So, due to my apprent pathological inability to finish any novel not written by Stephen King or Kurt Vonnegut this year, I found myself listening to the audiobook version of George R R Martin’s Wild Cards I, to apparently avoid finishing James Clavell’s Shogun.

Now, it’s actually proper to say that Wild Cards is curated by Mr. Martin. Dozens of authors have written for the series, originally inspired by a Tabletop RPG Martin ran. And it’s kind of obvious – the first book feels like a bunch of important writers got paid to write up their characters’ backstories, rather than an assortment of actually exciting stories.

But the first non-setup story, written by Roger Zelazny (of the Books of Amber fame), dealt with a premise that made me start thinking. The world of Wild Cards already has a feeling that it could be made into an interesting roguelike style game – a super virus which wipes out a large chunk of NYC,’s population, turns others into awful mutants (aka. ‘Jokers’) and a few into super heroes (aka. ‘Aces’). I feel like it already sort of balances deftly between Cataclysm DDA’s real world setting and the tone of Caves of Qud.

The story in in question dealt with a character with a very unique reaction to the virus – he essentially went into short-term hybernation every so often, and when he woke up his body would have completely changed and he’d have completely different powers.

The character turns to looting the now much lower-population city to support himself and his siblings. However, the unpredictability of when the shifts would happen and the fact that he couldn’t control them (even at one point turning into a ‘worthless’ lizard size creature) leads to him taking methamphetamines to try to force his body to prolong the times between hibernations.

In the story, this is actually almost treated as an aside. He does it a couple times, realizes it’s dangerous and making him paranoid, and then just… quits. And anyone who’s known a drug use is aware that’s exactly how that process usually goes.

That Junkie Glide

So, you ask, where am I going with this?

I think that games handle the temptation of drugs poorly. The few games that I can think of that do touch them at all either treat them as: a basically harmless recreational activity, as a way to foist off a drug-trip interface screw with possible hallucinations (Far Cry 3+ is a prime offender there), or as a sort of short-term buff leading to longer term set of minor debuffs (Fallout, for example).

We can, for these purposes, ignore the first two kinds – the first is basically just some peoples’ attempt at versimilitude for those people who can’t imagine roleplaying the life of a straight edger. There’s no mechanics, so no bearing on gameplay. The second is as much Hollywood hoke as it is poking fun at the games’ target demographic, I think. But while I find them both tedious and unpleasant, they’re also not really what I’m talking about.

But the latter style, while it tries in a perfunctory way never seems quite right either. To use Fallout as the example, there’s several drugs. One of them lets you slow time for a few seconds, one lets you carry more for a few mins, etc. And then, after a period of time, when they wear off, you suffer some negative effects, like moving slower for a few minutes, or having significantly less carry strength for a few mins.

Which, on the one hand, is a good attempt at modeling the dynamic of drugs – they give you the high, then you crash and you have negative effects. You can take more to prevent it, but then you risk addiction and the later, more painful withdrawal.

The Good Stuff

Standard drug stuff, right? People who’ve seen it or been through it all recognize it. So what’s the issue? Well, that kind of is the issue. Most rational people who know what drugs do can make a reasonable cost-benefit analysis and say “that’s a bad decision”. And in games, where most player behavior is directed not at a “more interesting” experience or a “less optimized” experience, the cost will rarely outweigh the benefit enough to ever even start down that path.

If you look at many Fallout tips related to drugs, it’s almost always “don’t use them unless there’s really no other way out of the situation, and even then, only once, and then once you’re safe rest up until the debuffs go away.” It’s almost boring in its caution.

Meanwhile, some of those same people, in real life, would happily pop ecstasy, or rittalin, or some other party-type drug. Some might even be regular heroin or coke users. Partly because in real life, their CBA pushes towards “experiences” or “enhancing excitement”, and a video game character getting cranked doesn’t actually alter the player’s state in any real way. But also partly because the trade-offs aren’t always so concretely codified as in a game.

Which brings us back to the Wild Cards story. Perhaps, then, the way to make drugs actually tempting is to put the player in situations like that, where they know that a serious fate awaits them if they don’t take that hit, but they also know the drawbacks won’t be severe… this time. And by the time they realize how dangerous the addiction is – then the question of actually quitting and suffering withdrawal vs sticking it out and dealing with the side effects of the drugs makes an actual difficult choice.

The Takeaway

I’m sure some people will wonder why I want to make a game about tempting people with drugs, and other people will think it’s mean of me to think about a game mechanic that implies doing drugs is anything but harmless fun.

But as someone who, decades ago, was for a short time addicted to painkillers after a badly handled surgery, I think that I’ve seen both sides of what addiction can be. And I think either group of people would be wrong and, frankly, irresponsible.

The thing I learned (and sometimes still am reminded of), and why I get frustrated with how most games handle it buy diflucan online, is that addiction is a trap. When you’re smooth and happy, you don’t see it. It’s only once it’s too late, once its’ gotten its hooks deep, that you finally know what’s going on. And then, getting back out isn’t a fun game. And it’s not something that a character should be able to sleep off in a few days and never worry about again.

I also think that another reason there’s some hesitation around modelling this is the idea that addiction is a weakness and addicts are therefore “lesser” people – the strong can triumph over things like that while the weak fall pray to addiction.  Therefore, there’s no reason to be accurate – junkie is just a selected disadvantage like trigger-happy or weak constitution.   Which is not wholly untrue, but at the same time, once an entire aspect of character development and mechanical richness is dismised, it inherently narrows ones’ views.

I don’t necessarily want these to be teaching, “message” games. We don’t need a D.A.R.E. game. But I think there is a way to make games that both handle drugs honestly and are fun and offer interesting mechanics.