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Pleh
2019-11-23, 11:36 AM
I guess this would be inspired by the CS Lewis vision in Chronicles of Narnia (though I detected hints of similar ideas in Tolkein's Hobbit with the idea that greed for gold was corrupting).

But what do you guys think about a campaign setting where becoming a dragon is sometimes a result of adventurers who wandered too far into the ways of greedy murderhoboes? This would carry some implication that fighting a dragon is like fighting a dark reflection of something your character could become, if adventuring replaces their social empathy with their fellow sentients. Then also, like lichdom, it can be a power pursued deliberately

GloatingSwine
2019-11-23, 11:54 AM
So you're saying that if I continue down this path I'll be an awesome murderbeast that can fly and lives basically forever and can still shapeshift back to human to hit the town for some fun?

Sign me up!

Curses should really be things that at least 90-95% of people wouldn't immediately regard as wicked awesome.

Xuc Xac
2019-11-23, 01:13 PM
So you're saying that if I continue down this path I'll be an awesome murderbeast that can fly and lives basically forever and can still shapeshift back to human to hit the town for some fun?

Sign me up!

Curses should really be things that at least 90-95% of people wouldn't immediately regard as wicked awesome.

Yes, a dragon can do those things, but it doesn't. People think it would be great to have a big pile of gold because gold is money and money can be exchanged for goods and services. But dragons don't do anything with their gold except hoard it. They're just a big scaly version of those weird old people who have thirty years worth of newspapers and magazines stacked up in their houses with basements full of plastic grocery bags full of other plastic grocery bags.

"Now that I have become a mighty dragon, I have the power to go anywhere and do anything! ... I guess I'll just hide in this cave and take a nap for 30 years. I'll go out later. A lot later. Maybe."

Eldan
2019-11-23, 01:43 PM
I mean, it's not an uncommon thing in European legends. Fafnir probably being the best example.

Thing is, it doesn't really work with D&D's dragons, as GloatingSwine notes up there. Medieval and legendary dragons were, you know, this:

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d06ea9d5fbb1b1494b3d2beff29c96a9
https://bogleech.com/scrapbook/dragon-rogier2.jpg
https://bogleech.com/scrapbook/dragon-paolo.jpg
https://bogleech.com/scrapbook/dragon-goltzius.jpg


Pathetic, crawling, toxic things. Not, you know, this:

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/drachen/images/4/42/Dragon_of_the_First_Age_by_rubendevela.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140129164847&path-prefix=de

It's like vampires have to work extra hard these days to be convincing as curses, after we've had a million sexy immortal rich aristocrats dancing forever in their castles. If dragons are supposed to be a curse, I can't help but think there needs to be more of a drawback than "There will be no other people, but you get to be a strong, intelligent, magical, flying, giant magnificent creature.

False God
2019-11-23, 01:47 PM
Yes, a dragon can do those things, but it doesn't.

In stories maybe, because they're NPCs who do what the writer tells them to.

To replicate that in D&D, I'd probably go something along the lines of the dragon psychoses, just with no real benefits. You get to be a mighty murder lizard. The catch is you have to make a will save not to curl up on a giant pile of loot for a hundred years. The catch is you have to make sanity checks not to let the murder beast inside you lose. Checks that I might add, are lessened by collecting loot...which you have to make different checks not to give in to your natural hoarding tenancies.

It's like vampirism, only with loot. The longer you go without, the harder it gets. The more you have, the more you want to just take a nice long nap.

The saves of course have to be managable. Some might be worse for certain dragon breeds than others. Metallics might have easier saves against "going feral". Chromatics might be able to wander further from their treasure without checks. Each color might have an easier or harder time at one aspect of dragonhood than others.

Ultimately, the answer the OP's question is complex. "How do you reign in a murderhobo?" is hard enough. "How do you reign in a murderhobo DRAGON?" is even harder. I've tried. When a player/character really has no goals beyond "killing people" and "taking their stuff" it's difficult to make them more powerful but somehow more limited. "Semi-phenomenal nearly-cosmic power, itty bitty living space."

Of course there's always the "you're not a player character" answer, but I think that's lame.

Pleh
2019-11-23, 06:33 PM
Well, I mean the real threat of becoming a Vampire is losing control of yourself. I think we break the curse of vampirism by making them humans with unusual diets, lifespans, and allergies.

I guess in my mind it was a similar mechanic as Star Wars Saga edition falling to the Dark Side. It changes you to the point they strongly recommend the DM forcibly retires the character to NPChood. They are no longer adventurers and are now controlled by the draconic mind, which makes them an NPC. They've lost who they were.

You turn into a dragon, but don't get to play as one except to fight to change back into not being a dragon.

Anymage
2019-11-23, 09:54 PM
Dark Sun did this, although it was less a straight up curse (as in, an unpleasant state that people would want to avoid and/or escape if possible) and more a power option that became appealing mostly to people who were already fairly distanced from their humanity. So rather like being one of the stronger, voluntary undead types.

Slowly mutating into a dragon without deliberate effort isn't really in keeping with d&D's themes, if for no other reason than because it's bad form to force a player to take tranformative class levels. Turning dragon apotheosis into something desired by murderhobos and that gets the seeker looked askance at by anyone who isn't a murderhobo is the same feel you're going for, but I don't know that I'd directly call it a curse.

