Drugs in the shadows, Or: Don't bogart the Jazz poppers, man! Options

[paws2sky]

The auto-injector thread got me thinking...

How many of you have characters that utilize drugs instead of augmentations, magic, etc.? How often does the character use? How strict is the GM about calling for Addiction tests?

Also, I must be glazing over this rule, but how do you determine if a drug is physically or psychologically addictive? I've been using the duration as a guideline - drugs with a (Body-X) duration are physically addictive, while those with a variable duration are psychologically addictive - but I'd rather use the RAW (if it even exists).

[Synner667]

Rifts Juicers = live fast, die young !!

[Rasumichin]

The auto-injector thread got me thinking...

How many of you have characters that utilize drugs instead of augmentations, magic, etc.? How often does the character use? How strict is the GM about calling for Addiction tests?

Not instead of, but in addition to.
And most of my characters use drugs, mostly on a regular basis.
Nice to get a small bonus to drain stats and the like and a lot of fun to roleplay, too.
Good thing i change my characters frequently, though.
Burnout stage sucks.

Addiction tests are a somehow unclear issue, but generally should be called for when the drug is used as often as is typical for the next level of addiction or from time to time when a drug is administered with any regularity at all.
As a rule of thumb, don't overdo these tests if the PC doesn't overdo the substance, unless it's crack or somesuch.

Most substances will cause mental habituation long before physical addiction sets in, though there might be exceptions (once again, crack and also Diet Crack ™ chewing gum aka betel).

Also, I must be glazing over this rule, but how do you determine if a drug is physically or psychologically addictive? I've been using the duration as a guideline - drugs with a (Body-X) duration are physically addictive, while those with a variable duration are psychologically addictive - but I'd rather use the RAW (if it even exists).

There is no rule, so i tend to stick to real-world equivalents of the drug, which can be problematic, as not all drugs in SR have them.
I have recently posted a suggestion for physically addictive drugs in another thread, it is a topic that comes up regularly.

Your ruling unfortunately does not work outside of game balance reasons, as it would mean that pixie dust, which contains cocain, wouldn't cause physical addiction, but eX, which is just a glorified version of MDMA, would.

[Ancient History]

Also, I must be glazing over this rule, but how do you determine if a drug is physically or psychologically addictive? I've been using the duration as a guideline - drugs with a (Body-X) duration are physically addictive, while those with a variable duration are psychologically addictive - but I'd rather use the RAW (if it even exists).

We deliberately left it vague except in a couple cases. In real life, drug addictions are usually a mixture of physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms with personality and psychosomatic symptoms. So you have the people who started out doing a drug because they liked the feeling when high and now they just feel like crap all the time and do the drug to feel normal, and you have the people that don't physically need the drug but have such weak personalities that they can't stand life without it, and the whole spectrum of want/need in between.

[Rasumichin]

We deliberately left it vague except in a couple cases. In real life, drug addictions are usually a mixture of physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms with personality and psychosomatic symptoms. So you have the people who started out doing a drug because they liked the feeling when high and now they just feel like crap all the time and do the drug to feel normal, and you have the people that don't physically need the drug but have such weak personalities that they can't stand life without it, and the whole spectrum of want/need in between.

Note, however, that there are drugs that are simply chemically unable to physically addict you.
Not that this makes them that much less risky, as mental addiction has disadvantages that can be just as severe as the hellish withdrawal symptoms some physical addictions cause.

Also, as noted before, most people will already be mentally habituated by the time they get hooked physically, or will soon acquire a mental addiction when indulging on a daily basis.
Getting over the physical part of a heroin addiction is already hard enough, but it's the mental addiction that's responsible for most junkies relapsing after several months or years off the smack.




BTW, now that we already have a recent drug thread here, there's something i've been wondering about for some time now.
When taking a look at the tables in Arsenal, i noticed that deepweed has an F availability.
No surprise, some might say, it's an illegal drug, what did you expect?
Well, the problem is, most drugs in SR aren't completely forbidden.
In fact, the only other drugs that are completely and flat-out illegal are laés and K-10 (and warp, if you count it as a recreational drug and not a combat gas).

What exactly makes an awakened seaweed so dangerous that it is clamped down upon harder than paranormal heroin, cocaine cut with short-term memory erasers and combat drugs that can easily kill a man after turning him into a second-rate street samurai?

Was this decided by the devs due to the fact that deepweed grants dual nature even if you're an adept or mystical adept who does not posess astral perception?

Or has it something to do with its connection to houngans and an incident in YotC i heard about somewhere that gave voudoun a particularly bad rep?

Was it decided to enable players to claim that somone should legalize the weed even though THC is legal in 2070?

Or was it an oversight, in the same way as it must be an oversight that betameth is twice as expensive as novacoke?

[Ancient History]

What exactly makes an awakened seaweed so dangerous that it is clamped down upon harder than paranormal heroin, cocaine cut with short-term memory erasers and combat drugs that can easily kill a man after turning him into a second-rate street samurai?

Brown people make it. More seriously, its because deepweed is one of the longest-known Awakened drugs, and the majority of corporations and national governments have issued restrictions to control is - combine a couple of really nasty potential uses for deepweed, and you can see how it would be as "forbidden" in most of the world.

See the Availability system in SR4 has to strike a balance between legality and scarcity: the Availability ratings are what you might call the "average" - from a strictly metagaming point of view a hit of pixie dust (or the equivalent) is about as hard to find in Hong Kong as it is in Berlin, whereas in the setting there are places where pixie dust might be much more readily available, even cheaper - or, controversially, extremely scarce and expensive. Buying opium when your neighbor has an opium farm results in a low relative Availability, but the local powers-what-is that frown on the trade might give it an R or F rider.

