Players Vs. DMs

[Terwox]

To Lord Xtheth:

I don't think your curse sounds that bad. It sounds like you should check your players' dice though... If that curse was stuck on my character, I would probably think it was a bit lame, but largely because 4E does away with save or die mechanics. In 3E it would make more sense. And yes, it is railroady. The character, especially if he is whining, will want to get rid of the curse as fast as he can. (Thing is, being railroady is not always a crime.)

Regardless, it is of very little use being callous (and inflammatory) towards negative criticism.

Anyway, as for cursed items, I ran the Tomb of Horrors, and...

[sblock]The ring of cursed wishing blew up the gnome barbarian.[/sblock]

I also currently have a sword in my True20 game wielded by the fallen paladin. It is a sword that turns undead to dust upon touching them (attack vs. touch AC,) and it also can use more powerful purifying light powers (a ranged radiant damage power in 4E terms.) The curse is that the sword itself is tainted by the undead that it destroys, and each time the sword is used, the character must make successively harder saves for the scene, or risk increasing his undead taint score.

Undead taint is a scale of 0-10, 0 is human, 10 is undead. He is at 3. His skin is pale, his pulse is weak, his skin is cool and clammy. The higher his taint score, the more likely that using purifying light powers will also burn him as well.

The sword is aware that it is tainted, and that it will taint him, and cautions him about using it. The sword communicates telepathically, and warns him of nearby undead -- also urging him to find them and kill them, sometimes springing into his hand.

They are currently on a quest to travel to a castle that is fabled to purify legendary holy swords... but a vampire lives there. Undead are also essentially the primary campaign threat.

Difference is, the player thinks it is cool. (They also didn't know what Ashbringer was at the time I sprung it on them, hah.) There was another sword similar to Stormbringer in the game that they chose to instead destroy.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

I'll be a little more careful next time while making a thread, This one, in my little opinion failed as a place to discuss what I wanted to and turned into a series of attacks and defences agains myself and others from myself.
Oh well, I live, I learn.

 

[shadewest]

OK, To be fair, the item sounds a lot tamer after the edit. I go back to 1982, so I don't have a problem with cursed items. In this case, my PC would become central tro the storyline. I could enjoy that.

 

[Rel]

Folks let's tone it down a bit. I see a hair too much vitriol creeping in here.

 

[RabidBob]

If one good thing came out of this failed conversation about Players Vs. DMs is that I don't feel so bad about the complaints about my cursed item.
The "I'd walk out" or "Id kill myself to thwart you" comments are way worce than my players dislike of his cursed item.

Well I hope you didn't take my comment as an attack. IMO if you want to do something like this then you need to have an OOC conversation with the player beforehand. An item which does damage if you miss could be a pretty crippling thing, especially if the player had a theme or idea behind the character in the first place. Otherwise, as I said, there are better ways to direct the plot of the campaign. It reminds me of a game I played where the DM directed us in a certain direction by infecting our characters with a deadly disease which could only be cured in one place. It left a bit of a bad feeling among the group.

 

[Rel]

I think that cursed items are fair game in my campaigns, but they require some careful handling.

First and foremost, I think you need to know your players and how well they are likely to "roll with it". If you have people for whom you know that a cursed item is going to suck the fun out of the game then better to steer clear as far as they are concerned. Fun is always a priority.

However some players (like me) have the most fun when there are challenges that can be difficult to overcome. Even then, I think that some care needs to be taken in terms of how the item works with a given character. Let's say you have a cursed "battle axe of the berserker" that forces the first person to pick it up to thereafter always rush into battle with their foes, and never flee until all foes are dead. Now for the Fighter or Barbarian in the group, that's not a huge penalty. I mean sure they are going to be in deep doo doo if the party runs into something they should be fleeing from. And it could be a problem trying to take prisoners. But in the short term this may not be at variance with their normal fighting style so they are almost getting something for nothing.