Fable Wright
2019-11-23, 11:37 PM
To make this work, and get the players to avoid the murderhobo path, you need to really get them to hate dragons.

A lot.

If the dragon is pursuing a vendetta against them for the laughs, or because they make amusing toys, or they picked up a trinket he's interested in, or simply because he can, and torments them like Strahd in the titular Curse of Strahd? This works. Strahd made 'become a vampire' rather unappealing simply because of just how despised he makes himself.

You want the dragon to be the PC's mirror? You need to get the players to invest in the dragon like they invest in Strahd.

paddyfool
2019-11-24, 01:09 AM
Your stereotypical fantasy monster dragon is solitary and avaricious. Where they can communicate, they are often manipulative, treacherous and deceptive.

What if... to become a dragon, you have to betray people close to you and take their stuff? For instance, by murdering the rest of your murderhobo adventuring party?

What if loot taken from a dragon's lair had the potential to trigger will saves regarding such behaviour, until appropriately purified?

Draconi Redfir
2019-11-24, 02:56 AM
a lot of people would probably see it as a curse if the dragon they were transformed into could NOT do the following:


Talk
Shapeshift
Cast spells
Use tools (Lack of opposable thumbs)
Appear nonthreatening'
Control their hunger / sleepiness.
Speak to / communicate with other dragons, Kobolds, or other entities a Dragon would normally talk too.
(bonus) Die of old age


Basically what you're left with is an intelligent mind trapped in the body of a feral beast. A very powerful feral beast yes, but one that's incapable of communication and unable to control it's more frightening aspects. I don't know about Orcs and Dwarves and the like, but Humans are very social animals, and even the most solitary human in the world would eventually go mad if suddenly stripped of all possible ability to communicate or interact with other people. So you might view it as a blessing at first, but eventually you'd start going crazy trapped in your own body, hording gold but being unable to spend it, being unable to talk to anyone, unable to get close to anyone without them either fearing you or trying to kill you, etc. If nothing else, this might hit the human-nature of the players, leaking into the game world and causing even former orcs or lizardmen to start feeling a little crazy after some time.

Alternatively, you could trap their intelligent mind in there with a feral mind who has full control of the body. Leaving the person who has been cursed trapped in their own body, unable to even move a single claw as a separate entity who can't hear them and has no concept of anything that makes you intelligent just kind of pilots you around, not even aware of your existence.

GloatingSwine
2019-11-24, 05:31 AM
Although that's basically just taking their character off them. So you might as well just say Rocks Fall You Specifically Die.

Draconi Redfir
2019-11-24, 05:37 AM
all the more incentive for players to not follow the path that could lead towards the Draconic Curse.

Anonymouswizard
2019-11-24, 06:41 AM
Your stereotypical fantasy monster dragon is solitary and avaricious. Where they can communicate, they are often manipulative, treacherous and deceptive.

What if... to become a dragon, you have to betray people close to you and take their stuff? For instance, by murdering the rest of your murderhobo adventuring party?

What if loot taken from a dragon's lair had the potential to trigger will saves regarding such behaviour, until appropriately purified?

I like this, especially if we replace D&D noble yet feral beasts with the nonsentient terrors from myth. This means no spellcasting, but dragons don't really need it to be dangerous.

Dragonhood is the end result of becoming consumed by greed and hate for others. It starts off small and seemingly innocent, wanting to have the biggest house in town, or desiring to kill goblins because they have green skin and fangs and you don't. But unless the sufferer makes great efforts to keep it in check the greed and hate slowly grows until they want everything in the world and hate you for having a single vegetable that they don't. Eventually they'll be standing in the middle of a town, their friends amongst the corpses, with everything vaguely precious gathered into a heap. That's when the transformation begins.

By the end there is no sentient mind. Maybe, just maybe, it can be rewakened and the body will shed it's scaly form, but as far as anybody knows it's a myth. Do you want to try calming a dragon? All that's left is the greed, hate, and raw survival instincts. A dragon will eat what it can (and most are omnivorous), kill anything that it finds in it's territory, and place the most precious objects it can find in it's vault/lair.

Pleh
2019-11-24, 08:11 AM
Although that's basically just taking their character off them. So you might as well just say Rocks Fall You Specifically Die.

I mean, if I tell the players they are in an unstable mine and one of them goes off on his own to try to tear the walls out to get some value from the mineral veins, is it not appropriate that Rocks Fall and They Specifically Die?

As long as it's a known threat from session zero, I don't see the problem.


I like this, especially if we replace D&D noble yet feral beasts with the nonsentient terrors from myth. This means no spellcasting, but dragons don't really need it to be dangerous.

Dragonhood is the end result of becoming consumed by greed and hate for others. It starts off small and seemingly innocent, wanting to have the biggest house in town, or desiring to kill goblins because they have green skin and fangs and you don't. But unless the sufferer makes great efforts to keep it in check the greed and hate slowly grows until they want everything in the world and hate you for having a single vegetable that they don't. Eventually they'll be standing in the middle of a town, their friends amongst the corpses, with everything vaguely precious gathered into a heap. That's when the transformation begins.

By the end there is no sentient mind. Maybe, just maybe, it can be rewakened and the body will shed it's scaly form, but as far as anybody knows it's a myth. Do you want to try calming a dragon? All that's left is the greed, hate, and raw survival instincts. A dragon will eat what it can (and most are omnivorous), kill anything that it finds in it's territory, and place the most precious objects it can find in it's vault/lair.

