Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > Roleplaying in General

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 03-27-2019, 04:35 PM   #1
Maximum7
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Default What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

In my Star Wars RPG profile, my scientist creates a synthetic drug or “spice”. What could this drug do to make it the “ultimate recreational drug” and what could I call it.
Maximum7 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-27-2019, 05:01 PM   #2
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

I suppose that depends on what kind of recreational effect you want.

Do you want a drug that enhances pleasant sensations and makes recreational activities more enjoyable or one where no activities are necessary, as the user experiences perfect euphoria independent of external stimuli?

Basically, do you want ultratech Ecstacy or ultratech heroin?

I suppose there is a third possibility, in hallucinogens / vision trance drugs, but in most respects, the difference is only in the inner experience of the user. From a practical point of view, the user is equally incapacitated whether he is experiencing intense whole-body euphoria, a freaky spirit quest or Nirvana.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-27-2019, 05:11 PM   #3
Maximum7
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Default Re: What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Icelander View Post
I suppose that depends on what kind of recreational effect you want.

Do you want a drug that enhances pleasant sensations and makes recreational activities more enjoyable or one where no activities are necessary, as the user experiences perfect euphoria independent of external stimuli?

Basically, do you want ultratech Ecstacy or ultratech heroin?

I suppose there is a third possibility, in hallucinogens / vision trance drugs, but in most respects, the difference is only in the inner experience of the user. From a practical point of view, the user is equally incapacitated whether he is experiencing intense whole-body euphoria, a freaky spirit quest or Nirvana.
The second one.
Maximum7 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-27-2019, 06:08 PM   #4
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maximum7 View Post
The second one.
And what exactly are you looking for?

The game effects?

The actual physiological method it works by?

Subjective experience of the user?

With better pharmacological and neurochemical knowledge than we have, meddling with brain chemistry such as dopamine or seratonin levels is probably trivial. It may be possible to directly stimulate areas of the nervous system to induce feelings of wellness, security, trust, joy or sexual orgasm, each lasting for hours.

Aside from the social and legal stigmatization of recreational chemistry, I suspect modern medical technology is fully capable of perfecting drugs that keep people blissfully satisfied without much in the way of side effects. I mean, we can directly stimulate the pleasure center of the brain, at least in lab rats, so I figure we wouldn't need a long time to come up with some really effective and mostly side-effect free euphoria drugs if that were suddenly a legal avenue of research for huge drug companies. Sure, it would probably be psychologically addictive, but really, that's just because humans really value feeling pleasure.

If I were running a Star Wars game, I'd assume that any decent pharmacist could whip up synthetic heroin that was without any major side effects and did not lead to chemical dependency. I'd also assume that this wasn't particularly expensive or difficult, but something that exists in the background of the world, like how I assume they have super good reclycling technologies so the Death Star isn't just filling up with sewage.

But it's also not likely to be the focus of adventures, either, not unless there is something more exotic going on. To me, a Star Wars drug that is plot significant probably doesn't do anything scientific, like work in any way the way real drugs work, because Star Wars is a fantasy setting and the science-fiction trappings are just unimportant window dressing.

So, make it a magic drug, if it's supposed to be plot-significant in any way. Exact magical effects depend on what it's meant to do in your plot.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-27-2019, 09:07 PM   #5
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maximum7 View Post
In my Star Wars RPG profile, my scientist creates a synthetic drug or “spice”. What could this drug do to make it the “ultimate recreational drug” and what could I call it.
E.E. 'Doc' Smith posited the ultimate addictive drug in his Lensman stories, a substance the characters call thionite. It stimulates the central nervous system in such a way that the subject experiences a full-sensory hallucination in which every desire that person has, conscious or subconscious, noble or base, anything, is experienced as if real...while the effect lasts.

Thionite was not (IIRC) physically addictive, but psychologically it was so seductive that the vast majority of people experiencing it are hopelessly psychologically addicted on the first dose.
__________________
HMS Overflow-For conversations off topic here.
Johnny1A.2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-28-2019, 09:09 AM   #6
L.J.Steele
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

As I recall, Niven's Gil the Arm stories deal with folks who directly stimulate the brain's pleasure centers. In other stories, the Puppeteers use remove versions -- tasps -- as weapons.
L.J.Steele is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-28-2019, 01:03 PM   #7
Maximum7
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
Default Re: What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

I like the idea for thioline.
Maximum7 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 03-28-2019, 05:22 PM   #8
Anaraxes
 
Join Date: Sep 2007
Default Re: What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Maximum7 View Post
I like the idea for thioline.
Thionite. If you mix your thionite with thiotimoline, you wind up with a party drug that gets people high before they take it. Really cuts into the profit margins for the dealers, so they tend to be pretty ruthless about suppressing that invention.

As long as you're dealing thionite, you might as well throw in bentlam and nitrolabe.

There's a lot of other sources to draw upon, if you like.
Anaraxes is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-01-2019, 07:03 AM   #9
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

Pick some random syllables? Basically no drugs are named for their effects anyway even in street names (you don't think crack or pot or moonshine are actually descriptive do you?), and commercial drugs are named from more or less randomly selected bits of chemical names (incidentally thionite is built on one of those models: thio- means sulfur, -ite is a common suffix for "earths" - not exactly a chemical category anymore but...)
__________________
--
MA Lloyd
malloyd is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 04-01-2019, 07:50 AM   #10
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: What could be a good recreational drug for my story?

There's a drug in Bruce Sterling's novel Schismatrix with a street name of, I think, Green Rapture. It makes everything seem incredibly interesting, even if you're normally tired of it.
johndallman is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
drugs, sci fi, science fiction, science!, star wars

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:25 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.