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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 4824486" data-attributes="member: 54707">I gotta go somewhere this morning. So I'll return to some of the other comments later on. But on this one SO, I didn't say anyone had to post by responding with an essay. I said they could. That it was an experiment in new forms of communications. I also said they could respond as per any normal post. I laid out a series of options. Which one the reader or responder chooses to employ is their business. I'm not dictating the method, I'm suggesting possibilities for developing different forms.This is why I said one is free to let the heirloom or inheritance develop slowly over time. That you don't have to use them in all of the old and obvious ways. An item can be inherited without the person inheriting it knowing exactly what it is or how it operates. The relationship between the item and character develops over time. It doesn't have to be given out to the character with a textbook write up of plus this and plus that, and "it grants a special saving throw against fire breathing dragons." If for instance the item were magical (and heirlooms and inheritances don't have to be magical, they can be, but I sketched out a number of other possibilities in the original post as well) I would consider that type of situation (all information is transmitted to the recover at the same time as the object or inheritance) to be a matter less of magic and more of a technical schematic. It's not the way I'd go about using heirlooms or inheritances in-game, and it's not the way I imagine magic functioning. Like a mechanical device with an owner's manual and a service number to call if you need more information. You wouldn't get that in the real world in all likelihood (I've received several heirlooms over time from various relatives, I've though never received a detailed write up or description of even one - if I wanted to know about it I had to go do some research and ask for stories involving it) and I don't see why you'd get that in a fantasy setting. Personal discovery of all potentialities it seems to me is or should be a natural part of most fantasy settings, and even most role play settings. If not you're not really role playing, discovering, exploring, or investigating, you're just playing a "data game" in disguise.It doesn't matter if they obtained the item by personal effort and adventuring, or by inheritance and will. It is still lost. To them anyways. But I think here you're missing the vital point about heirlooms, legacies, and inheritances. If the involved character dies, the object or legacy still continues on. That is the very point about such things. They "carry on through time."A character dies and then his family members receive his heirlooms. A character dies and then his brother, or uncle, or son or daughter or niece or nephew takes up his mantle and legacy to carry on with whatever he was involved in. A character dies but his money and estates do not die with him. They go to someone, perhaps a family member, perhaps a friend and associate. A character can die, but the heirlooms he possesses, the legacy he was a part of, and the wealth he has inherited does not die with him. That carries on, and that is exactly the point I was making. There is  continuation of things, rather than characters and events in the world being disconnected, isolated, and divorced from each other and form their own background. Characters die, but storylines (in a game sense) and histories does not. Character histories then become more than just a "background story," and an academic writing exercise, they become part of the on-going story, and a role play exercise.As for selling an heirloom (I accidentally gave away an heirloom once by mistake) or some other inherited object, I have no objection to the idea, but well, it is very easy to correct that problem when it occurs. You just do what I did. You buy it back. You recover what you had lost. An excellent opportunity for sub-plots, adventure, and role play. Just because a character has sold an heirloom (or had it stolen) for instance in no way means the opportunities for adventure and role play involving that object diminish. You just do what you'd do in real life. If it is stolen, you'd go get it back. If you sold it and later on discovered that it contained important information, or was valuable, or was magical, then you have the options of trying to recover it by force, by negotiations, economically, or perhaps by labor exchange. (The labors of Herakles spring to mind. The new owner says, "I'll give you back this heirloom if you do this task for me.") therefore the role play opportunities are never finished until such time as the object is destroyed or lost. The possibilities are practically endless regarding these objects, it just depends upon how much imagination one employs.As for a legacy, well, that's the reason I defined heirlooms, legacies, and inheritances differently (stressing their differences rather than their similarities). That is to say you can't really lose your legacy, it is passed on in your work or interests. Maybe to family but also possibly to friends, companions, comrades, and associates. Though now that you mentioned it obliquely, (losing or selling what you had previously possessed) I kinda like the idea of an adventure built around the concept of "selling of a legacy." That idea intrigues me.I will almost completely agree with you here. If the world the characters inhabit is a plastic and artificial (in game terms) one, one with no real history, background or reason to exist other than as a sort of moving backdrop for single adventures, then it is very likely that things like heirlooms, legacies and inheritances lose most (though not necessarily all) of their power and force. For intake if one has a character in a world that has no social or other real connections to anyone other than to the other adventuring characters then the only legacy one can possess is that of the momentary adventurer. If he has no family but himself then he is likely to possess no heirlooms, and to receive no inheritance. Heirlooms, legacies, and inheritances depend to a large extent on a game world being "real and having a history" (that is to say that the game world is more than a series of ruins that you hop to in order to adventure and all other forms of adventure and role play, social, religious, historical, political, occupational, interactive, etc. are disregarded or ignored.) So yes, I'd say, that's a good observation you made. You could have a "ruins or dungeons only world" and a character could still receive an heirloom or inheritance but it would likely be not nearly as important an object as it would in another, more fully developed world.It sounds like Haak that you have precisely the kind of setting or world that could make great use of things like heirlooms, legacies, and inheritances. I especially like these characters:-I can't tell ya exactly, not knowing any real details but I can give you my general experience. When you start to weave heirlooms, legacies, and inheritances into your game (in the way I have described) then you might wanna do so in a way so that the various members of your party can assist each other in what they are doing. This creates party cohesion, and I don't just mean character cohesion, I also mean player cohesion. For instance an heirloom might go to your Priest but later on the party would find out that the heirloom has something to do with a number of different party members. And often when I'm involving things like this in a game I have an overall, or underlying theme in the background, a sort of Quest which involves heirlooms, legacies, or inheritances, but that Quest ends up involving all of the party members, not just the "receiver."But it sounds like you have a lot of built in potential that you could explore in relationship to the background and history of those characters. I'd experiment around and see what works best for you.Well, it sounds like the wife and kids are about ready so I gotta bug out.I repsonded in a hurry and that's all I have time for.See ya.</blockquote>

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