[@Aine] I believe this is on a case by case basis. If you join a RP with a character and then bail mid-RP, then the GM + players are stuck with a character that is no longer active in the roleplay and they have to figure out how to advance around it. The general consensus is for a GM to write this character out of the story (how this is done depends on the GM and the context of the roleplay itself), IMO. I've honestly never seen a GM just hand off someone's character to another player, but I've seen GMs temporarily NPC them to get them out of the roleplay if, say, their player leaves mid-RP conversation or in a battle or something where they can't easily be thrown into the background. EDIT: TBH, this all could be solved by said player writing out their character anyway... but generally most people don't even bother doing this, which is why we have this issue.