Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 97 - Curses and Cursed Items

Episode Date: October 31, 2021

Curses have played major roles in numerous movies and media:  the ring in Lord of the Rings, the Aztec gold in Pirates of the Caribbean, Ladyhawke, Shrek, Ella Enchanged, the list goes on.  How can you use these curses in your game and not have your player try to kill you with a d4?  Tune in to find out.

Before I get started, I wanted to talk about something personal that happened to me recently. I'm blessed to know multiple groups of tabletop gamers and have the opportunity to both play and GM, occasionally even on the same weekend. This weekend, I had something truly extraordinary happen to me. I've been a player in the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path for Pathfinder First Edition. Finder First Edition. On Friday night, after four years of a campaign, we completed the final battle in a seven-hour marathon, finally finishing up at two in the morning on Saturday. We finally slayed the big bad and rid the city of Corvosa of its despotic, tyrannical leader. On Sunday night, the Reign of Winter adventure path that I have been GMing for three years came to its conclusion. The characters took a Matryoshka

doll containing the imprisoned Baba Yaga and needed to place it inside a swirling nexus of energy, but the party's witch wasn't able to pass the will save as Baba Yaga forbade her from doing it. So another character picked up the witch and thrust the Matryoshka doll and the witch's hand holding it into the nexus, destroying both the doll and the witch's hand holding it into the Nexus, destroying both the doll and the witch's hand. For those of you who have played Reign of Winter and are thinking, wait a minute, that's not how that adventure path ends, you're exactly right. Also, have I mentioned that I customized the shit out of pre-written adventures? The Reign of Winter session ended about an hour ago as of this writing,

and I'm a mix of joyous, melancholy, and exhausted. I've never finished two long emotional campaigns so closely to one another, and it's an interesting feeling. I know and I realize I have an embarrassment of riches considering I play off and on with three different gaming groups. Over the life of the podcast, I've received quite a few emails asking how do I find a group. If you're listening to this and you want to be in a gaming group, I would strongly encourage you to use online resources like the Looking for Groups subreddit and social media posts on your social media flavor of preference.

Also, use some in-real-life resources like visiting your local gaming stores and then reaching out to friends about possibly playing a role-playing game together. If no one knows how to DM, that's okay. Please consider taking that chair yourself. The first few sessions are terrifying, but it gets easier, and you can do this. Are my groups perfect? Absolutely not. We sometimes disagree, get annoyed by each other, and we take breaks every now and then. I legitimately thought my Reign of Winter group was going to disintegrate at one point due to some major disagreements about

some out-of-game topics, but we all agreed to persevere and forgive each other, and that went a long way towards our being able to finish this last campaign and start the next one in a few weeks. I guess I'm saying all of this because I want all of you to experience what I am right now. I'm saying all of this because I want all of you to experience what I am right now. The thrilling culmination of this much work, joy, and sacrifice is amazing, whether you're a player or a GM. If you're looking for the perfect group, you're not going to find it. It doesn't exist. But I'd like to ask that if you are looking for a group and hesitant about meeting new people, please give it a try. Be accommodating and forgiving of the members of the new group and find a group that does the same for you. This is not a very Halloween-y opening,

but I felt like I needed to get this off my chest. Now, on with the episode. This week on the Taking20 Podcast. If your player mentions that they've been looking for better magical armor and the next magic armor that you dangle in front of the party would be perfect for her, and cursed just because you want to prey on the player's greed, you're kind of a dick. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 97 of the Taking20 podcast, this week about curses and cursed items. This week's sponsor,

ghosts. So many of them want to be seen, because after all, if you've got it, haunt it. Happy Halloween to my wonderful listeners. To those of you that are listening to this on the day of release, I hope tonight is full of all kinds of spooky, scary fun for you. And if you're listening later, go out and buy your own damn candy. It's probably still on sale, actually. This topic was suggested by Jessica Green in Ottawa a few weeks back, so thank you so much for the suggestion, Jessica. I hope this episode meets your needs. Since this episode is releasing on Halloween, I wanted to use that scary suggestion that Jessica had, and well, there's not much scarier to a player character than when they become cursed. But what the heck is a curse?

