The Big Thread of Conceptual Curses

[X-D]

I like Number13 mechanics, most of the curse ideas would work with that, and long as the "available affects" had bleed over to the other classes as well, so one could not easily pinpoint which elemental class gave the curse, I am cool with it.

EXCEPT.

I would make the times DRASTICALLY longer and somewhat random. Sitting out a 1-5 hour curse is no big deal, sitting out a 5-50 hour curse is, and that way the curse is doing exactly what it should do. I have no issue with it being ended early by the caster or it being possible...though it should be hard, to remove it....A Templar should be able to remove at will but at a cost to him/her. Yes, the godkings power over rides some elementalist...but if a Templar can simply "pardon" a curse then everybody would just run to a Templar with a few hundred coins as the remove curse vender. So there should be a cost to the Templar as well. I do not know what, but it should be notable and long lasting...like limited number of curse "pardons" that take a long time to regen. So he/she has to basically horde them...what, a rinthi with 2k coins needs a curse removed and I only have two left and the next regens in 80 game days.....better save in case lord fancypants Fale gets cursed.

[mansa]

I really like these ideas, they are all fantastic.  It doesn't even have to be a 'curse'.  We would like the ability to modify characters skills, stats, and abilities temporarily with a buff or a debuff in some sort of mechanic.   It can be magick or it can be herbs/brews or it can be some other aspect that can be defined later. 

We just want more options!

[number13]

Subtle curses for the remaining elements:

darkness: it's always night (whenever using the time command, it always reports back that it's late at night), everyone is a shadow (all characters in a room appear as *strange shadow*), monsters in the tavern (when looking into a room, the game includes some weird shit in the list of characters, ie, The three-eyed floating skull is here.)

energy: delusion of hunger (game always reports that you are Very Hungry, regardless of actual satiation levels), delusion of fatigue (your current MV is reported back as 30% less than of it's actual value), delusion of immortality (your current HP and STUN is reported back as being maxed out, always, regardless of actual level)

Void curses only afflict elementalists. They have no effect on mundane characters. And they are nastier than normal curses.

void: spell casting failure chance increased, max mana reduced by 30%, mana regen reduced by 50%

[X-D]

Oh, cannot curse Templars of course. Attempting to do so should turn the curse on you, not removeable, must wait out timer and still pay the mana cost. 

[Vex]

I would make the times DRASTICALLY longer and somewhat random. Sitting out a 1-5 hour curse is no big deal, sitting out a 5-50 hour curse is, and that way the curse is doing exactly what it should do.

50 hours is, I'm quite sure, nothing to the jobless/lifeless majority of players, but when you have only a limited number of hours a week? 50 hours of being forced to stumble around in perpetual drunkenness, blindness. steathlesness or some other obnoxious effect, wouldn't even be worth the waiting of out.

I'd retire, and move on to a pc that isn't going to be crippled, for the next three to five weeks worth of playing.

[X-D]

I did say it should be random with a good range, top does not need to be 50, say 5-20, means usually it should be around 12, Also, with number13 suggestion, if it worked that way then the curse itself would basically be random and many suggested are pretty benign.

[number13]

If curses have an exceptionally long duration, they should tick off when logged off, like alcohol.

Minor curses should be an RP tool, a plot instigator, a little flavor for witches to be more witchy, but not a complete pain in the ass.

If people are whipped into a frenzy because everyone is coming down with cases of Krathi-itis, and suspicious of every gemmed mage, and suspicious of everyone who acts a little weird  (and so might be a secret witch), then that's how it should work. If everyone is ready to ragequit because half the MUD is blind, deaf, and dumb, then it's a failure of an idea.

[Eyeball]

A curse to do with moonlight. Only is in effect at night when Lirathu is high or something. No, not werewolves, but something.

[Cind]

Minor curses should be an RP tool, a plot instigator, a little flavor for witches to be more witchy, but not a complete pain in the ass.

I think people would fear/hate them more if they had a little more bite, like with these curses.

I really like the phases of the moon and the sun's position being relevant to the curse. Maybe not in its casting or removal. Because some people only have thirty minutes a day to play and for the sake of the raider group's plot need to cast that curse on Amos -now.- But I think the moons and sun should have an effect on some or all curses, one or the other.

