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Old 02-02-2010, 03:46 PM   #31
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

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Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
Where would Turin be if he didn't have cursed.
Turin (assuming you mean Turin Turambar, from the Silmarillion) didn't really have Cursed in the GURPS sense, though. He had long periods of his life where things went quite well, and he was successful at what he was doing. And things would all go wrong... Turin's a good example of what a high-value Enemy can do to you.
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Old 02-02-2010, 06:35 PM   #32
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

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Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
Turin (assuming you mean Turin Turambar, from the Silmarillion) didn't really have Cursed in the GURPS sense, though. He had long periods of his life where things went quite well, and he was successful at what he was doing. And things would all go wrong... Turin's a good example of what a high-value Enemy can do to you.
I don't know the Silmarillion to comment on that one, but I'd add that one needs to distinguish bad Destiny characters from Cursed characters.

A bad Destiny character is going to have something in their life go horribly wrong. A Cursed character is going to have lots of things go horribly wrong on a day-to-day basis, though not necessarily to the same degree as a heavy bad destiny.
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Old 02-02-2010, 07:48 PM   #33
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
I don't know the Silmarillion to comment on that one, but I'd add that one needs to distinguish bad Destiny characters from Cursed characters.

A bad Destiny character is going to have something in their life go horribly wrong. A Cursed character is going to have lots of things go horribly wrong on a day-to-day basis, though not necessarily to the same degree as a heavy bad destiny.
There's a guy I used to RP with, without taking cursed, and without the GM trying to screw him over, and usually not by his own bad choices (though he did make some), horrible things would happen to his characters, resulting in making a new one every other session or so. His characters also all had selfish and greedy. We figured the bad things happening to him plus his standard "I'm playing a selfish, greedy, miserly jerk" was enough to just let him speed through disadvantages and take the "Being Ron (the guy's name)" Disadvantage for -80 points and be done with choosing disads when he had to make a new character.
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Old 02-02-2010, 08:04 PM   #34
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
one needs to distinguish bad Destiny characters from Cursed characters.
Actually, that's a good point - Turin strikes me as being someone who took a high-value negative Destiny, and then had it come up and didn't bother buying it off at least three times. :-)
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Old 02-02-2010, 08:32 PM   #35
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

The things that happened to Turin, and for that matter the terms of the Curse of the Noldor, both resemble Destiny more than Cursed, but they were inflicted as Afflictions. Obviously beings like Morgoth and the Valar are too powerful to be anything except NPCs and can do whatever the GM or author wants, but could a character take Affliction: Destiny as an attack form, or is that illegal and/or abusive?

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Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen View Post
Actually, that's a good point - Turin strikes me as being someone who took a high-value negative Destiny, and then had it come up and didn't bother buying it off at least three times. :-)
That's only counting on the things he did to himself on purpose. If you add in every misfortune that just landed on his head, plus the very bad die rolls that killed Saeros and Beleg and led to the incest, it's a lot more than three. Still, it probably wasn't more than once a game session. And his bad Destiny seems to have been contagious, like the old Jinxed: his presence made Beleg slip with the sword, for example. But that's accounted for in the RAW Destiny disadvantage, where you can do things that curse your entire nation to destruction (which Turin also did).

Last edited by Vaevictis Asmadi; 02-02-2010 at 08:41 PM.
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Old 02-02-2010, 10:19 PM   #36
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

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I've played around with the idea of a cursed character who also had a level or two of unkillable–nothing ever goes right but he just keeps on rolling along.
I've apparantly planted the seed of that idea in a couple players heads. Add in some regeneration and other recovery stuff, generally with power modifiers or limitations. One potential player seems to really like the idea, too. We both like it because it lets me do some really fun evil-GM stuff ;>
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Old 02-03-2010, 10:50 AM   #37
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

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Originally Posted by Phoenix_Dragon View Post
I've apparantly planted the seed of that idea in a couple players heads. Add in some regeneration and other recovery stuff, generally with power modifiers or limitations. One potential player seems to really like the idea, too. We both like it because it lets me do some really fun evil-GM stuff ;>

I had a (low powered) super hero character once whos sole power was ridiculous levels of regeneration - but they only kicked in after he died. IE, he'd resurrect at full HP a minute or two after being disintegrated, but if he cut his finger chopping vegetables it would still take a few days to heal, and if he caught the flu the only way to cure it using his superpowers would be to "commit suicide" and resurrect in full health.

Arguably his pain tolerance was super-human, but not significantly more than High Pain Threshold (Cosmic: Resists Cosmic Attacks +50%) would get him - no Supernatural Durability.

This was in a game with toho monsters as a regular feature. Generally the game plan was to strap dynamite (or worse) to him and try to feed him to the monster. With anything where the "feed Super to Dino, Explode" plan wasn't acceptable, he was pretty useless.

I suspect the Cursed/Regenerating/Unkillable character would be a lot like him, only distracted by being Cursed - Unkillable and Insane Regeneration aren't much help if you're buried under a boulder. Or if a villain just flies over your head to beat up people behind you (or shoots through you!) or is too strong for you to grapple and too tough for you to even bruise...
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Old 02-03-2010, 11:01 AM   #38
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

Bruno: Sounds like Immortal Man from the Great Lake Avengers! :D Fun concept! (Who gained his ability to get back from the dead by beating up his imaginary friend as a kid and stealing it... best origin ever!)
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Old 02-03-2010, 11:05 AM   #39
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

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Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi View Post
The things that happened to Turin, and for that matter the terms of the Curse of the Noldor, both resemble Destiny more than Cursed, but they were inflicted as Afflictions. Obviously beings like Morgoth and the Valar are too powerful to be anything except NPCs and can do whatever the GM or author wants, but could a character take Affliction: Destiny as an attack form, or is that illegal and/or abusive?
Haven't read anything of Tolkien's beyond Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, but curses like that are going to be extraordinary. I'd say the way to work it would be to require a character to have Affliction: Destiny (which godlike beings would generate on the fly with their Cosmic Modular Abilities) and require the character to expend CP equal to the CP penalty the Destiny would ordinarily cause. So, a -5 point Destiny costs 5 CP to afflict. In fact, that's probably how I'd work out any "Afflict a semi-permanent Disadvantage" effect. A Destiny that regenerates costs x5 as much to afflict (so 25 CP to afflict a -5 point Destiny that keeps coming back). It should be possible to undue such curses, although at that point it may be appropriate to refund the CP to the original caster.
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Old 02-03-2010, 11:15 AM   #40
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Default Re: Why is Cursed so expensive?

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Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi View Post
The things that happened to Turin, and for that matter the terms of the Curse of the Noldor, both resemble Destiny more than Cursed, but they were inflicted as Afflictions. Obviously beings like Morgoth and the Valar are too powerful to be anything except NPCs and can do whatever the GM or author wants, but could a character take Affliction: Destiny as an attack form, or is that illegal and/or abusive?
He could but it would be meaningless if not Permanent, since Destiny doesn't happen on a set timetable.
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