>>96788853
>How important are artefacts in your games? Does the plot ever revolve around one?
One of the more common story arcs is 'guy with artifact does a silly; solve', up there with 'sorcerer does a silly; solve' and 'spirits being silly; resolve', so I'd say they're important to my games in that sense. I've maybe only once had a game's plot revolve around one, but that was in that the artifact was a ship and it's power was to resolve travel times, and being very fast (especially at crossing large distances or getting to strange ports) turned out to matter and be exploitable several times, and put the party in the position they were in for the story re: running around solving shit all over the ocean-adjacent world.

>Are they important to your character or are they just stat sticks?
I've tried to make them important as a PC but they did usually end up being exploited for their powers with little regard given to their legend, yes.

>DO you ever go out of your way to get any?
I have only had mediocre-to-bad experiences with Storyteller-driven dungeon diving. That is to say, the scenario where we hear about a ruin or an explorable place that we'd be able to pick over and find the hidden treasure in - that sort of scenario has always been a bit of a slog for me as a Storyteller and hasn't been very engaging as a player. What I have had go well regularly is the player researching/searching for a particular artifact for their own reasons, and exploring the place where it would have been buried. It being something the player asks for (and usually it's something that drives the overarching story along, because players are out searching for it) makes it much more engaging and fun.