Disease in roleplaying

[kirbwarrior]

Working on a race recently and I noticed I put "Immunity to STIs and related" on a race which in turn made me realize I don't think I've had disease come up once ever in roleplaying, writing, or programming games as a plot or world-building element. In one setting, I just flat across the board said "disease didn't exist, the world somehow works". I just plainly don't like it and I don't recall a story that used it in a way that, to me, made it stronger.

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)?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Working on a race recently and I noticed I put "Immunity to STIs and related" on a race which in turn made me realize I don't think I've had disease come up once ever in roleplaying, writing, or programming games as a plot or world-building element. In one setting, I just flat across the board said "disease didn't exist, the world somehow works". I just plainly don't like it and I don't recall a story that used it in a way that, to me, made it stronger.

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)?

Well in "Actions Have Consequences", my World War II superhero setting I have to have disease because the characters are going to encounter real life war criminal Doctor Ishi and his fictional supervillain Poison Butterfly who attacks with anthrax on the wings of lepidoptera. In my space setting I have Summanus, a world where the taint in the atmosphere consists of fungal spores in the warmed latitudes that will infect you if you don't wear protective gear. Furthermore I have the colony of Neovirginia where at one point there will be an attempt to wipe out the highly inbred colonists with a tailored virus from a group that disapproves of their lack of incest taboos. And then of course there are the Riders. I also have an idea for an Infinity game where the players are chasing a world-jumper who is a carrier for a deadly plague.

[namada]

Disease, like aging or gaining skills via training in rpgs, is not something I tend to use on a regular basis in my games, and when I do use such things, it's going to be because it fits the story-arc and genre I'm running.

Like the superhero genre, for example, doesn't generally have disease as a major trope/factor, so I'd not use disease rules there. However, dark fantasy, or a horror-in-Vietnam-War story-arc, yeah, totally using disease rules. So, dark fantasy and jungle slogs, that's the top 2 situations I'd consider using disease rules, thus I'd not consider such "essential rules," in any system.

So, GURPS for instance, while it's nice to have those rules in the Basic Set, I generally consider Disease/Age related traits as 0-point features because they simply don't factor in most campaigns.

[Dr. Beckenstein]

In an Infinite Worlds campaign, the pc visited a newly discovered Gotha-world with a lot of "zombies". They had to keep in mind that the zombies were victims of a plague and to protect themselves from them. Hard to do in zombie-shooter.

Long time ago, the heroes of a Traveller campaign discovered a forgotten ship deep in space. Inside was a woman, in cold sleep for centuries. The pc were able to resurrect and rescue her. To bad that the sleeping beauty was infected with a mild cold. Rather harmless for her, but the pc were hit hard by fever. After reaching the next star port, their ship was put under quarantine for weeks.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

What are your thoughts about disease in roleplaying? Have you had to deal with it or use it?

In a Cabal setting in Briah the Iconic Realm the PCs were on a quest that had to evoke the 4 Archangels. The East was the territory of Rafeal the Healer so they had to heal somebody or something.

So there was a small village hit by a mysterious plague (the 4 Archangels were being opposed by the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse and guess who was duking it out with Rafael).

The PCs faked up something with Alchemy. There are rules for it in Thaumatology. It was less dramatic than one could have hoped.

[johndallman]

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 stated it doesn't exist?

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.

I have encountered a couple of instances of biological warfare in RPGs. One by PCs which succeeded in dealing with an invading species of humanoid plants, and one by NPC villains, a cult of disease, which was suppressed by PCs.

[LokRobster]

Originally Posted by johndallman

...consider the question of why world-travellers don't spread diseases from world to world.

Years ago, our IW campaign had the ISWAT team get a directive from from their admin: a surgical strike against an underground stronghold on Reich-5, using a nuke salvaged from a world where humans were wiped out by a pandemic. It was a “magic” (or ^super-science in that it didn’t follow known possibilities) disease, in that it was in the atmosphere of the world, still active, and didn’t need a live host for transmission.

The assignment was to get the nuke, drop it inside a Cheyenne Mountain style base, and get out. What they didn’t know was that the mission was totally off-book, their shady admin guy was trying to get the team to infect Reich-5 with a human-ending plague...

The plague had infected the PCs, they couldn’t go home; the admin guy disappeared and left the PCs in languish in quarantine on a empty “safe” world, now viewed by The Organization as the ones responsible for spreading the plague. They ended up sentenced to Prison (or exile to Coventry) by Infinty. The party’s psi-powered healer was able to cure them, and they escaped, but on the run for a few episodes trying to clear their names.

Good times.

Diseases don’t come up a lot, but can be a driving plot force occasionally. GURPS Horror has some great ideas for diseases on that front.

[WaterAndWindSpirit]

Gangrene and tetanus come up reasonably often in my games.

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.

And once, my D&D characters were investigating rumors of crazed bats attacking humans without provocation, and these rumors were true, because these bats had contracted a sickness...

Characters these bats infected suffered from increased saliva production, insomnia (thus a chance to not recover with a Long Rest), hunger spikes (so they needed triple the normal amount of food), photophobia (So they took the daylight pretty much like Drow), and increased aggression (they had to succeed at a Wisdom Saving throw to resist attacking people who angered them).

[kirbwarrior]

These all sound like they were fun, but reading them has definitely activated my Squeamishness.

[Miley Spears]

Not really roleplaying, but Illuminati: New World Order predicted the Coronavirus! Or so some people say.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/wei...icted-21677802