Sadly, most of the games I play in have monthly sessions at best. Also, players travel from a somewhat greater distance to play. During the month, many players misplace their character sheets or accidentally leave them at home.
Depending on the game, it might be relatively easy to reconstruct the sheet. I'm also trying to convince the players to scan or otherwise digitize their sheets, and I want them to store them in an Internet-accessible location such as Google Docs.
Even so, there's always that time when a player shows up ready to roll but has no sheet. Without the sheet, the experience for everyone will diminish. It's like putting a big old asterisk on the entire session. I know what precautions to take to avoid it, but how to make it as painless as possible when it does happen?
Best Answer
I allow them to reconstruct it during play. To a degree, this depends on the game, but even in the more complex games it's the end results that matter more than the formulas. For example, if I know that my energy blaster in Champions has a big energy blast with a bunch of different options, I can probably get away with saying I do 12d6 with a single-target blast and maybe 8d6 with an area effect blast. I don't need to reverse-engineer the points I spent on each version of the power.
Likewise, if I'm playing 4e, does it matter that much if my daily does 4d8 or 3d8 for one session? Probably not.
I also don't need to figure any of this out until it comes into play. Did my Unknown Armies character have 55% or 65% in Running From the Fuzz? Until there are cops on my tail, I don't need to even think about it. I don't want to burn an hour of everyone's time asking about the details they remember before we sit down to play.