I don't understand how that's a problem. The AUTOLOAD goes in the Decorator class, not the original object's class. The Decorator is new, so I wouldn't expect it to subclass anything else...?

Of course, you can implement a Decorator class without AUTOLOAD, it's just more tedious as you have to write a little method each time, and maintain the Decorator as the original object's class changes. Based off your example, maybe something like this:

package Curse::Older;

sub new{
    my ($class, $player, $older_by) = @_;
    my $self = {
        player   => $player,
        older_by => $older_by,
        cursed   => 1
    };
    bless $self, $class;
}

# name is just simply delegated
sub name{
    my $self = shift;
    $self->{'player'}->name(@_);
}

# age is however intercepted and modified
sub age{
    my $self = shift;
    my $player = $self->{'player'};
    my $age = $player->age();
    if ($self->{'cursed'}){
        $age + $self->{'older_by'};
    } else{
        $age;
    }
}

# Meanwhile...

package main;

my $player = new Player('Jim', 30);

# curse Jim to make him 10 years older
my $cursed_player = Curse::Older->new($player, +10);
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Anyway, it looks like you're going down the re-blessing route. The Java programmer in me thinks that's nuts, but the Perl hacker in me admires what the language lets you do!