DM take control of character? How?

[Urieal]

How can the GM/DM/referee take control (and play as) one of the characters (in the event that someone does not show for a session)?

I looked, and searched, but perhaps I missed something?

Thx in advance.

[Griogre]

There are really two ways. 1) Clear the owner and then ask another player to open the character for you. This will put the character up in the top left of the FG desktop and then you can just run the character off the mini sheet as you see fit. 2) If for some reason you don't want another player to open the character sheet for you, you can start another instance of FG and connect to your server as a player and open the character after you have cleared the owner on the server. This works but juggling two instances of FG while GMing is a bit of a pain.

[Nestor]

I will typically start a localhost instance of FGII, log in with the character and play the character from DM side.

It is best to discourage your players from missing game sessions. There are several ways to do this. My favorite method is to award a social disease.

for example:

Player: What the... what happened to Baltzar's Charisma?

DM: Well, while you were gone last week he loved a woman who was not clean and now he has a disease the locals call "The Itchy Eye", it sets your charisma to 8, until the disease is cured.

Player: Man... Your a D***!!

DM: I know.

[Urieal]

Thanks guys, I had figured there was a way to handle it without opening up a secondary FG2 instance...but alas, there isn't. No worries.

The players all have busy lives and sometimes work interferes, I'd not want to "punish" them for missing a session. But we generally play either way.

[Griogre]

I don't like punishing missing players either as long as they keep the group informed if they are not going to make it. And I also think it important to keep playing when players can't make it because groups that don't play regularly tend to fall apart. Personally, I usually have another player run the missing player's character with me, the GM, making the final call on anything controversial. After a groups been together for a while, the players tend to know how the other player runs his character I've found.

[Valarian]

I tend to just run them as another NPC, opening the character sheet from the list if s roll is needed.

[Urieal]

I tend to just run them as another NPC, opening the character sheet from the list if s roll is needed.
Ahh, thanks. I just found that I can click on the character from the character selection screen and access their character sheet.

That being said, I can't drag them onto a battle map :( (unless one of you FG2 ninjas know a way)

[madman]

At least in the 3.5E ruleset, I cam drag a character from the combat tracker and the character selection screen, along with the token slot from the character sheet to a map.

I am not sure what ruleset you are using.

Chris

[Urieal]

At least in the 3.5E ruleset, I cam drag a character from the combat tracker and the character selection screen, along with the token slot from the character sheet to a map.

I am not sure what ruleset you are using.

Chris
My players had not filled their tokens yet, and so I wasn't aware that could happen. I, temporarily, placed a token on a character sheet and then drug it to the battle map...worked a treat! Thanks!