Yes, this sounds like what I was thinking, although I might have the dragon version of them left with a shadow of their former life, maybe capable of speaking their old catchphrases or a hollow echo of their humanoid mannerisms.

One of the best things for me from the Hobbit movies was where they made Thorin really emphasize the S sounds when telling Bilbo he "wouldn't part with a single coin" to help the audience share Bilbo's sense of uncanny similarity to Smaug's identical words. It implied that Thorin was quite likely being corrupted by the treasure hoard. My idea would be to take it further and imply that Smaug himself was an adventurerer who became gradually corrupted until this dragonlike mindset became indistinguishable from his own.

It really borrows heavily from the Star Wars Dark Side approach as well, because that's another form of cosmic corruption that never fully removes an individual's personality, but it does twist them all to fit within a specific mold.

It seems even more tragic to me that the adventurerer never fully realizes they've become a dragon until they've forgetten they ever weren't one, than to have a sentient trapped in a feral body.

GloatingSwine
2019-11-24, 09:35 AM
I mean, if I tell the players they are in an unstable mine and one of them goes off on his own to try to tear the walls out to get some value from the mineral veins, is it not appropriate that Rocks Fall and They Specifically Die?

As long as it's a known threat from session zero, I don't see the problem.


It depends how imminent a threat you want it to be, I guess. Going alone into an unstable mine shaft is an imminent danger with imminent rewards, but the idea of "be too greedy for murderloot and go all lizardy, maybe" is a lot more abstract than that.

You'd probably need a fairly robust set of mechanics for doing it, and you might still find it's an uncomfortable fit if you tried to apply it to D&D because a lot of the assumptions of that game around how characters progress in the world are based on the idea that you're going to be killing things and nicking their stuff.

Meanwhile, Vampire is right there with its Humanity system which is built right into the core concepts of the game and the type story it is trying to mechanically embody.

False God
2019-11-24, 09:55 AM
a lot of people would probably see it as a curse if the dragon they were transformed into could NOT do the following:


Talk
Shapeshift
Cast spells
Use tools (Lack of opposable thumbs)
Appear nonthreatening'
Control their hunger / sleepiness.
Speak to / communicate with other dragons, Kobolds, or other entities a Dragon would normally talk too.
(bonus) Die of old age


Basically what you're left with is an intelligent mind trapped in the body of a feral beast. A very powerful feral beast yes, but one that's incapable of communication and unable to control it's more frightening aspects. I don't know about Orcs and Dwarves and the like, but Humans are very social animals, and even the most solitary human in the world would eventually go mad if suddenly stripped of all possible ability to communicate or interact with other people. So you might view it as a blessing at first, but eventually you'd start going crazy trapped in your own body, hording gold but being unable to spend it, being unable to talk to anyone, unable to get close to anyone without them either fearing you or trying to kill you, etc. If nothing else, this might hit the human-nature of the players, leaking into the game world and causing even former orcs or lizardmen to start feeling a little crazy after some time.

Alternatively, you could trap their intelligent mind in there with a feral mind who has full control of the body. Leaving the person who has been cursed trapped in their own body, unable to even move a single claw as a separate entity who can't hear them and has no concept of anything that makes you intelligent just kind of pilots you around, not even aware of your existence.

This is fairly close to the presentation in CS Lewis. Although whatever the kid's name was could still communicate by basic drawings (HTTYD-style) and things like that, and it was still "him" inside the body, he had functionally lost all those other things.

Hmmmm....ideas....ideas....:smallamused:

Jay R
2019-11-24, 10:08 AM
I like the idea, but I don't see how to make it work. Unless the DM starts playing the character (in which case the real curse is character loss), then any greedy murderhobo adventurers who suffer the dragon curse will become greedy murderhobo adventuring dragons. They won't sit in a cave.

A large part of the emphasis of the game is to try to get stronger, more powerful, harder to kill. That is our actual xp-seeking goal. A curse will be more threatening if it is not the same thing as the character's primary goal.

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace considers it a curse because he never wanted to be a powerful killer, because he wouldn't be able to sail on the ship, and because he couldn't talk with the others. It would be hard to make a PC feel that pain that way.

So the question is how to make it a curse in the eyes of the sort of player whose character would suffer it.

I don't have an answer. But I recommend that we concentrate on that question.

Anonymouswizard
2019-11-24, 10:51 AM
This is fairly close to the presentation in CS Lewis. Although whatever the kid's name was could still communicate by basic drawings (HTTYD-style) and things like that, and it was still "him" inside the body, he had functionally lost all those other things.

Hmmmm....ideas....ideas....:smallamused:

Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

But as people have said, nine timessage out of ten such corruption systems boil down to 'do bad and become an NPC'. Which is fine, especially if corruption can be mitigated or reduced and isn't from stupid sources (*cough* dark side points for cybernetics *cough*).

False God
2019-11-24, 10:54 AM
Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

But as people have said, nine timessage out of ten such corruption systems boil down to 'do bad and become an NPC'. Which is fine, especially if corruption can be mitigated or reduced and isn't from stupid sources (*cough* dark side points for cybernetics *cough*).

I know DMs who are a big fan of the do XYZ and you become an NPC. I'm not terribly huge on such systems, though I do feel there's a "point of no return" where its appropriate. I'd rather enjoy watching my players attempt to manage a curse than just pop them out of the game.

