And one last question...for now ;-)

My players all started the game with the one keepsake recommended in the rules, but they came into the Grimm Lands with a lot of miscellaneous stuff as they were all school kids on a field trip that went a lot further afield than they expected. In my first game the kids encountered a giant imprisoned by some villagers (a twist on The Selfish Giant). Not knowing anything about giants, one of the players' kid pulled out his iPod (not his keepsake item) and asked "Is there an app for that?". I thouth that was a brilliant innovation and now his iPod has an app that gives brief descriptions of all different kinds of giants.

Is it unusual, or upsetting to game balance, to allow kids to start with more than one keepsake? I have looked at what the other players' kids have, and can easily give each of them a second keepsake item with a minor power like the iPod has.

Thanks!

Haha I must say that's pretty creative! The only problem is that if you have a dreamer, his "Second Keepsake" ability may feel nullified. I definately think you shouldn't restrict your players for being creative, but also don't shower them with too much praise and reward or it will be a walk in the park and they'll probably take advantage of that (i know i would!). For most keepsakes, an ability like that would require an expenditure of Imagination, so I think you should definately keep that in mind - keepsakes usually require spending a trait, if you allowed a random trinket to do equally powerful things for free, it may get unbalanced. Mainly I think it would be a balancing factor. Using that as an example, maybe he had to make a Luck check to see if their was an app, and if not, use gaming to "make" his own. If you do give the players 2 keepsakes, maybe they can only use each one once per session. Don't be afraid to bend the rules however, players create great ideas and want a 2nd keepsake, that gives you an opportunity to make things harder,

The other standard way of eliminating items that the character has not put creation points into is that they can be lost or stolen quite easily. Supposing one of the villagers saw the Ipod, and decided that he could use such a toy ... Really a lot of mundane gear could be gotten rid of the first time the characters get captured, or for a wild and unexpected ride in a fast flowing steam (that they bearly manage to crawl out of) or any number of other disasters.