Re: How to make a +1 Sword Memorable
A lot of people have been posting notes about exotic materials or just interesting description of the sword. Frankly, everything in your game that is significant should have an interesting description, even if it's just the nicks on the blade or the burnt spot on the leather of the handle. However, while description is important to maintain the mood, something will only be really memorable if it has a real role-playing effect. The additional side-abilities are great there, but then you don't technically have a +1 sword.
Then we get into cursed items. I have a problem with the generic cursed items, because why would a smith / wizard / cleric spend his magical energy in creating a cursed item? One suggestion that someone made, that there's a side quest you have to do to get rid of it, that sort of makes sense, that the creator wanted those guys killed or that item returned to its rightful place, or whatever, enough to make a sword that would compel its owner to do the quest. If the sword is bad, all the better for compelling, as long as the guy stuck with the sword has friends who aren't similarly hindered.
However, what I find interesting is to create magic items that have a flaw that the creator did not intend, but that came as a side-effect of his magicks. For a sword, say it was created by a dwarven smith whose beloved son was carried off and killed by a giant eagle. He created this sword with all the magical energy he could muster, but focused it on killing eagles. As he created it, he burned with rage towards the creatures, and much of his rage went into the sword along with the magic. So the sword is +1, +3 vs. giant eagles. However, it carries a curse, which is that the wearer hates and mistrusts anything even remotely related to birds.
As the GM, you don't tell the player that's the effect, you just lead him to it. For instance, the party meets with a bard to get some information. The description of the bard that you tell everyone includes a top hat with a cluster of feathers in it. But in the course of the interaction, you send a private message to the player with the sword, telling him that he knows that the bard is lying and is looking to send the PCs into an ambush. "Just something in his demeanor that you picked up, he reminds you of <known evil character>".
This approach not only encourages real role-playing, it also can be carried out through several different encounters, and, once the Players finally figure out what's going on, it will be indelibly stamped in their memory of the game (hopefully in a good way, in the end).
This message was last edited by the user at 21:31, Thu 12 Mar 2020.