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Thursday Night Pathfinder: How Do You Deal with Missing Players?

Thursday nights we have a group of six players that plays Pathfinder from 6 to 9:

  • R, who plays Corrail
  • C, who plays Felix
  • S, my daughter, who plays Victaerus
  • B, who plays Caleel, the new human cleric
  • A, who plays Nickolai the half-orc barbarian
  • B, who plays The Druid
Last night we only had 3 of the 6 players show up, and even one of those was 20 minutes late.  One player had told me in advance that he would be out, one player got stuck at work due to a no-call, no-show, and one I haven't heard anything from.

This comes one week after we had to cancel our previous game due to 3 players being unavailable.

From a GM perspective, missing half the party is pretty much a non-starter.  Usually missing half the party also means either the rogue or the healer is missing, which is a recipe for a TPK.  So last night we waited for an hour to see if anyone else would show up and then packed up.

In general, my policy is that if you don't show up and don't contact me for three sessions in a row, you are going to be replaced.  Unfortunately one of my players has reached that point now, and I need to pass along the bad news.  I've already sent word through to see if I can get another player in on Thursdays.

So, here's the big question for the readers:  how have you seen other groups deal with players missing sessions?
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