I actually brought this up in my post regarding the Wiki issue. I'm not sure about any of the other game-masters, but I know I would be perfectly fine with creating an RP in order to procure canon items. And there's a bit of a problem with what you're talking about, Shadow. I'll make an example.
The Legendary Shovel is a canon item that was claimed by Kage Schmukatelli, who has not been on for 91 days. This means the TLS goes back into circulation.
Hunter Nin Established starts an RP event in the Land of Gardening's public board to claim TLS. The RP will take about a week to finish with the players involved. At the 6th day, as HNE waits for their partner to post in order to finally 'claim' TLS, Academy Student Recruit edits the wiki page and starts saying that they claimed TLS without any proof because 'first come first serve'. That obviously leaves the parties involved in the RP a little bit unhappy because they've been working for it.
Another scenario that could happen would be the same as what I just described, but with several people doing an RP at the same time all unknown to each other. Who gets it in that situation? The first person to 'get it' or the first person to 'initiate' RP? Having the items handed to the GMs would allow for much easier control in these types of situations because there will just be ONE RP for ONE item, instead of several RPs all going on to get that ONE item. It would allow for anyone to get involved as well, instead of some people who might choose to exclude people from joining their group. And, it would avoid having the "poof" mentality when it comes to claimed things.
And I know I mentioned doing away with claims in those previous topics as well. I just wanted to throw it out there as an option
There are benefits by doing that, but that would be its own topic.
And regarding what you're talking about, Kayenta, I feel the same way. If I had some cool thing, (The Legendary Shovel, for example) and had to go away for an extended period of time that would put me over the 90-day period (a short-notice deployment makes this a real possibility, unfortunately) I would be a bit bummed to find out when I got back that I no longer have TLS. I know rules are rules, but if we keep logs of who has what (by
bolding the current user and leaving the others plain or in
italics) then I would be able to see who has TLS now and talk to them about the problem.