Cursed Items

[Nonek]

Yeah but if you do create a game based around a curse, then you risk getting endless amounts of people complaining about how the curse has detrimental effects. *Cough* Mask of the Betrayer. *Cough*

[PrimeJunta]

Am I the only one who liked the curse in MotB? 'Cuz I did. I thought it was great. 

[JFSOCC]

what if the more you used a cursed sword, the less conversation-options are available, till eventually you realise it's corrupting your character into following your sword's will.

 

Actually, you might not notice for a whole long time, especially if you're on the same line with the mind of that sword.

 

So normally You'd have conversation options

 

"We can get in, get the girl"

"I will defeat her captors and bring her back"

"have you tried to negotiate?"

"No thanks"

 

Now you only have the options

 

"I will defeat her captors and bring her back"

"I will slaughter your enemies and return your property to you!

 

and even further down you might only have the option

 

"I will glory in the destruction of your enemies! I will not rest until they are all lying in a pool of their own blood!"

(ignoring there's a damsel in distress to be rescued)

By this time, your party might start commenting...

[PrimeJunta]

Good one.

 

"Tea anyone?"

"Yes! Verily I will drink the blood of my enemies from the skulls of their children!"

"Uh... you feeling OK?"

[Nonek]

Great idea, but make every speech option have an invisble willpower check, with increasing penalties the more you use the artifact?

 

Yeah I thought the spirit eating was well implemented PrimeJunta.

Edited January 20, 2013 by Nonek

[PrimeJunta]

The more I think of this idea of yours, JFSOCC, the more I like it. It would even be pretty easy to do. Presumably you've already got the vicious dialog in, so you could just start by disabling the most "good" lines, then as the curse progresses gradually reduce your options until you've only got the most despicable, low-down, vicious choices left. And add a few more balls-to-the-wall-deranged-evil lines here and there for flavor. You wouldn't even need to code in any extra companion reactions, since presumably they'll already react to those vicious choices anyway. Then write a nice little sidequest to uncurse you, and you're done.

 

Seriously, that's one of the best ideas I've heard in a while. Hmm, maybe I can steal that for my PnP campaign; I'd just have to recruit the goody-goody player so he'll be in on it, and then watch what the others do when he suddenly starts acting out of character...

[JFSOCC]

You are flattering my already oversized ego

[Osvir]

Can the Player character Curse anyone, presumably early game, to see the consequences of the Curse late game?

Either unknowingly you have acquired a cursed sword that you sell to a blacksmith, will the Blacksmith start to grow corrupted? Can it be a part of an aristocratic quest tree, find a sword, curse it, give as gift to the other faction. Or keep the sword, because it becomes actually pretty good (even if you'll be cursed if wielding it).

Curse Magic, Chanters cursing weapons that the enemy is holding, making them un-lootable pretty much (a curse on the weapon doesn't go away). Legendary Weapons and such could be immune to curse effects. A Curse that transforms the sword into a flower stalk or something

[TRX850]

I'm seeing this idea work as a "Dynamically Generated Side Quest". That seems to be the right level. It shouldn't affect the design/structure of the overall story, nor the main quests.

 

If, as pointed out, the "confrontational" dialogue options are already in, then it could easily utilize the reputation system to determine which path is "bad", because it might have less of an adverse effect if you're already playing a psychotic baby-eating nutter. Would a psycho-nutter only be given the most polite dialogue option when addressing a quest-giver? If they're given the "bad" option only, wouldn't that be what they would have chosen anyway?

 

Princess: "Brave adventurer, I beseech thee to aid in our most noble cause!"

 

Psycho-Nutter: "Back off, wench! Or you'll be pickin' up ya teeth with broken fingers, got it?"

 

Princess: "I *beg* your pardon!?"

 

Psycho-Nutter: "Did I say that out loud...??"

 

Edited January 21, 2013 by TRX850

[.Leif.]

