Cursed With Awesome / Tabletop Games

• Point buy based systems tend to allow your character to gain extra points to buy powers if you take disadvantages. Some of the more munchkin-prone players enjoy picking "drawbacks" that may lack a certain sting. "Berserker" may turn you into a rage-driven killing machine that causes you to attempt to destroy anything that crosses your line of sight... which is half the definition of adventurer in the first place. (The other half is taking their stuff afterwards.)
  • Starts to lean a little more toward the "cursed" side of the equation if the character in question loses his ability to discern friend from foe in their rage-frenzy and winds up attacking their own allies. The players of such characters can still side-step any resulting angst over such occurrences by opting to play their characters with personalities that simply don't care whom they happen to be slaughtering, but such players may soon find their "allies" having a bit of trouble discerning friend from foe in their own fashion...
  • Another common one is to be a Weirdness Magnet (in fact, GURPS is the Trope Namer). Weird, exciting things get to happen to you all the time — what's the downside? That's why you're playing an RPG!
• Some players have turned some 'cursed' items to their advantage, embracing this trope. The greatest example was the classic D&D Sword -1 Cursed, a Clingy MacGuffin which would, no matter what you did to get rid of it, would reappear in your hand when combat began. Many did not see a disadvantage of dealing with a -1 penalty for a weapon which was always available. This would eventually make an appearance in one of the Ravenloft novels in the hands of a villain.
  • This is parodied in Ninja Burger, where the cursed item card has no drawback, and means the "cursed" item can now never be stolen or destroyed.
  • Another cursed sword (which makes an appearance in Baldur's Gate) actually gets a bonus to hit and damage to encourage people to use it. When practicing with it, there's no problem. When anyone attacks you, it causes you to go berserk and kill anyone in the vicinity, only calming down some time after all attackers are dead or have fled. In theory, this is a curse because of the risk of hurting your allies, but in practice, there are ways around this, and it may very well be your best available weapon if you're going the One-Man Army route. Similarly, the 3.5 DMG goes so far as to list a sword that enrages the user as being boon or bane, depending on the wielder's own views. Seen here.
  • A Necklace of Strangulation chokes to death anyone who puts it on. It sounds like a horrible item to find. No one says you have to wear it. No one says you can't, say, bribe an enemy with it. Oops. There are many similarly wicked items enterprising players can abuse.
  • The Shield of Arrow Attraction gives the wielder resistance to damage from missile weapons (meaning they take half damage) but also automatically causes all missile attacks made against targets within 10 feet of the wielder to attack the wielder instead. A bit of a problem if you have a friend who's trying to shoot the orc you're in melee with, but very very useful if you want to protect the Squishy Wizard in the party from being turned into a pincushion by your enemies.
  • Another classic example is the Bag of Devouring, a cursed Bag of Holding that tries to swallow anyone who reaches inside it. Many players are quick to see the potential in a portable garbage disposal. The general consensus is that any player who can't find a use for a "cursed" item isn't trying hard enough.
  • Which is why the DM Guide warns the Dungeon Master to never assume that players will "automatically" discard cursed items on realizing their status. It even gives an example — Dust of Sneezing and Choking, which does Exactly What It Says on the Tin, can do it to either the owner... or those orcs over there that just had it thrown over their heads. (The item is only "cursed" because it looks almost identical to Dust of Disappearance, which makes you invisible, and tracks as such when identifying it.)
  • In the rules for randomly generating cursed items, one possible curse means the item does the opposite of what it's meant to do. The books themselves mention that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as a wand of "healing" that instead hurts people could be useful as a weapon.
• The Accursed (subtle!) and Wounded Angel arcs in Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine provide a mixture of neat benefits and unpleasant drawbacks. Wounded Angel relies upon developing physical and mental injuries of various kinds, then gaining powers based on those, while caging something horrible that gets let out if you run out of Divine Health Levels; Leonardo de Montreal, the Wounded Angel pregen, has powers like ripping out his heart to make himself a being of heartless perfection in the dark (it doesn't work in the light because his heart may or may not be fueling the replacement sun — it's complicated), and holds in that space a nightmare known as the Red World. Accursed, meanwhile, involves becoming imbued with the Power of the Void until you can erase things from reality, but at the same time reality itself is prone to some kind of backlash against you...
  • The tumblr arc Indomitable literally spells out its Curse as something that would be a more legitimate Curse except that it doesn't seem to have any actual drawbacks for you (and there's even a power that lets you inflict the drawbacks on other people).
