Material Possessions are Fleeting

[VincentTakeda]

I do have mixed feelings all over the place for this one.

In the real world if I have an heirloom katana and an nsx, things that I place emotional value on, I'd never use the katana in combat or drive the nsx into a bad neighborhood. You are careful with the things you care about so one might assume that if she's got a knife she cared about, she wouldnt be using it in fights...

But in a fantasy game or cinematic game you'd rather be able to use the legacy sword of your people without worrying about it being destroyed in a bad roll... You'd rather be able to drive your cool toys into battle...

Yoda's light saber gets plot immunity but lukes blue one? Nope. Had to make a new green one. And having to make a new saber is actually kinda cool in that context... Just part of being a jedi... Indiana Jones's hat? Quite the opposite... He makes some pretty foolishly dangerous choices to protect his fedora.

So I swing both ways pretty strongly from moment to moment. Given the choice, I want my toys to survive, but if the system isn't designed to let my toys survive... I kinda talk myself out of having an emotional attatchment to them. In a world where cars are being destroyed every day, I wouldnt even own an nsx. And not every time, but a lot of times, thats less cool than a campaign where I can have and use my cool things with impunity. But in a system where stuff breaks often and arbitrarily? Not really a good option.

Best to either not care to start with, or to make 'fixing the blade' an important story element. If her knife had broken as a result of being used to block a deadly incoming blow? Yeah. Her heirloom blade saved her life... Took one for the team. That's its own kinda special.

I do feel like replacability/repairability is pertinent... If I could get hand crafted folded katanas ad nauseum from a local shop, i'd be less angsty about breaking one now and then. If its a zombie apocalypse and I'm in a neighborhood that has no other humans and a ferrari dealership i'm going to be pretty cavalier about wrecking ferraris for a while... We didnt feel bad about Dean's metallicar getting seriously banged up because we trust Dean to put it back together... Good as new.