Good day everyone, hope you’re doing well!

I’ve made a new video and blog post on the topic of how to deal with sessions where people can’t make it.

My solution is fairly simple but effective: The Woven Dream, a state of dreaming where party members experience shared dreams. Besides allowing the group to play instead of skipping a session, it also allows you to really dig into the background of any (or all) of the present characters.

It’s not something that’ll work every time, but it’s served me really well, and I wanted to share the idea with you.

I’ve also taken the feedback from this and other communities around here and my stuff isn’t just videos anymore, but blog posts as well and the blog posts have a full audio narration of the blog post for those that prefer podcasts or to account for accessibility.

Hope it gives you some inspiration!

Blog post: https://impheim.com/2023/09/skip-or-play-a-solution-to-sessions-with-missing-players/

YT Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol-8-P3YSBY

  • Imperor@lemmy.worldOP
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    9 months ago

    Little One Shots sound like a good idea as well, yeah. I like to take a step back during those sessions and really allow the players to bring out their own ideas and let the main dreamer basically Co-DM the session. I’ve yet to be disappointed with the results!

    Did it turn out to be a good session in your case?

    • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      It definitely did. I wanted to make the session meaningful for the players that made it, despite the fact that the dream conceit limits the realism of letting them keep any treasure they find. So instead I homebrewed a very minor consumable effect (like a “blessing”) and gave it to them as a reward for escaping the house with their lives. As I said, Death House is brutal for a small party, so the spookyness was reinforced by the deadliness of the adventure for two people.