How is it different than other game mechanics? How should I use them in my game? What's the most cursed topping on a pizza? Slow down, questions McGee. We'll get to all of that, I promise. I love Pathfinder's brief description of a curse. Curses are among the oldest and most deeply feared types of magic that linger far beyond the original malicious words

or grave deeds that spawned them. Yeah, that's great, but where do they come from? Curses have a lot of potential sources. Perhaps the most commonly seen in games is the Bestow Curse spell. Both 5th Edition and Pathfinder have the Bestow Curse spell, but they have slightly different mechanical effects. In 5th Edition, the spell gives disadvantage on ability checks, saving throws, attack rolls, or an additional 1d8 damage on attacks you make against them. You can cast using a higher level spell slot to change the duration of the curse from a few rounds all the way to permanent. In Pathfinder, the Bestow Curse spell can give you minus 6 to 1 ability score,

minus 4 penalty on attack rolls, saves, ability checks, and skill checks for each turn. The target possibly could have a 50% chance to act normally, otherwise it takes no action. Pathfinder also has the spell Greater Bestow Curse that ramps up the negative effects. It's important to know that the effects listed in this spell description are just suggestions, and DMs are encouraged to come up with their own curse effects using those as a guideline. A curse could also be caused by lingering negative effects in an area, whether that's necromantic energy or some sort of traumatic event that happened in a certain area. A large amount of death, pain, suffering, or mistreatment that just permeates the walls and floors of a building. The negative energy just infuses it to its very core, and it has deleterious effects on game roles in that area.

Curses could be attached to items. A magical or mundane item that was either created as cursed or picked up a curse due to the events that happened to and around it, because maybe it just got corrupted by the acts that that item participated in. Stay tuned, because Cursed Items is the entire second half of the episode. Monsters can give curses, like the mummy rot given by mummies, or lycanthropy by, well, lycanthropes, like werewolves. Lenorms and Pathfinder, which are basically primeval dragons from a bygone age. Finally, curses could be a side effect of having deals with certain types of creatures, like the fae. Fae are magical creatures that are tied to forces of nature. Some of them tend to be tricksy, duplicitous liars who offer a deal,

but the cost is some sort of negative effect, maybe even like a curse. Or it could be a side effect of dealing with devils. Devils can make deals with mortals to give the mortal exactly what they ask for at the cost of their soul. But usually, there's a catch, and that can take the form of a curse. Curses can come in widely varying strengths or categories. While you won't find this in so many words in your various game manuals, I break down curses by their effect on gameplay. Annoyance, handicap or hindrance, debilitation, or deadly. These are important delineations, and you have to decide how strong the curse is going to be if you're going to design your own.

Annoyance curses are minor irritations with very little in-game effect. It might have a narrative component to it, but when it comes to actually sitting at the table, it's really no big deal. Examples include when you take a long rest, it takes one hour more than usual. You can't say any word that begins with the letter P. When you see a family member the first time each day, you have to spin in a circle. These are minor inconveniences at worst, and they tend to be more story-based or narrative-based curses than really having a huge in-game effect. Ramping up the strength, though, is a curse that's a hindrance or handicap. The curse isn't that powerful, but it does have negative mechanical

effects in-game, like boots of clumsiness that reduces your speed by half. A headband that makes your facial features grow and shrink to various effects throughout the day and it gives you a minus two to charisma based checks. You get a curse that gives you a random phobia like arachnophobia or acrophobia, fear of heights. Or one that I'm dying to use, the cloak of apparent invisibility. You're not actually invisible, but the cloak makes you think you are. Or maybe the curse just makes you eat double the amount of food per day to survive. Not that big of a deal, you're just burning through rations.

