[crossfire] Cursed items

[Mark Wedel]

Nicolas Weeger wrote:

>>   Even if cursed items are impossible to identify, I suspect players will
>> just wait until they are in town to see what they are - It would such to
>> use one in a dungeon and find out you are in bad shape because you are
>> stuck wearing crappy armor.
>>
>>   Live action RPG tends to have cursed items because the GM can control
>> when the curse takes effect - there is no way to detect it, and usually
>> manifests itself only in life or death situations.
> 
> So it's up to use to add such things :)
> A perfectly normal sword - but after you killed 15 opponents, it'll bite you 
> on the hand, making you unable to use a weapon for some time.
> A shield that has a nice armor - and after 1 day, you suddenly morph into a 
> werewolf.
> 

  But I have a feeling players will easily be able to know/defeat these things.

  As said, getting stuck with a cursed item in that dungeon would be really 
annoying.  Especially if you thought it was a really good item (if it isn't a 
good item, you wouldn't use it in the first place).

  It's fairly simple to defeat that kill test - go into an easy dungeon and kill 
that 100 creatures in 10 seconds (and I'd say more likely, you don't even need 
to do that - most dungeons are such that you'll be killing hundreds of monsters 
before you get something tough).

  It may be possible to have the effect manifest itself on that tough monster, 
but I'm not sure how one measures that.

  But more to the point, does this make the game more or less fun?

  If I had a weapon that bit me on the hand and I could use a weapon for some 
amount of time, I'd just run away from whatever I'm doing and wait for that time 
to pass.  Is that fun?  If it is relatively short (10-15 seconds), maybe, if it 
is incredibly rare.  If that time is in the minutes, then it is just annoying to 
sit around for those minutes.

  Same for morphing into a werewolf.  If it just means I have to trudge back to 
town to get a cure, does that add anything?

  That is the harder part.  Putting things in because LRPGs have them may not 
always be the best answer - the goal is to really have a fun game.

> 
> 
>>   A more interesting approach in crossfire is that curses are undetectable,
>> but in rare circumstances the item does something unexpected.  For example,
>> a cursed wand might 5% of the time fire in the wrong/random direction.  A
>> player may still find that wand useful.  Weapons could suddenly
>> disintegrate, but until it does so, may be a nice weapon (and when it does
>> fall apart, just means the player needs to equip something else)
>>
>>   So in other words, cursed items still have some positive use - they
>> aren't all bad.
> 
> It really depends what the 'cursed' status is supposed to mean, I'd say.
> If "cursed" is just "can't unequip", then maybe it's limited.
> If on the other hand we got a list of potentially bad effects somewhere, then 
> it could be really fun.

  Yes, but I think the key is to make sure it doesn't make the game less fun. 
So the effects are key.

  Wands that occasionally misfire are perhaps not bad, nor are weapons that 
disintegrate.

  On the weapon one, one could imagine a weapon that slowly gets better as it is 
used, but its chance of falling apart is also related to that.  So you might 
have a real good weapon, but also know that its time is very limited.

  Something similar to the occidental rings but for armor could be done.  Gives 
fairly good protection, but when you take damage of that type, there is a chance 
it switches to a different protection.