Quote from: BedrockBrendan;753768Agreed. It is probably also true as well that being undead for centuries or even thousands of years leads many of them to not think in ways that appear rational to us. Boredom, insanity, etc will take their toll.

It would be like giving Kim Jong Il 1000 years to design his lair.

I've always liked the idea of introducing a Cursed Item that was once NOT cursed, but became that way because its wielder did something so tragically awful that some big supernatural entity took notice and... well, cursed it.

The idea would be that the item is renown in legend and myth, so the heroes must go on a quest to "fix it" or re-consecrate it. And so, just like that fabled MacGuffin of Middle Earth, the item must be carried by the party, which is a tedious or flat-out awful process. But the pay-off would be glorious. Theoretically.

Quote from: Necrozius;753774I've always liked the idea of introducing a Cursed Item that was once NOT cursed, but became that way because its wielder did something so tragically awful that some big supernatural entity took notice and... well, cursed it.

The idea would be that the item is renown in legend and myth, so the heroes must go on a quest to "fix it" or re-consecrate it. And so, just like that fabled MacGuffin of Middle Earth, the item must be carried by the party, which is a tedious or flat-out awful process. But the pay-off would be glorious. Theoretically.

I did that a few years back when I was running an AD&D game through T1-4.  One of the PCs was a paladin, and towards the end wanted to get a holy sword (naturally).  Well, turns out the general who they fought right before Zugtmoy (I changed some things around in that module to fit what the player's were doing) had Blackrazor.  The paladin had a vision that in order to get his holy sword, he would need to have an ancient white dragon breath on the unholy sword, then immediately smash it into bits with Whelm.  Then take the pieces to a high temple of Cuthbert where it would be reforged into a holy sword.

Let's just say having a paladin carrying an intelligent ego sword that wanted to constantly kill (but he couldn't ever use it or risk losing his paladinhood) made for an entertaining conflict  Needless to say, they did travel to White Plume Mountain after defeating Zugtmoy, they got whelm, found the dragon lair, and ended up finishing the quest.  Then the PCs all retired and the paladin never did get to end up using his holy sword in actual game play  But strangely enough, everyone was OK with it.

Being a dick GM is being a dick GM, it can come out in a thousand ways; the best rule is to not be a dick, period.

Quote from: dragoner;753785Being a dick GM is being a dick GM, it can come out in a thousand ways; the best rule is to not be a dick, period.

That goes without saying.

The question the thread is posing is rather- does using cursed magic items in a campaign inherently make one a dick GM?

Quote from: Ravenswing;753709Cursed Magic Items are one example.  What sane enchanter deliberately uses time, ingredients, equipment and arcane power to create something like that?  Wouldn't any sensible culture make them illegal, and impose nasty punishments on any wizard caught doing so?  

For the evuls: No really. Created just to fuck with someone. What do you think demons and liches do for recreations?

Trap: To hinder adventurers. Especially those -X weapons and armour. Possibly giving guards or the leader an advantage deeper in. Place a few cursed items in chests near the entrance.

Spite: Placed in a personal chest. If someone got that far then the owner is likely dead and so why not try and screw with whomever offed you post mortem?

Botched enchanting: Either no one noticed it was a botch, or they noticed and stored it someplace for later repair work that never happened. Seen at least once in a book.

Former +X item that was literally cursed to hinder a foe. Or was exposed to negative or warping energies. Or exposed to the presence or blood of some excessively evil being like a demon, lots of demons or a god. Fairly common.

Created by gods: The gods of bad luck probably have sweat shops churning these things out. Seen this in books once or twice. Not the sweat shop part...

Revenge: A wizard who hates fighters for example creates one. A king has one created as a gift for a foe who will receive it unawares of its true nature. This one is pretty common.

Security or alien nature: The weapons works perfectly fine for the owner or the race originally created it. But it has a built in security to hinder anyone not the owner. Or its simply so foreign to the material world or terrestrial life that here its function is warped.

etc ad cursium...

Quote from: Exploderwizard;753790The question the thread is posing is rather- does using cursed magic items in a campaign inherently make one a dick GM?

No, it does not inherently make one a dick GM; unless of course, one is a dick GM to begin with.

It's amazing to me how much the "entitlement" attitude has seeped into the hobby... From my point of view, it isn't dickish if it makes sense in context with the setting.

One of my favorite episodes in Earthdawn was when my PC got himself stuck with a cursed item.
Throal (big dwarf city) has an NPC, a troll, who pushes a cart around town. Everyone warned us about him, don't talk to the troll. No one told us why.
So my character is a Windling, curious, gregarious... short attention span and a bit naive. He saw the troll out late one night, the troll waved... my PC waved back. He went over and talked to the troll.
The troll was very friendly, offered him a present.
'What would you like?'
The PC had a current obsession (as much as a Windling can have an obsession) with a particular sort of jungle bird. So the Windling asked if the troll had such a bird... just so happens he did. A stuffed one mounted on a block of wood.
JOY!
Turns out the troll was a sort of demigod/avatar of the god of vengeance... and the stuffed bird was a conduit for a particularly nasty demon-thing to come in and haunt people in their dreams. Not the owner, but anyone around him while he was sleeping... trying to drive them to suicide.
Lots of people died before this was figured out. Fall asleep in a city, bad things happen.
Oh, and if no one was around to haunt... the bird would raise up any nearby corpses as undead, just to be spiteful because I'd taken the precaution of going off on my own to sleep.
Once accepted the bird could not be gotten rid of or destroyed... it just showed up the next night, worse for wear.
The whole thing lead to several side quests and an epic battle once we tracked the demon-thing to its lair on another plane.

