D&D curses

[sun_flotter]

I was in a call with my D&D group yesterday (we have a new player joining us next session and we thought it might be good to have a talk regarding the campaign, players' boundaries and so on) and the subject ended up drifting from our current campaign to previous campaigns ran by my DM. I'm a new player, so mostly every story told was impressive to me, but there's one that stuck with me (for reasons I'll explain).

Our new player mentionned a campaign in which he (initially) played a cursed changeling rogue. When he mentionned the character, I've heard my DM audibly cringe as she tried to brush the subject aside. I asked why she didn't want him to talk about this specific campaign, and she explained that it was one of her first time involving curses in her games, and that she felt she had done it badly. After the call ended, I asked our new player what the curse was, and he explained that his character was "cursed to live a thousand lives". This was a curse he had discussed with the DM before the game started, and one he really appreciated.

Basically, every time his character would die, he'd become his new character. At first when he explained the curse, I thought his changeling simply changed appearance and personality but he explained that it wasn't that.

The curse was based on an article he read that explained that you are statistically more likely to have appeared just now with all the memories of everything that had happened to you in life rather than have actually lived everything you experienced. While the article's point was to explain that just because something is more likely to have happened a certain way doesn't mean it necessarily happened that said way, but he thought it would be interesting to make this into an actual situation. So every time his character died, he'd become a whole new person, with both memories from that person's life and from his previous life or lives, slowly driving his character insane as he died, being unable to tell what happened to him in his current life and what happened in a previous life.

Mechanically, this curse had little to no effect, but it drove the character mad with every death, giving his deaths more and more important consequences.

That got me wondering why they are so few curses in D&D, despite spells like "Remove Curse" existing (I mean, it exists for a reason, right?), why there's even fewer of them that actually applies to PC and how do you handle a curse "correctly"?

[Mastikator]

I have some opinions.

About the player's proposed curse, I think the reason the DM cringed is two fold:
1) Player characters with tragic/cursed backstories tend to be overdone, and it's a bit of a *red flag that the player is a spotlight hog and has no interest in anything that is not about their character.
2) The curse is a curse in name only. This is a strong benefit actually, if their character dies they just come back with a different face, do they even need to roll a new character? Even if they do they still have all of their memories, and a claim to all of the previous character's stuff. A curse that isn't actually a curse is cringe worthy.

-

Considering curses in general I usually don't see them on PCs. As a DM I am wary of handing them out, they tend not to be very fun, often they get in the way of how you envision your character, in my experience this translates into less interest in the game, which is the opposite of what I want from a player. I want them to care. Curses can be used as a plot hook so it's not out of the question.
I am DMing for a player who wished his character to have a specific curse on his character, as a starting point. I allowed it, but I made it clear that the rest of the party are not obligated to tolerate any **shenanigans that are a result of this curse.

As a player in someone else's games I've seen curses mostly come in the form of cursed items, these can often be dealt with much easier just by casting remove curse. I have planned (but never had the chance, because I'm starting to feel like a forever DM) to play a semi-cursed character, but one who would never turn on his party or act in ways unbecoming of a good player.

-

How do you handle a curse correctly?
IDK ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'd like to think that cursed items are sorta fine as long as they're either easy to remove, have upsides that make them worth it, or have very little, if only cosmetic downsides.
I think that a cursed player character is also OK but it needs to be OK'd with the player. It should be something the player chooses, either from character creation, or as a result of their informed choices. A curse that is inflicted on a player character without their active participation should only be a remove curse spell away. Otherwise you risk the player wanting to just retire/kill the character and make a new one.

NPCs being cursed however, that is totally fine. Go nuts I say. It can totally be a decent plot hook with no bad feels.

*not every red flag is a land mine, sometimes it's just a flag. But if you get a bad gut feeling, don't ignore it.
**the curse in question affects the character's morality, curse of the soul type of deal. But if it's ever used as an excuse to PVP then we're going to have a problem and we're going to have a talk, and it's going my way. "it's what my character would do" is the biggest reddest flag.