But what if the Wizard picks it up to examine it and see if it's magical? He is SCREWED. Can't cast his spells in battle and has to rush forward and swing the axe (at a penalty for non-proficiency probably) and can't flee. That is probably going to tend to irritate the player heavily unless there is a fairly immediate way to lift the curse. So what I'm saying there is "be careful how you structure the curse".

That also brings up the issue of "how long are they stuck with this thing?" In most cases I think that they should have a means of release from the curse sooner than later. The more restrictive the curse, the sooner you can ditch it. I don't think that long term (as in "may not be lifted before the end of the campaign") curses are off the table but I do think that they require some buy in by the player as well as being open for choices on the player's part.

For example, I ran a campaign a few years ago in which the party accidentally teleported into Hell (oops). They needed shelter while they were there so they could rest and recover spells so they could get out of there. A friendly, helpful Erinyes offered to let them crash at her place for a small price: A kiss. The party Rogue volunteered (I played dirty pool when I described her as the "unholy love child of Salma Hayek and Lucy Liu") and, amazingly, made his Saving Throw vs. her seduction attempts. Then later, after the rest of the party was asleep, he voluntarily went back and bedded her, this time failing the Save.

As a consequence, she got him to sign his soul over to her. He was basically damned. However she later provided him with an "out": A dagger that sent all souls killed with it, directly to her "inbox". If he killed enough people with that dagger then his soul was out of hock.

So, basically he was cursed. But he sort of willingly walked into it so I knew there was some player "buy in". He also suffered no in-game consequences other than the knowledge that his character was going to a Bad Place when he eventually died. But he really got into the idea of trying to redeem himself while still trying not to become totally Evil (in my campaign, sending somebody else's soul to hell in place of your own, while directly benefitting an infernal creature turns you Evil pretty quick). So he took care to only use the dagger on enemies who "had it coming anyway". And of course he had to keep that on the low down from the party's Cleric of St. Cuthbert.

It made the character and the whole campaign that much more memorable. So I'm in favor of using curses so long as it is done with some care.

 

[Terwox]

So, basically he was cursed. But he sort of willingly walked into it so I knew there was some player "buy in". He also suffered no in-game consequences other than the knowledge that his character was going to a Bad Place when he eventually died. But he really got into the idea of trying to redeem himself while still trying not to become totally Evil (in my campaign, sending somebody else's soul to hell in place of your own, while directly benefitting an infernal creature turns you Evil pretty quick). So he took care to only use the dagger on enemies who "had it coming anyway". And of course he had to keep that on the low down from the party's Cleric of St. Cuthbert.

That's excellent.

 

[RabidBob]

That's excellent.

Very excellent, great use of cursing! Well done sir!

 

[Tarek]

There's two kinds of cursed items.

One kind is the subtle curse that the players may never realize is there, like the old "-1 Shield of Missile Attracting." It was a +1 shield vs. melee weapons, but the moment something was thrown or fired at the character, it turned into a detriment.

When the shield was finally destroyed in a botched saving throw, the DM let us in on the curse.

This kind of cursed item is interesting. Like the Ring of Delusion that someone identified as a Ring of Wishes.

The other kind of Cursed Item is the plot-bearing cursed item. This is the kind you have to handle with care, since some players do not take well to the implied "railroad" plot attached, i.e., "How do I get rid of this thing!?" IMO, it's better to treat this item as a McGuffin to be used cautiously at best (Tolkien's One Ring), rather than to have it be in regular use.

Both have their place.

 

[Corjay]

Yeah, while railroading can be a tool at times, I don't think a cursed item should ever be used in such a way. As Rel and Tarek brought out, it should be a way for your characters to excel in roleplaying. Like tossing a truffle before pigs or changing the paths of a mouse's maze to see how they deal with it. If it has no purpose other than pissing players off, then it's not going to be fun to the players. I certainly don't have fun if I'm getting ticked at the DM. Of course, as a player, I would seek the roleplay aspect of such a cursed item. If there is no roleplaying aspect, no way to have fun with it, I'll find a new way to have fun, even if it means leaving the game.