Disease in roleplaying

[Andrew Hackard]

This falls under "know your group," I suspect. Some people would be fine with "ripped from the headlines" gaming; others would find it way too real.

It also depends on the game. I suspect that Call of Cthulhu, FATE, and Fiasco would have very different applications of the same general idea.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by WaterAndWindSpirit

A simple punji pit with dung covered stakes, or a rusted iron booby trap sends a clear message that the player's enemies play for keeps.

I just remembered someone telling me about how rust and oxygen work then using that knowledge to fill a treasure room with rusted object. If you fell in from the top through hidden pits, you'd never have enough time to get out. If you spiraled around and got to the 'correct' entrance, you might not even realize how little oxygen you were breathing.

He kept track of everyone who died there and would populate the place with their bodies and treasures. Finally one group came in with a druid who could create oxygen for everyone casually and they got to find out all the lore about the place and collect treasures from over ten campaigns.

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

This falls under "know your group," I suspect. Some people would be fine with "ripped from the headlines" gaming; others would find it way too real.

I'm definitely of the latter. This is especially sound advice.

[RyanW]

I've used disease a few times as the impetus for the story. The PCs have to discover a cure, find and retrieve a healer, lift an illness causing curse, etc. Either to save the village/kingdom/space station or a critical individual.

Can't say I've ever struck a PC with anything, though they have certainly treated threats differently when there is a risk of infection.

[The Colonel]

I recall original AD&D had a pretty comprehensive table of diseases in the DMG, but these days, diseases are usually more of a special attack than a standard part of the campaign.
I suspect the main reason being that, unless you're playing a few specific genres (mostly survival type games or very low grimdark) it's considered "un-fun" for your character to die of dysentery rather than stab wounds. Largely the same reason that wound infection is very rarely a thing except when attacked by a few very specific creatures and that diseases are generally then zapped away with Vancian healing magic.
The combination of genre-filtering and relatively cheap cures tends to relegate diseases in most cases to "lame ass debuffs".

If, however, you are playing a "green hell" type of campaign you have licence to pour the plagues on … I'd also be tempted to use them when murderhobos try to cheap out on their living expenses to spend more of their money on stuff to kill things with.

[ericthered]

Yeah, diseases are often quite boring. They work better when they can be supernaturally/cinematically cured, or when they shape the plot requirements rather than being a random danger.



I wrote up (but never ran) a monster hunters game focusing on the "science" side of things: experiements, psis, and biowarfare. In that game, diseases would be targeted attacks, and the PC's were not so much in danger as civilians were in danger. And after you cured the disease, you wanted to hunt down whoever did it so it wouldn't happen again.


I've got another game written up where the Infinity Patrol and Centrum have to work together to stop the Beijing Zonemind from figuring out parachronics. Centrum doesn't have the pool of chineese speakers to pull off the operation, and Infinity doesn't have the biowar experience to operate in the area. In that game disease is present, but it drives plot requirements and politics rather than being a real threat.



Dying to disease sucks, and its boring as well. To make it gamable you need cures and knock-on effects.

[sgtcallistan]

In our fantasy campaign, disease appears rare: one case of man dying of 'it's stolen my breath' which was believed to be a malicious curse put on a good man by an evil mage; and another where a magician seemed to have animated slaves of people who died of their food being contaminated with a particular rare flower.

All health issues not wounds or broken bones are popularly dealt with by isolation, or special healing islands where professional / magical healers work.

In the case of mental distress, there are shrines and groves with houses where people may live and be given food, etc. by relatives or healers.

This campaign seems to be happening on a (perhaps far-future) world where areas have taken on versions of Earth cultures through some kind of programming added to / imprinting on reincarnated souls.

Meta-guesswork, that my poor smart huntsman chara is slowly beginning to realise may be true in-game.

While he can reason that the world is round 'like an apple', looking into something like disease / curses will get you feared and shunned as being 'too close to evil magics'.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I just remembered someone telling me about how rust and oxygen work then using that knowledge to fill a treasure room with rusted object. If you fell in from the top through hidden pits, you'd never have enough time to get out. If you spiraled around and got to the 'correct' entrance, you might not even realize how little oxygen you were breathing.

Okay, I have no idea what the idea there was. Sure, rust formation absorbs oxygen, but there's nothing special about rusted objects per se and without a fire iron doesn't absorb oxygen at all quickly (way easier way to have a low oxygen area: pick any sealed area. Start a fire, let it burn itself out. Congratulations, it's now filled with a mix of CO2 and CO).

Likewise, the relevance of rusted metal is just that it's a sign of not keeping things clean, any dirty injury has a pretty decent chance of infection (rusty nails are a reasonably common threat in the type of soil that is likely to contain tetanus).

[thrash]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

What are your thoughts about disease in roleplaying? Have you had to deal with it or use it? Have you merely swept it aside like I have, or even intentionally state it doesn't exist? What kinds of effects might this have on a setting if disease wasn't a concern (especially before the idea of disease)?

Traveller uses diseases quite a bit, actually, going back to the earliest days. Off the top of my head, I can think of one full adventure and two Amber Zones in classic Traveller where diseases and bioweapons were major plot points. Plagues in the Vilani Imperium from contact with Terrans were a factor in the history of the Interstellar Wars.

I once ran a scenario where I did my level best to convince my players there was a psychic murderer onboard their space station -- when, in fact, the deaths stemmed from a weaponized strain of hemorrhagic fever.

Originally Posted by johndallman

For my Infinite Cabal campaign, which takes a fairly gritty approach, I did have to consider the question of why world-travellers don't spread diseases from world to world. The PCs haven't found out yet: even Infinity doesn't know exactly why it doesn't happen.

In my cross-time campaign setting, the only publicly known form of world jumping requires spacecraft. The almost total lack of virgin field epidemics following first contact with new timelines is the biggest "dog that didn't bark" in the setting. This sits as a clue, if anyone thinks to ask, that there are psychic world jumpers and maybe other technologies.

I also invoked an outworld plague to isolate homeline Earth from the rest of the setting. Goods get through, but for most purposes it's not worth sitting in quarantine just to travel back and forth.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Yeah, diseases are often quite boring.

Originally Posted by sgtcallistan

died of their food being contaminated with a particular rare flower.

The second reminds me that poison isn't as boring. Poison is deliberate, either as a creature's attack, assassination, one time weapon buffs, etc. That combined with how much more commonly I see 'generic antidotes' in settings lets it work better for me.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Okay, I have no idea what the idea there was. Sure, rust formation absorbs oxygen, but there's nothing special about rusted objects per se and without a fire iron doesn't absorb oxygen at all quickly (way easier way to have a low oxygen area: pick any sealed area. Start a fire, let it burn itself out. Congratulations, it's now filled with a mix of CO2 and CO).

Likewise, the relevance of rusted metal is just that it's a sign of not keeping things clean, any dirty injury has a pretty decent chance of infection (rusty nails are a reasonably common threat in the type of soil that is likely to contain tetanus).

Looking back, it was over a decade ago and I've forgotten. If there's nothing special going on, then that GM is even worse for wanting to screw over his players ;)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Looking back, it was over a decade ago and I've forgotten. If there's nothing special going on, then that GM is even worse for wanting to screw over his players ;)

Caves with dead air are a perfectly realistic threat, but one that delvers should be decently aware of. Also, humans can handle oxygen levels that will extinguish flames, so their torches going out will be a clue that it's time to leave.