[Unoriginal]

I was in a call with my D&D group yesterday (we have a new player joining us next session and we thought it might be good to have a talk regarding the campaign, players' boundaries and so on) and the subject ended up drifting from our current campaign to previous campaigns ran by my DM. I'm a new player, so mostly every story told was impressive to me, but there's one that stuck with me (for reasons I'll explain).

Our new player mentionned a campaign in which he (initially) played a cursed changeling rogue. When he mentionned the character, I've heard my DM audibly cringe as she tried to brush the subject aside. I asked why she didn't want him to talk about this specific campaign, and she explained that it was one of her first time involving curses in her games, and that she felt she had done it badly. After the call ended, I asked our new player what the curse was, and he explained that his character was "cursed to live a thousand lives". This was a curse he had discussed with the DM before the game started, and one he really appreciated.

Basically, every time his character would die, he'd become his new character. At first when he explained the curse, I thought his changeling simply changed appearance and personality but he explained that it wasn't that.

The curse was based on an article he read that explained that you are statistically more likely to have appeared just now with all the memories of everything that had happened to you in life rather than have actually lived everything you experienced. While the article's point was to explain that just because something is more likely to have happened a certain way doesn't mean it necessarily happened that said way, but he thought it would be interesting to make this into an actual situation. So every time his character died, he'd become a whole new person, with both memories from that person's life and from his previous life or lives, slowly driving his character insane as he died, being unable to tell what happened to him in his current life and what happened in a previous life.

Mechanically, this curse had little to no effect, but it drove the character mad with every death, giving his deaths more and more important consequences.

That got me wondering why they are so few curses in D&D, despite spells like "Remove Curse" existing (I mean, it exists for a reason, right?), why there's even fewer of them that actually applies to PC and how do you handle a curse "correctly"?

There are probably hundreds of curses in D&D. They can be transformations, being forced to do something over and over, being absolutely unable to do something, strange weaknesses, and the like. And they can range from permanent to breakable under certain conditions.

It's just that it's mostly not a thing player characters can inflict, as most of the curses aren't spells or other PC options.

As for Remove Curse, well, back in the days there were a lot more cursed magic items, and magic items in general were much harder to identify. You could literally spend a week reading a book to increase your INT and get it decreased instead.

[animorte]

That got me wondering why they are so few curses in D&D, despite spells like "Remove Curse" existing (I mean, it exists for a reason, right?), why there's even fewer of them that actually applies to PC and how do you handle a curse "correctly"?
Remove Curse exists for various curse-like spells and some cursed magic items, as far as I know.

A curse like this specifically, if the character is going to just "not die" when they die, and it weigh on their sanity, there are several Sanity mechanics out there that focus on a certain ability score, combination of ability scores, or has its own pool entirely. I would recommend the character taking some sort of irreversible penalty each time they come back to really fuel that going insane.

Maybe add that they need to wait an entire in-game day for that free revive, or dawn of the following day. Either way, having a "curse" just for the sake of saying you have one seems very "new player" and understandable if DM chooses to go another direction.

[Derges]

with both memories from that person's life and from his previous life or lives, slowly driving his character insane as he died, being unable to tell what happened to him in his current life and what happened in a previous life.

Mechanically, this curse had little to no effect, but it drove the character mad with every death, giving his deaths more and more important consequences.

Sounds a bit like Subaru from Re:Zero who basically groundhog days whenever he dies, which being almost a regular human in a high fantasy setting, is often.
His sanity gets pushed quite far...

[solidork]

The existence of Remove Curse kind of makes the threat of curses a non-issue after a certain point. In stories there is always some way more interesting way to remove the curse, but if its just a simple application of the right spell a lot of the drama is sucked out of the situation. We're doing an adventure involving cleansing an island of a werewolf infestation, and having the ritual for removing the curse be more complicated (we have to catch them and submerge them in holy water) is going to make the enterprise much more challenging.

It's a dream of mine to have a character with Bestow Curse and 9th level slots because with proper negotiation with your GM you can get pretty creative with your bespoke curses. From the GM seat, I want to do some kind of mystery that involves someone using Bestow Curse to cause anterograde amnesia.

