Small queries about RTDs, if players have joined a game and it resumes after hiatus in..about months or so, is it still practical to continue the game even if the GM is willing or...Err, don't know how to word this right. It goes along the lines of me asking if time destroys the interests of players in any game set up by others.
Time does damage interest. I suspect even more so if the players have a less concrete grip on where everything is and what everyone and everything was supposed to be doing. It doesn't necessarily kill interest entirely, but just don't let a game lie in pause for a month, do a couple of turns, then let it pause again and come back again afterwards and expect people to be very enthusiastic unless you had a damn good game.
...Well, that's my opinion, of course.
I'd say this depends mainly on how interested players were originally. You can get away with a surprising amount of necromancy if your players are willing and remember vaguely what's going on.
You're right that less interested or involved players may need to be PM'd or replaced, however.
As for loot, I'm not sure what the question is. Are you saying:
-There are items the players can acquire through adventuring.
-These items have no practical use, or you don't want the players using them in the long run.
-Donating these items has no innate value, ie they don't like the curators enough to dungeon delve for free on their behalf.
-You want the players to care about these items, but also not just pawn them.
If so, it's highly dependent on the game. Obviously you generally want their rewards to be loot substitutes or at least potential loot substitutes (some players might put up with not knowing how valuable an item is until they turn it in, for instance), but since loot is highly dependent on the game, it's hard to be more specific.
I would also add, however, that tying the rewards to the artifacts' natures is helpful. Otherwise they'll look at everything as another faceless loot token, or possibly a guessing game about how many coins it's worth. If ancient weapons give them new revolvers or whip training, while grain pots give them stat-increasing whisky flasks, suddenly they'll be fascinated with an item's history and function, since that's how they know what loot it'll generate.