Though I also really don't play with murderhobos.


So the question is how to make it a curse in the eyes of the sort of player whose character would suffer it.

I don't have an answer. But I recommend that we concentrate on that question.

What if "loot" provides an alternative form of sustenance? Something that staves off the saves and checks for madness, hunger, sleepiness? Would add an explanation to why dragons always need more of it and why they hoard it. Hoarding may be a madness in-and-of itself, but what if it had a purpose beyond simple wealthy acquisition? Like, if you eat an item or gold of value "AgeCat*HD*1000" you pass your next dragon save? Maybe like vampirism eating humans(or other sentient creatures) "feeds the beast" side of the curse, making the checks, the saves and so forth permanently harder?

I'd imagine some sort of Sanity/Corruption stat would need to be included as sort of a "You have *this* long until you become a NPC."

Going off Draconi Redfir's list...
Talk - this is gotta be right out. Growls, grunts, whines, roars, no speech, not even psychic or magical communication.
Shapeshift - gotta go, no point in cursing them to be a giant monster lizard if they can just choose to not be one. Also prevents the use of spells and abilities that would make them something else. Alter Self, Polymorph, Wild Shape, all non-functional.
Cast spells - Goes with the lack of opposable thumbs and the inability to speak, no natural spellcasting gained from being a monster lizard.
Use tools (Lack of opposable thumbs) - I'd add wield weapons to "tool use". And there's got to be some kind of Catch-22 here where fighting like a big scary monster lizard "feeds the beast" and errodes sanity and makes checks harder.
-"Oh yes you're very powerful, but using that power is giving in, even just a little."
Appear nonthreatening - Some kind of save against "the beast inside" when they attempt maybe?
Control their hunger / sleepiness - I'd argue for stiff but fair saves on this one. Keep them playable but only just barely.
(bonus) Die of old age - fun if a campaign is that long, but I do agree, though a dragon's life is already super-long, IMO the more time a player has under the curse to improve themselves but also watch that sanity counter slowly tick down the better.

---World-building thoughts:
Also....does the curse only apply to the murderhobo? By that I mean what about cruel and villainous nobility? People's whose desire for wealth and their willingness to gather it is just as strong as "the player character" but ya know, they're NPCs? Can it be triggered by stealing from Random Townsfolk, or is it only triggered from stealing from another dragon? Or is there some sort of "Weath*Murder/Hobo" equation? Or is it totally random? Where any jerkwad 8-year-old who steals something might tomorrow find himself a dragon and a greedy murderous PC could go unafflicted?
-Obviously anyone who isn't a PC who gets affected does so because the story calls for it.
-In the Dawn Treader, I think Eustace had to sleep on the dragon hoard after taking the armband as the two-part "trigger" for the effect.
Are dragons secretly sending out advertisements for their dungeons in the hopes of creating more dragons? Are there "real" dragons? Were there ever? What about chromatics/metallics/other? Maybe color is related to their particular personality or type of greed? Maybe the chromatic/metallic divide is that metallics are the only "real" dragons and chromatics are only the result of the curse?

Also, Eustace was only "cured" by Aslan after his own overcoming of his bad desires, but not to delve too much into IRL religion, this is a literary representation of "you don't have the power to save yourself". No matter what Eustace can't un-dragon himself, he can only be a better person, but only Aslan can "save" him. I think that's a necessary function of the in-game curse too, the player has to want to be a better person, has to become a better person, but still has to find a McGuffin to de-curse him. Maybe only Bahamut. Maybe Tiamat can give them their missing dragon abilities if they "give their soul over" to her, but ya know, that means you're an NPC now.

Pleh
2019-11-24, 10:58 AM
It depends how imminent a threat you want it to be, I guess. Going alone into an unstable mine shaft is an imminent danger with imminent rewards, but the idea of "be too greedy for murderloot and go all lizardy, maybe" is a lot more abstract than that.

You'd probably need a fairly robust set of mechanics for doing it, and you might still find it's an uncomfortable fit if you tried to apply it to D&D because a lot of the assumptions of that game around how characters progress in the world are based on the idea that you're going to be killing things and nicking their stuff.

Meanwhile, Vampire is right there with its Humanity system which is built right into the core concepts of the game and the type story it is trying to mechanically embody.

See, the reason I've avoided talking about Vampire/lycanthropy parallels is that I've never liked those systems. One bite, then a saving throw, now engage the perpetual fight for character control or embrace the dark powers (unless you get a sufficiently powerful spell to break the curse). It doesn't seem like an effective system

That's why I reached for the SWSE Dark Side Score mechanic. It's a bit abstract, like negative Inspiration you get for "giving in to the dark side" and if your score ever equals your wisdom score, you "fall" and retire (barring GM exceptions) the character as they fall to the dark side and now serve the dark side's will, whether they know it or not.


I like the idea, but I don't see how to make it work. Unless the DM starts playing the character (in which case the real curse is character loss), then any greedy murderhobo adventurers who suffer the dragon curse will become greedy murderhobo adventuring dragons. They won't sit in a cave.

A large part of the emphasis of the game is to try to get stronger, more powerful, harder to kill. That is our actual xp-seeking goal. A curse will be more threatening if it is not the same thing as the character's primary goal.

