Coffee and GURPS

[cybermancer2k1]

Originally Posted by Harry O'Gane

So practically, coffee might act as a mitigator for Bad Temper here, taken on a daily basis.

Ah, yes...one of my Real Life quirks!

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Darekun

Yeah, that's my real problem with statting it as an Addiction. Sure, it's an addiction, but for most people it'll go away with a week of inaction.

Then instead of 14 HT rolls to withdraw, you make rolls to avoid Pain. If you make the roll exactly, you have Moderate Pain; if you roll a normal failure, you have Severe Pain; on a critical failure, you have Terrible Pain. You add the number of days since your last Cherry Coke Zero (or lesser poison). Once you've made three straight rolls -- this includes getting Moderate Pain for making the roll exactly -- you withdraw.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

That is so QI - awesome. I'd read little bits about a cup-a-day kinda thing helping brain function but Asthma! Wow! That explains why I'm practically double dosing the inhalers this year - That's it, after dinner coffee is back on the menu. Thank you, Bruno!

My doctor told me about it. It's #1 on her list of "emergency make-do-medicine-while-you-try-to-get-the-real-thing" for asthmatics who loose/run out of/damage their intervention inhaler. It's not a long term substitute for real medication, so nobody out there stop carrying your puffer just because you like your Starbucks! But I've used two double-shots of espresso to hold me together on the way to a pharmacy for an emergency replacement after my inhaler got squashed in a workplace accident (the whole accident shook me up and of course immediately triggered an asthma attack :P)

Didn't help my NERVES any, but between the adrenaline and the caffeine and the quick trip to the pharmacy I didn't have to go to the ER, which is always nice. Spent the rest of the day with the shakes though, from the triple-threat of Espresso + Salbutamol + surprise.


If we had some sort rules for asthma, I'd call a good strong dose of coffee worth a +1 or so on relevant HT rolls (possibly even borrowing the rules for TL 5 medicine and toxicity - there's a very good reason why asthmatics don't just take caffeine pills).

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Xplo

As always, stat the effect.

How does caffeine withdrawal affect your character? If he's just a bit grumpy until he has his morning coffee, and takes care to make sure he can get it, that's a quirk. If he suffers Mild to Severe Pain from headaches, Bad Temper, and -2 IQ from grogginess until he has his coffee, that's a fairly severe disad (with a big fat mitigator - caffeine is extremely common, cheap, and legal, meaning that you're basically immune to the disad as long as you're near civilization or have a portable supply).

Note that caffeine addiction wears off fairly quickly; if it does, then you're either going to need to buy off the disad, or you're going to need some excuse to keep it. If this is a problem for you, I'd advise taking it at quirk level.

GURPS fatigue really doesn't differentiate between physical exhaustion and sleepiness, and it doesn't really affect alertness (until you pass out), so it's not really equipped for resolving caffeine's effects. I'd say that if your character had missed sleep, and was sleepy enough that his activity level wasn't enough to keep him awake (guard duty, book study, etc), and the GM was making you roll to stay awake, caffeine would give you a bonus to the roll. That's pretty much the realistic limit of caffeine's effects; if you want something more dramatic (increased IQ, increased FP, etc) you're going to need stronger drugs - or a sympathetic GM. ;)

I wouldn't buy the Bad Temper as such with a Mitigator; I'd just say that for some individuals, the withdrawal symptoms include the effects of Bad Temper along with Mild to Severe pain and the rest, and make the addiction more valuable to those folks. Although given that it only takes a few days to wean yourself off it if you choose to, it may still not make it above Quirk level.

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

Then instead of 14 HT rolls to withdraw, you make rolls to avoid Pain. If you make the roll exactly, you have Moderate Pain; if you roll a normal failure, you have Severe Pain; on a critical failure, you have Terrible Pain. You add the number of days since your last Cherry Coke Zero (or lesser poison). Once you've made three straight rolls -- this includes getting Moderate Pain for making the roll exactly -- you withdraw.

Remind me, if you successfully withdraw from an Addiction, do you need to find the CP to pay the disadvantage off, or is that only if you don' fall off the wagon within a reasonable period of time?

[Kromm]

Stat the Addiction:

Cost (per day): The brackets are "up to 0.1% of average starting wealth" [-5], "up to 0.5% of average starting wealth" [-10], and "more than 0.5% of average starting wealth" [-20]. At TL8, that's "up to $20/day," "up to $100/day," and "more than $100/day." -5 points (unless coffee costs a lot more where you are than where I am!).

Effects: No -10 points for incapacitating conditions (ecstasy, hallucinating, unconsciousness, etc.). No -5 or -10 points for uncommonly difficult withdrawal . . . if there were, then you would see lots of caffeine-withdrawal aids and programmes on the market, which just isn't so. 0 points.

Legality: Coffee is 100% legal everywhere I know of. +5 points.

Total: -5 + 0 + 5 = 0 points.

Per Minor Addictions, caffeine-withdrawal irritability manifests as a temporary -1 to DX, IQ, self-control rolls, or reaction rolls – not as insanity or injury. And a 0-point Addiction such as that to caffeine is always a Minor Addiction that counts as a -1-point quirk.

I would definitely say that caffeine works like the other stimulants on p. B440. As it's mild, simply halve the overall equivalent point value of the effects: temporary 1d/2 FP back, Less Sleep 3, and Overconfidence (15), lasting (12 - HT)/2 hours, minimum 30 minutes, followed by losing twice those FP and gaining Bad Temper (15) and Chronic Depression (15) for the same time period. Ignore the risk of heart attack for overuse except in those with preexistent health issues (e.g., Easy to Kill).

[Kromm]

As for paying points to withdraw . . . it's just a quirk. Unless the GM is being evil, it should simply be a matter of switching "Minor Addiction (Caffeine) [-1]" to something like "Disapproves of caffeine [-1]," "Stares longingly at coffee, but refuses to drink it [-1]," or "Trivial Phobia of baristas [-1]."

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Kromm

"Trivial Phobia of baristas [-1]."

There is nothing irrational about that fear! ;)

[nik1979]

as for 1st hand experience unintentionally modeling the OP's sleep avoidance strategy: I tried the coffee diet technique, I just didn't do the requisite research on it before getting into it. Discovered first hand that coffee, a lot of it (talking about 480-600mg per day) needs a lot of water to flush out of one's system, needing to exercise as to add to the water that pass through one's system. It resulted into insomnia and restlessness, side effects because of that: back and general chronic pains. It is worse if you have a measure of apnea (affecting sleep quality).

the withdraw was hell, 1 whole day of nausea, vomiting, and being bed ridden. I could not move around a lot and I could not in mental catharsis.

I recommend reading up more on coffee and sleep, its not that simple. I'm sure people who have professions where they forced to deadlines working on a desk 10+ hours straight can attest (programmers, writers, artists (graphics/multi-media), accountants, back room finance, etc..). Note these are the people who most likely have experimented with maximum caffeine intake and effects of sleep deprivation.

Its not that simple and such min/maxing has been done by a lot of people in RL to the same conclusion.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kromm

followed by losing twice those FP and gaining Bad Temper (15) and Chronic Depression (15) for the same time period.

Insomnia or Chronic Pain are probably better fits than Chronic Depression, IMO.