I do not quite understand the drug rules. For example:

1) Alcohol: addiction rating 3, addiction treshold 2

2) Normal human: body 3, willpower 3. logic 3



Do I understand that correctly? If I drink two beers in 2 month, I have to make an addiction test, where I have good chances to fail it as a normal human, even with treshold 1 or 0? A mage with some foci is more or less automatically addicted? Or do I understand something completely wrong?

And: where are the drug/toxin prices in the basic book? They do not seem to be in the streetgear nor in the drug/chemical chapter?

SYL

I also found that confusing on first read. What it means is that if you have a beer every week for 8 weeks, you have to roll for addiction, and an average human has a moderate chance of becoming addicted. If you have a beer every week for 6 weeks and then take two weeks off, the threshold drops from 2 to 0 and you're in the clear.

Drug prices and availability are in the table on p. 411. I don't see any prices and availability for toxins...

No, the addiction rules don't make a lot of sense. At least they dropped the "gateway drug" stuff when they ported this over from Sim Dreams.

Page 409 in my copy of the PDF, for toxins.

You just have to use some common sense when dealing with alcohol. I wouldn't roll at all for a few beers. Nor would I for a shot or two of hard liquor. Just kind of use your own life experiences and people you know as a guide. People do get addicted, but not everyone. For the record, I drink a couple beers pretty much every night, but I'm not an addict. Maybe I need help though, heheh. As Dr. Drew says, addiction is defined by consequences. When things happen like it causing you to lose your job or source of income, then it's a problem.

Ah, the drug and toxin prices are not in streetgear (for whatever reason), but directly in the beginning of the drug/toxin chaper. I seem to be tired ^^.

Using these rules on the world it would mean that half of the world would be highly addicted to alcohol and cigarettes and the other half would be in prison/rehab for major drug abuse and burnout - especially if I use the people around me as an example.

SYL

Well, technically, a quarter of the population *is* in prison... in the US alone. It's not that far a stretch to imagine half the world being imprisoned somewhere.

Ah ... no. Please check the numbers again. The US have around 320mio inhabitants. You don´t have 80mio people in prison. The number you are looking for is 2,9%

SYL

Hah. I was looking for them by searching for "Narcoject" and it's spelled "Narcojet" in the table. I guess this is the type of problem you're less likely to have with a physical book .

Don't worry, it's not just you. It seems like it would make sense that all things that can be purchased would be in the streetgear section, but for some reason...

*Cough*

Song lyrics were your cited reference?

I submitted the Simsense and focus entries as actual errata, but some additional explanation is probably warranted as to why I'm personally a bit "meh" on these rules (and lets not kid ourselves, most games have absolutely terrible addiction rules even when they are not outright Murphy's Rules).

BABY, DON'T LET YOUR KIDS GROW UP TO BE SOYKAF ADDICTS
I'm being a bit facetious here.

You make Addiction Tests using:
Physical: Body + Willpower ("working out to beat my crack addiction!")
Psychological: Logic + Willpower ("addiction isn't logical!")
Both: Make one of each every time (aka "you are screwed")

You have to equal/beat the Threshold of the substance. If you fail you get the Addiction quality automatically and every additional time you fail you go up one step. If you're at Burnout and fail you permanently lose 1 Body of Willpower (pick highest). So right off the bat we have an extremely harsh penalty for addiction of any type. Note that, if you are unlucky, you can go from virgin drug user to losing an attribute point in less than four months of even occasional use.

Here's where the problem come in. As stated you must make an Addiction Test if you use a drug for (11 - Addiction Rating) weeks in a row. Ok not entirely sure what that is trying to communicate, but I think it means if you use even a single time in that week the clock keeps running. There's some text about getting hooked in a single dose but that looks impossible in these rules (will submit that as an errata).

Ok let's consider Joe Average Salaryman with straight 3 stats across the board. Well this chummer better not start drinking or he's going to start having problems. He rolls 6 dice against either type of addiction. Let's look at Soykaf, Alcohol, and Novacoke.