[Segev]

I could be wrong, but my understanding from reading the OP's description is that the curse was more, "When my PC dies and I make a new character, my new character remembers both his life-as-the-new-character-up-to-this-point, and the dead PC's life, and has a potential existential crisis over whether either is 'really him.'" The big advantage this gives him, in terms of gameplay, is that the player is able to act on anything he, the player, remembers learning as any of his now-dead PCs in the campaign.

This is either a minor thing or a major one, depending on the plot(s) being run. Steve Cursplayersdude remembers that alpine trolls are vulnerable only to green fire, because Bob Curseplayersguy (who was totally unrelated except that they shared a player) died on the alpine slopes because he only figured out the green fire bit too late to save his life? Sure. That's essentially short-cutting what can be a boring bit of forced weakness and frustration when the player knows the puzzle solution but the character isn't allowed to, yet. Was Bob murdered by the Contessa d'Evil for discovering that she's a Succubus who killed and replaced the real (sweet and kind) Angelica d'Evil? Steve remembering not only what he learned, but that it was the Contessa that killed Bob, is a major advantage.

As to whether the curse had RP impact that made it something that really felt like a curse, that's entirely on how all involved parties RP'd it. It sounds like the DM felt like she didn't RP it well, or felt like it caused plotting problems, or something.

[sithlordnergal]

So, personally that sounds like a pretty neat curse. It may be that the DM just felt she handled the curse poorly with how she ran it, and the player didn't exactly have the RP skills to pull it off. That sort of character is a bit tricky.

I actually had a player with a semi-similar curse in the Tomb of Annihilation. The player was playing a Reborn from Barovia. Due to how Barovia works, they just kept being sent to their old body whenever they died. Now, the curse only happened once, cause the player was pretty cautious. Until a bad roll happened and they died to an instant death trap. It worked pretty well, but mostly because the player was experienced with RPing. They mostly played their character as disassociating, with very little concern over their life cause they figured they're already dead.



How do you handle a curse correctly?
IDK ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'd like to think that cursed items are sorta fine as long as they're either easy to remove, have upsides that make them worth it, or have very little, if only cosmetic downsides.
I think that a cursed player character is also OK but it needs to be OK'd with the player. It should be something the player chooses, either from character creation, or as a result of their informed choices. A curse that is inflicted on a player character without their active participation should only be a remove curse spell away. Otherwise you risk the player wanting to just retire/kill the character and make a new one.

NPCs being cursed however, that is totally fine. Go nuts I say. It can totally be a decent plot hook with no bad feels.


As for how to run curses...My general rule for curses is "Its benefit should be equal to its detriment". Major curses should make the character more interesting, and give the player some sort of extra option while also hurting them. I currently have a cursed character, he gets a natural +1 to AC, he heals a small amount of HP every round that starts with him being below half, he can effectively shapeshift. However, in order to look normal I have to concentrate on that as if Concentrating on a spell, and every Long Rest I roll a d100 to see what sort of unstable mutation I have. This can be anything from being unable to benefit from ANY potions for the next 24 hours, to getting extra healing from spells and potions.

I also put my curses into different tiers. There tiers are:


Prank/Inconsequential: These are curses where the player can actively choose to ignore them if they wish. There's no outward change to the character, there are no RP or mechanical detriments. Its just there, the player can do with them what they wish. A good example of this is a cursed locket I gave to a player. It made them feel safe and secure for 2d4 days, then it made them feel like they're being watched and that something was out to get them for 2d4 days. Didn't have any actual effect on the character. Drove them mad as a player cause after every Long Rest I'd tell them "You have X days left", or I'd roll a random dice and tell them "Ok, roll me 2d4. You have X days left."


Minor/Inconvenient: These are curses that potentially have an RP detriment, or some sort of inconvenience. My favorite is an item from Tomb of Annihilation. It turns your character into a Goat Furry. You grow horns, fur, you gets goat eyes, and your hands turn into hooves. There is no mechanical detriment to this. You can wield weapons, wear armor, cast spells, and use skills just as well as you could before. But people are gonna treat you differently cause you're a goat-man now. Another item I made is a gold coin hidden by Nystul's Magic Aura. It turns 1d6+4 Gold Pieces into the Copper Piece equivalent, with a 5% chance of turning 50 CP into one Electrum. It does this every 2d6 days. Doesn't take your gold away, its just inconvenient.