The curses that are a total pain to play with? A witch should be having to concentrate to maintain it--- lowered temporary max stun, the curse consistently absorbs mana(maybe?) and if the witch enters combat, the curse breaks. I'm talking about things like being drunk to the point you can't leave the room easily, being unable to hit back in a fight, being in a sleep you can't wake up from (little Sleeping Beauty plot there,) things like that. Make the plot-changing curses hard to come by and require concessions in power from the witches that maintain them.

For touched, because of their lower karma requirements I think the minor curses would do well, maybe one or two curses that are medium-light and medium. Everyone flips their shit when a psion <does seemingly harmless stuff> to your character or someone else's and its noticeable. This may stem from the fact that psions haven't been washed down, but I think minor curses should be like this. A case of the coughs that just won't go away, you keep tripping and falling whenever you try to walk somewhere, or an echo to you and the room that says that you're dizzy and pale/look dizzy and pale. I did this last one one time, in a crowded Gaj many years ago, and no one even suggested that it might be a witch.

[RogueGunslinger]

I would probably just log out if I had to consistently deal with the curses at the length and power some of you are suggesting. 5 hours of drunk-stumbling every room-movement sounds absolutely insane and incredibly powerful to me.

I don't think the curse should be more powerful than a full-fledged spell, not without it needing to be cast like a normal, obvious spell. And there's a decent bit of overlap with some of these ideas and already existing spells.

I do like the idea of keeping a curse up being something you permanently have to work on with stun and a depleted mana-pool.

[perfecto]

What about the placing of false auras that would be visible given the correct circumstances?

This one is my absolute favorite    Cursing someone (unbeknownst to them) To have glowing eyes that most templars would notice right away!  "You there! You're a gicker!  take the gem or die!"  Now that's some golden RP right there lol.

Also right away I thought that any curse casted should drain mana over time like psionics work.  Yes that means the curse would have immediate effect and last a lot shorter duration, but it would make more sense mechanically.  Even Psi's, one of the highest karma chars in the game run out of stun if they push too hard with their abilities.   All of these curse ideas are awesome and sound very detrimental to anyone inflicted, therefore there has to be a trade off for the mage or witch to do so.

[Cind]

The docs say that Lirathu is considered a sign of good luck and fortune and that Jihae is considered bad luck, or good luck for those who want to do naughty things. If you said this in the game, people would think you were a newbie or a tribal from a small vnpc tribe. If you applied this logic to the way curses work, people would actually take you seriously when you said this.


I understand that Zalanthan spiritual life is either outright magick-science or cocksure, American Wild West completely absent, but there's actual no RL tribe that doesn't have some kind of spirituality, and people who live with hard circumstances in RL actually tend to become more religious (although there's always outliers.) The closest I can think of to people who might think like Zalanthans are a dispossessed African tribe whose spiritual life revolves completely around the concept of luck, and a group in the Southeast Asian islands who are completely isolated from the rest of the world most of the time, and who believe that leaving their ancestral lands will kill them, as their spirits are tied to their land. The first tribe's spiritual leaders are very busy all the time creating good luck and wishing bad luck away. People don't know much about the second one.

The thing both of these tribes have in common with Zalanthas that separates them from literally the rest of -humanity- is that they don't believe in gods, spirits, demons or otherwise incorporeal beings or a concept of a place one goes after death. However, they are extremely superstitious and spiritual, to an extent that I noticed. Its probably because I studied this stuff, but the longer I spend in the 'civilized' culture of the game, the more it feels to me like a game. There's no idea of luck, no belief system -at all- outside of political loyalty and the little small beliefs witches hold about magick that literally varies from witch to witch. Drov is probably a place full of magic and death, and people tell you to go to Drov but they wouldn't really believe you if you say you've been there due to a method they can believe, like a witch sent you there for a day to punish you for something. At worst, they'll call on OOC knowledge from previous characters and think you're a witch or that you associate with them to an uncomfortable extent. At best, they'll think you're a newbie.

Anyway, I bet it would be cool to create some sort of 'luck' culture that, with use of small luck rituals and the passage of time, can help mitigate some curses and dispel others. The one item that says it is a good luck charm for warriors, for example. If wearing that actually helped dampen a certain curse that lowers your strength, a lot of people would start wearing it.