    Jenna Moran: You're like one of those vampires whose "dark curse" boils down to being immortal and awesome. Or maybe you've got a demon inside you, granting you all kinds of special abilities. It definitely feels very Curse-like but the violins informed people play for you will be pretty small.
• Numerous examples across the many editions of Dungeons & Dragons:
  • A challenge has always been with various 'cursed' transformations, most notably the curse of lycanthropy.
    • In media, it's seen as a curse where you become a slavering, uncontrolled beast, liable to tear your friends into shreds. In-game, since the curse may affect anyone, it's usually depicted as giving incredible strength and endurance, as well as resistance or immunity to nonsilver or nonmagical weapons. What the 'cost' is can vary from edition to edition, though usually it is losing control and becoming a slavering evil beast during the full moon unless you make some sort of willpower check to keep your sanity during the transformation. This is to allow the possibility of more free-willed werewolves or similar for story reasons, but has the result that minmaxers and similarly power-focused players would deliberately seek out a werecreature and intentionally get infected for a free power boost, requiring only to be restrained for a few nights until they succeed at their saves to be able to control the curse.
    • This became especially pronounced with the werebear, who is listed in most editions as being Lawful Good, meaning that you apparently lose control and become... a shining paragon and defender of justice in bear form.
    • Fifth edition gave werecreatures complete immunity to nonsilver, nonmagical weapons which applies even when they're human, making it an incredibly useful 'curse' to have.
    • All editions of Ravenloft, and Paizo in Pathfinder, put the bite back in lycanthrope, where it is not Cursed with Awesome, or Blessed with Suck. It's downright horrific. The GM is practically encouraged to have you one day wake up naked, covered in blood, with a horde of angry peasants brandishing pitchforks and an order of paladins hunting you down. The player does not control his character during his transformed states and has no idea what he did while changed.
    • Keith Baker suggested a similar mindset for Eberron, especially with the common idea of getting infected by a werebear or one of the other rare good-aligned werecreatures. Even if you are of good alignment, you're still a wild beast, and likely to run off to the deep woods to live a life close to nature, forsaking your previous life and connections.
  • A similar monstrous transformation is the curse of unlife, best shown through either the vampire or the lich.
    • The lich is an undead spellcaster, created when a spellcaster desires to extend their life past their mortal limitations. It retains their full memory and spellcasting powers, as well as enhanced physical abilities and a paralyzing touch. The price to pay to become a lich is left vague, which has led to many players wondering what is so evil with becoming a lich, and what's stopping them from continuing to act as heroic as they always have after transformation?
    • D&D 4e has the ability for player characters of level 11 or higher to transform into a lich, provided they have the money to cast the ritual. Oh, truly this is a horrible curse... which bestows the caster with almost doubled hit points, powerful regeneration, immunity to disease and poison, a significant bonus to all defences, and the ability to reconstruct yourself from a phylactery if killed. And there's no gradual drift towards evil in the gameplay mechanics, either. Why shouldn't the PCs try this again?
    • Of course, it does enthrall the player to Orcus. That's a significant downside for some. Besides, there's a far less amoral alternative, with Archliches; you need to be more powerful than a normal lich (level 20 and above, it's an epic destiny), but thanks to mixing in some Life Energy into the deal, you're fully alive and immortal, not to mention you have a nice aura that hurts anything you hate, alive or undead.
  • Older editions featured a cursed item called the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity that switched the character's sex when worn. Nowadays, transgender players would see this item as an awesome magic item, which is likely why it hasn't shown up much, and sometimes isn't even considered a cursed item anymore.
  • In most editions, a drider (Centaur-like spider creature with the upper body of a drow) was a drow cursed by their goddess Lolth as punishment for failing a Rite of Passage. However, Lolth is known as the spider queen, the drow worship spiders as representatives of their goddess, and Lolth is often depicted as drider-like, not to mention that the transformation gives a considerable boost in physical power and abilities. Drow clerics even keep their spellcasting abilities as a drider. Some editions tried to justify this by saying the transformation was agonizing, as well as wiping the drow's memories. Most also say that even if they're more powerful, drow society would see the drider as an outcast, and either exile them if not kill them outright.
    • In the 4th edition, this was changed via retcon, making driders a privileged caste bestowed on drow as a reward. In 5th edition, however, this was changed back to a curse for failure.
