[sblock=Insight 12]
You realize that, since Zarglezorf wrote these letters, and the halfling apparently doesn't know what they say, the halfling probably isn't Zarglezorf. (Unless he's very forgetful.) He seems to be just some random halfling that's taking over Bishop Klogg's workload.
[/sblock]
The halfling grabs the papers and retreats into the Bishop's office. Through the closed door you hear the sound of loud retching interspersed with sobbing.
After a few moments the sobbing stops, and a few minutes later he pushes a set of forms through the crack under the door.
"Sign zese! And be qvuick about it!"
Forms said:
Lauto, Lord of Death, has claimed the life of Marglespat Applethorpe. His Holy Church deputizes the undersigned to collect this life. In return, we will pay a reward of 500 gp.
Blade _________________________
Tonk _________________________
Dextyr M'rgan _________________________
Tristan Moonblade _________________________
Mikara Li Mesadh _________________________
[sblock=About that XP reward]
Wanted to be sure I took my time wording this correctly, and there didn't seem to be a huge hurry while renau1g's still away, so I haven't gotten a chance to put this down until now:
I'm sorry if I seemed to shortchange Blade. Normally in a play-by-post game, I don't give out XP rewards for good roleplaying. In a face-to-face game I tend to give out small XP rewards for roleplaying often, since it gives immediate feedback, encourages more shy players to participate more, and gives a reward for the moments when someone comes up with something really great on the spur of the moment. In the forum, the flow is different: people have more time to compose well-written posts and think through what they want their characters to do, and their posts stick around for everyone to read and enjoy instead of being lost once the session is over. People get recognized for good posting through OOC congratulations a lot more than in a face-to-face game, which tends to move on more quickly. Also you don't get the same immediate feedback of the DM saying, "That was great! Have some XP!" right to your face. So IMHO, on the forum XP awards for roleplaying are less important and less effective.
I decided to break this self-imposed guideline because the extended punch brother sequence made me laugh so much I wanted to give it some tangible recognition. At the same time, I don't want XP rewards to be a rubber stamp given to everyone at the same time just to keep from seeming to play favourites. I have a bad habit of trying to make sure everyone gets an equal reward, regardless of what they actually do, to avoid ruffling any feathers. This often leads to me awarding XP to one characters for doing something super-hilarious, and then awarding the same amount to other characters for trivial reasons to make sure they don't feel left out. I think that dilutes the value of the original award, so I'm making an extra effort to avoid doing that.
This reward was specifically for making me laugh in this thread: the two main drivers of this were Tonk (for being consistently hilarious) and Dextyr (for being the one to kick it off and also getting a lot of good lines), so I gave them double; Mikara and Tristan also did a lot of good RP and made me laugh a lot, so they get the standard reward. Blade, unfortunately, didn't post very much in the punch brother sequence in this thread so I don't think I can justify giving him the same award.
It's true that he did RP the punch brother ritual earlier, in the tavern, but that wasn't part of "this adventure", which is the only thing I can give XP for. I understand that I hadn't given any notice that the adventure had "started" and I'd be rewarding XP - quite the opposite, I think I implied that it was in a holding pattern. So it's a bit unfair since renau1g seemed to have interpreted it as a good time to sit back and let the others have some time in the spotlight, not realizing I'd be giving roleplaying rewards now. Sorry about the mixed messages - the XP was a spur of the moment reward so I couldn't really sort this out beforehand. I don't think it was
hugely unfair, though, because we're only talking about a 25-50 XP reward. It would be a problem if I was giving out many rewards, or large rewards, without being clear that we'd officially started, but I don't think this reward was big enough to worry about being perfectly consistent.
I confused the issue by saying that Tonk's double award was for "starting off the original punch brother ritual in the Tavern". I shouldn't have said that: I'm awarding XP for what happens in this thread, and what Tonk did in the tavern doesn't apply. In fact I don't think I'd be allowed to award XP for what Tonk did in the tavern, since I'm not the DM there. The truth is that Tonk's double award was for being extra super funny. I didn't say that because of another, related bad habit: deciding what award people should get, and then making up an in-character excuse to give them that award instead of just saying, "This character gets a bigger award because he was funnier," again to avoid looking like I'm playing favourites. So I said that the two double awards were for "starting the whole thing off," which was a lie. If I had actually been awarding XP for the punch brother ritual in the tavern as well as in this thread, Blade would indeed deserve as much as the others.
However, I think the actual XP rewards were justified, according to what was posted in this thread. It was just my descriptions of why I was giving them which were misleading and unfair. When it comes right down to it, we're only talking about 25 XP - the more important issue is the hurt feelings created when I seemed to single out Blade as not being as deserving as everyone else. I did that by trying to avoid my natural inclination to avoid confrontation by just giving everyone the same award, but not going far enough in squashing my bad habits, and phrasing the award in a way that would have worked ok if I had given everyone the same amount, but in this case just drew attention to the fact that Blade wasn't getting as much while muddying the reason. So, I apologize for that: it's a bad habit, and I'll be more careful in the future.
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Don't mean to make you rush or anything, Joe - I'm still patient, haha.[/sblock]