So you can see, these curses have minor effects on gameplay, but no more than a minus two effect in certain situations. Certain curses, though, can be debilitating. The curse has significant negative effects on the character in-game. Like, the character cannot see any creature in an adjacent square or within five feet. The next item the character touches becomes dear and precious to them, and the character will never replace it. Bracers of Weakness. They look like any other set of bracers, but when you put them on, your Strength score is reduced by 4 and you gain a permanent level of Exhaustion. Maybe the character's metal armor is altered in some way by being affected by this curse, so it becomes wood, or maybe the gold pieces they're carrying all become copper pieces and they can't stop that from happening.

from happening. Another example of this type of curse would be on any given combat round, there's a 10% chance the character will receive a false vision of the future, giving opponents advantage on all attacks against that character that round. Curses at this level of strength should be pretty rare. Since curses may be difficult to get rid of, the character may be stuck with this curse for a while. The last strength and strongest I want to talk about is deadly. These curses are lethal or have a potentially lethal side effect. Like if you fail a saving throw against the curse, your character dies. Use these with serious caution unless death is little more than a mild annoyance in your campaign world or you've given your players the warning, a lot of your characters are going to die multiple times.

An example would be a lot of your characters are going to die multiple times. An example would be a necklace of beheading, arm bands of consumption that reduce your constitution score by one point per minute, an obsidian ion stone that only allows the player to breathe lava. Also, you can't breathe air anymore. Also, it doesn't provide any sort of protection from the heat. These types of curses should be saved for very rare moments. Definitely no more than one per adventure path or campaign. Curses, by the way, work best when they have a backstory, a point for being there, or maybe even both. The curse ideally should be connected to the story being told.

One of the reasons why the ring in Lord of the Rings is so memorable is how closely it was tied to the entire story. Destruction of the Ring meant destruction of Sauron, and that ring gave control over rings that were given to other races as well. It was tied to the story. That's what made it so interesting. So let's talk about cursed items. Cursed items can be fun, silly, all the way through outright dangerous. It depends on the nature of the curse and its strength, though. A cursed item is one that's infused with powerful negative magic that bestows a curse on those who would like to use them and makes it impossible to give them up. That impossibility may come from because it's attached to the person now, or they are simply unwilling to allow anyone to take it from them.

Some items will affect the mind of those who wear, wield, or possess them. It makes the person act differently, take extraordinary measures, maybe even turn on friends because they view this item as more precious than those around it. Some cursed items will lock themselves to the body of the unfortunate person who picks it up. Some cursed items will lock themselves to the body of the unfortunate person who picks it up. They can't unbuckle the armor. They can't remove the gauntlet. The headband locks itself onto their forehead. Finally, the worst of these types of items actually fuse themselves into the body of those who are affected by the curse. The sword becomes part of the hand.

The helmet attaches to the skin and hair of the head. Or the wand embeds itself into the chest of the person who picked it up. 5th edition games have a limited number of magic items that you can be attuned to at any given moment. A cursed item uses up one of those very limited slots for attuned items. Pathfinder's not quite as punishing in the cursed item department. It merely takes up a slot that would otherwise be used for a beneficial item. So that Cursed Cloak prevents you from wearing a Cloak of Resistance or Cloak of Levitation. Regardless of the game system, most methods of identifying items, including the Identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse. Lore might hint at it, but the curse could be a surprise to the item's user when the curse's effects are revealed.

If you're going to include a curse item in your game, though, you have to determine when the curse is going to be bestowed upon the character. Is it the first time they pick it up? Is it the first time they use the item? Or does the curse only manifest when a certain set of conditions are met? The first full moon after using it for the first time, upon crossing the doorway into your home, or the first time you fight a goblin. Of course, the rarer the condition, the weaker the curse will be in your game. You can weaken a very nasty curse by making the conditions to trigger it

extremely rare. So how do you identify an item that's cursed? Once again, the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide is clear that knowledge about lore of an item may reveal that it's cursed. Once again, the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide is clear that knowledge about lore of an item may reveal that it's cursed. A wish or miracle can reveal the item is cursed. Using an item and getting cursed by it is a sure way to find out an item is cursed, but what doesn't work is the Identify spell. Directly out of the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide, most methods of identifying items, including the Identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse. Identify reveals the magical properties of an item, but a curse is not a magical property. It's a curse. Also, as I hinted at earlier, most curses cannot be ended voluntarily. They require the Remove Curse spell, Greater Restoration in 5th edition, or some similar