    • An explanation given in earlier editions is that driders got "stuck" — that is, they got powerful new abilities, but since they were now monsters they couldn't get class levels, so while vastly more powerful than the overwhelming majority of drow they weren't quite as powerful as the most powerful drow (Drow society pushing being The Social Darwinist, this was a valid reason for Driders to be looked down at). The problem came in when edition changes made it possible for driders to gain class levels without changing the drider/drow relationship in settings that had been around before 3E...
• Given that the world of Exalted has the Immaculate Order, an entire religion devoted to demonizing the Celestial Exalted, it's entirely possible for a Solar or Lunar with Immaculate sympathies to view having become an incredibly powerful demigod as a curse. (Terrestrials are venerated by the Order, and Sidereals a) have been forgotten by most of Creation, including the Order, and b) are recruited, trained, and disabused of any inaccurate notions about Exaltation and the world in general within days of the Second Breath.)
  • Sidereals have to deal with Arcane Fate... a unique astrological phenomenon that causes any being not Sidereal or in the employment of the Bureau of Destiny to gradually forget that they exist. While this is a grand boon to their ability to operate as covert agents (especially since they can 'invent' cover identities that are unaffected by Arcane Fate), it likewise means that if they don't watch their step, critical allies and loved ones will forget they ever existed.
• Accepting a Geist into your head in Geist: The Sin-Eaters means having a near-demonic old ghost bound to you for the rest of your life and having to put up with seeing ghosts. On the other hand, you get all sorts of cool necromantic powers and, most importantly, if you hadn't accepted the "curse"? You'd be plain old dead. So, naturally, Sin-Eaters tend to see themselves as this In-Universe. Hell, the game's Tagline is "A Storytelling game about Second Chances." It's by far the most optimistic game in the setting (though admittedly, that's a pretty low bar.)
• Some of the "curses" in Palladium Fantasy give the character bonuses. For example, Glowing Red Eyes gives you a bonus to intimidation, and Frog Legs allow you to jump great distances.
• Pathfinder has the Oracle class, divine spellcasters who gain a curse in exchange for their magical abilities. The good news is, the curses themselves come with benefits, which get more powerful as you level. It's not unheard of for characters to take a single level in oracle specifically to get a curse or even two. Second Edition took pains to emphasize the curse part. The curse is tied directly to the nature of the oracle's abilities instead of being a separate feature, restricting characters from shopping around for a curse that hinders their build little. Additionally, each curse has severe drawbacks that cannot be worked around. They can still play this trope straight, but when they do, the costs cannot be ignored. For instance, a life oracle's curse makes them an extremely powerful healer, but in exchange any healing that is applied to the life oracle by anyone is penalized harshly.
• Speaking of Ravenloft, each domain — a subsection of the plane — is ruled, at least in part, by a darklord, an incredibly evil individual, though not always an unsympathetic one. They get all sorts of shiny powers out of the deal, but it also earns them a curse — which, in and of itself, is personally tailored to the person so that, it wouldn't be so bad for anyone else, but the darklord's personality makes it so that it becomes unberable.
• The demon lord Baphomet, who was supposedly either a human or an animal (presumably a bull, given his minotaur links) "cursed" to be a super-powerful demon lord ruling an entire layer of the Abyss and building his own monsters.
• Talisman: Getting cursed by the Poltergeist to only move one space per turn instead of a random d6 roll can have a lot of benefits. It allows you to hop on and off a beneficial space and get the rewards every other turn.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • If you're really lucky, you'll end up like this. Example: The closest thing to retirement a Space Marine might ever get is having their mangled, mortally wounded body put on life support and encased in a Dreadnought, a heavily armed walking tank, for thousands of years. Getting to blow shit up from beyond the grave, and sleeping the rest of the time, seems pretty cool.
  • There's one tale Orks tell of a warband that ventured into the Eye of Terror, ending up on a demon world where they were all slaughtered... only to be raised again every morning to keep fighting, for the Blood God. Orks consider this heaven.
  • The Eldar have an unusual version of this. In order to keep their emotions under control they dedicate themselves to a single career (called a Path), mastering that before leaving it behind and moving onto something else. However occasionally an Eldar will become "stuck" on a particular path and be unable to switch. The downside is that when this happens they risk losing control of themselves, the upside is they become VERY, VERY good at it. In particular Eldar who have become stuck on the path of either the Warrior or the Witch (called Exarchs and Farseers) are the leaders of Eldar society.
