Idiots declare drug use in games unrealistic

[waltshumate]

The idiots are reporting about video game but they could apply to to tabletop games if they really  wanted to.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42808573

[Omega]

People who cant distinguish reality from fantasy shouldn't be reporting news.

News at Eleven.

I do though agree that overall game depictions of drug use ARE unrealistic. So is the depiction of guns as one hit kill weapons. But a game isnt real. And there are games that do depict drug use as bad. Sometimes VERY bad. But of course that gets ignored usually to prove that games are bad.

[S'mon]

If you want to realistically model addiction in-game, then the game-drug has to be addictive to the player - there have to be serious game benefits to using it. This may require somewhat unrealistic bonuses; though Speed-type drugs have been used in war (notably by the WW2 Germans during the Blitzkrieg) to enhance combat effectiveness and endurance.

Short term big bonuses for much subtler long term negative effects, or small chances of catastrophic health impact (1% heart attack, say) is one way. Modeling addiction is a major challenge, I think the best suggestion I've seen is to award some kind of metagame currency for indulgence, so the player of the addict PC receives an incentive to actively seek out 'hits', whether alcohol, tobacco or something more exotic.

[Anon Adderlan]

People who cant distinguish reality from fantasy shouldn't be reporting news.

Or playing #RPGs.

If you want to realistically model addiction in-game, then the game-drug has to be addictive to the player

Which should be easy, as every major game has been designed to be addictive anyway

[fearsomepirate]

The original Fallout games did a great job with drugs. Tweekin' across the wasteland!

[Warboss Squee]

The original Fallout games did a great job with drugs. Tweekin' across the wasteland!

You can drink the booze, do the drugs, kill all the people and eat them.

But gid forbid you smoke a cigarette.

[Spinachcat]

I am working on drug rules in my current playtest. I am going with "drugs are awesome, with a chance of being fucked, and tiny chance of uberfucked" so you will get all sorts of goodies for taking drugs...and if you roll badly, you will get a taste of the down side and its possible that will be your last taste."

It's not realistic whatsoever.

In real life, the horror of addiction isn't usually apparent in the short term. Young addicts often survive an overdose or three. Also, there is the march from casual user to hardcore user which takes a different length of time for various people. If you look at the photos of meth addicts, you see the progression faster than you see with alcohol or cocaine, but even then its individualized based on other life situations.

[RPGPundit]

I don't know if I have much to comment on this thread, except that in college and a couple of years after, I tried a shitload of mind-altering drugs. A shitload.  

And in my experience a lot of depictions of drugs just about everywhere are not accurate.

Narcosa, for example, which was very popular for about 20 seconds, struck me as a drug-themed OSR product that was written by people who had clearly never done any serious hallucinogens in their entire lives.

[HappyDaze]

As a nurse IRL, I find I have more of a problem with games that allow "beneficial" drugs to be spammed without restraint. The most recent example was the FFG Star Wars stimpack that was essentially a drug-based healing potion. Everybody carried them and were popping them like PEZ.

[jeff37923]

I dropped acid in High School. The belief was that it would allow you to become far more creative while you were tripping - and it felt like you were, but what you produced was completely unintelligible when you stopped riding that mind-altering wave.

I remember that people had a shit-fit when Cyberpunk came out and had drugs in it, but those same never looked at the rules to learn that those drugs while they may give your PC a minor advantage were designer drugs created to specifically make your character addicted and mess them up so that they became unplayable.

[Spinachcat]

And in my experience a lot of depictions of drugs just about everywhere are not accurate.

Based on your experience, how would you model the effect of mind-altering drugs in RPGs?

I had a campaign with various +1/-1 stat drugs (aka +1 INT for -1 DEX) that your character could take. The "dreamer drug" was a +1 Wisdom for -1 Charisma because you gained insights into reality at the cost of your ability to communicate that newfound wisdom with the unenlightened. I had it based on 10 doses, you suffered the -1 at 5 doses and gained the +1 bonus at the 10th dose with a Save vs. Death if you took more than one dose per day. Every month, you needed to take a dose or you would lose your +1 benefit. After a year without any doses, you would lose the -1 penalty.

But I never claimed the system had any real world accuracy.

As a nurse IRL, I find I have more of a problem with games that allow "beneficial" drugs to be spammed without restraint.

I have been tinkering with ideas around the effect of ingesting magic, aka drinking potions and whether that could or should be a concern.

[RPGPundit]

Based on your experience, how would you model the effect of mind-altering drugs in RPGs?

That's a hard question to answer. There could be some basic rules I guess. Most hallucinogenic drugs would not be addictive, for starters. I'd also say they wouldn't automatically be useful, or useless. It would depend on the way they were used.

For hallucinogens, by far the most useful moment for them would be the first time they are taken. Insights would be gained with stiffly diminishing returns after the first use.

[ArrozConLeche]

She's my butterfly...I'm her flower...:eek:

[Spinachcat]

That's one of her best pics. If she smiled like that more often, instead of looking like pissy lich, she might have won.

[Omega]

I dropped acid in High School. The belief was that it would allow you to become far more creative while you were tripping - and it felt like you were, but what you produced was completely unintelligible when you stopped riding that mind-altering wave.

I remember that people had a shit-fit when Cyberpunk came out and had drugs in it, but those same never looked at the rules to learn that those drugs while they may give your PC a minor advantage were designer drugs created to specifically make your character addicted and mess them up so that they became unplayable.

1: Years ago on BGG someone was suggesting designing games on drugs.

2: Like I said. The outrage brigade allways conveniently overlook any evidence to the contrary to their narrative.

Personally I think alcohol is the biggest misrepresented drug. Rare is the times I've seen rules for drunken impairment and even rarer any rules for addiction.