Medium/Mechanical: These are along the lines of what you'd find in the DMG, and DMG suggestions for non-Artifact curses. things like the Beserker Axe, which gives you a bunch of Temp HP, but makes you attack allies. Or the Backbiting Spear, which has increased range and deals double damage when thrown, but also hits you when you roll a 1.


Major Curses: These are your artifact level curses, or things like the shapeshifter curse I have. This causes Mechanical and RP detriments, and the benefits they provide can be just as game changing. Things like an Artifact summoning a CR 25 to kill you and take the Artifact back, or giving you a new race that harms and helps you

[Snails]

A curse should make the game more fun.

I had an evil PC who accepted a powerful Geas-like effect that would impose penalties like actual damage if he performed an evil act. Due to backstory, he is motivated to try to act like a good hero, only he is horribly clueless in terms of understanding how a hero actually thinks. That leaves the other PCs with a lot of "WTF, is this guy thinking? Is he evil?"

At the end of the day, the price for this curse was paid for by extra effort on my part in terms of roleplaying, in a manner that sometimes confused other players to the amusement of the DM.

[Luccan]

The existence of Remove Curse kind of makes the threat of curses a non-issue after a certain point

This is exactly why you don't see many curses in 5e. Everything that's a curse in this edition can be removed with minimal effort by a cleric of 5th level or higher, at least by the spell description. No extra cost beyond a spell slot. If you've been afflicted by lycanthropy or mummy rot 5e expects you to deal with it for a day at most. If your cleric is prepared it takes as little as a single action (technically less than 6 seconds). So even while there are still curses in 5e, there's very little point in unique ones as there's almost no point in curses in general. Except by DM fiat.

And so we get to the cursed PC. I can see problems with having a cursed PC. Firstly, did the DM decide it can't be cured by a single 3rd level spell? If not this presents two potential issues: the thing a player liked about their character gets removed once you hit level 5 OR the character refuses to get cured despite that, you know, solving the problem. The second can be irritating for other players and even the DM if they didn't plan or set up properly "You have the solution, why aren't you taking it?"

Alternately, did the DM decide this was a powerful enough curse that the normal rules don't apply? Then the question is, how did the curse impact the game? Because there's a lot of ways the rules for this curse could be abused, as has been pointed out. And even if not, dark back stories can be an excuse for spotlight hogging

Of course, there could be other reasons. Your DM might just be unsatisfied with how they handled it, even if the players were happy. Or maybe they just think it was a lame curse in retrospect

[Unoriginal]

This is exactly why you don't see many curses in 5e. Everything that's a curse in this edition can be removed with minimal effort by a cleric of 5th level or higher, at least by the spell description.

A good bunch of curses can't be affected by Remove Curse, especially when they are from a deity or powerful entity.

[Easy e]

****Random Gamer Story****

I played a character with an inconvenient curse. When asked, he was required to give his full given name.... which was a ridiculously long and awkward name. It was placed on him by his own mother as his birth was a huge inconvenience, and then after cursing him, he was essentially hidden away into a cloistered monastery.

My fellow PCs were all to eager to place me in situations where people would ask my name. Then, everyone snickered at it, including them. My side RP was trying to find a caster sufficiently powerful enough to break the curse. I never really let it get in the way of the main campaign, but sometimes I would steer the players towards the path where we could side with powerful casters.

At the campaign epilogue, I was finally able to have the curse broken thanks to relationships built in the campaign. I changed my name to John Smith.

[Sorinth]

I think the reason they didn't delve into it too much is they wanted it to leave it as an area for DM creativity.

Which isn't a bad idea in principle but they should have given a bit more structure/advice to help DMs build those plot based curses and fix up remove curse wording so it's not a universal fix all. Interestingly the Xanathar's Magic Item Creation offers a kind of template, instead of formula you need to know the ritual, and that like the formula the ritual requires an an exotic ingredient and there's a CR guideline based on the power level of the curse.