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace considers it a curse because he never wanted to be a powerful killer, because he wouldn't be able to sail on the ship, and because he couldn't talk with the others. It would be hard to make a PC feel that pain that way.

So the question is how to make it a curse in the eyes of the sort of player whose character would suffer it.

I don't have an answer. But I recommend that we concentrate on that question.

Let me add to the vision you're painting. The murderhobo dragon DOES terrorize the country seeking XP and loot until they have maxed out the region. Killing villagers may be fun, but you don't get any more xp and the loot isn't worth the effort anymore. You either move to a richer, more dangerous region, or you pull an Acererak, hoard your treasure in a dungeon to lure powerful adventurers, and earn new XP from killing intruding adventurers. In waiting the long years for the next generation of dragon slayers, you fall into a slumber for 30 years.

Ultimately, any real curse of monstrosity just about HAS to be loss of character, even something as small as lycanthropes losing control for a night out of the month and going on an NPC rampage murdering innocents. Anything else has to be loss of stats, or else it just isn't a meaningful curse.

Jay R
2019-11-24, 11:46 AM
Possibility:

There is a rampaging dragon in the area. Many adventurers have arrived. You know the dragon will be killed soon. The question is whether your party will get there first, and get the xp and the loot, but every dragon hunter in the kingdom is here to kill the dragon.

Now you turn into a dragon.

GloatingSwine
2019-11-24, 11:49 AM
See, the reason I've avoided talking about Vampire/lycanthropy parallels is that I've never liked those systems. One bite, then a saving throw, now engage the perpetual fight for character control or embrace the dark powers (unless you get a sufficiently powerful spell to break the curse). It doesn't seem like an effective system

That's why I reached for the SWSE Dark Side Score mechanic. It's a bit abstract, like negative Inspiration you get for "giving in to the dark side" and if your score ever equals your wisdom score, you "fall" and retire (barring GM exceptions) the character as they fall to the dark side and now serve the dark side's will, whether they know it or not.


I wasn't talking about vampirism.

I was talking about Vampire: The Masquerade, and the way its characters are locked in a constant struggle between their urge to feed and their desire to hold on to their remaining Humanity. It's supposed to be one of the driving considerations of a character in the system.

Kaptin Keen
2019-11-25, 01:54 AM
I immediately thought Were-Dragon: Turns into a dragon when around a sufficient amoung of gold. Needs more gold as the dragon grows older. Also, fly too far away from the gold, and you turn back into a weak, pathetic human being.

This is what dragons are now. It finally explains everything.

=)

paddyfool
2019-11-25, 05:13 AM
I immediately thought Were-Dragon: Turns into a dragon when around a sufficient amoung of gold. Needs more gold as the dragon grows older. Also, fly too far away from the gold, and you turn back into a weak, pathetic human being.

This is what dragons are now. It finally explains everything.

=)

The power of the shiny...

Now I'm wondering about transformatory curses themed by the seven deadly sins. If dragons are greed, could we fill out the following?

Werewolf : wrath
Wendigo/ghoul : gluttony
Vampire : lust
Lich / deathknight : pride
? : sloth
? : envy

If we really wanted to shoehorn the last two in, doppelgangers could possibly be reskinned as a cursed state linked to envy. But sloth is a tricky one... the standard narrative reward for getting lazy in myth and legend is to get defeated or eaten. I guess trolls are often described as lazy?

Eldan
2019-11-25, 05:42 AM
Caaaarefully skirting around a few sensitive real-world issues* and religion....

The traditional transformation for sloth is into a tree.

*If you want to know: depression and suicide.

Kaptin Keen
2019-11-25, 08:28 AM
? : sloth
? : envy


I figured an Ooze for sloth, and a Leprechaun for envy. Or a Hag.

You'd need to be really lazy to turn into an Ooze. Also, turning back might be ...

Oh, but ... wait, this is a massive derail - sorry - but the idea of a were-ooze is cool. That's sort of a T1000 badassery right there. Would have to be the controlled type, though. Or, the master were-ooze might be able to control his transformations, but all his infected pawns might have .. I dunno, hunger as a trigger.

TripleD
2019-11-26, 02:06 AM
You'd need to be really lazy to turn into an Ooze. Also, turning back might be ...

Oh, but ... wait, this is a massive derail - sorry - but the idea of a were-ooze is cool. That's sort of a T1000 badassery right there. Would have to be the controlled type, though. Or, the master were-ooze might be able to control his transformations, but all his infected pawns might have .. I dunno, hunger as a trigger.

It also has a built-in explanation for the “I don’t remember anything while transformed” trope. You literally don’t have a brain in your other form.

Kaptin Keen
2019-11-26, 02:52 AM
It also has a built-in explanation for the “I don’t remember anything while transformed” trope. You literally don’t have a brain in your other form.

Well - that depends. I've always liked the WoW iteration of oozes, where a skull drifts around inside the murky depths of blubber that make up the ooze. Personally, I imagine the skull as .... well, half skull, half jellyfish, with a tendril-like pseudo-nervous-system radiating from where the spine would be. Making the whole thing sort of symbiotic: The ooze breaks down it's host, but retains a few useful bits - meaning, in turn, that some shred of the original consciousness remains inside the ooze, an eternity of horror and pain.

