Passing the (6) Torches

A buddy made me aware of yet another game that'll be hard for me to be normal about: The Forever Winter. In brief, it's an extraction shooter where you play as scavengers in a far-future war, caught in a warzone full of hostile soldiers and rampant automata. It's very much my bullshit. But one idea really stuck with me from the Gameplay Overview Trailer: 

"Donation Stations: No one gets by in this world all on their own, so don't be afraid to help others when you can. Donation Stations are made available where High Level vets can share gear with Low Level baby Scavs. You were in their shoes once too."

And damn, did that get me thinking about Elf-Games, Character Death, XP and Sandboxes so let's jump right in!

DONATING GEAR FOR XP

Got an extra +1 Broad Sword? A nice protection amulet you found in the dungeon that you have no use for? Silver Daggers? Oil Flasks? Torches?

Well all of a sudden the idea of an "Adventure Guild" (and why they know your "level") makes a lot more sense when one of their primary jobs is managing a Donation Box. Players can offload extra gear at the Guild's Donation Box for XP based on half (?) their Gold worth instead of trying to pawn it off to merchants. This creates incentive to not only bring back treasure, but proper gear from your outings to cash back in at the Guild. For a faster leveling game, you could also allow Players to spend money on buying extra equipment to donate to the Guild.

THE DONATION ECOSYSTEM

Depending on a Character's Level they can also pull stuff out of the box if needed. Lower level characters can pull out anything, mid level characters can pull out survival gear like tents and torches and higher level characters might be locked out completely. If you're running a West Marches styled campaign this adds another juicy layer to inter-party interaction as your veteran players can be diegetically giving your fresh faces a good jump start without ever even having met them! A donation ledger can feel like a treasure chest all its own for new players to plunder and jump right into the action with ~ Maybe even start that ledger with a few interesting knickknacks to get the ball rolling (some torches, a set of rusty plate, maybe even a puzzle box that acts as an adventure hook!)

Plus, wouldn't you love to referee the consequences of the party donating a cursed weapon?

DIAGETIC ITEM TRANSFER

So your Elf died in the dungeon. Obviously everyone tries to recover the body so that all their gear isn't lost[*1], but there's always been something weird about the vibe of "OK all of this just goes to this new random adventurer." Coming up with explanations can be fun (family heritages and old friends are classics), but the Donation Box solves this issue in a way that's fast and easy - When an adventurer dies, all their gear goes into the Donation Box ((possibly providing a small XP boost for either the party or the new adventurer)), and the freshly rolled character can simply walk up and pull it all out! That's what it's there for after all, to pass on the legacy to baby adventurers who need every edge they can get.

I'm definitely going to simmer on this for a while because it feels like the perfect thing to add to WILD and possibly some other projects... What do you think of these ideas? Could a Donation Box spice up your table?

[*1 : For a more forgiving game you could also have the recovery of the body fall to NPC adventurers who will auto-succeed.]