Cursed item idea

[Infinitum]

Because I always found the idea of someone deliberatley creating harmful items that superglues themselves to the wearer somewhat derpy (and finding staffs of sanctity in the endgame can be annoying) - what about replacing the no unwielding without sanctity clause with a Will test (the strength of which depends on how cursed the item in question is). If passed, the item is removed and placed in the characters inventory.

Now, actuallt dropping the item to the ground (or throwing it) requires the character to pass a much harder Will test in order to let go of it completely. Carried cursed items periodically forces will tests (harder if worn), which if failed causes hosts of bad shit (tm) to happen (Terror, entrancement, confusion, Stun, forcing the character to wield the item in question, aggroing monsters, drawing monsters to the level, permanently increase the difficulty level of the item, draining Grace etc etc), but otherwise carries positive enchantments to encourage the player to keep them around. Maybe change Staves of sanctity to only temporarily lowers the curse's difficulty level rather than removing it outright.

The idea is to give the player meaningful choices whether to keep the item or not, increasing Will early to get rid of a cursed item (or simply spend lots of turns attempting to succeed dropping it), wearing the item or keeping it as a swap or prioritizing will-improving gear to simply deal with it etc. It's also more in line with Tolkiens theme of the corruptive influence of power rather than the current "screw you for playing the ID-game" that most cursed items boil down to (except for the interesting ones like Haunted Dreams etc).

"You wield the plain gold ring. You have a very bad feeling about this -more-
-more- you feel more protected somehow. You realize you are wearing a Ring of Protection (1d2) (cursed)"

"You attempt to remove the Ring of Protection (+1d2) (cursed) -more-
-more- [success] you reluctantly pocket it instead."

"You attempt to drop the Ring of Protection (+1d2) (cursed) -more-
-more- [failure] yet it is precious to you. Better hold on to it for now."

"Wherever did you keep your Ring of Protection (+1d2) (cursed)?! -more-
-more- You are confused!"

"Your Ring of Protection (+1d2) (cursed) is on your mind again -more-
-more- your gently stroke your dearest Ring of Protection (+1d2)"

"The sight of your dearest Ring of Protection (+1d2) bewitches you! -more-
-more- You have been entranced! The Troll Guard hits you! You die. -more-"

[Patashu]

I like the general idea, but not the mechanic of having to beat a random will roll, because if you can clear out a safe place on the level and lock yourself in you can try arbitrarily long to drop a cursed item no matter how bad your will is, introducing tedium.

OTOH you could have each cursed item have a fixed 'strength vs being dropped' value, either fixed based on the stats of the item, with some variance or with a lot of variance, and then simply check will VS strength - if higher, you can do the action you tried to. This is reminiscent of systems where you only get one chance to spot a trap because it has a fixed 'hiddenness' value your fixed 'perception' must beat (sangband I think?) as well as crawl where you automatically id a weapon if your combat skill beats its fixed number.

[BrewFall]

If it were a random roll the difficulty could increase when you fail, then and decrease when over time to its base, allowing you to try to remove or drop it periodically.

If you have no chance of removing the item, the game should tell you.

Cursed equipment straight up mesmerising you or confusing you sounds like it could lead to some unfair deaths.

[Narvius]

I think the original idea, MINUS the periodic effect thing, is the best. Locking an inventory slot is enough punishment, I think, and Patashu's argument - if there weren't an ACTUAL game clock that forces you forward, it would be valid, but as it stands it's more like "Am I willing to spend the limited amount of time I have on trying to free one of my inventory slots?"

[Edit/OT]
Incidentally, chiptunes! Hell yeah.

[Infinitum]

The periodic effect does simulate the item breaking the will of the wearer nicely though. Also it presents the player with a harder choice whether to keep "good" cursed items or not (say, Calris. Or a cursed +1 Ring of Damage or whatever). Without actual downsides besides unwearability (either the periodic thing or negative properties of the item itself) finding a strong cursed item only becomes a question of whether the player wants easy access to swaps or not.

Of course, the actual nature of the cursed effects could vary. Is it possible to assign different effects to difference magnitudes of failure on a will roll? If so, the relatively deadly effects (if they were implemented) could require a pretty severely failed will test from the player.

Failing that, there are plenty other effects that whilst debilerating wouldn't outright kill the player should it be considered too unfair (albeit the player can always avoid that particular deathtrap by getting rid of the item, but I digress).

[Derakon]

What about cursed items that make specific kinds of monsters harder? E.g. that make it harder to escape from webs, or penalize your stealth vs. orcs, or reduce your light when shadowy monsters are in LOS, etc. Of course the effect would need to persist even when the item is not worn (since otherwise you'd just swap it out when facing the corresponding threat), but it'd be a persistent, non-periodic penalty that the player could plan around.

[Antoine]

Nick if you're reading this - this Infinitum guy has pretty good ideas, could they form the core of a new design of cursed items in V?

A.

[taptap]

Apart from sticky curse, I would imagine noisy curse, and droppy curse.

But an artefact that entrances you would be absolutely retarded.

[Patashu]

I think the original idea, MINUS the periodic effect thing, is the best. Locking an inventory slot is enough punishment, I think, and Patashu's argument - if there weren't an ACTUAL game clock that forces you forward, it would be valid, but as it stands it's more like "Am I willing to spend the limited amount of time I have on trying to free one of my inventory slots?"

