Sentinent Items

[Waylander the Slayer]

I was thinking about this today. Usually, In RPGs sentinent items might speak, have personalities, but do they actually feel? For example does a sword feel it when you cut through someone's neck? Can it taste the blood? Does it feel pain if it is sundered? These are wonderful considerations, that can add a layer of complexity and fun to the game.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Interesting thoughts. (Also you taught me a new word. I knew sentient, but not sentinent.)

I think that, usually, they don't. However, I could imagine, just as it is rare for a sword to be sentient, it might also be rare for a sentient sword to be sentinent.

It'd be interesting to have, say, a holy avenger that has the mind/soul of a former paladin able to feel each blow (and perhaps motivate it to try to convince its owner to use it less). Or perhaps a bloodthirsty sword?


I first read sentinent as sentiment. I like to have intelligent items have a story behind them. For instance, a bowstring woven out of a loved one's hair, and imbued with a bit of their personality. Perhaps a power or two tied to the relationship between the wielder and the person whose hair it is.

I could imagine feelings of love when the bow blessed the wielder, felt by both of "them".

 

[Meatboy]

Interesting and it opens up some strange doors for the adventurer. Like if you have a falling out with your sword and they won't work for you anymore. OR if they start being wielded by the parties barbarian behind your back...

 

[Ahnehnois]

Obviously, intelligent objects can perceive their surroundings in some fashion. They almost never have meaningful sensory organs. So if your sword can hear you speak, it seems to me that it ought to have some form of tactile perception, as the latter is a much simpler ability.

For a weapon in particular, I expect that the sentience inside it would be used to delivering hits. Much as a soldier is desensitized to violence, I would expect the weapon he holds would experience a certain emotional numbing if it had the capacity for emotion in the first place.

The reaction of an intelligent item to being damaged would be the same as that of any sentient creature unable to defend itself.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I was thinking about this today. Usually, In RPGs sentinent items might speak, have personalities, but do they actually feel? For example does a sword feel it when you cut through someone's neck? Can it taste the blood? Does it feel pain if it is sundered? These are wonderful considerations, that can add a layer of complexity and fun to the game.

I would say yes.

In fact, an evil bloodthirsty sword might literally like the taste of blood.

 

[Agamon]

Obviously it doesn't taste or feel or what have you, but it would simulate it magically, sure.

I wouldn't say it actually suffers pain, but it would be pretty upset at getting "hurt" and would react the same way a person does at getting hurt.

 

[Janx]

is Sentinent a word? Dictionary.com says no.

Please clarify where the word comes from, or if its a typo.


Otherwise, I think I'll just assume you meant sentient, and the topic is do they have feelings.

the answer is: they have feelings if the GM says they do.

The impact on the game has greaty to do with whether the GM thinks of it. If 2 smart swords exist, and one has feelings, the other doesn't. If the GM doesn't think to make them different in how he portrays them, then it doesn't matter.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I looked it up after the OP posted it.

I didn't find very "official" sources, but I believe, from the online sources available to me, that the definitions are:


Sentient: self aware; able to think
Sentinent: able to sense; able to feel

 

[the Jester]

I have often had intelligent magic items have their own senses. A magic weapon might not see, but it definitely has a sense of touch. I think there was even a time when a blinded pc got his sentient magic whatever to help guide him to safety.

I've had items, especially in 1e, that were highly vain and demanded to be polished with or kept in specific fancy materials. I seem to recall a magic weapon claiming that it preferred to have jewels and fancy metals wrought into its scabbard because it "felt better" when it was sheathed.

is Sentinent a word? Dictionary.com says no.

Please clarify where the word comes from, or if its a typo.

Although it redirects to self-aware, this medical dictionary site seems to define it as essentially the same thing as self-awareness.

I'm not sure what the subtle nuance that differentiates between sentinence and sentience is, but it looks to be a medical term.

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

The impact on the game has greaty to do with whether the GM thinks of it. If 2 smart swords exist, and one has feelings, the other doesn't. If the GM doesn't think to make them different in how he portrays them, then it doesn't matter.

Right. I am talking from a GMs perspective, and this is a thought excercise about the possibilities of magical items, not just limited to weapons, having the ability to feel; for example- an item could function through taste, or smell, or touch, or even sight or a combination of the above...I am thinking of how for example, it impacts my current campaign, where some of the more powerful items that the PCs have recovered, unbeknownst to them, are remenants of the power of dead gods.