  • Psykers in general in the setting. While it ranges from people being able to control their power to ones who would just implode and take half the city with him, most of them have some pretty awesome powers. Alpha-class human psykers are said to be able to destroy titans, Humongous Mecha that would make a Gundam look tiny in comparison, by crushing it with their minds. The aforementioned Farseers are able to see into the future and manipulate the strains of fate, but are otherwise cursed to crystallize slowly over time, becoming one with their own craftworlds.
  • On the other end of the spectrum, Necrons also suffer from a case of this. They're more or less immortal (it's hinted that not a single Necron has ever permanently died, only to be reduced to atoms then teleported to a nearby tomb for repairs), possess strength on par with Space Marines or more, and have guns that strip you one molecule at a time to your bare bones. Necron Lords are even hinted to have sentience, and are able to command legions of his brethren. The cursed part? You're an antithesis to all living beings in the known universe and bar the select individuals (Lords) many Necrons no longer have sentience.
  • The Primarch Ferrus Manus killed a silver dragon in a lava flow and the dragon's metallic skin fused to his arms, covering them with living metal. With his iron hands he could forge weaponry by working the metal with his 'bare' hands and never needed gauntlets in battle, since his hands were already invulnerable. His Space Marines, the Iron Hands legion, have developed a habit of intentionally replacing parts of themselves with cybernetic augmentations in homage to him. However, Ferrus didn't like his metal arms, precisely because they were so useful. In his opinion, he is being made weaker by depending on them and had decided that after the wars were over he would strip the metal off his arms, reassert his own strength and curb his legion's reliance on machine parts. Sadly, he was killed in battle before that could happen and the Iron Hands have gone on trying to fix their "weakness of the flesh".
  • The Obliterators embody Body Horror by being a perfect mix of man, demon and machine. It begins with contracting the Obliterator virus, melding with your firearm, generating ammunition for your firearm, developing the ability to absorb other firearms and finally becoming a full-fledged Obliterator. The awesome part is how Obliterators are Walking Armory incarnate, with Bottomless Magazines and the capability to produce and wield any weapon for any situation.
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Some Chaos mutations have entirely positive effects, like a Healing Factor or an ability score boost, and might even leave no outward sign at all. However, even beneficial mutations mark the mutant for death in polite society and draw them that much closer to being consumed by Chaos, so few would ever hope for one.
  • The Dwarf Slayer Gotrek owns an axe that boosts his already incredible strength, toughness and skill to an incredible degree and can carve through even magical armour. Awesome... Except his sole purpose in life is to die in combat and there is apparently absolutely nothing powerful enough to actually kill him, leaving his honour forever tainted.
• Some cards in Yu-Gi-Oh! have effects that look bad, but can be abused with certain combos. The poster child of this trope, however, is probably Mist Valley Falcon. He can be summoned at no cost, and has a whopping 2000 ATK, which is as high as it gets without drawbacks. The "cursed" part? He can't use that high ATK score without returning one of your cards to your hand. The "awesome" part? Try equipping Big Bang Shot to one of your opponent's monsters before attacking. Yes, you get a powerful attack, and you get to kill one of your opponent's monsters Deader than Dead! He can also return a Fiendish Chain that you want to use again. That's saving a card. The best part? His effect can be used to trigger Divine Wind of Mist Valley, allowing you to summon something like resident Game-Breaker Reborn Tengu.
  • An even more notorious example is Imperial Order, the only continuous spell negation trap in the game. Its intended downside is that it has a maintenance cost that you have to pay 700 life points during each of your standby phases or it's destroyed. This, however, wound up giving the person using it the option to cancel its effect before their turn really starts, allowing them to play their spell cards when they want to after denying the opponent the chance to play theirs. As spell cards are an important resource to the game (especially in spell based decks), this card gave a massive strategic advantage to the person playing it, resulting in the card being banned initially. Eventually it was given an errata that makes the cost mandatory, thus downplaying the awesome part.
  • Yet another example is Painful Choice: You choose five cards from your deck and your opponent picks one of them. The card your opponents chooses goes to your hand and the rest go to the graveyard. Early in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s infancy this was clearly a large cost, as those four cards were lost to you barring a few ways of retrieving them from the graveyard; fewer of which were reliably consistent. But as the game evolved, more and more cards have been printed that rely on them being dumped in the graveyard to activate, subverting this card's major downside into a huge benefit to stack your graveyard. Not only has this card been banned ever since, but the last time it's been printed in English-speaking countries was back in 2008, having only been reprinted a total of once in any one of those locations.