enchantment-breaking magic or maybe even a Wish spell. Note that this does not remove the curse from the item, but it allows the player to discard the item and stop using it. If the player is foolish enough to use it again after having Attunement broken, well, they get the curse all over again. So DMs, what are some tips for using cursed items? If you want to have a cursed item have any sort of impact in your game, the cursed item needs to have some sort of beneficial effect that makes the player weigh pros and cons of dealing with the curse to get the benefits. For example, you could have a very powerful magic item that has a little bit of a curse that nerfs it just a touch. An

example is artifacts sometimes will have curses that prevent the wearer from using any other equipment or ever getting rid of the item. So it's a great weapon, but the wielder will never be capable of trading the weapon out for a ranged one or one that would be better suited against certain monsters. If you have a cursed item that has no benefits whatsoever, then once the players identify it, they're either going to just discard it or stuff it in a pack and possibly sell it to some rube down the road. Of course, if that rube later finds out that the item the PC sold to them was cursed, they may seek revenge, and that might be the basis of an adventure all its own. So curses can be too powerful and debilitating.

Curses and cursed items can rob players of their fun around the table if they're taken as surprised by it. If your player mentions that they've been looking for better magical armor and the next magic armor that you dangle in front of the party would be perfect for her and cursed just because you want to prey on the player's greed, you're kind of a dick. I said it before and I'll say it again. Cursed items should be relatively rare. They should never be used as a punitive measure against characters or players. Once PCs reach a certain level, curses and cursed items though become trivial to get rid of thanks to the removed curse spell or greater restoration. Consider more advanced curses that require unusual techniques to get rid of, like special reagents or accomplishing certain tasks.

Killing the originator of the curse, bathing it in the fires that forged it, having two clerics of opposing deities simultaneously perform a ritual on the item. Cursed items should have some kind of warning sign that the item is cursed, whether it's because it has this nasty purple glow, it detects as magic but can't be identified, or the headphones are constantly whispering to you. What? What? What? Drano tastes good. Oh, headphones, you're such a prankster. It should go without saying, though, but don't drink Drano, kids, or anything else you can find under the sink. Your insides thank you. Take a tip from the Fallout game series where many of

the dead bodies that you find tell a story or give a hint. If a cursed item was responsible or at least partially responsible for someone or something's death, have the body and the item tell a story and give a hint that it's cursed. The players find a skeleton in an abandoned castle that has a choker necklace dug into the corpse down to the bone. Give the characters a perception check to notice something unusual like that, and that may give them a hint that something bad could come from that necklace. The dragon's hoard contains wealth beyond counting, and it's meticulously placed. Magic items are laid among the coins, except there's one sword stuck in the ribcage of a

former adventurer pinned against the wall. A wise adventurer may ask, why didn't the dragon collect that sword and add it to its treasure hoard? Is there something weird about it? Something to think about. Or, two relatively fresh bodies are found that were obviously fighting a one-on-one duel, and because the players passed a perception check, they noticed that the wounds perfectly mirror each other, and only one blade has blood on it. Curses are fun narrative devices that can speak to the maliciousness of past foes who create the curse, show the pervasiveness of evil in an area that has the power to corrupt even things created with a pure purpose, or can be used as the onus for an adventure where the party has to save one of their own from the ring that is slowly rotting their body from within. Never ever use curses

as a way of punishing players or characters. That makes it more likely that, even though the curse is a negative thing, you and your players will still have fun doing it. Unless you're eating pineapple on a pizza. That is the most cursed topping on a pizza, probably because I'm allergic and if I eat large amounts of pineapple, I'll die. I'll grant you I may be a little biased and I want to be fair about this. So my fair and reasonable belief is that pineapple on a pizza is an abomination unto everything that is good and holy in this world. And the inventor of the idea should be fired out of a cannon until they land miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean where they are bludgeoned to death with pineapples. Nope. No overreaction there. Completely rational. Also, I need to wrap this up. My headphones are telling me I need to go get something off the roof. Tune in next week.

What headphones? If there is a next week. Tune in next week. We'll have a contest announcement. Also, that topic is going to be on the Wizards of the Coast and player races. Before I go, I want to thank our sponsor, Ghosts. The problem with many of them is that they're all alcoholics. They do love their booze. This has been episode 97, all about curses and cursed items. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube media production. Copyright 2021. References to game system content are copyright of their respective publishers.