Cloudgatherer
First Post
Typically, I do not award individual bonuses for roleplaying. The characters in my game all have their own personalities, and they portray them well. I sometimes tack on an "RP award" if I feel the party did better at RP, or if the night was all dialogue with one fight.
However, Friday night a player had his character remain behind due to RP reasons. The party was proceeding on their quest at the behest of a church high cleric. The character in question, the party wizard, had been feeling guilty for several days for fireballing some controlled watchmen of the city. The wizard had been browsing the library, looking for advice on atonement/repentance.
So the party proceeded without him and fought the only encounter I had planned for the evening. (If the wizard had been at the encounter, he would have died). Being a wizard, he had just learned teleport and caught up with the party.
In the end, I gave the entire party a RP award for the night. By the rules, the wizard does not get XP for the single encounter, so instead I gave him half of what he would have gotten for good roleplaying, in addition to my general party RP award.
How do you handle RP situations like this? Do you think I'm being a "nice DM" by giving him as much as he's getting or a "bad DM" by not giving him as much XP as he would have gotten if here were at the battle?
Thanks!
However, Friday night a player had his character remain behind due to RP reasons. The party was proceeding on their quest at the behest of a church high cleric. The character in question, the party wizard, had been feeling guilty for several days for fireballing some controlled watchmen of the city. The wizard had been browsing the library, looking for advice on atonement/repentance.
So the party proceeded without him and fought the only encounter I had planned for the evening. (If the wizard had been at the encounter, he would have died). Being a wizard, he had just learned teleport and caught up with the party.
In the end, I gave the entire party a RP award for the night. By the rules, the wizard does not get XP for the single encounter, so instead I gave him half of what he would have gotten for good roleplaying, in addition to my general party RP award.
How do you handle RP situations like this? Do you think I'm being a "nice DM" by giving him as much as he's getting or a "bad DM" by not giving him as much XP as he would have gotten if here were at the battle?
Thanks!