Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scurvy_Platypus" data-source="post: 5536125" data-attributes="member: 43283">I guess vaguely it might be... but not really. At least, not more than Action Points are. If it helps you picture/understand what I'm describing better, think of it as a magic item giving an enhanced Action Point or two for each plus of the item. Ok, now this right here? This is the sort of thing I'm trying to get away from. I've seen lots of GMs that think this is a great idea; I've never met a player that thought so though.Part of the problem is that this sort of thing is directly taking control of a character and removing the player's ability to interact and make decisions. Just because it's an "item" doing it doesn't make it really that much more acceptable than the GM simply saying, "Give me a roll...15? Nope, your character is going to do [whatever] instead." without an item; ever gone for mind-controlling a character because they failed a save and now the NPC is screwing with them? Players freaking hate it as a general rule. Making it be an "intelligent item" or a "cursed object" isn't going to make it more palatable.I want cursed objects to _actually_ be something that is a struggle to deal with because the power they offer is attractive; not just screw the player by randomly penalizing them or removing the player's ability to control their character. But the way this always plays out in rpg games, the character/player suffers. Often in stories, when a cursed object is there and it's purpose isn't to simply blow up NPCs and provide some "character development" for the protagonists, it's more of a symbiotic relationship. Or at least it appears that way. The item has _power_, it's just that there's a price associated with it.In most rpg games, it's a parasitic relationship. The item completely screws the character and only gives enough of a benefit that the GM doesn't feel like they're being a _complete_ tool.You're right, type 1 items don't need rules. That's because they never really show up in rpg games to begin with. Example: In the TV show "Supernatural" there's an episode with a wishing well. Make a wish, toss in the coin, it comes true.Every single one. Period.The curse of course is that the wish twists and goes bad slowly, making the person's life more and more difficult.Now, from a game perspective, this is happening to NPCs. Who frankly, the PCs aren't really going to care about; the game is about PCs not NPCs. The characters are affected by what's going on and have to deal with it, but it's a one-off deal; find the cause, reverse it, everything is fixed. But most rpg games don't do this. People are spending freaking months of real time looking for items, playing FedEx to collect all the pieces necessary for the uberspecial ritual that can only be performed while dancing naked with a 1 legged stork on a full moon with an eclipse... all kinds of crazy stuff.Chances are you're not going to like Action Points either.I'm not necessarily talking about making cursed items be a plot thing in the first place. Curse items _can_ be a plot thing, they're certainly a _potential_ for character development; but the way they're usually used, especially in D&D? They're complete garbage. They're a drain on resources and basically boil down to the GM making people's lives difficult.Bonuses and penalties are "meta-game abilities" that are often locked into a character's possession of an in-game "doo-hickey". That's magic items _period_. I'm saying, instead of just screwing the player and blaming it on a "cursed item", you make it be a choice: do you use this power to achieve a goal _you_ (the player or character) want, knowing that there's going to be a price to be paid later? Forcing behaviour is something I've already covered. Stat/ability draining... not particularly interesting or "dramatic". You could think of Power Attack as that sort of deal: trade to hit for damage. All you're talking about doing is shifting the cost to some other stat, possibly making it linger, and then tarting it up with some sort of "you'll only be able to recover this if you give it up" or "it'll only recover very slowly" or "it'll only recover if you pay [some inflated price]".It shifts things to more of a numbers game: risk-reward, cost-benefit analysis. Is a loss of X number of points of Y for Z amount of time worth the outcome?Instead, I want to bypass that. Let's go crazy for a second...A character finds a +2 sword of slaying. The player gets 4 tokens; we'll go with a limited pool, so that means that if the player blows all 4 tokens, the GM has to spend at least 1 token before the player can use the ability of the weapon again.And what's that ability? The sword kills things. Anything. You give it a god, the Tarasque... the sword will kill it. Of course, the thing might come back to life depending on it's powers, but that's not the point. The point is, the player spends a token and that sword will kill dead _anything_.I can already hear GMs squawking about how this is going to ruin everything.Now, when the player goes to spend the token they're going to have to ask themselves, "What's the GM going to spend this on?" It's an _unknown_ risk analysis. But it's a tempting one, especially if they're going into a fight they _know_ is going to be tough.If the GM spends the token and declares "The attack that just hit you is a critical" that might or might not be worth it to a player. Maybe it'll be worth it even if the GM spends the token for the Big Bad to escape when they were _sure_ they had him dead to rights.Yeah, there's a certain element of the fate point thingy going on here, but the point isn't "How do I justify having fate/action/hero/whatever points in my game?" the point is, can we actually make cursed items the sorts of things players _want_ to interact with, instead of being objects that GMs give to players when they're being a tool.Again, it's a cost-benefit analysis deal. Anytime you set up something explicit like that, either it's an instant red-flag to a player that characters will need to start stock-piling undead stuff, or whatever. It means that you're making the game be about the _item_, not about the characters and the effects of their choices. If that makes sense. And these are the worst. We don't want these. Why? Because these sorts of things are part of what gave rise to people insisting on playing "Rules as Written" in the first place. This is the sort of thing where GMs just screw over players/characters and claim it's "part of the plot" or it's "character development" or whatever. It's what makes players run from cursed items and turns cursed items into nothing more than negative treasure.We've already had 20+ years of this. I want to see if we can try something different.</blockquote>

Verification