New minor midround event. Cursed Maint Loot.

[Erikos]

Cursed Maint Loot (Minor Midround Event):

The idea behind this event is to give the crew an interesting and fun challenge, involving "maint loot" with the possibility of roleplay.

when this event is called, items will manifest in random locates in maintenance on-board the station, specifically items that that are rare, strange, contraband or magical in nature. 1-2 of these would spawn, with always at least 1 minor cursed item.

All of these items come with terrible curses that they inflict upon their wielder, you can tell when you are near a cursed item by a quiet whisper that plays once when you enter a 10 tile range. Similar whispers emanate continuously from a person who is afflicted by a cursed item until the item is either dusted or its hunger sated.

Depending on the item it would be either a major curse or a minor curse, with a small benefit for completing the minor curse and a larger benefit for completing the major. For example the swim suit would always be a minor and the .357 would always be a major.

As an incentive to actually touch a cursed item, the wielder who sates the curses hunger would either receive a minor blessing or a major blessing depending on the level of the curse. If the item cannot be removed it will dust when its hunger is sated.

All minor curse items will turn to dust if they enter the chapel.

 

Some Examples of cursed items are;

(Minor) Cursed Bathing Suit - Once this item is worn it cannot be removed, you will begin to suffocate if you are not in the pool, it hungers to spend 1 minutes under a body of water. Granting you no breathe if you sate its hunger.

(Major) Cursed .357 revolver - Once you pick up this item you cannot drop it, it hungers for the death of x crewman, the revolver cannot be reloaded. If you sate this items hunger a cursed heart will appear at your feet, to dust this cursed item the afflicted hand must be removed.

(Minor) Cursed AI detector - Once you pick this item up you cannot drop it, it hungers to see the world, you must make your way to certain locations, 3 of them in order. For example - Captain's office - Armory - Vault. Once the hunger is sated you will be granted with shock resist.

(Minor) Cursed No-Slips - Once this item is worn you cannot remove them, they will remain on you for 15 minutes. it hungers to move and during this time you cannot stop moving for more than 5 seconds or the object will dust, taking your feet with it. spending 2 minutes on a treadmill or lasting the 15 minutes will sate its hunger and grant you swift and leap.

(Minor) Cursed Gas Mask - Once this item is worn it cannot be removed, it hungers for the exquisite taste of plasma, if you breathe a plasma tank for 5 seconds you will sate its hunger and be blessed with no breathe.

(Major) Cursed Storage Implant - if injected into someone they will be permanently made obese and begin to hunger for a randomly selected food, once they consume the required type of food they will gain a storage implant and are blessed with swift and eat.

(Major) Cursed Balloon - Once picked up this item cannot be dropped, while held the wielders sprite will be flipped 180 degrees. It hungers to be fed more oxygen, emptying 5 oxygen tanks into this item will sate its hunger and grant the user the blink spell.

(Major) Cursed Wizard Hat - Once this hat is worn it can be removed, doing so also removes the wearer's head. it hungers for the latent magical energy in plasma, requiring it to be fed x amount of plasma. Sating its hunger will grant the spell body swap.

 

If you have been blessed by the chaplain, picking up any cursed item will give you a warning and a 10 second grace time to drop the item before the curse can take hold.

Id like to have a crack at coding this myself if its liked enough. It took me 10 minutes to write this and to come up with a few cursed item ideas, so if people feel it doesn't add anything interesting or adds too much, let me know.

What is everyone's opinion on this?

Edited October 14, 2021 by Erikos
Added benefits to completing the curses.

[destinycall]

The cursed items would be very bad to pick-up with no upsides, so I am confused why anyone would touch rare loot that was nearby when you heard that whispering sound.   Seems like it would be pretty easy to avoid after the first encounter.   

Is that intended?

The idea reminds me a little of fake insulated gloves, but with more magic involved.   

[Erikos]

That's a good point, with no upsides to touching the cursed items nobody would do so. Maybe if you fulfil the curse you could be granted the blessing super powers, enabling a few beneficial gene's for that person. Or perhaps chance to get miner loot, such as cursed heart. Ill flush this out more before I make it into a doc.

[ItsMarmite]

ngl I can think of many ways to game these.

I'd tone down some of the positive boons HEAVILY.

[Pokebro2000]

41 minutes ago, ItsMarmite said:

ngl I can think of many ways to game these.

I'd tone down some of the positive boons HEAVILY.

Honestly, some of these items either incentivise self antagging (revolver) or provide benefits that are only useful to antagonists without risk of bwoink (the wizards hat). For these to be maint loot, even as a mid round event, doesn't seem like it would promote much fun. Best case, a couple buddies get some minor buffs and don't do much. Worst case, security has to deal with empowered greytiders who grabbed as much cursed loot as they can to bodyswap the captain and eat the nad.

As a concept, i like it, but i'm not sure it would be beneficial to the server.

[destinycall]

When I suggested that cursed items should provide some upside so people might still want them, I was thinking more along the lines of letting the player keep the original item if they manage to break the curse, instead of dusting it.   The current version is way over-powered.    

Gotta find a balance where cursed items are bad, but not so bad no one would ever want them.   Kind of like the cursed lavaland stuff (gluttony, envy, etc), which is dangerous to the unwary but potentially useful if you can overcome the downsides.

Or not super obviously evil so someone might pick them up by accident even if they are aware of the possibility of cursed artifacts, like the fake insulated gloves that look real unless you examine them closely.

[PeakPerformance]

In concept, not a bad idea - If you could find ways/ideas to involve and reward more than one crew per item, and avoid self antagging things like the .357 as mentionned prior, it could be a solid addition. Think of the asceiplus rod for the kind of rewards that, imo, would be more fitting.

Absolutely love the no-slip one, though, KEEP RUNNING AND NOBODY EXPL- loses their feet??

Edited October 22, 2021 by Peak

[PROBABLYJAY]

In theory it seems like a good idea to have something funky for players to do around the midround but this ain’t it man. Having a non antagonist commit major trespassing or murder and receiving blink or body swap? Sounds like too much. More passive things would make this at least viable. It’s a good idea though! 

Edited November 1, 2021 by PROBABLYJAY

[UltraNumeron]

Good idea but needs work, should not encourage self antagging and wiz spells generally should not be given out with a few exceptions. (things like instant summons arent too bad) but like body swap and blink is  a big no no. The rewards should be a bit more balanced  in general, like a storage implant for eating a random food is fine, but giving two quite powerful genes aswell isnt. but yeah good idea just needs work on the details.

[Billy Banderson]

Sounds like a cool idea, but perhaps without the whispering and they should seem like regular items. If this mid-round event spawns a single revolver that lets the one person that picked it up murderbone as much as they can with the limited 6 bullets, I don't really see an issue. That's fairly close to the chaos caused by other mid-round events like meteors or power outages, but with much more flexibility and combat.