Soykaf. Addiction Rating 2, Threshold 2. This means that if you partake in a cup of morning joe "during [10] weeks in a row" (again, not sure what this is saying). You are in trouble. If you're like my grandpa you drink at LEAST one cup a day every day. So you need to make an Addiction Test after 10 weeks (I think). Ok fair enough, I do love me the savory creamy blend of soylattes. Rolling 6 dice you average 2 hits. This is actually a problem, since 35% of the time you will become Addicted to soykaf. Now, this is the mildest stuff Shadowrun can throw at you, and 0.5% of soycaf drinkers will lose a stat point after one year (12.5 months) of use. 1.5% will reach Burnout stage from drinking Soykaf once per week.

Did we mention the withdrawal rules if you want to kick this sinister and life-threatening (literally) addiction? I'm not sure what Soycaf does in SR terms, but you also need to be very wary of the Overdosing rules. Yes. You can overdose by drinking soycaf and taking any other drug that has overlapping effects (I assume soycaf does +1 Reaction or something, so watch out for complications with pretty much every single Shadowrun drug).

Alcohol. I rarely drink I wouldn't even partake in a beer if reality was as harsh a mistress as Shadowrun, Fifth Edition. Alcohol is Addiction Rating 3, Threshold 2. Sweet chummer, right off the bad you have the exact same addiction stats as soykaf (which is weird, right?) but the timeline from going from teetotaler to -1 stat is a lot shorter. With alcohol you make an Addiction Test if you partake "during [8] weeks in a row." The same 0.5% of alcohol drinkers will lose a stat point after 10 months of use. Depending on how you read these rules, even 1 drink a week (like say, wine for the health benefits) will do you in eventually.

Novacoke. Still the exact same addiction stats as soykaf. Ok whatever soykaf is serious business I get it. But again the timeline to Burnout is a lot shorter, "during [4] weeks in a row." The 1 point threshold change means that it's an order of magnitude more likely that you will fail five consecutive Addiction Tests: 5% of novacoke users will lose a stat point after 5 months of use.

For those wondering the Addiction Rating is a bit of a red herring. It's the Threshold that effectively determines the 'addictiveness' of the drug. At Threshold 3 Average Joe will fail his Addiction Test 64% of the time! In other words Threshold 3 is twice as addictive as Threshold 2. Always.

Edit: Fixed some math because I messed up my Excel sheet

Note that drinking two doses (I assume a cup is a dose) of soykaf back-to-back will trigger the Overdosing (p. 415) rules. Drinking two cups causes 2S damage, so you have a 9% chance of taking 2 Stun damage from drinking too much coffee, and another 26% chance of taking 1 point of damage. This is why Starbucks does not exist in the Shadowrun universe.

Starbucks has gone down, Malboro has the same status as the Vory and Heineken employees are hunted down by the CIA as enemy fighters ...

I image the rehab session somewhere in Guantanamo Bay

- And what did you do?
- I used to build bomb for Humanis.
- Heavy stuff. I mixex BADs for the Vory
- I was a professional freedom fighter against the imperialistic interests of the UCAS in Bottrop-Kirchhallen!
- I WAS A STARBUCKS BARISTA, WHAT AM I DOING HERE?!

These rules seem to be the new SR4 ghoul infection rules aka breaking the world ...

SYL

Wow, Novacoke got nerfed big time...

Actually upon hearing Barista boy the others demand that the guards get them away from the SoyKaf Pusher citing it violated their Metahuman Rights to be exposed to him.

Starkaff and Soybucks do, however, exist.

And if you've ever seen someone with "Coffee Nerves", you'll see how the stun damage can happen. Myself, too much tea/coffee makes me vomit now, after I abused it for many, many years.

is "many, many years" <12 months?

