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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8262280" data-attributes="member: 18">I dunno if &quot;everything has an owner&quot; is actually true, conceptually. An owner implies total power over a thing and complete rights over a thing, but I think a lot of items in parties exist in a more complex liminal space between fully owned and party owned and sometimes even &quot;used for the good of the world&quot;. Almost a &quot;quantum superposition&quot; of ownership, that would only be collapsed if the person with the item wanted to leave the party or sell it.The &quot;mercantile&quot; system you outlined in the other thread is interesting because it eliminates the liminal space and creates a precisely delineated system of strict ownership or shareholding. This eliminates questions relating to ownership, but doesn't reflect the way these things tend to play out in fantasy fiction, mythology, or from what I've seen, actual party dynamics in a lot of TT RPG groups (obviously it does in yours and some others). You're describing your system, your approach in your quote there, but it's not a universal view.Arthur never really &quot;owned&quot; Excalibur, he merely possessed it, and the same could be said of an absolutely vast number of mythological magical items. Not every culture has really been big on permanent ownership either. If you look at Native American cultures for example, there's a real breadth of concepts relating to both the &quot;ownership&quot; or rights relating to both land/territory and objects. The Salish for example tended towards a fairly straightforward/familiar direct perpetual ownership model not much different from that of most Western Europeans, but many cultures had different views, for example that once an tool or a land was no longer in regular use, it was up for grabs. And even in places like Western Europe, ownership could be complex (c.f. &quot;the tragedy of the commons&quot; but also a lot of other situations where strict ownership was not well-defined).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8262280, member: 18"] I dunno if "everything has an owner" is actually true, conceptually. An owner implies total power over a thing and complete rights over a thing, but I think a lot of items in parties exist in a more complex liminal space between fully owned and party owned and sometimes even "used for the good of the world". Almost a "quantum superposition" of ownership, that would only be collapsed if the person with the item wanted to leave the party or sell it. The "mercantile" system you outlined in the other thread is interesting because it eliminates the liminal space and creates a precisely delineated system of strict ownership or shareholding. This eliminates questions relating to ownership, but doesn't reflect the way these things tend to play out in fantasy fiction, mythology, or from what I've seen, actual party dynamics in a lot of TT RPG groups (obviously it does in yours and some others). You're describing your system, your approach in your quote there, but it's not a universal view. Arthur never really "owned" Excalibur, he merely possessed it, and the same could be said of an absolutely vast number of mythological magical items. Not every culture has really been big on permanent ownership either. If you look at Native American cultures for example, there's a real breadth of concepts relating to both the "ownership" or rights relating to both land/territory and objects. The Salish for example tended towards a fairly straightforward/familiar direct perpetual ownership model not much different from that of most Western Europeans, but many cultures had different views, for example that once an tool or a land was no longer in regular use, it was up for grabs. And even in places like Western Europe, ownership could be complex (c.f. "the tragedy of the commons" but also a lot of other situations where strict ownership was not well-defined). [/QUOTE]

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