Most fun I've had with a cursed magic item, ever.

I think there's also an implicit assumption in old D&D that you're (mostly) tromping through ancient structures filled with forgotten monsters and loot and whatnot, not going through a just-built, custom-designed fortress.  Mostly.

From that perspective, why not have cursed items?  Who can say why or where they came from?  Maybe their magic 'turned' for some reason.  Maybe they're only cursed for people that aren't members of the long lost Kingdom of Noncurseditemness (of which there are no members ever any more).  Maybe a powerful spellcaster from centuries ago really hated fighters.  Maybe the sword is actually a ritual device.  Who knows?

Yeah, after you've dealt with the monster, after you've dealt with the traps preventing you from getting the treasure, after you've bypassed the locks securing the treasure, why not...

also have the treasure be a gotcha?  I mean, if you don't then why bother with any of it?  That's all players ever struggle for, to get a -1 cursed sword, or to have Bob the macho fighter get suddenly turned into Babette, or to have the Paladin lose his paladin status permanently because of a helm he accidentally touched.  If you aren't doing this, you're just coddling players with an overblown sense of entitlement.  Fuck players.  Useless pieces of shit.

All treasure should be handled solely with telekinesis before it can be gathered in a pile and Detect Magic cast on the mound.  Anything glowing needs to be handled like deadly hazardous materials until it is inspected by the NEST team (MUs with Identify spell and Bards) wearing whatever equivalent of a full body condom can be mustered.  Only once the item has been properly validated can it truly be considered treasure.  And that's why the DM should just go ahead and make it cursed anyway, because Fuck Players.

Anyone who doesn't play like this should be beaten in the face with a baseball bat until they die, dismembered, and the body parts raped by badgers.  Fucking useless posers.

Quote from: Gabriel2;753815Yeah, after you've dealt with the monster, after you've dealt with the traps preventing you from getting the treasure, after you've bypassed the locks securing the treasure, why not...

also have the treasure be a gotcha?  I mean, if you don't then why bother with any of it?  That's all players ever struggle for, to get a -1 cursed sword, or to have Bob the macho fighter get suddenly turned into Babette, or to have the Paladin lose his paladin status permanently because of a helm he accidentally touched.  If you aren't doing this, you're just coddling players with an overblown sense of entitlement.  Fuck players.  Useless pieces of shit.

All treasure should be handled solely with telekinesis before it can be gathered in a pile and Detect Magic cast on the mound.  Anything glowing needs to be handled like deadly hazardous materials until it is inspected by the NEST team (MUs with Identify spell and Bards) wearing whatever equivalent of a full body condom can be mustered.  Only once the item has been properly validated can it truly be considered treasure.  And that's why the DM should just go ahead and make it cursed anyway, because Fuck Players.

Anyone who doesn't play like this should be beaten in the face with a baseball bat until they die, dismembered, and the body parts raped by badgers.  Fucking useless posers.

Awesome. Or get real fun and make them use 40 identify spells on each item. It's so much fun trust me. As I said upthread if you have a reason or context go for it, if it's because "well you forgot your 10 ft pole" fuck off given this isn't BCMI anymore and nobody plays DnD as originally intended with 455 mook bastards most you couldn't be arsed to name beyond Bob VII because you died every 2 seconds anyway. Unless of course it's DCC or Warhammer and well gee they are right up front with the fact that you sir are FUCKED.

Quote from: Gabriel2;753815Yeah, after you've dealt with the monster, after you've dealt with the traps preventing you from getting the treasure, after you've bypassed the locks securing the treasure, why not...

If you're going to barge into an innocent monster's hovel and murder it and it's family just because it's got too many heads or a funny skin colour or something, you kinda deserve to get fucked over.

Ah, what would any internet discussion be without gross hyperbole?

Quote from: robiswrong;753811I think there's also an implicit assumption in old D&D that you're (mostly) tromping through ancient structures filled with forgotten monsters and loot and whatnot, not going through a just-built, custom-designed fortress.  Mostly.

From that perspective, why not have cursed items?  Who can say why or where they came from?  Maybe their magic 'turned' for some reason.  Maybe they're only cursed for people that aren't members of the long lost Kingdom of Noncurseditemness (of which there are no members ever any more).  Maybe a powerful spellcaster from centuries ago really hated fighters.  Maybe the sword is actually a ritual device.  Who knows?

Personally, I'm not satisfied with the answer of "it's ancient" as an explanation for putting in senseless stuff.

I like it when there is a sense to dungeons, and you can logically deduce reasons for things like the layout, resources, and so forth. Monsters have treasure that makes sense for them, and store it or use it according to their nature.

For example, if magic items can turn cursed over a long time, then there are consequences to that explanation. The older a hoard is (especially untouched), then the more likely that it will contain cursed items. Conversely, more recent and more used hoards will be safer.