Life happens. Sometimes, life happens to get in the way of your regularly scheduled D&D session, like a springtime deer in front of a minivan. (Alternatively, like an unassuming squirrel, and you only have to put the brakes on a bit to let it go about its business.)

Regardless—you’re going to have to do some maneuvering.

As the Dungeon Master, part of your role becomes scheduling and planning sessions. It’s up to you to decide (at least in part) what the group will do when one or more players can’t make it to a session.

You have two options here: either to run the session or cancel it.

Cancelling the session is a bummer, but if too many players are unavailable (you and your group can decide how many is too many), cancelling might be the most practical choice. You’ll just have to reschedule for a better time, or just skip this session if you have an established cadence for session scheduling (you meet every other Friday, for example).

Running the session presents a few more choices as to how you’ll address the missing player. There are a few different ways you can still run a session while maneuvering around the absent player and player character.

  • You run the session as-is

You can simply run everything as usual, just without the missing PC contributing. Some variants of this approach include an explanation for why that character isn’t present, which works so long as they can hop right back into the action when the player returns. Some groups just say that the character is somewhere in the background, taking care of other business this time.

Simple, easy, straightforward—but this approach might not cut it all the time, especially if the absent player’s character is going to be needed in combat. Hence this alternative:

  • You run the session with someone else playing the absent player’s character

This happened with the last evil squad session. Since Eliera’s player wasn’t able to make the session, I filled in to run Eliera. This worked out for a variety of reasons; I was available, was in the same room as the DM (we are married and live together), and was decently familiar with Eliera’s personality and abilities. Our group’s usual policy is that the DM will run the character “insofar as they are needed to progress the session and the campaign.”

It’s up to you and your group as to who plays the absent player’s character. On one hand, the DM is likely to be familiar with the character’s mechanics. On the other hand, having someone else play the character takes the pressure off the DM. Usually this will have to be another player at the table, though, and juggling two characters at once can be intimidating. Ultimately, use your discretion and discuss what everyone is comfortable with before the session, and obviously don’t be a jerk and have the PC do something wildly out-of-character.

  • You run a shorter session

This approach works especially well if the party is in a town or other setting where characters are comfortable enough to go about business individually. With a shorter session, you can resolve the actions of the present party members, ending the session before the absent player’s character would need to act.

Of course, it would be ideal to give your players a full-length session. You can combine this approach with this next idea to make up for the time:

  • You run part of the session in a play-by-post format

Over email, over Discord server, over group chat… you can run some parts of a session in a text-based setting. You could probably make combat work with some patience, but this approach is best suited to more roleplay-heavy sequences.

Or, you can just let the players and PCs discuss their plans in the days between sessions. If a player wasn’t there for the in-person/video call session, they can discuss and catch up with other players in the meantime. This can make the next session run more smoothly, as the absent player comes in with more knowledge of what transpired while they were away. The players can come to agreements and discuss questions between scheduled sessions.

Do keep in mind that some players might not have the time to draft lengthy responses, and some might be more active in their contributions than others, so it depends on your group.

Life happens, but you can maneuver around those obstacles! Work with the player who’s going to be absent, talk to your group if this has never come up before. In the future, you’ll have a plan for this scenario.

What do you do when a player can’t make a session? Have any other ideas on how to address player absence? Have you used a play-by-post format before? I’m curious; let’s talk in the comments!