few assumptions about the player leaving, with the largest one being that the split is amiable that is not related to you or the rest of the table. While situations like this pop up, they require a unique process in order to handle, one that focuses more on conflict resolution first and adjusting the story second. At some point I will talk about my methods for dealing with a situation like this, but the topic will focus primarily on the conflict resolution aspects.

Conclusion

If you follow the above, you should be able to manage a smooth transition when the player does eventually leave. Understanding when the player will depart and if they think they might return can help you decide how to handle your next steps in handling this change. 

Talking to all parties out of the game is the important first step. You can coordinate with the player leaving, and decide how they want to handle their character’s departure, creating a collaborative piece of the story that includes the change. Talking to the rest of the party provides a great time to take a check of the group, and figure out what goals the remaining players might have might have to change, or what you might need to change to keep them.

I will include links to a few of the homebrew creatures I have made below. These are very much still set up for DMing and would not be what I would consider “ready to be published” but I think they are good examples of what can be done. 

In the game, you will want to coordinate how the remaining characters will adjust to this change, both mechanically and narratively. What changes they will need to make to cover the roles of the player, and if someone will need to join the party to cover the space the leaving character created. It can be a great place to bring in a Sidekick or other NPC for the party to balance things out. You will just want to make sure that character does not cross the line into DM-PC territory. On the narrative side, you will want to give space for the characters having some parting words, as well as pass information along. This can be as simple as a letter or as built up as a last session saying goodbye.

Have you had a player have to leave? How did you handle it at the table? How did your campaign change afterwards? I would love to hear in the comments below!

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