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Hey everyone,
After listening to part 2 of the GCP game from PaizoCon, where Jason hands out random curses to the players, I want to do something similar in my game. Does anyone have any fun ideas for this kind of mechanic, where the player draws a random curse from a metaphorical (or possibly real) hat?
I'm running it with Playtest rules at the moment, converting to 2E when it's released, but I guess ideas don't need to be system specific and can be made to work for any game. The party are currently exploring the abandoned, haunted headquarters of an ancient death cult, if that helps, although don't limit your ideas to this.
(Not 100% sure this is the correct forum, apologies if it's not!)
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Weapon hand shrivels until it is skeletal with skin, making it useless. Has to use other hand for fighting at a penalty.
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I would put more role playing curses than mechanical curses because players hate being in disvantage.
Complete the marriage putting more bridesmaids and the bride.
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Perhaps a random ancestry change, as in reincarnation? (But, restored when the curse is removed.)
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A PC finds that they are unable to lie, a la Liar Liar.
A map mysteriously appears onto a PC's back as a tattoo. They will need multiple mirrors to read it, or someone else's help. Where does the map lead? To treasure or danger? Perhaps it only leads to something that will remove the tattoo from the PC. The existence of the map could be widely known and someone will come to collect it, one way or another.
A PC finds that any words they speak are not understood by anyone and they will need to find alternate ways to communicate.
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Name change - convinced your name is now something different.
Every Name - everytime someone is addressed, convinced they're talking to you.
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These are some great ideas, thanks everyone! I'm going to add a few mechanical curses into the mix, but will try to keep them from being too impairing.
I'll use these, and here's a couple more I came up with (some of which tie into things that will happen in the adventure). I'll be putting a lot more work into this over the weekend.
- You can't see any reflections of people in mirrors, other than your own. Your reflection is not visible to others.
- Everyone around you appears to be undead - either rotting, bloated corpses or skeletal remains. Undead appear to you as they did in life, at the peak of their health.
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You see a magical aura around random non-magical things
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Name change - convinced your name is now something different.
Variations;
1) Unless you spend an action to stop and remember the right words, you cannot quickly or effortlessly remember most nouns. If you want to say 'sword' you have to either spend an action to remember that word, or just say 'stabby thing' or something similarly Buffy-speak-esque. Annoyingly, non-nouns, even ridiculous ones like pulchitrudinous, roll right off your tongue.
2) *Everyone* is now named the same name. You know who you are talking about, and hear nothing out of the ordinary, but everyone else hears you calling every person 'Bob' and you get annoyed that they never seem to know who you are talking about...
3) You now only speak a unique language that no one else knows. A Linguistics check (or some form of magical translation) is required to understand anything you say or write. (Although you understand other languages as normal for your character.)
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- Every time you sneeze or burp, flames come out of your mouth, causing 1d4 fire damage to creatures and objects in the adjacent 5-ft square of your choice.
- No matter how hard you try to be discreet, you always speak with an annoyingly loud voice.
- Once per minute or so, a cockroach crawls out of your clothes and scurries away.
- The contact of water with your skin causes a strong tickling sensation.
- Your hair grows 1 cm per minute. For males, this includes facial hair too.
- you always speak the truth. Or, to be more precise, everything you say has to be true, or you start to suffer increasing pains until you make it true.
-Ale intolerant
-In darkness, must Will save or Frightened 1
-Blinks. A lot.
-Domesticated animals find you deeply amorous
-Hirelings always end up dead in mysterious circumstances through no fault of yours
U look like a skeleton
U gain the negatives energy affinity
Siht ekil klat ouy (read like Japanese)
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Combat/mechanical curses
- Curse of Chaotic magic: (Spell-caster) Whenever you cast a spell, the type of damage is rolled randomly.
- Curse of Chaotic form: Your form becomes magical and ever-changing, each hour you gain a resistance equal to your level in a random damage type and equal vulnerability in two others (maybe opposite of resistance instead of also random) until the next change.
- Curse of empathy: (care using this one) Half of any damage you deal is also done to you
- Curse of loneliness: You must make a Wisdom save whenever someone else uses an action which includes you (Healing you, using you as flanking buddy, etc)
Combat/RP impact hybrid
- Curse of Game logic: (Preferably on armor wearers and females ;))You don't get usual armor bonuses, you get +2 ac if wearing medium armor, +4 ac if wearing light armor or +6 ac if your wearing extremely skimpy armor.
- Curse of Sentient magic: Your magic is literally got a mind of its own and you have to convince your spells to do stuff, add a diplomacy check to cast spells (Crit failing meaning presumably it takes a go at you... maybe add a bonus for crit succeeding to balance), let the banter between the mage and their own magic ensue.
- Curse of darkest fears: whenever your in the dark, you start to take periodic damage... For when you think that character needs to tow down the edginess.
Non-combat curses:
- Blessing of Opposite day: Everything you say is opposite to what you mean ("hot" becomes "cold" and "They're coming from the south" becomes "They're coming from the north" or even "the north is all clear")
- Curse of the "womanizer" (male only): Women are sure that you objectify them... every... single... one... Including people you never met.
- Curse of the stud: (male only): Women interpret 90% of what you say as flirting with them (and react depending on their personality).
- Curse of the Confused draconian: All dragons find you oddly attractive.
- Curse of the Bards: As above but instead EVERY sentient none humanoid finds you attractive... have fun with that.
- Curse of nuts: Your followed everywhere by a group of squirrels... It only keeps getting bigger.
Opposite-handed: You cannot open doors with your primary hand.
Mysterious Disappearance: When you use an attack action, make a flat check (DC5). On a failed check, you're teleported to a random nearby space within 10 feet and the action is wasted.
Your character wets him or herself during every combat, and smells like urine for the rest of the day.
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Curse of Ulthar - something about you triggers defensive reactions in ordinary cats (not lions, tigers, etc.). They hiss and back away when they see you, but 'word spreads' the longer you remain in town, and the local cats all follow your movements, eyeing you suspiciously. Within a few days, pretty much every cat in town is now huddled safely out of arm's reach, glaring at you, and occasionally hissing or yowling if you make prolonged eye contact, or start to move towards one. This makes going anywhere unnoticed pretty much impossible, as it's terribly notable to the townsfolk, and a crowd of cats follow you everywhere (safely out of reach, looking like they are trying to herd you out of town...).
Half-Dead - half your body appears gray and withered, like the Norse goddess Hel. You have a penalty using weapons with that hand / arm (or two-handed weapons) as if sickened (-2), and your movement is reduced as if you are encumbered, as your leg is numb and uncoordinated on that side. Your vision and hearing are nearly useless on that side, one of your vocal cords doesn't work, making you perpetually hoarse, and having only half your taste buds makes everything taste off. You may suffer various skill or ability check penalties for skills that you can't easily do one-handed, like Climb or Swim...