You are correct that it does allow for correct balance - you are weighing 'desire to get rid of the cursed item' alongside 'how likely I am to get rid of the cursed item' vs 'how much I value having game clock ticks'. But as written it would do so in a tedious and not very transparent way.
-The mechanism of getting rid of the cursed item is an opposed roll. If the roll is very easy to make, there is no tradeoff at all - as soon as you're remotely safe, you will be able to take it off very quickly. If it is very hard to make, then there is a tradeoff - but an unusual one, as it has an extremely random distribution - it could come off quickly or take forever at no fault of the user. It's not like healing, recuperating voice or waiting for enemies to move around the map, which are also turn/safety tradeoffs but are intuitive and easy to predict how long they take.
-Having to do the same action over and over until it works is tedious and annoying if there is no immediate danger -> it's just a thing you have to do for maintenance. (Things like pits and webs are fine - they present a danger to the user, especially if there are enemies around.)
-As an artificial, randomized, new 'turn sink' with no fixed rate of how long it takes players will not have a good intuition for how badly they're hurting their character's future by wasting turn clock.

Why I want it to be beating a fixed number with your will + bonuses - it makes it clearly communicated to the user what they need to do to get rid of the item. Do I spend points in will, or in a skill that makes it easier to get rid of cursed items? Do I chug a potion of grace to help or save it and wait? Do I need a staff of sanctity? Etc.

I think the logic behind this is similar to the logic behind violet mold con loss not going away naturally over time - it turns what would be an either uninteresting (Well, of course you'll wear off the con loss, it only takes __ turns!) or hard to weigh due to abstractness (I have to wait 1000 turns? How much is 1000 turns worth anyway?) choice into needing to plan into your character's future - how to deal with con loss now, how to cure sooner?

[locus]

-Having to do the same action over and over until it works is tedious and annoying if there is no immediate danger -> it's just a thing you have to do for maintenance. (Things like pits and webs are fine - they present a danger to the user, especially if there are enemies around.)

This is actually a problem for locked doors, too. It sucks to fail 30x to pick the when you are playing a low STR character who can't really kick down a door.

[Scatha]

This is actually a problem for locked doors, too. It sucks to fail 30x to pick the when you are playing a low STR character who can't really kick down a door.

Yes, but locked doors do also give interesting time pressure in some situations. I think the problem is worse for locked chests.

Some really interesting ideas here. A long while back we wondered about a Will-check to unequip cursed items (something like what Patashu suggests), but ended up just going with the Curse-breaking ability. Having a separate check to drop is downright malicious ... which is fitting. Without having thought about it too much, my main worry is that running up against inventory slot constraints can feel punishing in a painful rather than fun way.

[Nick]

Nick if you're reading this - this Infinitum guy has pretty good ideas, could they form the core of a new design of cursed items in V?

Yep, I'm watching.

I'm actually fairly happy with the framework for curses in FAangband, outlined here (and probably other places - I'm sure I've described it more than once). The actual curses used can vary by variant.

[Scatha]

Nick, I actually find your framework there to be a different kind of a thing to what Infinitum is describing here.

You have a detailed explanation of how curses work mechanically; in this thread we have a big-picture vision for the story of curses in the game and explanation of how they impact on gameplay decisions. Infinitum makes suggestions for mechanical implementations too, but that's almost a distraction.

Do you have a big-picture explanation of your view of the role of curses in the game?

[Nick]

Nick, I actually find your framework there to be a different kind of a thing to what Infinitum is describing here.

You have a detailed explanation of how curses work mechanically; in this thread we have a big-picture vision for the story of curses in the game and explanation of how they impact on gameplay decisions. Infinitum makes suggestions for mechanical implementations too, but that's almost a distraction.

Do you have a big-picture explanation of your view of the role of curses in the game?

OK, good question. I guess the general idea is that putting magic (or power, or whatever you call it) into an item is a dangerous process, and the results will depend on a lot of things - the material used, the skill and motivations of the maker, external conditions, etc. Certainly the reason I changed rings and amulets in FAangband to be like random artifacts was because I thought that they should be special - they don't have functional purpose like armour and weapons, so the ones that affect your abilities have to be made for explicitly magical purposes.

I think this is not too far from how such things "should" behave in a Tolkien-like world. I certainly have the feeling that the One Ring was essentially a part of Sauron, but the whole (Sauron + ring) was greater than the sum of the parts - and the same for the elven rings. There process of making a ring of power seems to involve the putting in of some of oneself as well as external power. There are also actual explicitly cursed items in Tolkien's writing - the gold of Nargothrond and even the Silmaril of Beren in early writings - and the effect there seems to be warping the owner's priorities (my preciousss) and having generic bad things happen.

On the whole, I think that in-game curses as magical side-effects works quite well intuitively; possibly "curse" is not such a good word, but it has a bit of a life of its own now, and I can't actually think of a good replacement.

[Derakon]

I think this is not too far from how such things "should" behave in a Tolkien-like world. I certainly have the feeling that the One Ring was essentially a part of Sauron, but the whole (Sauron + ring) was greater than the sum of the parts - and the same for the elven rings.

I like the way that the Sandman graphic novels put this: "Tools can be the subtlest of traps." The main character of the books invested a significant portion of his power in a ruby, much like Sauron did with the One Ring; it gave him refined control over his abilities, but without the ruby he was severely diminished.

Think of it a bit like being able to chop off your arm and have it still function even though it's no longer connected to you. You could do things with your disconnected arm that you couldn't do when it's glued to your shoulder, but if you lose it, then you're just a one-armed person.