Having Fun With Curses!

In a recent post ChattyDM talks about how one of his players CHOSE to take a cursed item, and it jogged my brain about all the fun that I’ve had with curses in my games. No, not just the fun I have from being the mean nasty man behind the screen laughing maniacally at a player’s expense and intense suffering… MWA HA HA *cough* Anyways…

Curses are the bane of many a player’s existence because largely they end up messing up their abilities in combat and/or attributes. I can’t tell you how many times in a game I’ve played in that I sat out a whole combat, bored, because I kept failing a savings throw and was immobile or whatever.

It’s either that or it is a hat that cannot be taken off, except for a high level dispel by a cleric, that gives the wearer a -6 to some stat (and some DM’s target that characters most important stat just to be a dick), thus rendering that character very ineffective in their “nitch” situation.

So Let’s Make Curses Fun!

Fun? Scha, right.. And monkey’s might fly outta my butt (sorry, just got done watching Wayne’s World recently.. Had to get that out)…

So looking at Chatty’s example of cursed armor that does not impede on combat or give a negative stat modifier, just a lisp that makes for some good and silly role-playing!

In one campaign I created a curse that afflicted a player with some fun randomness. Every so often I would have the player roll a will save, if he failed I would roll a d100 and apply the effect to him

• Act normally
• Run around squawking and flapping arms like a chicken.
• Jibber like an idiot.
• Speak in a language unknown to character.
• Lay on the ground motionless.
• Be open to suggestion (this one was fun once my other players realized what this meant).
• Ect.

None of these really affected combat and actually, usually, made it more entertaining when the big bad warrior suddenly started running around clubbing baddies while acting like a chicken.

What about you? You have any fun curse stories or ideas?