Dungeons and Druggies

You guys wanna get fucked up?

Having my campaign area's capital as an exaggerated fantastical other-London means that London's furtive yet pervasive drug culture gets blown up into a whole RANGE of fantasy drugs!

Good times for all! Unless you get addicted and it ruins your life of course, but that's by the by.

Mind-Altering Substances table here.

The silly names for real drugs were initially placeholders, but I kept them because I think they're a little bit endearing and give some plausible deniability if the drug doesn't work quite how the player was imagining.
"Oh no, our characters aren't taking ecstasy! This is a fantasy drug called Unmandy!"
Do feel free to change the names in your own game.

Mind-Altering Substances: Gygaxian Democracy Edition table here.
If you make up more drugs for your game, definitely add them in.

The basic mechanics are meant to be simple enough to bolt onto any game. 

Drugwise, the upsides are meant to be useful enough to make getting high on a dungeon crawl a tempting proposition, and the downsides bad enough to make drug addiction a big deal for your characters.
You may notice some Fallout influence, and that some Narcosan drugs feature on the Rare Drugs part of the table. I'll be adding more over time, I'm sure!

Here's how it works.

Summary

1. Take a drug and get its Upsides and Downsides for the Duration.
2. If you're already on something and you take something else, also roll for Drug Miscibility
3. At the end of a day in which you took drugs, check for Tolerance
4. If you have a Tolerance to a drug and haven't taken it in the last 7 days, check for Withdrawal

Basics

Take a dose of a drug, and you're saddled with Upsides and Downsides for the drug's Duration.

Extra doses stack.

Sick. Smash a couple doses of Alterket and you're taking -2 damage per die from all sources and won't pass out from Pain, but you've got -2 AC, move 2 encumbrance levels slower, and the DM keeps track of your HP in secret.
Good for when you're about to run into a room of unfriendly looking cultists with 1d4 damage daggers. Bad for running away from the demon they just summoned.

Mixing Drugs

Mixing your drugs is a gamble at the best of times.

Any time you're on something and take something else, roll 1d6 on the Miscibility table for each category of drug currently in your system.
So if you're on a depressant and then take another depressant, roll once on the Depressant table.
If you're on a depressant and then take a stimulant, roll once on the Depressant table AND once on the Stimulant table.

For the DM - decide now whether you can be bothered to track what mixes with what. I probably won't bother (you never can be sure about the purity), but it might be cool to do it on a per-combination or even per-character basis.
Everyone knows that Notcoke goes great with a couple of pints of lager... right? Or so you think until your mate passes out on his bar stall and cracks his head on the way down.

Tolerance / Addiction

The main downside to drugs is, famously, addiction.
The true tragedy of drugs to the end user is, in fact, tolerance.

This mechanic is meant to model both at once.

Well I mean, the real tragedy is dying of an overdose, but I figure if you're a heroic player character who can eat a few sword thrusts to the face you're heroic enough to snort a line as long as your arm.

Take drugs and there's a chance you'll build up points of Tolerance.

At the end of each day, Save vs Poison per drug you took that day with the following modifiers:

• +/- Tolerance modifier (see table)
• +/- Wis modifier
• +1 for each Tolerance point you already have with the drug.
• -1 for each dose of the drug taken that day

Success, and you're fine. No change.
Failure, and you gain a Tolerance point with the drug.

Each point of Tolerance builds up Tolerance Effects.
Generally the Tolerance Effect is the opposite of what the drug does, or a downside that the drug will make irrelevant.
So not only do you have to take more of the stuff to get the same effect, you've also got to take a bit of it to take the edge off and act sorta-normally.

Damn. Your Alterket habit is catching up with you and you've gained an Alterket Tolerance point. You take +1 damage per die from all sources and take double penalties from Pain.
Good thing taking a dose of Alterket will equalise the first effect and nullify the other...

