Here’s a question, I hope I can make it clear so bear with me:
Session 1: Four players show up. We do a bit of free play then a heist. We decide to do Downtime next section as we have run out of time.
Session 2: Three players show up. We do the downtime then go to free play, then manage to do a heist and downtime.
Session 3: The player who missed last session shows up. We do a heist and go to downtime. How should I proceed with the player? Is he entitled to ALL the actions from the two Downtime periods he missed (Session 2) plus the one from this session?
How would you handle this?
Oh, I wouldn’t think so. If they have particular downtime activities they wanted to do and are psyched for, but need to clear stress and harm first, so can’t do them—maybe?
Regular amount of downtime activities seems normal to me. If they did have something they’re really excited about for a project I might give them an extra roll or two, if it makes sense in the fiction (like when they left they were working on this project).
Did you have them come back into the score clear of stress and harm taken from the first score? If so, I think that’s good enough.
I’d treat it like their character was “Lost” during session 2 (as on page 156). They start the score with their stress and harm cleared. It ameliorate missing the session somewhat but isn’t as big a reward as the xp they would have earned if they were there.
Sean Nittner they already finished the score, though. So the character would have done two scores back to back and is moving into their first downtime.
I know this is a bit confusing. I’ll try to break it down:
Session 1 (Player 1, 2, 3 and 4)
Heist 1 completed.
Session 2 (Player 1, 2 and 3. 4 absent)
Downtime 1 (from heist in session 1)
Heist 2
Downtime 2
Session 3 (Player 1, 2, 3 and 4)
Heist 3
Downtime 3
In downtime 3, would player 4 be allowed 4 downtime actions from downtime 1 and 3?
I hope this is less confusing.
This is a gray area.
If it’s expedient for the group to do those 4 downtime activities, that’s fine. I wouldn’t go more than that, though (managing 6+ downtime activities for missing more time would be annoying).
As a player, I wouldn’t worry about it and would just carry on without the downtime (treating it as Lost, as Sean said).
Either way is fine.
Thanks Sean Nittner and John Harper, I don’t know how I missed that one. I’ll have a talk with the player, but it’s the best solution, by far.