TripleD
2019-11-26, 08:14 AM
Well - that depends. I've always liked the WoW iteration of oozes, where a skull drifts around inside the murky depths of blubber that make up the ooze. Personally, I imagine the skull as .... well, half skull, half jellyfish, with a tendril-like pseudo-nervous-system radiating from where the spine would be. Making the whole thing sort of symbiotic: The ooze breaks down it's host, but retains a few useful bits - meaning, in turn, that some shred of the original consciousness remains inside the ooze, an eternity of horror and pain.

You ever read Animorphs? In one of the side books there was a creature similar to that.

Originally it was a simple sea sponge-like creature. However, when a space ship crashed on the planet, it was able to interact with the brain of a dead crew member and access its memories.

Over the centuries more ships would crash or land on the planet, and the sponge slowly gained access to more minds. It eventually became a godlike being, with thousands of corpses floating in the sterile ocean, hooked up to a horrific hive minds of sorts.

The problem was that they were just that, corpses. He created an illusionary reality, tried to talk and play games with them, but they could only do what he ordered them to do. Speaking with the nerves he pressed on, accessing the memories he was looking at, etc. The book begins when the protagonist is captured and hooked up while still alive, giving “Father” an actual opponent to play against.

Your post makes me want to adapt that concept for DnD. Maybe a castle where a colossal ooze has slowly seeped between the walls, until there is almost no spot it can’t touch in an instant. Dragging adventurers to a purely imaginary plane of existence to fight for their souls.

Kaptin Keen
2019-11-26, 08:48 AM
Maybe a castle where a colossal ooze has slowly seeped between the walls, until there is almost no spot it can’t touch in an instant. Dragging adventurers to a purely imaginary plane of existence to fight for their souls.

"The halls of the ancient edifice are disturbingly empty. No life stirs here, but also there is no decay - no dust, no windblown leaves, no spiders and most worringly, no spiderwebs. Despite all that, the flags of the floors and the stones of the walls all look strangely pitted or scored, and the mortar seems porous somehow.

Everything is quiet, and dark. Strangely, it's as if the entire place is waiting. You all feel a very slight, almost imperceptible tingle of deep, deep terror creep up on you."

Fit for Ravenloft, that is. Sterling idea =)

The derail continues, and I profusely must apologize.

Slipperychicken
2019-11-26, 03:28 PM
How about using the dragon's former self as weakness

Like if the dragon was a person who really loved blue flowers before turning into a monster, the party might shower the dragon with those to basically trigger his memories of humanity mid-fight as a debuff

You could have sidequests about researching the dragon's old self to get an edge against it, or figure out where it could have buried some extra treasure

Anonymouswizard
2019-11-26, 05:37 PM
How about using the dragon's former self as weakness

thanks, now all I can think of is the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist anime. Although...

The homunculi from that series would make interesting enemies in an RPG. From a pure combat perspective each has a unique power and the ability to regenerate even from death nearly instantaneously. And while they can just be damaged to the point that they can't regenerate the standard way of killing them is to use part of the corpse of the person they're based on and a specific transmutation/spell to force them to throw up their Red Stones and leave them unable to regenerate.

If you're running less of a hack and slash and focusing on a more investigative of political game it could work really well.

Notably the fact that Wrath doesn't have any remains to exploit, due to being made from them, makes him that little bit harder to defeat, and the series would have built on this if it had competent writing.

Pleh
2019-11-26, 06:15 PM
How about using the dragon's former self as weakness

Like if the dragon was a person who really loved blue flowers before turning into a monster, the party might shower the dragon with those to basically trigger his memories of humanity mid-fight as a debuff

You could have sidequests about researching the dragon's old self to get an edge against it, or figure out where it could have buried some extra treasure

I like it, but we can take it a step further. If you can find one of the few remaining vestiges of a dragoncursed person's lost humanity, you could theoretically redeem them, pulling a full Vader redemption arc where the memories come flooding back and they become horrified at what they have allowed themselves to become. Sure, you can use the moment of confusion to get that sucker punch in, but what if you could actually break the curse and cause them to totally revert back to their humanoid state, both in mind and in body?

Lvl 2 Expert
2019-11-27, 06:47 AM
In stories maybe, because they're NPCs who do what the writer tells them to.

To replicate that in D&D, I'd probably go something along the lines of the dragon psychoses, just with no real benefits. You get to be a mighty murder lizard. The catch is you have to make a will save not to curl up on a giant pile of loot for a hundred years. The catch is you have to make sanity checks not to let the murder beast inside you lose. Checks that I might add, are lessened by collecting loot...which you have to make different checks not to give in to your natural hoarding tenancies.

It's like vampirism, only with loot. The longer you go without, the harder it gets. The more you have, the more you want to just take a nice long nap.

The saves of course have to be managable. Some might be worse for certain dragon breeds than others. Metallics might have easier saves against "going feral". Chromatics might be able to wander further from their treasure without checks. Each color might have an easier or harder time at one aspect of dragonhood than others.

Ultimately, the answer the OP's question is complex. "How do you reign in a murderhobo?" is hard enough. "How do you reign in a murderhobo DRAGON?" is even harder. I've tried. When a player/character really has no goals beyond "killing people" and "taking their stuff" it's difficult to make them more powerful but somehow more limited. "Semi-phenomenal nearly-cosmic power, itty bitty living space."

Of course there's always the "you're not a player character" answer, but I think that's lame.

I was going to say I liked this, but I changed my mind.