Kicking the Habit

So you're addicted to something and don't want to be addicted any more.
Or even worse, your stash ran out a couple of days ago and you're still stuck in this stupid dungeon!
What to do?
Whatever happens, it's going to suck.

The easiest thing to do is shift your addiction onto some other substance, hopefully something that it's easier for you to obtain and/or control.
The hardest thing to do is go cold turkey.

If you have Tolerance points in a drug, you've got to take it at least once a week or risk going into withdrawals.
If you haven't taken it in the last 7 days, Save vs Poison with the following modifiers:

• +/- Wis modifier
• -1 for each point of Tolerance you have with the drug
• +1 for each point of Tolerance you have towards other drugs

Success, and you can remove a Tolerance point for the drug.
Failure, and you double the Tolerance Effects until you take the drug again.
If you get this result again, triple the Tolerance Effects until you take the drug again, and so on.

A bad Example to children

Jack is the party Fighter. He knows the next room is dangerous - full of ratmen at least. Ratmen like to set ambushes and to grapple you and bite you.

Luckily Jack's brought some Notcoke with him! Keeps you alert for ambushes and bumps up your melee skills. He carefully unpicks the little paper wrap, pretends to sneeze, and takes a couple of bumps off of the end of his dagger while he "blows his nose".
BOOM. It kicks in! He's PUMPED! +2 to Search and +2 to melee!

2 doses of Notcoke - Upside is +1 to Search and +1 to melee per dose.

The only downside is he's got to Save or do something risky and impulsive - he saves successfully, but they were planning to charge into the room anyway!
He boots down the door, sees the Ratmen dropping from their ambush position on the ceiling, and charges into GLORIOUS BATTLE!

2 doses of Notcoke - Downside is Save vs Paralyze or do something risky and impulsive with a -1 penalty to the save per dose.

That evening, Jack's regaling the people at the local tavern with his exploits. His teammates look at him with wide-eyed awe. "I can't believe you saw the ratman that jumped out behind me!" says the Wizard. "You were amazing, Jack!" says the Elf he's got a crush on.
He gets to bed and peels off his ratblood-soaked armour.
He has to check for Tolerance. He's got average Wisdom and Notcoke has a +0 Tolerance modifier, so he's just rolling a Save vs Poison at -2.

Shit, he failed.

Jack gains 1 Notcoke Tolerance point.

Check for Tolerance:
+0 for Notcoke's Tolerance modifier. +0 for average Wis. +0 for having no Tolerance to it. -2 for doses taken today.

The next day he wakes up feeling groggy. Weird. -1 to Search. -1 to melee. 

Entering the dungeon the next day, he feels like he's not up to his usual dungeonbashing standards. 

On the sly, he does a fat line of Notcoke to keep his head in the game. 4 doses means he's up to +3 Search and +3 melee! -4 to his Save vs recklessness of course, so he's charging in more often than before, but why hold back when you're this good?

Over the next few weeks he'll begin relying on it more and more to get him through the adventuring day, and need to take more and more of it to get to his normal baseline.

1 Notcoke Tolerance point. Effect: -1 to Search and -1 to melee per Tolerance point.
4 doses of Notcoke - Upside is +1 to Search and +1 to melee per dose.

4 doses of Notcoke - Downside is Save vs Paralyze or do something risky and impulsive with a -1 penalty to the save per dose.

- A few weeks later -

Jack's been smashing Notcoke every time he goes into a dungeon. He's not even bothering to hide it any more.
He's got 5 Notcoke Tolerance points at this point, meaning he starts the day at -5 to Search and -5 to Melee.
The rest of his party is worried about him, but the few times he's taken their suggestion of delving without taking it he's been a fucking liability.

5 Notcoke Tolerance points. Effect: -1 to Search and -1 to melee per Tolerance point.

Finally he's caught stealing drug money from the party coffers and enough's enough.
"No delving until you get clean" says the hot Elf. He'll do it for her.

