Ideas on curses...

[monkeywithstick]

Bit of preamble, but one of the LRP systems I attend has a large number of magical effects as curses that do mostly "RP effects"

This can of course, in NWN be handled as pure RP agreement. And that's totally fine. But I thought of this in terms of the new nightmare spell.

If the damage was removed, then the curse effect is as far as I understand it "you can't sleep." In this respect the damage is almost a hindrance, it's a spell that strikes as it might make for an entertaining magical backhand, but damage numbers invite retribution, at which point your first action is wasted on a relatively trivial effect for the overall combat.

Similarly one could inflict ravenous hunger or thirst (increasing the down-tick of said meter), drunkenness (ticking down sobreity slowly).

On a different tack you could inflict a recurring emotional state e.g misery/overexuberance/protectiveness/fury with a server message stating so on each tick.

EDIT: Or add a description tag (like the champion's belt) of "Covered in pustules and boils". No need for a charisma debuff, force of personality wouldn't necesarilly change.

All of these additions are quite deliberately only lethal in the very long term, if at all (and if these are looked at seriously I would suggest removing the damage from nightmare to match). They could provide RP opportunity in seeking someone to remove the curse or restore (the ease of removal could be varied depending on the effect). They offer a source of conflict and resolution that does not need to be lethal or indeed particularly combat heavy.
I'd consider making them not auto-hostile, mass variants could likewise be a rather cool parting shot.

And in the terms of the LRP system it's more about providing a framework for conflict or for poking people's character concepts out of a box. Someone may be totally fine with agreeing an RP effect but they probably wouldn't suggest it, getting something like this agreed at present would require a great deal of OOC communication, and that means it is less likely to happen, certainly not something to easily build a concept around.

These ideas don't really impact on balance overmuch they just add narrative tools and the old fantasy archetype of a cursing witch.

Thoughts?

[Petrifictus]

Each time when my character get cursed, I try to come up with the different ideas how they surface.
Like one time my ogre, Karstaag got cursed by the drider and started time to time throw up spiders or Wotan holding couple Book of Curses to punish those who disturb the Nomad IC with sending a tell OOC what the curse might involve and giving free hands, like growing hair on the tongue, hinnish pink curse (that provided pretty fun "side quest" in the past) frogs jumping out from the mouth when someone cursed, etc.

Even if the curse is just a penalty debuff, I strongly suggest turning them into good RP tool, use your imagination, pick up ideas from the old children fairytales, etc. You certainly will be surprised how they spice up your RP.

If cursed, dont use your remove scrolls or potions right away and give it a try!