If they're too awkward and non-confrontational to admit they want to try something else, they're too awkward and non-confrontational to challenge on it, at least not individually.
I feel you on that being frustrating as fuck but it's hard to really do anything in response without crossing some kind of line. If you confront them it's a bit "i saw your thing that you thought you had hidden" and you're likely to get lies, silence or fear-aggression defensive mode of "omg why you snooping must deflect".
I think at the very least if they're doing shit like faking illness you could probably tell them off for that since that's pretty scummy. Not sure how much leeway you get with "you didn't actually have a cold" though. Sometimes when your energy reserves are low and everything sucks you go for the instant gratification thing, so if there was an irl stress component there could've been some truth to it.
In the meantime you could try for...idk, like "if x is gone for z amount of time retcon/remove them from the plot/replace with npc" as a site suggestion thread? You can't make Bob Rp but you could advise folk on how to extrapolate themselves from wasting time by waiting for x to come back.
There isn't much you can do if your activity rules state its okay...
However, you can give your players the okay to drop plots and back them up when Absent Player returns. Even if its a simple "Well, the plot was being held up and they wanted to continue it. I wasn't going to tell them no because that isn't the kind of restriction we want to put on our players."
I'm in the same situation on a smaller scale - Haven't found the person on other sites yet, but they've posted once in ~6 months and two other people have characters tied up with theirs and don't know what to do with them. I let them know that dropping the plot was perfectly okay and if they raised hell I'd back them up.
Unless their character is actually important and there's some kind of activity check there isn't really a whole lot that can be done. BUT that doesn't mean you need to put up with their flaky behavior. I tend to not get involved in the plots of these individuals because they cannot follow through a plot.
Some people won't drop b/c of feared resentment/disappointment of peers, however, as not fun as it is to inform a community that you are leaving it, one does outgrow games and when it's time to move on it's time to move on. Some people don't get this. Some people recently ducked out of our comm and tbh? I'm glad. I did not have anything personal against them but they weren't contributing shit and the only two people they played with most of the time was each other.
I honestly don't think it's worth stirring the pot though. If you have CR with them that you can handwave, handwave it and then don't get mixed up with them again. Flake's are gonna flake.
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I think at the very least if they're doing shit like faking illness you could probably tell them off for that since that's pretty scummy. Not sure how much leeway you get with "you didn't actually have a cold" though. Sometimes when your energy reserves are low and everything sucks you go for the instant gratification thing, so if there was an irl stress component there could've been some truth to it.
In the meantime you could try for...idk, like "if x is gone for z amount of time retcon/remove them from the plot/replace with npc" as a site suggestion thread? You can't make Bob Rp but you could advise folk on how to extrapolate themselves from wasting time by waiting for x to come back.
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However, you can give your players the okay to drop plots and back them up when Absent Player returns. Even if its a simple "Well, the plot was being held up and they wanted to continue it. I wasn't going to tell them no because that isn't the kind of restriction we want to put on our players."
I'm in the same situation on a smaller scale - Haven't found the person on other sites yet, but they've posted once in ~6 months and two other people have characters tied up with theirs and don't know what to do with them. I let them know that dropping the plot was perfectly okay and if they raised hell I'd back them up.
Reply
Some people won't drop b/c of feared resentment/disappointment of peers, however, as not fun as it is to inform a community that you are leaving it, one does outgrow games and when it's time to move on it's time to move on. Some people don't get this. Some people recently ducked out of our comm and tbh? I'm glad. I did not have anything personal against them but they weren't contributing shit and the only two people they played with most of the time was each other.
I honestly don't think it's worth stirring the pot though. If you have CR with them that you can handwave, handwave it and then don't get mixed up with them again. Flake's are gonna flake.
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