Shadowrun used to go into a bit more detail - usually by giving local price modifiers, but sometimes delving into big tables of legal offenses - but in my experience they were hardly ever used. Most players would rather fire their gun at the cops until they go click and then try to pistol-whip their way through the SWAT team than accept the penalty for whatever they were caught doing, and random police/security stops, searches, and arrests rarely make it into usual play. Which is a pity, because if you do it once or twice it encourages the players to be cautious. I once played under a GM that started every campaign with one of the PC's contacts getting dragged off to jail for having a bathtub full of illegal firearms or something just to get their attention. If that didn't work, he resorted to speed traps and random officers coming up to them and asking for the license on the sword tucked into their trenchcoat which is plainly visible on the cop's millimeter-wave.

Or was it an oversight, in the same way as it must be an oversight that betameth is twice as expensive as novacoke?

Judge not ye the drugs of tomorrow by the drugs of today, or else we'd have "Authentic Elven Energy Drinks" made from carbonated laudanum.

[Rasumichin]

Brown people make it. More seriously, its because deepweed is one of the longest-known Awakened drugs, and the majority of corporations and national governments have issued restrictions to control is - combine a couple of really nasty potential uses for deepweed, and you can see how it would be as "forbidden" in most of the world.

But couldn't the same be said about kamikaze or leäl?
I see what you mean, but it doesn't quite fit to the ratings for the other drugs to me.

Shadowrun used to go into a bit more detail - usually by giving local price modifiers, but sometimes delving into big tables of legal offenses - but in my experience they were hardly ever used.

Same here.
I'm admittedly paying too much attention to minutiae here, it was just that i took a look at the table and was like "wait a moment, that doesn't make sense, let's go and bug a dev about it".

Judge not ye the drugs of tomorrow by the drugs of today, or else we'd have "Authentic Elven Energy Drinks" made from carbonated laudanum.

So, you're implying that the target markets for coke and meth have been swapped out?
That the obvious cocaine equivalent is now a street-level, bottom-rung drug, while the obvious meth equivalent has become the upper-class, corp brat to middle management nose snack?
Well, okay, that would be an explanation.

[Ancient History]

But couldn't the same be said about kamikaze or leäl?
I see what you mean, but it doesn't quite fit to the ratings for the other drugs to me.

Leäl and kamikaze are too new; hasn't been around long enough. If I wanted to give you a modern example, I'd probably pick silvia in the United States or khat in the United Kingdom (yes, yes, those drugs are much less powerful, I don't care it's just an example).

So, you're implying that the target markets for coke and meth have been swapped out?

Its not always about target markets as much as supply and ease of manufacture and distribution. You can grow cocaine; methamphetimines and pseudomethamphetmaines are generally derived from various over-the-counter or prescription medicines. Eradicating the coca plant is virtually impossible; controlling the distribution of precursor drug materials is comparatively easier, which can make meth more expensive.

Its not that we had any ulterior motives while writing the drugs. Perish the thought.

[ Spoiler ]

Wait for Ghost Cartels.

[Rasumichin]

Leäl and kamikaze are too new; hasn't been around long enough. If I wanted to give you a modern example, I'd probably pick silvia in the United States or khat in the United Kingdom (yes, yes, those drugs are much less powerful, I don't care it's just an example).

Yes, that would be understandable.
It was not until two weeks ago that crystal was outlawed in Germany, the discussion about Tilidin as a cheap combat drug among street gangs is only beginning to cook up ATM and no one has really noticed salvia and khat here yet either, so i definitely see your point.
Things like that happen all the time, it's usual that prohibition happens after widespread distribution, well-known cases of ODs and the like.


There are issues i have with that explanation, though.

K-10 is about the newest combat drug on the market and is illegal.
Its predecessor kamikaze is on the streets since Shadowtech and only restricted.
This would imply that the laxer laws on kamikaze are on purpose (which would be imaginable, as kamikaze is not nearly as dangerous as K-10).

Sorry for being terribly anal here, but it does raise more and more questions.

I had interpreted R as "you'll need a license for that", meaning that you, to give a drug-related example, fake a recipy or ask a croaker to sign one for you.
Therefore, R would have meant that the legislative has already payed attention to the substance.
I had not considered the possibility that R also covers the grey market.
However, that would still suggest that most narcotics laws are out of place, unless the market outside of legal drugs and substances with medical use or combat drugs for security is completely dominated by substances that are too new to be known to the law.

Oh, i guess i'll just heed the advice in the spoiler tag.

[Ancient History]

As a rule of thumb, a restricted rating means your average man-on-the-street isn't going to get it - but your PI can still get licensed for a drug, your bonafide security agent can get their popper of kamikaze, etc. Forbidden stuff is generally relegated to what even the average police/security/etc. agencies don't have access to - military hardware and combat proggies, foci bigger than your head, tanks, etc. The kind of thing you see in black-bag units, corporate armies, and the like.

[Rasumichin]

As a rule of thumb, a restricted rating means your average man-on-the-street isn't going to get it - but your PI can still get licensed for a drug, your bonafide security agent can get their popper of kamikaze, etc. Forbidden stuff is generally relegated to what even the average police/security/etc. agencies don't have access to - military hardware and combat proggies, foci bigger than your head, tanks, etc. The kind of thing you see in black-bag units, corporate armies, and the like.

Well, that's what i had assumed originally.