Well I'm a veteran coffee junkie, 22 years now. The only time I have ever experienced the coffee nerves thing is when I am foolish enough to drink the extra strength junk at AM PM. I think your vomiting issue is just a personal thing Canray, or some Canadian thing. There is a reason it's the fuel of wageslaves everywhere. Regular coffee just isn't strong enough to cause the nerves thing, at least in my own personal experience. Maybe soycaf is amped up though, kind of like lots of nutrisoy foods have ultra flavors and sugars.

I was up to, literally, three pots a day minimum, of very strong coffee. That doesn't include Colas or Tea (which I also take strong) which I would also drink in the day.

The Addiction rules are, as usual, up to the discretion of the GM.

I think the key is a good definition of "using a drug." In the chase of alcohol I won't say a single beer once a week for 8 weeks requires an addiction check. But drinking till you pass out once a week for 8 weeks straight, yeah that will need an addiction test.

For the record, caffeine is extremely addictive and draws a heavy price.

Drink a cup of coffee a day, or an enegry drink, or a can of cola/fountain drink at lunch?

Try going without it for 7 days.

The headaches are vicious and your attitude will be *foul*.

It's just so *casual* that most people never think of it.

Speaking as someone who's gone through both nicotine withdrawal and caffeine withdrawal... yeah. Try going through both at once; you could be the nicest man in the world, 48 hours into the withdrawal you'll be cutting the throats of babies, their mothers, and their own unborn children just for a fix. Day five, you're slaughtering villages for blood rites to conjure up Satan for just one hit.

Never had a cigarette, alchohol, or narcotic in my life, but my cola addiction? Woo buddy. Tried to kick that one once.

ONCE.

Never again. Caffeine is my lord and master and I shall not stray again.

Brr.

Kind of like Bamboo is for Pandas.

Their system actually gets very little nutrition from it, so little they have to constantly ingest large amounts year round.

Their system clearly shows they possess a carnivorous digestive system and do not handle the bamboo well.

The professionals dance around the issue, citing how they have grown to like the grassy eats, but the fact is Pandas are addicted to the 'Boo.

That is one nasty addiction right there.

So what you're saying is we should dispense with koalas as the basis for drop bears and use panda instead? I'm okay with this; they've got the natural coloration to be the world's deadliest NINJA DROP BEARS.

I drink a lot of soda (not sure if I'm 'addicted' in the Shadowrun sense). I have a hard time believing that, if I was, that I would be reduced to physically wasting away in the same manner you would from crack or meth addiction.

Technically, the 'wasting away' part comes from their addiction making them not want to do anything but get high, and mistreating their bodies (both with the drug usage and what they do when not taking drugs). If you had a legitimate, 'oh my god I need my fix' addiction to caffeine, you might start wasting away as you neglect yourself in the pursuit of that addiction. Though some people can handle drug abuse better than others and function, so not -everything- is faithfully mirrored in the rules.

That said, if you wanna see wasting away, look up some before and afters of people with ketamine addictions, spending 8-10 hours in a k-hole. They take 'sedentary lifestyle' to a whole new level.

The vast majority of people hooked on this insidious drug just get minor headaches and increased fatigue from full withdrawal. I'd argue that many are actually more functional on it than they'd be off it, even if they weren't in withdrawal. Unless workers getting much more work than they'd normally get done in the mornings is somehow not functional.

And there is no 'oh my god I need my fix' addiction involved. It's easy to withdraw, you just are uncomfortable for a couple days.

No I don't have a problem. and the only higher power I need is the Giraffe totem...

Also remember that the addiction is "Soykaff", not "Caffeine".

Who knows what the Corps have put into Soykaff, neh?

Maybe its laced with novacoke, they have exactly the same addictiveness.

BTW, can you clear up exactly how the Addiction Rating is supposed to work? Namely: "Every time you use an addictive substance during (11 -Addiction Rating) weeks in a row, you need to make an Addiction Test."

Strictly RAW that means unless I use novacoke every single day for 28 days I don't even make an Addiction Test. This number is also completely disconnected from the span of time you can go between hits as determined by the Addiction quality.