Dragonhood as a curse

[Slipperychicken]

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]

How about using the dragon's former self as weakness

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

Spoiler: FMA2003 spoilers

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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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.