After a week of feeling fucking terrible, it's time to check for Withdrawal.

He's got 5 Notcoke Tolerance, average Wisdom, and no other addictions. That's -5 to his save.
He rolls a Save vs Poison at -5. Against the odds, it's a success! He feels marginally less shit!
The next day he's got 4 Notcoke Tolerance! That's -4 to Search and -4 to melee.
If all goes well, he'll have kicked this in a month.

Check for Withdrawal: +0 for average Wisdom. -5 for 5 Notcoke Tolerance points. +0 for other addictions.
4 Notcoke Tolerance points. Effect: -1 to Search and -1 to melee per Tolerance point.

Another horrible week goes by. It's time to check for Withdrawal again.
Same again with a -4. This is getting easier!
Or so it seems.
He rolls a Save vs Poison at -4 and... fails. God fucking damn it, he needs some Notcoke.
All Tolerance effects are doubled - now he's at -8 to Search and -8 to melee.

Check for Withdrawal: +0 for average Wisdom. -4 for 4 Notcoke Tolerance points. +0 for other addictions.

Withdrawal - double Tolerance effects until you take the drug again.

4 Notcoke Tolerance points. Effect + Withdrawal: -2 to Search and -2 to melee per Tolerance point.

He's never felt this bad! 

And he knows, he knows, that if he just took one little bump it'd be enough to set him back up to -4 for everything. He'll still bad, but not this bad. Just one little bump to get him level, then he'll be back on the wagon.

Fuck it. While the rest of the party is out, he rifles through their stuff to find where they hid the last of his stash... and finds it.

Just a little bit left, but it's enough. A single dose, and he's no longer affected by Withdrawal! Phew! Even though he knows this could give him another Tolerance point and set him back a week, it was worth it.
Unfortunately he's still got a negative Search skill so he doesn't even notice when the Elf comes in early and sees the party's stuff scattered all over the floor as he snorts a little line.
She gasps, tears in her eyes, and he starts at the sound!
He fails his save against doing something impulsive! He approaches to kiss her! And she easily wrestles his -3 melee penalty arse out of the room and tells him never to come back.

1 dose of Notcoke - Upside is +1 to Search and +1 to melee per dose.
1 dose of Notcoke - Downside is Save vs Paralyze or do something risky and impulsive with a -1 penalty to the save per dose.
Withdrawal reset
4 Notcoke Tolerance points. Effect: -1 to Search and -1 to melee per Tolerance point.

Now Jack's on the street, no job and no money and a ruthless Notcoke addiction.
At the end of the day he'll be checking to see if that single dose gave him another Tolerance point, but until then he's got to find some way to scrounge money and survive.
Add him to the encounter table boys, he's an NPC now.
Requiem for a Dungeoncrawler.

Tips for Cooking Up Drugs

So you're a DM and want to add more drugs to the the game.

Here are some tips!

• In general, modifiers for upsides, downsides and tolerance are +/-1. This is so people can take several doses in order to improve the effects, and so that tolerance effects build up fairly slowly.
• If it's something that you don't think is that dangerous (like Otherpot), feel free to make the upside negate any amount of Tolerance Effect. In the case of Otherpot it only takes one dose to negate all the Tolerance Effect you've accrued.
• If you want the addiction to be harder hitting (like Notcoke), make the Tolerance the exact opposite of the Upside without negating any of the Downside.
• If you want to make an addict act a bit weird all the time even when they're on it (like Unmandy), have a Tolerance Effect that can't be negated by taking the drug. With Unmandy, you're on a -1 to reaction rolls per Tolerance point but you can still read intentions from facial expressions. You're still useful in the party's negotiations unless you're speaking directly to people.
• Don't go overboard with the Tolerance modifier. Maximum of +4 for extremely addictive and -4 for non-addictive.
  Psychological addiction is like 80% of addiction, man. Hell, I once met someone who was addicted to nangs of all things.