This is great from a simulationist approach, to model the behavior of typical fantasy dragons and the trap of trying to gain power this way. Very clever. However, if I want to build a setting upon the idea that dragonhood is a curse, I want to use one or more draconic villains. I want them active, out and about. I don't really care whether they lost their mind, their personality, control of their anger, their very ability to feel anything good or nice, as long as they haven't lost their will to go around being villains.

As for the metalic vs chromatic dragons thing: I'd drop the metallic ones entirely. Or at least not include them in the curse. Maybe they're natural born offspring of other dragons who have worked centuries to redeem themselves from their birth in sin and the curse of their ancestors, finally growing into something better and cleaner, something like that. Maybe they're the original dragons, the inspiration for the spell/curse laid upon all the chromatic dragons. But individuals cursed for wanting power don not turn into good dragons. They're cursed, curses aren't nice.

And that brings me back to square one. I don't know how I'd model it for PC's. Something with will saves versus eating your spouse and baby probably, because the mad animal inside you just wants to kill. And they get harder over time.

I'm torn on whether the curse should be breakable. On the one hand, it provides a story option, and those are always good. Player's shouldn't be pinned down by what they can't do. On the other hand, if there ever was a curse you can't come back from it's probably growing into a near immortal flying god-dinosaur because all you cared about was power. It's really cool if the terror of the centuries turns back into a man and can spend his final two decades helping restore the damage he's done, but it's also really lame at the same time. Sure, we mow kobolds down by the dozen, but the friggin dragon who chose to be this way and has been personally masterminding terror and trouble since before my family was named gets to live because deep down he was kind of sorry?

Edit: or maybe metallic dragons are actually cursed-cursed, unwilling victims, still trying to be good. For those uncursing them might be a better option, though at least as hard to do as killing a dragon.

Grim Portent
2019-11-27, 08:26 AM
I had a similar idea myself, but I think it works best if the dragon is more like the minotaur of myth, something born to punish the sins of the parent*. Exceptionally greedy, cruel, bloodthirsty and so on people will somehow sire a monster that embodies an even more extreme version of their sins and wants to kill them and/or take what they have.

In the case of the actual person being cursed it needs to be pretty penalising. Reduction of intelligence, charisma, a hideous form, an inability to have people near you without them being sickened or dying, inability to part with wealth even to the point of not being able to use consumables.

A cursed dragon should basically only be able to leave it's horde to raid immediately adjacent areas to it's lair or track down an item that was stolen. It should never be able to have allies or friends without causing them harm with it's pestilent breath and distrusting them due to rampant paranoia. It cannot give gifts or loan items out. It struggles to even drink a potion to stave off death because doing so would diminish what it possesses, and what it possesses is worth more to it than life itself.



*Technically Minos wasn't it's dad, but you get what I mean.

paddyfool
2019-11-27, 08:45 AM
Perhaps if chromatic dragonhood is a curse, metallic dragonhood could be a very rare, NPC status-bestowing blessing with significant responsibilities attached? So yay, you're a dragon, but now you have to go guard the gates of heaven for the next 1000 years, so it's time to roll up a new character.

False God
2019-11-27, 09:37 AM
I was going to say I liked this, but I changed my mind.

This is great from a simulationist approach, to model the behavior of typical fantasy dragons and the trap of trying to gain power this way. Very clever. However, if I want to build a setting upon the idea that dragonhood is a curse, I want to use one or more draconic villains. I want them active, out and about. I don't really care whether they lost their mind, their personality, control of their anger, their very ability to feel anything good or nice, as long as they haven't lost their will to go around being villains.
To be fair, I'd really only apply the mechanics player-side. NPCs get to be my little story puppets and do what I want because I want them to. They've lost their mind? Managed their curse? Something else? It's because I said they did, not because they're playing by the same rules as the party.


As for the metalic vs chromatic dragons thing: I'd drop the metallic ones entirely. Or at least not include them in the curse. Maybe they're natural born offspring of other dragons who have worked centuries to redeem themselves from their birth in sin and the curse of their ancestors, finally growing into something better and cleaner, something like that. Maybe they're the original dragons, the inspiration for the spell/curse laid upon all the chromatic dragons. But individuals cursed for wanting power don not turn into good dragons. They're cursed, curses aren't nice.
Yeah, I agree the curse makes you the bad kind, but maybe working towards redemption can make you into the good kind.


And that brings me back to square one. I don't know how I'd model it for PC's. Something with will saves versus eating your spouse and baby probably, because the mad animal inside you just wants to kill. And they get harder over time.
IMO: it should start small. Wanting to kill friends and family comes later as they fall deeper into the curse. Early on it's just putting a very visible price on behaviours they already want to take part in, looting, fighting, etc... These now have a very real cost, you can see your PC moving closer to NPC-dom.


I'm torn on whether the curse should be breakable. On the one hand, it provides a story option, and those are always good. Player's shouldn't be pinned down by what they can't do. On the other hand, if there ever was a curse you can't come back from it's probably growing into a near immortal flying god-dinosaur because all you cared about was power. It's really cool if the terror of the centuries turns back into a man and can spend his final two decades helping restore the damage he's done, but it's also really lame at the same time. Sure, we mow kobolds down by the dozen, but the friggin dragon who chose to be this way and has been personally masterminding terror and trouble since before my family was named gets to live because deep down he was kind of sorry?
I do think there's a point of no return. You have to atone for what you did as a human while you're a dragon. If you go about being a death-lizard forever, the curse reaches a point where you're just gonna be a death-lizard forever. No amount of redemption works.


