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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8261010" data-attributes="member: 18">What counts as "your" magic item here though? Like, an item you "felt" was yours "by right" or something, or you were simply the person who picked it up, or do you mean an item that your character had had for ages and been using, but that they took away? It seems like they're taking basically a military approach here, where magic items are the equivalent of weapons/ammo/body armour/grenades and will be redistributed to benefit the squad.Personally I've never seen what you describe happen with an item that isn't being directly replaced and I don't understand the situation that would cause it to happen, from a logical perspective. Like, if you had a ring of invisibility you'd been using for a while, presumably when you acquired it, other candidates were considered and rejected, given the military distribution approach, why would they then go back on that and redistribute it to someone else? I've seen military-style distribution of stuff, but the only time things get given away is if someone literally can't use them, like, you've just been distributed/given cloak of uberness and are wearing it, but you also have cloak of okayness, and another party has no cloak magic item at all, if you don't give him that cloak of okayness, it brings into question why you'd received the cloak of uberness - even if it's not seen as military style distribution, they're clearly perceiving part of the bargain for you receiving the item is turning in the old one for redistribution. That's what I have seen happen - if someone takes an item as an upgrade and can no longer use another item at all because it's the same slot and "always on", it's an expectation that the old item be redistributed. And no-one even seems to think twice.As for giving someone a laptop because you had a better laptop, well, I've seen that happen among friends/family IRL an awful lot of times (it's not automatic but it does happen - particularly with expensive kitchen stuff like high pots/pans, weirdly) and you're saying it doesn't happen, soooooo... (laptop vs tablet isn't the same though, those serve similar but different purposes/roles, but we're talking like for like, like with two cloaks). And in any kind of military or even paramilitary or faux-military squad, if you got given a better gun and there was a dude with no gun, you can sure as hell bet people would expect you to give that dude your old gun - either that or you wouldn't get given the better one - it should go to the guy with none (even if you'd make better use of it), because otherwise you're going to pointlessly hoard the items, weakening the party overall. I also feel like most parties would have pretty intense emotional bonds given the extreme danger and brutal close-combat situations they've been in, so friends/family is probably not a bad comparison point (if anything this is something often overlooked in RPGs). Also this is life-and-death, not just like "Oh I'd like a backup to do watch Netflix on!".Sorry, not trying to say your PoV is invalid. I don't think it is, but I think there's a fairly straightforward flipside to this, and as soon as you start accepting items because you're "the best person to have them" you're essentially buying into this military redistribution deal, and then it's live by the sword, die by the sword. To avoid this you'd have to never buy into it, and make it really obvious that you didn't, and not even accept given items, always demand an exchange (I'm reminded of a Faction in Planescape, possibly in one of the later books...).</blockquote>

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