So this cursed talking sword should be of dubious quality until a certain objective is accomplished (kill X humanoids, wash the blade in blood, find the Planar being who cursed the item and 'convince' them to change it...etc) thereafter the blade ought to be one of the better blades in the game. It might be a drag whenever you first get the blade but after some quests you might be glad you found it.

 

Other cursed items might be worth it to use just because of the effect they have not only on you but the surrounding environment. Think of Jinxed from Fallout. Sure you might frequently screw up simple tasks, but the enemy does as well!

Edited January 21, 2013 by .Leif.

[TRX850]

The real question is, out of the more interesting and/or devious cursed weapons, which ones are unequippable?

 

Because if you can easily unequip a cursed weapon, they're not that much of a curse.

[Ieo]

What about soul? 

 

Instead of some discrete spell mechanic like the old cursed stuff in BG and the like, if PE's understanding of the cosmos is going to be built upon the soul, I wonder if a curse mechanic or approach using souls as an underlying foundation would work. The opposite functionality would be a blessing (positive enchantment).

 

For example?

 

A jilted ex-lover feels so strongly and negatively about his ex that he ends up embedding a fragment of his angry soul onto a piece of jewelry and "gifts" it to her. Perhaps anyone who ends up wearing it or even possessing it becomes an attractor for bad luck. (Playing with the RNG?)

 

An Orlan was unjustly and viciously beaten to death by a random thug and ends up cursing the weapon so that the wielder attacks the person he trusts the most with it, even if it takes time to build such a relationship with another person. (Time-lapsed?)

 

As for removal, perhaps the more powerful ones could be related to quests--uncovering the truth behind an injustice, completing someone else's unfinished business, or simply trying to talk to the soul, so on. Since I could see a soul-based mechanic for curses being inverted to blessing, perhaps depending on the conclusion of a quest-related curse item, either the curse is removed or you gain a blessing on the item.

[TRX850]

An Orlan was unjustly and viciously beaten to death by a random thug and ends up cursing the weapon so that the wielder attacks the person he trusts the most with it, even if it takes time to build such a relationship with another person. (Time-lapsed?)

 

This would be akin to the Cursed Berserking Sword example though, wouldn't it? Where your character goes on a rampage, attacking other party members.

 

Of course, there may be some "untidy" ways to deal with this scenario.  Cast Hold Person, Web, Ray of Enfeeblement, Sleep etc on the party member in question until the rage/curse effect subsides. But if it was particularly disruptive, a player might remove that member from the party until they could find a cure and return to the cursed victim.

 

Otherwise, every encounter would mean having to scatter your other characters around the battlefield to avoid "friendly fire" as it were. That's the kind of game breaker I was trying to avoid.

 

As for souls deciding the effect, that would make perfect sense in P:E based on what they've said so far. They could certainly design a quest around a "soul cursed" weapon, provided the trade-off was meaningful enough to affect the outcome of the quest, rather than be a total disruption the entire way through.

[Ieo]

 

An Orlan was unjustly and viciously beaten to death by a random thug and ends up cursing the weapon so that the wielder attacks the person he trusts the most with it, even if it takes time to build such a relationship with another person. (Time-lapsed?)

 

This would be akin to the Cursed Berserking Sword example though, wouldn't it? Where your character goes on a rampage, attacking other party members.

 

Of course, there may be some "untidy" ways to deal with this scenario.  Cast Hold Person, Web, Ray of Enfeeblement, Sleep etc on the party member in question until the rage/curse effect subsides. But if it was particularly disruptive, a player might remove that member from the party until they could find a cure and return to the cursed victim.

 

Otherwise, every encounter would mean having to scatter your other characters around the battlefield to avoid "friendly fire" as it were. That's the kind of game breaker I was trying to avoid.

 

As for souls deciding the effect, that would make perfect sense in P:E based on what they've said so far. They could certainly design a quest around a "soul cursed" weapon, provided the trade-off was meaningful enough to affect the outcome of the quest, rather than be a total disruption the entire way through.

