Drugs

[Badmojo]

Drugs could really add a lot. Some scenerios.

 

A parent is worried about her daughter who she says has been acting weird since she fell in with a bad crowd. Things have been going missing in the home, investigating reveals that the daughter is hooked on drugs. She has been stealing and on top of that, she is close to becoming a prostitute to feed her addiction. Backtracking you find out the drug dealer, if you confront him/her, and is suprised that the dealer calmly, politely and reasonably explains that he does not force anybody to take drugs, he mearly offers them service, that they could leave any time. The world sucks and he offers them an escape from this miserable existance, is that so wrong? They can stop any time. The dealer points out that removing the dealer will not FIX the problem, and all it will do is create a vacum that someone else who isn't as polite will simply take over. The dealer is sorry about the girls predicament, but that is her choice and not his problem.

 

So, here are a few possible outcomes -

- Take the dealer to prison, which the dealer can bribe the gaurd/judge to get free

- take the dealer to prison, prevent the dealer from bribing anybody and having a fair trial

- get the dealer addicted to his own drugs or another drug to make them your thrall

- Kill the dealer and open a community group to help the addicts

- kill the dealer and take over the operation, possibly expanding into other areas like weapon selling, prostitution ring, slavery

- make a deal with the dealer to only focus on a certain group (rich, military, nobles, poor...etc) that serve your interests

- convince the girl to give up drugs and work off at a job what she has stolen

- agree that the girl has free will and its her choice, walk away

- encourage the girl to keep taking drugs, find her selling herself one day, then dead a few days later

- encourage the girl to keep taking drugs, find her selling herself (offer to protect her...being her pimp), start a prostitution ring

- kill the drug dealer, set things in motion so the girl and parents work together to be the new dealers

- kill everybody or capture and sell everybody to slavery for the lulz

- etc

 

Drugs can be used, say you get someone like the captain of the military addicted to drugs and now you have a basic minion who will do what you say.

 

Someone drugs history can be used in blackmail

 

..etc

 

 

There should be the usual drugs like we have in the real world, but there should be magical/supernatural drugs

 

Examples :

Ghost - this drug allows a person to astal project their minds without training, the downside is that the body becomes frail/sickly/weak

 

Speed - Increases speed tremendously, think like the flash, health/man regeneration happens much faster. The trade off is that you age faster during the affect, when the affect ends you have a penalty in speed for a few days. Take it too much and you will be a frail old person really fast/possible death.

 

obsession - mistakenly called the love drug, this insideus potion works by using sympathetic magic, a piece of the person (hair, skin, nail..etc DNA) is put into the potion, a character who wants the person drinks the drug. Soon the victim finds themselves drawn to the potion drinker and become obsessed with them. However, many fools did not know what they bargained for. Many men thought of using it as a quick way to get into a womans bed, finds themselves with a knife in the heart because they looked at another woman, a person who is infatuated with a person takes the drug, only to find themselves tied to a chair with his legs chopped off so they can be their together forever, a charlentan uses the drug to win the heart of a noble lady, then kills her for her wealth and title...and is shocked that death is not enough to stop her and she comes back as a undead to be with her 'love'...etc.

 

Bliss - this is a magical drug used by slavers/masters on slaves, it creates a sense of false happiness and is very addictive. Those who take the drug after long use will do anything to get it back.

 

Etc...

[Osvir]

John Romero on Life

 

Is this his personal preference, marketing stuff a la business "don't scare away the fans"-thing. Why is he saying this? To get popularity, or is he simply expressing his own opinion? Is there an agenda behind his words? I don't know to be honest, maybe it is both agenda and truth.

 

I don't disagree with the man, but I don't agree with him either. I feel there is truth in his opinion, some of it. Heck I agree with everything, I'm just iffy about the pauses he takes in his speech just makes me wonder if he got the speech on paper in front of him or how long he stood in front of the mirror practicing for most suspense *shrug*

Edited October 8, 2012 by Osvir

[Godwin]

I don't know I posted it for comedy value, you have me wondering now. To me it seems like a generic "paper in front of him" speech.

 

As for the game I have no problem with drugs within it so long as they don't try to imatate real life drugs in thier form.

[rjshae]

One generation's medicinal remedy (laudanum) is another generation's hard drug (opium). It's difficult to map the modern views of drugs into a game that is set in a different time period and cultural viewpoint. That may be an argument against including heavy drug use as a serious topic. I mean, we are talking about a period when sugar and spices were a luxury for the wealthy.

[AGX-17]

Drugs of all kinds have been small and large parts of cultures across the world throughout history. It wasn't until relatively recently until a natural painkilling chemical derived from such plant sources as willow bark was isolated and dubbed "aspirin."

