Catch-up
How to catch up a player who missed a session
5 min read
Someone misses a week and you can feel the dread coming. Either you spend the first half hour of next session re-explaining what happened, or that player flounders quietly until they catch up by osmosis. Neither is fun, and both eat into table time everyone showed up for.
The good news is that catching someone up does not have to be a production. With a little structure you can get a returning player current in a few minutes, keep your secrets intact, and start the game on time.
Fast ways to get them current
You have a few options, and the right one depends on how much happened and how much time you have before the game. Pick one rather than trying to do all of them.
Whatever method you choose, send it ahead of time if you can. A player who reads the recap the night before walks in ready, instead of asking you to recap while four other people wait.
- Send them a written recap of the missed session so they can read it on their own time.
- Ask a teammate to give them a two-minute summary in their own words. Players often remember what mattered to them better than you would expect, and hearing which beats they lead with tells you what actually landed at your table and what they skimmed past, so you learn what your players care about.
- Do a quick one-on-one before the game starts, just the headlines and what is expected of them tonight.
- Let them ask their own questions. If they have a way to query what happened, they can fill gaps without pulling the whole table into it.
Recap Raven can post a short, player-friendly summary, the kind people actually read rather than a wall of text, straight into Discord within minutes of your session ending. A player who missed can get themselves up to date on their own time, even while you are asleep.
What a catch-up should actually include
The mistake is replaying the session beat by beat. Nobody needs the dialogue. They need to know what changed and what is expected of them when play resumes.
Keep it to the load-bearing stuff and trust them to ask if they want more detail. A tight catch-up is easier to absorb than a wall of text.
- The big decisions the party made and why.
- Where the party is right now, physically and in the story.
- Any new threats, deadlines, or promises the group took on.
- What is expected of them tonight, so they can show up with a plan.
- Skip: every dice roll, every NPC’s backstory, side conversations, and anything that did not move the situation.
Handling their character in the missed session
Decide what their character was doing while the player was away, and keep it simple. A friend at the table can run them, or you can fade them to the background and treat them as present but quiet. Both are fine as long as the group agrees up front.
If you would rather not have the character in scenes they should not influence, give a light narrative excuse. Maybe they stayed to guard the camp, ran an errand in Greyford, or were laid up after the last fight. Avoid letting an absent player’s character make decisions that lock in consequences they had no say in. When in doubt, keep that character out of anything pivotal until the player is back at the table.
Keeping it quick so the table starts on time
The whole point is to protect game time. Front-load the catch-up: handle it before the session, in a side channel or a short call, so the opening scene is not a recap. If something has to happen at the table, give the headline version and offer to fill in details during a break.
This is where a tool can carry the load. Recap Raven records the session through its own bot or a Craig link, transcribes it per speaker, and shares a player-safe recap in Discord after the game, so a returning player can read what happened without you writing anything. A safety pass keeps GM secrets out of that recap before it is shared. And with /askprivate, the player who missed can ask their own spoiler-safe questions and get cited answers, instead of interrupting the table or waiting on you. It is one option among several, but it turns catch-up from a chore into something that is already done by the time they log in.
Frequently asked questions
A player missed last week. What's the fastest way to get them ready for tonight?
Send them a short recap ahead of the session covering the big decisions, where the party is now, and what is expected tonight. The fastest version is automatic: Recap Raven posts a player-friendly recap to Discord within minutes of the game ending, so a missing player can read it on their own time. A two-minute one-on-one before play covers anything the recap missed.
What should I leave out when catching someone up?
Skip the play-by-play, the dice rolls, side conversations, and NPC backstory that did not change anything. Stick to decisions, the party’s current situation, new threats or promises, and what they are expected to do next. Recap Raven’s recaps are written this way by default, short and player-friendly rather than a wall of text, so a returning player gets the gist without the noise.
What do I do with their character during the session they missed?
Have a friend run them or fade them into the background by mutual agreement. Keep that character out of pivotal choices the absent player should have a say in, and use a light narrative excuse if you need them offstage. Sort this out with the group before play so nobody feels their character was steered without consent.
Can the returning player catch up without me writing a summary every week?
Yes. Recap Raven shares a player-safe recap after the game and lets the player ask their own spoiler-safe questions with /askprivate, getting cited answers from the transcript. That moves the work off your plate entirely and lets them fill gaps on their own schedule, without you writing a word.
If writing a recap every week wears on you, Recap Raven is one option that records the session and shares a player-safe recap in Discord, so a returning player can catch up and ask their own questions before the next game.