Yes, I wasn't thinking further into the outlier effects of such a scenario; cursed items may not necessarily be pinned upon the party, though. Like the minor quest in freeing Captain Brage, a cursed artifact may be the center of a particular plot and in someone else's possession.

 

The thing about the traditional IE (and D&D?) treatment of cursed objects is that Remove Curse and whatnot only serve to sever the tie between the wielder and the object, not the curse and the object; basically, I think it'd be interesting to use souls to give depth to the usual "mere inconvenience." 

[IndiraLightfoot]

In fantasy and horror novels, curses are indeed involving the very sould of the cursed. It's like a demon grip around a specific part of the soul, and to loosen that you must deal with the demon. So Ieo, I agree with you. The question is: Are players ready for that kind of heavy cursing, as it were? In MotB, the spirit meter curse led to loads of players throwing tantrums...

[Ieo]

In fantasy and horror novels, curses are indeed involving the very sould of the cursed. It's like a demon grip around a specific part of the soul, and to loosen that you must deal with the demon. So Ieo, I agree with you. The question is: Are players ready for that kind of heavy cursing, as it were? In MotB, the spirit meter curse led to loads of players throwing tantrums...

I have no idea how the spirit meter thing worked in MotB since I never played it.  Surely there's a better way to implement, though. Creative and simple but not overbearing, I think Obsidian could come up with something nifty. And I wouldn't want the concept to become a main part of the storyline or anything, just something that gives flavor and maybe even illustrate how souls work in the lore.

[Juneau]

Read the OP skipped the rest - I really like that idea of dynamic curses. You know ones where the walk throughs can't spoil!

 

Ie - "OH MAN I DON'T WANNA BE A LEPPA AND HAVE TO GO DO THE CLEANSING RIGHTS OF THE KOBAYASHI MARU" So I'll jsut never use that super amazingly awesome uber powerful sword of KIRK.

 

Instead, say there are only 27 legendary weapons per play through (that maybe have stats that always level with you to remian awesome) you could randomly pick up any "legendary" weapon and if your unlucky you get cursed with lepracy or some other curse that requires you to go do something.

 

Also, have it so that it overwrites your saves! So you cant just reload 5 minutes earlier and sell the weapon. /evil laugh

[PrimeJunta]

 

In fantasy and horror novels, curses are indeed involving the very sould of the cursed. It's like a demon grip around a specific part of the soul, and to loosen that you must deal with the demon. So Ieo, I agree with you. The question is: Are players ready for that kind of heavy cursing, as it were? In MotB, the spirit meter curse led to loads of players throwing tantrums...

I have no idea how the spirit meter thing worked in MotB since I never played it.  Surely there's a better way to implement, though. Creative and simple but not overbearing, I think Obsidian could come up with something nifty. And I wouldn't want the concept to become a main part of the storyline or anything, just something that gives flavor and maybe even illustrate how souls work in the lore.

The basic mechanic was pretty simple. You hungered for spirits to eat. You could either feed that hunger, in which case you learned wack new abilities, e.g. feeding on the spirits of living beings, not just, well, spirits, but that meant you got hungry for them faster and also some of the stuff you learned to do was incredibly vicious. Or you could suppress it, in which case you learned ways to keep your hunger down and keep it under control without having to do anything outright crazily evil, but you didn't get those wack new abilities either.

 

One side effect was that you couldn't rest-spam anymore, since the meter went down a quite a lot when resting. I suspect that's what caused all the whining. I considered it a good thing OTOH.

[Lephys]

I like the idea of a combination of both the randomized "Oh snap! Something's wrong with this weapon!" AND the ability to decide whether or not the benefits are worth the "detriments."

 

If you happen to think it's friggin' awesome of your character to run around consuming souls, for example, then it's a win-win (because of your preference.) But, it would generally be a pretty big decision.

 

I like the idea of the cursed item kind of adhering to you and requiring removal, as well, but, as has been noted, this one has a bit more potential for drastically upsetting the players. You'd just hafta take extra care in balancing the design for that. Maybe have some indication that it might be problematic (i.e. a party-member says "I'm getting some bad vibes from that weapon, man...") ahead of time, and have the curse-removal unlock even better qualities from the weapon?