 

Egyptian heiroglyphs suggest that beer was a more prized commodity than the grains from which it was produced (and Egyptian women were the master brewers!) Bread that can be stored long-term as a drink which doesn't carry disease like unboiled water just happened to have bonus effects.

 

Absinthe was wildly popular in the late 19th century, especially among the "starving artist" crowd. Why? It was a dirt-cheap alternative to wine. It was banned in France (and elsewhere,) because of lobbying by the French wine industry and a campaign of misinformation. There are many drugs that are dangerous when overused, but that's exactly the same truth of anything you can imbibe. If you take too much tylenol, your liver will go kaput. If you ingest too much sugar, you'll get diabetes. Too much fat? You get it.

 

Many "illegal drugs" are even approved by the FDA for medical uses. Cocaine and Methamphetamine both have legitimate medical uses and can be administered by a physician given the correct circumstances.

 

So yes, there should be drugs.

Edited October 9, 2012 by AGX-17

[Jandor]

The word 'Drugs' covers a hell of a lot of things. From Aspirin to Heroin.

 

I don't really care, but I tend towards no, these things never tend to be done very convincingly in my humble opinion.

What I would like though is a minor charisma boost after a few beers, and then for a major charisma penalty once my character is hammered.

[Grimlorn]

Everything is better on drugs.

[Vampero]

I don't mind if we have them or not..

Edited October 9, 2012 by Vampero

[Orogun01]

I will need Benazepril for the stress of adventuring, some kind of analgesic for the pain(preferably not an opiate), some benzodiazepine to sleep and some zoloft for the trauma.

[eimatshya]

I don't care one way or the other. I've never said, "man, what this fantasy world needs is some drug addicts." That said, they could probably design some interesting things with drugs. Barbarians could use psychedelic drugs to increase the intensity of their berserk frenzies. Priests could use them in certain rituals to help them enter a higher mental plane so as to commune with their gods.

 

I wouldn't see any of this as a key area to devote resources to, however. If Obsidian wants to put drugs in, that's fine with me. If not, that's fine too.

 

As an aside, the only game where I've really liked drugs was Everquest. Getting drunk in that game was so much fun. For those of you who haven't played it, once you reached a certain level of intoxication, you were forced into first person view mode, and your field of view became all stretched out and bendy. Also, you started swaying from side to side alarmingly. You could only stagger along really slowly in this state, but due to your warped vision, you felt like you were running really fast. I had a character who was an alcoholic gnome warrior who used to get completely blitzed and then go fight stuff. It made combat wayyy more fun. Obviously, such a feature wouldn't work in P:E, since it is a 2D game, but it is what always comes to mind when I think of drug use in video games.

[Dostro89]

having drugs is a good idea. Things that give short term gain longer term pain. Though to properly work you need indepth systems that track addiction and other stats related to drugs.,

 

I do not like the idea of the option of becoming a drug dealer, I'm sorry but this is just wrong in real life and video games encouraging

[rjshae]

In a society with magic, I could imagine an addiction to certain forms of it. Those would be written up in tomes of proscribed spells and lore. Some unscrupulous Wizards may practice black market spell crafting in seedy dens.

[septembervirgin]

I think the choices offered prevent my acquiescence one way or another. Lots of drugs? I wouldn't agree to that. No drugs? Wouldn't quite be humankind without ethnogens of some sort. Hell, I get drunk sometimes. I love absinthe. Before restrictive laws prevented me, I enjoyed Sampoerna Xtra clove cigarettes. But massive amounts of drugs, everywhere? Doesn't sound like a society that functions for long.

 

One thing I've not seen but considered has been neurally derived drugs. Wouldn't some cultures harvest the brains of animals to make drugs from? I haven't seen it in the world, but in a magical culture, maybe it's done.

[Zed]

People have been using stimulants throughout history. Would make sense to have some sort of stuff in the game. Shrooms, herbs, stuff like that.

[rjshae]

Retract.

Edited October 9, 2012 by rjshae

[Jaesun]

There BETTER be at least BEER in this game. Because it's not a cRPG unless my party can get drunk. Baking bread of course would be a plus.

[AGX-17]

In a society with magic, I could imagine an addiction to certain forms of it. Those would be written up in tomes of proscribed spells and lore. Some unscrupulous Wizards may practice black market spell crafting in seedy dens.

 

And couldn't magicians just come up with spells that have effects similar to, or greater than, any realistic "drug"?

[nikolokolus]

I feel like there's an awful lot of modern thinking going on in here when it comes to mind altering subsstances and restricting/endorsing their use. Who's to say that drugs are even illegal ior taboo n the world of PE?

[Archmage Silver]

Yes, I want a lot of drugs! Wait! I didn't meant to type that, just vote... wait, not that either! Stop reading!

[Jojobobo]

The word 'Drugs' covers a hell of a lot of things. From Aspirin to Heroin.

