XP and Absent Players

Following on from my previous post, there is a question of what should happen to PCs who have their player absent for a week, or PCs who enter the game late, or replacement PCs for those who die.

Since the goal is for everyone to enjoy the game, and since it's difficult to introduce a means for PCs to 'catch up' in XP, the solution is actually quite simple:

PCs of absent players should always gain a full share of the XP, even if the character was in no danger. New and replacement PCs should always enter the game with the same XP total as the rest of the group (that's the total award, ignoring any expenditures that spell-casters might have made for spells and magic items).

The reason for this is that doing otherwise will permanently leave an affected PC behind the rest of the group. Such a character won't ever be able to take on the more powerful foes, won't ever have a chance to be as involved in the game, and the player is not likely to ever be fully involved, or to enjoy the game as much.

Of course, you can add a mechanism whereby characters can catch up. However, calibrating the system so that it doesn't allow spellcasters to catch up for the XP they spent to make magic items is tricky at best. (And it should be noted that a character who makes that expenditure gains from the power of the item, so should suffer a slightly lower XP total. It's a trade-off.)