 

OR...! The "if you're evil, you wouldn't mind devouring souls to gain new powers" thing made me think of Fable again.

 

What if you just found "cursed" souls embedded in weapons (or maybe just 1 in the whole game? *shrug*), and how you dealt with their problems decided what kind of bonuses their soul added to the weapon? Maybe it would be much more work (not necessarily "harder," except in the amount of work) to help them resolve the issue in the best possible manner.

 

I.e. some lost soul's family was slain, and it was bound to this weapon in a fit of extreme turmoil (it chaotically attached to the thing that wrent its soul and its family's souls from their bodies, rather than making its way into the soul stream... kinda like a lot of modern ideas of "crossing over" for ghosts, heh). And maybe it can't rest until you use the weapon to exact revenge on the killers of its family. Of course, maybe it can't really remember all the details. So, you can either uncover the truth behind the killing of that soul's family, and put it at peace (gaining certain bonuses that perhaps entail "good" things, like protection and Charm bonuses to the helping of people in the pursuit of justice, etc.), or you can take the route of killing your way through the ranks of the family's alleged killers and not really ever find out what exactly happened, granting the weapon's soul a sense of exacted vengeance (gaining viciously brutal bonuses to the weapon, but somehow tied to the sort of over-zealous quest for vengeance in all things, maybe?)

 

I don't know how the specifics would work, but it's sort of your typical dichotomy, not necessarily of "good," and "evil," but more between taking the time to gain perspectives on situations before handling them (usually for the benefit of others' and the cost of your own time and resources) and taking care of situations as you find them, in that "We can't risk this guy getting away if he IS the killer" kind of way. You know, "Justice at ANY cost!" type justice. *shrug*

 

Sorta like Paragon/Renegade in Mass Effect. Your goal is to save the galaxy either way, but you can either view everyone else as tools in the only thing that matters (your efforts), or you can consider other people's problems and efforts as important, as well, even when taking advantage of them would've proved more useful in a lot of cases in the overall efforts to save the galaxy.

 

*Le shrug*. I suppose I could type a few more paragraphs here, no? *typity typey type...* Hahaha. I don't have carpal tunnel. I have carpal LABYRINTH! ^_^

[TRX850]

Anyone remember the curse from Ladyhawke (1985) with Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer?

 

I was thinking, instead of that idea working on people in P:E, what if it worked on weapons?

 

Companion weapons, like a longsword and short sword pairing, unable to both be beneficial at the same time. One is cursed during daylight, the other during night time.

 

And when they switch over at dusk and dawn, the combination of curses and benefits provide the player with some unique abilities and a great dilemma.

 

????

[maggotheart]

How about a cursed sword that you can talk to, and the only way to get rid of it is to convince it through conversation to leave. The only problem is, the sword is really lonely and it makes you feel like a jerk to tell him to get lost.

 

If you succeed in abandoning him he gets upset with you, and later falls into the hands of a mercenary. The mercenary listens to his story and decides the party is ripe for the pickings.

 

The other option would be to find the sword a loving home, perhaps a nice family of blacksmiths could take him in and look after him?

[Heresiarch]

Cursed items are only good enough to be included if their flaw is outweighed by its usefulness. It only makes sense when the player himself does not want to unequip the item even though it can make the character kill his own team mates in frenzy or do something equally bad.

 

One of the best examples in the literature (which is kinda full of cursed items when you think about it) is Snaga in Gemmell's Drenai saga, a battle axe possessed by a demon, which belonged to great warriors who later all became crazy murderers. The protagonist has to use it to get his wife back who has been stolen by slavers. He cannot do without it, although the reader and later the hero himself is well aware that the weapon will eventually become his downfall.

 

That's the kind of thing that makes for an epic story. Cursed Gauntlets of Fumbling? Not so much.