If you're going to let every witch have at least one curse at their disposal, ways to dampen their effects would be good. I'm sort of seeing this backfire, though. Even if templars went around telling everyone that 'a little stone sword charm' kept away the strength-sapping curse, people would probably keep associating the charm with magick and only wear it if they were in the Arm on excursion with a templar who could fix it if it blew up on them.

On the other hand, I really wish this sort of thing would work. Even if we had no spiritual culture at all and had some kind of luck culture, that's a totally new aspect of your character you can flesh out--- superstitious, not superstitious, or somewhere in between. Slightly less of a superstitious fanatic than your brother. Yeah, don't put too much faith in that stuff, its just a piece of rock. This thing saved my life when we were hunting Malik in the desert and he started slinging campfires at us.

[X-D]

RGS....Nobody suggested every room I do not think.

My suggestion was for say the stumbling to roll a check every 5-15 minutes...say simple 50/50, Yup you fall, nope you don't, only get like an echo of being dizzy or something.

All of my suggestions and most the others I see would not be game breaking in most if not all cases, even the ones I consider more powerful. Would it be annoying to suddenly have a skill go to newb for a while...yes, but it is only one skill and you should be able to get around that. Even the narcolepsy idea...sure, you would want to stay out of combat for the duration, but otherwise mostly annoyance as you would be able to simply type wake. Could even give a warning echo a few seconds before hand.

None of them should be much more then an annoyance to the player...somewhat more then annoyance to the PC.

Also, keep in mind, still spitballing here, any of them would need be tailored/tested for playability IMO.

As to durations, they need to be something really felt. Of course durations would also be tailored to actual negative effects to the PC...One giving just smelly echos and attracting carrion animals could last a good long time...while something actually affecting how the PC functions would have to last less time.

And come on, it would be darn funny to have vultures landing around you with echos or ldescs about patiently waiting for you to stop moving.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Regarding the phases of the moon perhaps the black moon should play a bigger role considering the circumstances it was created.

Honestly, I think this should apply to all magicks in general. The astral bodies, I mean.

[Brokkr]

Despite the number and color of the moons, you are not, in fact, playing on Krynn.

[Krath]

Despite the number and color of the moons, you are not, in fact, playing on Krynn.

Raistlin or Tasslehoff would disagree

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Generally speaking, folk tales in our world place most curses as detrimental nuisances, a witches' torture of their enemies, a wronged person's revenge on their killer. And that's all we would want here. Nothing that could, by itself, destroy your playtime or your character.

So, what a detrimental nuisance?

Let's take, for instance, that thirst code. Since the game would echo at you that you were thirsty now and then, you would try to drink with each echo. Eventually, you might decide to skip one of those echoes, then two of them, since the last five times they've been a foul feeling but not reality. Except, this time it was real, and you didn't know it. And by the time you do realize it's real, you're actually parched, and you don't have enough water to fully quench it, so you're on a mad dash to get enough. And man - you really hate Vivs at this point, or maybe it's Krathi. Who knows.

Now at this point, it's not detrimental, but what happens when you run across those three gith on your way to the nearest well? Well, they're tying you up. They're fucking up your dash for water. Maybe they're holding you up long enough that you become even thirstier. Maybe you fall off a wall running from them. Now you're being held up, you're lost, and you are pretty sure you're thirsty and need water for real.

Now it's a detrimental nuisance.

Or there's that one curse that makes you gassy. I mean, meh, not a big deal, but it's not quite the same when you start popping those farts in front of Templar Rockhard, or Noble Lady Sexy.

There's that one curse that saps movement points, but doesn't tell you it does. Imagine that your elf runs out of movement points, unexpectedly, in the middle of kryl land. Now you're on a rest and dash quest to get the fuck out.

And there's that one curse that periodically informs you that your genitals aren't functioning the way you'd like them to.

None of these curses are supposed to be huge things by themselves. They are supposed to be, at worst, detrimental nuisances.

[gotdamnmiracle]

Despite the number and color of the moons, you are not, in fact, playing on Krynn.

Fair enough.