I guess if I wasn't being clear enough, I was referring to narcotics - but the word is a bit less widely used than drugs for most people so I went with drugs. Not too many people would even make the distinction that drugs could be something else than illegal substances, because that's what the word is commonly used for nowadays.

 

I feel like there's an awful lot of modern thinking going on in here when it comes to mind altering subsstances and restricting/endorsing their use. Who's to say that drugs are even illegal ior taboo n the world of PE?

I think a split would be best - maybe more enlightened civilisations are starting to stamp down on drugs (particularly those that adhere strongly to one religion or another) and the more savage cultures use them with reckless abandon. Or to turn things completely on its head, they are frowned upon by savages and used more by civilised people as a mark of how sophisticated they are. I do think that they should be illegal/frowned upon somewhere in the gaming world, if only to make it more relatable to our real world values.

 

Edit: As for the whole magic being used for drugs thing, I could definitely see a cipher (which is increasingly looking like they will be in the game) making someone believe they are on drugs; and yes maybe using some spells might give such a rush of power that they feel addictive might be fun too, or drugs that are enhanced through magical processes/alchemy. I don't think ciphers or wizards should be able to outright replicate a drug's effects though.

Edited October 9, 2012 by Jojobobo

[Loranc]

Tell ya what one of the coolest things iv'e come across that was purely unique in it's day of age was PST's tattoos. Not only did you have all the cool features of an rpg but you had an added feature that I had never seen before until then. I don't really care much for drugs being added to the game because there's just so many mechanics that wouldn't make sense afterwards, in most rpgs anyways. Unless it was done extremely well.... otherwise wouldn't it be so simple to amp up on drugs and then just case cure on yourself afterwards? 'Poof' toxins gone, I mean it'd be an interesting way to handle combat, it's pretty much what I did in fallout, except there was no magic there. Which may be the main issue, I really believe that magic and drugs harshly counteract one another and it makes it increasingly difficult to add it to a game in a way in which it would make sense.

 

This is the whole realism thing of course but one of my major pet peeves has always been when characters are injured in a game and stop traveling with you or when they die. I'm sitting there thinking to myself 'okay jackass I just revived you three times last battle and now you decide to die in a cut scene?'. It's like magic doesn't work during cut scenes or something, anyways getting off topic. If they can find a way to add it into the game world that would 'mesh' well with magic than i'd be all for it, in a fantasy setting I would honestly see someone getting addicted to spells and magical tonics long before anything else. There was even a little series parodied off of nwn a long time back that I use to watch where one of the adventurers was addicted to healing potions, it was pretty funny. I wouldn't go as far as to say adding them would break or hurt the game in anyway, I just can't picture a unique way in which they could add them into this game, and have it work.

Edited October 9, 2012 by Loranc

[Skie Nightfall]

They can sure add flavor to the game-world and lore if appropriate.

Fit nicely to Fallout. Even soft drinks and alcohol can be addictive

[Amentep]

There BETTER be at least BEER in this game. Because it's not a cRPG unless my party can get drunk. Baking bread of course would be a plus.

 

I just wish there was more point to drinking in game than just to get a drunk icon and stat effects (or even addiction).

 

I've longed for a game that would force me - if I was searching for information, quests, whatever - to actually go and drink and talk to people, buy others drinks, etc. Give real meaning to those pubs. Then you end up with a reason to drink (beyond getting drunk) and if properly applied some areas of choice and consequences (because hopefully drinking past your limit would have some real in-game meaning).

[LadyCrimson]

I just wish there was more point to drinking in game than just to get a drunk icon and stat effects (or even addiction).

 

I've longed for a game that would force me - if I was searching for information, quests, whatever - to actually go and drink and talk to people, buy others drinks, etc. Give real meaning to those pubs. Then you end up with a reason to drink (beyond getting drunk) and if properly applied some areas of choice and consequences (because hopefully drinking past your limit would have some real in-game meaning).

Agreed.

In Risen2, there was a quest where you had to outdrink someone in the pub in order to get a map ... or something like that, I don't remember the quest details. But it was amusing/cool to have to sit down at a table and have drinking/going into the pub potentially mean something. Most of the time I feel like pubs are in the game simply because "it's a town, and towns have pubs!" Occasionally you might meet some npc's in there, but that's about it. Something more interesting would be nice.

[rjshae]

I feel like there's an awful lot of modern thinking going on in here when it comes to mind altering subsstances and restricting/endorsing their use. Who's to say that drugs are even illegal ior taboo n the world of PE?

 

Prohibitions against alcohol use are very old. It's not completely unreasonable to expect some societies will have prohibitions against specific mind-affecting substances. But yes, some societies will allow and even encourage the use of certain mind altering substances, particularly for religious purposes.