Roleplaying Artifacts

[Atlemar]

So I'm thinking of dropping an artifact into my campaign pretty soon. I went looking for guidance on playing the character of the artifact and found nothing in the DMG, the WotC site or anywhere else on the Internet.

So, my fellow DMs, what has worked for you?

Should my artifact speak aloud, audible to the whole party, or speak telepathically to one or more PCs? Should it speak only to the character who picks it up? (That almost always ends up being the cleric, in this party, but the artifact itself should end up in the fighter's hands.)

If it does speak confidentially to a PC, should I go with the private messages to the player? (It's an online campaign, so it'd be typing in GameTable while on a Skype conference call with the whole party.) Or do you find speaking the artifact's role aloud where the other players can hear is acceptable? (The artifact I'm planning is not one that's going to encourage the PC to murder the other PCs.)

 

[Jhaelen]

Should my artifact speak aloud, audible to the whole party, or speak telepathically to one or more PCs? Should it speak only to the character who picks it up? (That almost always ends up being the cleric, in this party, but the artifact itself should end up in the fighter's hands.)

Unless the artifact's description said so, I wouldn't let the artifact speak to its current owner. I typically describe emotional effects when the owner does something the artifact approves of or disapproves of. To communicate more complex ideas I've used dreams and visions.

If it does speak confidentially to a PC, should I go with the private messages to the player? (It's an online campaign, so it'd be typing in GameTable while on a Skype conference call with the whole party.) Or do you find speaking the artifact's role aloud where the other players can hear is acceptable? (The artifact I'm planning is not one that's going to encourage the PC to murder the other PCs.)

Unless it's an evil artifact that tries to influence the owner to act against the interests of the rest of the party I wouldn't bother with private messages.
This may depend on your players, though. I know my players are able to keep player knowledge and character knowledge apart, so it's no problem in my group.

 

[Alaric_Argent]

I think it depends on what you're doing with the artifact. My DM has used both sorts. She had a chaotic evil medallion compelling the party members to hide it, retrieve it, coat it with blood, and so on without any dialogue from the artifact. She had a tripartate artifact (rather like the Key to Time from Doctor Who) that sent one of the PCs dreams to guide the group through the plot arc. She's given my wizard an artifact sword that improves with power as the campaign goes on (Sebastian is headed for the Spiral Tower paragon path), but doesn't explain itself--it was a bit awkward the night the fairies showed up, took bites of flesh from the other party members, and anointed the blade with them until it glowed. (Sebastian now has a case with vials of blood so there's no repeat of that scene-- love that handy haversack!) It can be most enjoyable to have to figure out what the artifact wants, as opposed to being told directly. It also lengthens the story a bit, having to find by accident or trial and error what the item does before deciding how to react, as opposed to finding something that cuts to the chase by announcing its intentions. The chase is largely the point of playing, isn't it?

OTOH she had a lot of fun with the "be careful what you wish for" scenario. The fighter and the rogue found the remains of a fairy dragon, and they pulled the wishbone (she had a real one for the players to use to determine the outcome). The fighter, knowing we're to face a red dragon in our future, wished for the most powerful dragon-slaying sword ever created, forgetting that the party's mage (bearing the name I use here as my screen name) was half-dragon. The sword had the arrogant tone and relentless single-mindedness to make the whole thing a lot of fun. And yes, the fighter did manage to keep it from killing the mage, but only with great effort. Over the years, she's also given our parties a cloak that could summon items up to a certain value, but would sometimes mishear a request (with comic results), and a ring that loved to throw gasoline on a romantic triangle involving 3 PCs.

I guess I'd want to know what purpose(s) the artifact is to serve. Is it a tool, a special weapon or item that will help a PC (and by extension the party) fulfill their goal(s)? Is it "the damsel in the tower," the goal itself, or a near-term goal that must be reached/obtained before going on to the next goal? Is it meant to guide the PCs toward some other goal, imparting information. Does it have its own agenda, functioning as an inanimate NPC? Is it meant to lighten things up a bit, assuming you play with a bit of comic relief? Some things can be done more efficiently with some kind of dialogue, but sometimes efficient dialogue can seem like railroading the PCs.

Once you are clear about the purpose(s) of the artifact, you can put that together with the playing style of your group (Are they more fight-driven versus story-driven or vice versa?) and their capacity to separate player knowledge from character knowledge to decide if the artifact speaks, and if so, to whom and how it speaks.

 

[Ryujin]

Several things should contribute to how you play an Artifact. How intelligent is it? The more it is, the more likely it is to be able to communicate in a meaningful fashion. Good or evil? Good will tend to be up front about its goals. Evil will be more conspiratorial or misleading, dependant upon whether it's goals might hurt members of the party. It might exhort the wielder to heroic actions, or tempt him with promises of power and riches as appropriate.

Set the basic parameters of the artifact; good, evil, unaligned, origin, goals, intelligence, communication methods..... After that build it a personality, just as you would any character. One should give you the other.