Edit: or maybe metallic dragons are actually cursed-cursed, unwilling victims, still trying to be good. For those uncursing them might be a better option, though at least as hard to do as killing a dragon.
I thought perhaps that metallic were the cursed who had redeemed themselves not just by apologizing and being helpful, but actively using their powers to do good. IE: if you're evil, and apologizing brings you back to neutral, then metallic are ones who went above and beyond to really do a lot of good not just to save themselves, but to save others. So I mean there's kind of that carrot for the PCs, if you really become a truly good person, you get to keep the whole deal and stop having to make saves. But I mean, you gotta be a saint.

Segev
2019-12-03, 12:50 PM
If you want to make it a curse that players interact with as their characters suffer it, the dual saves approach tied to hoarding and feral instincts is a good start. To reiterate that notion before I attempt to evolve it, the core seems pretty simple: Whenever presented with the possibility of obtaining obvious marks of wealth (gold, jewels, silver, magic items, etc.), make a save or do literally anything you can to take it, defaulting to brute force unless that is painfully obviously not going to work. The save DC is lower the more wealth you have in your hoard compared to the amount being offered.

Every day you end away from your hoard, however, you must make a saving throw that has an increased DC the larger your hoard is. If you fail, you rush back to your hoard as fast as you can, and inspect it, count it, and do a thorough inventory. Once that's done, you may spend at least 8 hours in rest to recover from the compulsion to continuously inventory it. After 8 hours, you must make the same save to wake up. If you fail, you remain asleep for another 24 hours. The length of time increases with each failed save, until you make it or some interloper disturbs your hoard.


Okay, that's a good start. The compulsions are frustrating to the player, though, and do make the character less "his." It does take him away from the player when he fails either save. It feels adequately like a curse, I suppose, since it's an affliction that feels "separate" from the character. Because it's not really under the player's control, and the player feels the temptations much less than the character does.

But let's see if we can't improve on this.

A good corruption mechanic makes the player feel similar temptations to the character to give in. Even without "The Beast" in V:tM, vampires have a strong incentive to feed that players feel nearly as keenly as their characters: aside from having to spend a blood point just to wake up each night, blood points are the "mana" that fuels their superpowers. Players feel rewarded for topping up because they have more power at their fingertips to do fun things with their characters.

After the errata for them in Exalted 2E, Raksha had a lot of Charms they could pick up which allowed them to do some pretty spectacular things with the "over-eating" of motes they got when they gorged themselves beyond mote capacity on Virtues and Willpower of the Creation-born. It gave incentive to players beyond "well, um, it feels good to the Raksha, so it's good RP to pretend you really want to overindulge" to have their Raksha PCs behave like the ravenous, soul-eating monsters they're portrayed as in the fluff.

If we give dragons a "rage pool," a "magic pool," and their hoard, we can potentially create conflicting forces that demand behaviors of the dragon to keep from becoming tired and weak without having to force anything on the player. The player will be tempted into making the choices the corruption wants him to.

A dragon's rage pool empowers his physical attacks, including his destructive breath weapon. He builds it up naturally as he interacts with other creatures, stays away from his hoard, and generally behaves like a civilized being. It's not easy on his psyche to be so...nice. So soft. So weak. So vulnerable. And any time he suffers a sleight, or a frustration of his desires, or is faced with potential wealth he must forsake (or hasn't yet taken back to his hoard), his rage builds. His magical abilities, and potentially even his social skills, draw from a separate pool of energy. Call it "willpower." This is both the "magic pool" and a pool on which he can draw to manifest his magnificent intellect and genteel manners in ways that make him majestic and respected.

Dragons, without spending willpower, are crude and direct beasts, capable of low cunning and manipulation but not elaborate schemes and delicate negotiations. This would be represented by low charisma and few skills. Spending willpower lets them get generous bonuses to all of these things, transforming them into suave, machiavellian planners and schemers. It also is how they fuel their magic.

When a dragon spends rage to magnify his attacks or use his breath weapon, he gains willpower based on the damage done, whether environmental or to living beings. His maximum willpower is based on the size of his hoard. Being away from his hoard creates a constant strain on his willpower, as well. Not a drain, not entirely. But a strain. Every day he spends away from it, he loses some amount of willpower based on the distance from his hoard and on how big it is. Bigger hoards and larger distances lead to greater loss. But this loss is directly converted to rage, so a dragon who regularly indulges his rage can recover it pretty easily.

A dragon who sleeps on his hoard actively converts rage directly into willpower, at a fixed rate that would need to be calibrated based on the design requirements for just how much time a "good" dragon would spend sleeping on his hoard. Because he doesn't lose willpower into rage until he spends a day away from it, a dragon who is daily in his hoard's presence can remain quite civilized, though he can't replenish his willpower without sleeping his rage back into it (or indulging his rage's destructive urges).

This system empowers dragons who either act like terrifying monsters or who greedily guard and slothfully sleep upon their hoards.

Heck, we have easily three of the Seven Deadly Sins, here: Wrath, Sloth, and Greed. We could probably come up with mechanics to reward Gluttony, Vanity, Envy, and even Lust (though that last one is the least likely to fit without a stretch) if we wanted to make dragons embodiments of said sins.