That's what irked me so much about the sphinx riddle. It doesn't matter wether or not it's a good or bad riddle, what matters is that the player answered "the bay-12 forum", and argueably, that's a stretch. The sphinx, which is supposed to be a guardian placed by the gods, whom was constantly licking her lips and clearly had interest in eating a PC or two just kinda rolled over and gave the players a big amount of leeway. There was never a pressure to find the right answer, just something that sorta fit was good enough. Ra was even more of a pushover, swayed from his point of view so easily. I guess Elf didn't want to kill his own GMPC, but again, there was never a chance of failure, it's simply lacking any suspense when the outcome is already clear.
Actually, before she said "The Bay-12 Forum", which she only said in the context of a fictional character in a world created by said forum rather than as a "real" person, she did say:
"I would be tempted to say the internet, but I'm too busy discussing other matters right now."
She wasn't actually trying answer the question either time since she assumed she was ineligible. But seeing as she was, her first "answer" was the internet.
am I the only one who is slightly put off by all the flirting?
Probably not. It should go away a lot when we get more plot going though. Right now we're just twiddling our thumbs, mostly.
My apologies, @Elf intended for me to run my plot today, but I am unable to as yesterday was the last day of my holidays. I'll try and run it on Saturday (well, Saturday in my timezone at least).