Making Curses Work: How the Rules can Add to your Game Rather than Take
Okay, I have a confession, I really hate the way that cursed items are presented in D&D and its children such as Pathfinder. As most groups and PR that you will see from outside the text will tell you, Cursed Items are the classic worst case scenario that you will see from classic literature. The bag that eats your items & your hand, the sword that makes you weaker not stronger, the crown that makes you mad or dumber rather than smarter, all of these things are really cool and fascinating but limits the actual use of the mechanic throughout the vast majority of games. Most players do not want to get saddled with weakening swords they cannot use, and most GMs don't want to stick players with bad items that are usually unfun in most instances and find using them to oftentimes feel more like a punishment than anything else. And all of that is a shame, because as written, there's A LOT of really cool stuff that is written into the cursed rules that just gets gl