The Campaign Builder's Guild

I was doing some casual reading the other day with some old 3.5 edition D&D books, and I found something that caught my eye: Taint. Now, I had never even thought of using the stuff before, but given the innate malleability of my dreamlike world, I figured that perhaps the nightmarish effects could resonate onto things such as places and people. I had intentions to have it twist and warp places laden with taint, casting inky black shadows that seem to consume the light around them, lights dimming despite the best spellwork, and strange whispers and echoes ringing haunting words and melodies with no apparent source. Black liquids drips from the walls, the plaster and papers on the wall peel away to reveal pairs of eyes and mouths, pictures dart their eyes and seem to always be looking at you. Was that hand always like that? Was it holding a knife before? The more tainted it is, the darker it gets.

Anyways, from there I decided to try and work on my own system to establish a more "nightmarish" taint, but eventually started to question whether I really wanted this to remain as something that actually impacts the game mechanics or remains as a flavorful aspect of role play.

I also established that I wanted to create some sort of "weird taint," with more bizarre effects result from wandering too far off into a place that hasn't been fully comprehended by the world... sort of like the Far Realm, except you only have to go off the edge of the map rather than travel to another plane. People could have varying levels of "weird taint," resulting in things like small wings sprouting up on the body that flap madly, or vomiting up boggards that quickly scurry away in fear. I had an amusing mental image of an NPC who, while chatting with the players, turns briefly to cough only to have a small creature scurry out of his mouth and across the floor into a crack in the wall. Naturally, I wouldn't intend for such an NPC to be taken too seriously, nor would this be a commonplace "taint." Again, I'm also looking for a name for this type of thing, so any help would be appreciated.

Now, for the real question at hand: Does anyone have any advice? I'm trying not to dive into the deep end before I get some opinions and, figuratively speaking, know the depth of the pool (or lake, or ocean) I'm diving into. Has anyone ever used such a system, and if so was it successful? Unless I specifically intend for it, I don't plan on having this readily effect the players just yet. If anything, it would be slow and placed on the back burner, used primarily for introducing interesting and complex NPCs into the plot line. At the same time, I'm really going back and forth between giving it a mechanical presence or just keeping it as flavor... ideally, it would have a very small mechanical presence that relied largely on description (I find that my players focus a little more on something if it's mechanically affecting their characters, but obviously describing their characters as developing thick, black fingernails would certainly catch their attention). The "taint" would be removable (on both accounts) so long as it is tended to quickly. Otherwise, it can become a permanent characteristic.

I've never particularly liked the idea of using the system, as it seems to destroy your villains before they get a chance to set fire to the proverbial orphanage. That said, it is a very interesting set of game mechanics and has amazing roleplaying opportunity.

Your idea to add in weird taint as you call it sounds like loads of fun. I think the condition sounds fit for a relatively normal word or combination thereof to describe it. Hell, you could just call it weirdness. Depending on the feel you could call it something that gives a sense of irony, like maybe "wisdom."

My advice would be to try to keep it more on the flavor side except for when someone has accumulated a lot of the weirdness - you can do almost as much with it by this method and you aren't tied down by any detrimental effects that hamper the mechanical presence of characters who are tainted (sure, you could have a villain tainted to the point where it's flowing out of every orifice, but they're probably going to be so weak it's as much a mercy/pity killing by the players as anything). Ideally the effects of the taint you choose to bestow should be negative, but have potentially positive benefits (if a character's eyes begin to glow yellow and they exhale black smoke, people should find them hideous and terrifying; while relations might be strained, relations might be strained - to the point of being intimidating and feared).

Well you don't have to use it for anyone else in the game 'cept the PCs. Just saying.
And taint is a very interesting idea. I think i'll use it...

Seeing your title got me thinking, what about good taint? If something is tainted to be dark and evil and paranoid, could something also be tainted to be saccharine sweet, gentle, and foolishly naive?

Taint as in the UA is not that well thought out... it is TOO debilitating for either NPC's or PC's... and it would KILL most non high level parties fast. I think heroes of horror might have refined it... don't quote me tho...

The concept itself is pretty cool tho... you would be better off coming up with your own mechanics for it... or just use it as a RP base instead of mechanics....

Personally, I would strive to keep taint from being a necessarily evil thing - a bad thing, certainly, but not an evil thing.

The idea behind taint is basically the age-old theme of sacrificing humanity/sanity for power, and wanting power is not the sole domain of evil people.  Taint becomes more interesting when it's not just cackling villains that are corrupted by it, but people with more noble intentions.

I think you're on the right track with "weird taint," which seems more amoral than the standard "dripping with vile black ichor" taint that is often linked inextricably with evil-ness.  When your taint is amoral, you are less likely to end up with the situation that Horse described - "destroy[ing] your villains before they get a chance to set fire to the proverbial orphanage" - because your villains don't need to be tainted to be bad, nor do the heroes need to be "clean" to be good.

Where you go with the idea, I think, depends a great deal on the setting you're trying to fit it into.  Certainly any taint, as long as it's not vanishingly rare in the setting, is going to have a big impact on society.  If the taint is "weird" rather than expressly, objectively evil, it also may engender a different kind of reaction from the common people.  Vomiting up bugs is scary, but what if some of the great righteous heroes of history were also tainted?  What if the taint was key to their triumphs over cruel oppressors and demonic foes?  The mob might not be so quick to break out the torches and pitchforks, though they still might avoid having dinner with you.

I'm interested in seeing where you go with the idea.

Based on the responses in this thread, it looks like a more "flavorful" taint system should be used, or at least one that doesn't impact mechanics unless its really tainted. That's a good thing, because I didn't want to make a whole new system behind it (mechanics aren't my strong point).

My idea behind the taint was to try and fit the mold of my world, a dream world, but its much more complicated than that. At the time of my original post, I was just typing on a whim, thinking that I wanted to make places clearly affected by nightmares dark and dreary and creepy, but in actuality there are plenty of nightmares that aren't those things, that might take place in sunny field or amidst a beautiful forest... basically, a nightmare is relative. From the start I had wanted to divorce the idea of alignment behind taint, but I wanted it to at least be different in usually a bad way. Stargate, your mention of good taint was very interesting, and I had actually given it some thought before I decided against it, as with any sort of evil taint. Though I admit to being very tempted to implement something akin to that...

Anyways, as you said, Polycarp, I intended for taint to remain a way for me to introduce "good" characters who strove to fight off "evil" things, becoming tainted themselves. Kind of like the "He who fights monsters..." thing. Weird taint is something I'm going to keep, but I'm not sure about the other kind... it's refreshing to say "The man with the shriveled skin, burnt out eyes, and scarred flesh offers to help you" because it goes against the grain. When used in the opposite sense, it helps to really cement the idea that this guy IS the bad guy, which is also great every once in a while, though I like to keep it fresh and new, to keep the players guessing.

I with this nightmare taint, I want it to be something that subtly affects you, like your skin pales or your features grow more sharp and wicked, to represent you walking through a bad part of the Dream. I want it to give off a slight atmosphere of creepiness without having people point at them and scream. I think only in the most extreme cases would it lead to a legitimate need to cover up to avoid people running from you in fear, but I want it to be out there as a possibility for truly spending too much time in a hellish place. I think this'll lead to me clarifying what exactly makes a place "nightmarish," which, to be honest, I haven't fully determined. Right now I figure undead and demons and their ilk would taint a place, but I also want it to remain, as you said, amoral, so I'm still working out the kinks.