What counts as owning an object?

[Ettina]

I was just thinking about the psionic power Object Reading.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Object_Reading


You can learn details of an inanimate object’s previous owner. Objects accumulate psychic impressions left by their previous owners, which can be read by use of this power. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular object.
1st Minute: Last owner’s race.
2nd Minute: Last owner’s gender.
3rd Minute: Last owner’s age.
4th Minute: Last owner’s alignment.
5th Minute: How last owner gained and lost the object.
6th+ Minute: Next-to-last owner’s race, and so on.
The power always correctly identifies the last owner of the item, and the original owner (if you keep the power active long enough).
There is a 90% chance that this power will successfully identify all other former owners in sequence, but there is a 10% chance that one former owner will be skipped and thus not identified.
This power will not identify casual users as owners. (Anyone who uses an object to attack someone or something is not thereafter considered a casual user.)
An object without any previous owners reveals no information. You can continue to run through a list of previous owners and learn details about them as long as the power’s duration lasts. If you use this power additional times on the same object, the information yielded is the same as if you were using the power on the object for the first time.

What counts as owning an object? If someone hides it under your dresser in your room, do you own it, or do they? What if you find it and go "someone must have lost this here, I'd better give it back"? Or what if you find it and go 'huh, must be mine'? What if you share it equally with other people? (Who owns our household plates when three of us live there and use them?)

[Alent]

Funny:
Once you or someone else becomes an item's owner, it gains a bonus feat which it uses to take the Metadata (Owner) feat.

Serious:
I don't know of any specific rules, but from the wording of the power I would rule that someone thinking "I own this" is what creates the psychic impression. (Afterthought Edit: This should be reinforced by any other thought. "I'm borrowing this from _____" would be it's own impression, but also reinforce the "owner" impression.)

[Celestia]

A blacksmith makes a sword with the intention of gifting it to his liege lord. Once finished, he presents it to his lord who rejects the sword as being too plain. The blacksmith keeps the sword but continues believing that it rightfully belongs to the lord. Years later, the blacksmith goes missing in the woods. His son picks up the sword to mount a rescue. He knows the sword does not belong to him but is simply borrowing it for the time being. Unfortunately, it is night out, and he falls down a steep hill. He smashes his head open on a rock and dies. The sword lies abandoned for years until a paladin happens by. She finds the sword and, realizing it must have an owner somewhere, picks it up to return it. However, she gets killed by a wandering monster before she can make it into town. The mindless beast, incapable of understanding the notion of ownership, collects the sword to use as nesting material.

Who owns the sword?

[Zaq]

A blacksmith makes a sword with the intention of gifting it to his liege lord. Once finished, he presents it to his lord who rejects the sword as being to plain. The blacksmith keeps the sword but continues believing that it rightfully belongs to the lord. Years later, the blacksmith goes missing in the woods. His son picks up the sword to mount a rescue. He knows the sword does not belong to him but is simply borrowing it for the time being. Unfortunately, it is night out, and he falls down a steep hill. He smashes his head open on a rock and dies. The sword lies abandoned for years until a paladin happens by. She finds the sword and, realizing it must have an owner somewhere, picks it up to return it. However, she gets killed by a wandering monster before she can make it into town. The mindless beast, incapable of understanding the notion of ownership, collects the sword to use as nesting material.

Who owns the sword?

I would say the GM.

[daremetoidareyo]

Perhaps you're overthinking this. The animal is the owner, then the paladin, then the blacksmith's son, then the blacksmith.

[zlefin]

The law concerning ownership is very complicated when you get to corner cases; so the simple answer is: ask the dm who owns it.

[Garktz]

A blacksmith makes a sword with the intention of gifting it to his liege lord. Once finished, he presents it to his lord who rejects the sword as being to plain. The blacksmith keeps the sword but continues believing that it rightfully belongs to the lord. Years later, the blacksmith goes missing in the woods. His son picks up the sword to mount a rescue. He knows the sword does not belong to him but is simply borrowing it for the time being. Unfortunately, it is night out, and he falls down a steep hill. He smashes his head open on a rock and dies. The sword lies abandoned for years until a paladin happens by. She finds the sword and, realizing it must have an owner somewhere, picks it up to return it. However, she gets killed by a wandering monster before she can make it into town. The mindless beast, incapable of understanding the notion of ownership, collects the sword to use as nesting material.

Who owns the sword?

The king...
The blacksmith owns the sword until he gifts it to the king.
The king (owner because was gifted to him) rejects the sword so the blacksmith keeps it to safeguard it.
His son borrows it, to use it as a tool.
The paladin finds the sword, he doesnt own it, just safeguard it until he finds the owner.
The mindless beast just has possesion, not ownership...

Think about a house you own.
You rent the house to your friend X, house still yours
X is going on vacation so his girlfriend stays to keep the house safe, house still yours
Girlfriend breaks with X and now Y moves in, house still yours
As Y is out shopping Z breaks in and ocupies the house, house still yours
And you have a huge problem with the house, but is still yours no matter who lives in it

[Celestia]

The king...
The blacksmith owns the sword until he gifts it to the king.
The king (owner because was gifted to him) rejects the sword so the blacksmith keeps it to safeguard it.
His son borrows it, to use it as a tool.
The paladin finds the sword, he doesnt own it, just safeguard it until he finds the owner.
The mindless beast just has possesion, not ownership...

Think about a house you own.
You rent the house to your friend X, house still yours
X is going on vacation so his girlfriend stays to keep the house safe, house still yours
Girlfriend breaks with X and now Y moves in, house still yours
As Y is out shopping Z breaks in and ocupies the house, house still yours
And you have a huge problem with the house, but is still yours no matter who lives in it
But how can he own it when he refused to take it and never even laid a hand on it? Does one person's belief determine what someone else owns? That makes no sense.

[Aquillion]

It does provide some guidance:


This power will not identify casual users as owners. (Anyone who uses an object to attack someone or something is not thereafter considered a casual user.)

My reading is that "casual users" and "owners" are the only two categories people can be in if they've interacted meaningfully with the object, and that anyone who uses an object to attack someone is therefore considered an owner (even if they were eg. borrowing it, didn't consider it theirs, etc.) If you borrow a sword from someone and attack with it, you'll be on the owner list.

By extension, I'd assume anyone who uses the object for anything roughly as significant as an attack is also considered an owner - basically, did they use it for something that would be worth specifically mentioning in a tabletop game? They're probably on the owner list.

[Andreaz]

You really, really want to determine, full pedantry, who owns something?

Ask yourself what is private property.

There's no such thing as a state of ownership inherent to a thing. Just like value, ownership is something we attribute to the thing.

So for something to be owned, there has to be an owner to claim it.
And if multiple people contest? Well, the short answer is "whoever's winning the fight owns it".

And, of course, a thing can have no owner.

[Crake]

It does provide some guidance:



My reading is that "casual users" and "owners" are the only two categories people can be in if they've interacted meaningfully with the object, and that anyone who uses an object to attack someone is therefore considered an owner (even if they were eg. borrowing it, didn't consider it theirs, etc.) If you borrow a sword from someone and attack with it, you'll be on the owner list.

By extension, I'd assume anyone who uses the object for anything roughly as significant as an attack is also considered an owner - basically, did they use it for something that would be worth specifically mentioning in a tabletop game? They're probably on the owner list.

I'd go with this answer, it seems to be the most in line with what the power intends.