Mort said:
I'm just going by your responses - you want the item and effects but not the consequences of dealing with a potentially dangerous entity that may leave at an inopportune moment - please correct what I'm getting wrong (not being snarky here).
Artifacts aren't entities, is the problem. They are little black holes of Plot, that exist on a separate level from the rest of the universe. Having Vecna's hand and eye have power over me when I can hunt him down and dismember him make for poor drama and bad plotting; there should be in-game recognition that artifacts, while they have their own agenda, can be fought and mastered within the construct the rules provide.
Here's an alternate mechanic; artifacts are sources of virtual residuum. They generate extremely small amounts of residuum naturally, can gain more residuum when used to perform actions in line with their function, and lose it when forced to perform actions out of line with their function. Artifacts can spend their virtual residuum to fuel rituals and pseudo-rituals. If you use an artifact to fulfill its function, it likes you, and uses its rituals to benefit you. If you start fighting the artifact, it fights back, but you can theoretically ablate away the artifact's power by enduring the worst it can throw out, and keep it from recharging by continuing to use it in a way contrary to its function. One default artifact ritual would be the teleport-away; all artifacts should be able to escape from being sealed in a block of lead and forgotten. However, if you have the
cojones to bear the One Ring and use its power to sustain and reveal instead of corrupt and conceal, then you should eventually reach the point where you've struck repeatedly at what makes the Ring the Ring, and you should have something to show for it.
Rules empower players. Rules serve as narrative contracts between player and DM; by laying down rules for the world and sticking to them, you provide a wealth of mechanisms for the players to engage the world and engage in activities of interest. "This arbitrary event happens, and nothing in your power can affect or prevent it." is the opposite of player empowerment. The essence of play in an RPG is the making of meaningful choices; if there are no meaningful choices a character can make with regards to artifacts, then artifacts are not a meaningful element of play. The PCs are characters of interest not because they have infinite narrative control or power, but because they use their limited resources in interesting ways to achieve great ends. Artifacts, done properly, can be similarly interesting; or they can be 'will of the GM' buttons, and about as interesting.
Because at some point artifacts outlive their usefulness; they may become too much of a crutch or prevent the PC's from moving on to their next adventure (or by moving on the artifact may introduce the next adventure). Yes it's a fine line, but good DMing always is
Reliance on narrative tropes unjustified and unremarked-upon in-world is not widely regarded as good DMing by players. If you want artifacts that have the ability to wander at (your) will, you can't tell artifact-destruction stories. If you want artifacts to be masterable by the players, then you can tell Lord of the Rings...but you can also tell an expy of Midnight, in which the players seize the power of the Ring, eat Sauron's soul, then rip Middle-Earth out of the Song and embark on a dark crusade to bring the rest of the world under their heel. If this isn't the kind of story you want told, then the proper way to respond to this kind of player action is out-of-character. If you attempt to use in-world elements to corral your plot, then you have no room to complain when those elements are overcome in-world and the players cheerfully gallop away across the unplotted plains.
