Coffee and GURPS

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Bruno

It's a weird little circle of chemical interaction that has my doctor basically giving up on getting me off the coffee entirely :)

The health benefits of moderate coffee (not corn syrup soda!) are looking increasingly better than the detrimental effects.

[Anaraxes]

Caffeine withdrawal symptoms are well documented.

Here's part of a report of one recent study by researchers at the University of Vermont College of Medicine and Johns Hopkins:

The team demonstrated that stopping daily caffeine consumption produces changes in cerebral blood flow velocity and quantitative EEG that are likely related to the classic caffeine withdrawal symptoms of headache, drowsiness and decreased alertness. More specifically, acute caffeine abstinence increased brain blood flow, an effect that may account for commonly reported withdrawal headaches. Acute caffeine abstinence also produced changes in EEG (increased theta rhythm) that has previously been linked to the common withdrawal symptom of fatigue. Consistent with this, volunteers reported increases in measures of "tired," "fatigue," "sluggish" and "weary." Overall, these findings provide the most rigorous demonstration to date of physiological effects of caffeine withdrawal.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0501162805.htm

I get mild-to-moderate headaches when I happen to quit drinking tea. Downer can count himself fortunate that he has no such side effects -- but that's not the same as them being psychosomatic or mythical. Just individual variation in the severity.

[vicky_molokh]

I've spent long periods of my life either drinking or not drinking coffee. I did not notice anything different even when I suddenly stopped drinking coffee after several years. Spent a half-year or a year not touching the thing.

I also seem have Immunity (Red Bull): the thing has no effects on me and/or my sleepiness; contrast with the effect on my SO - a €2 can is enough to switch my SO from falling asleep every 2 minutes to rather talkative and ready to work. *shrug*

[downer]

Well, coffee seems more impressive than I thought, certainly. Still just a quirk, I guess, since the headaches are temporary and the addictiveness seems to be mild at best. Besides, legal and cheap.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The health benefits of moderate coffee (not corn syrup soda!) are looking increasingly better than the detrimental effects.

The long term benefits perhaps, but the syrup soda works fine on the withdrawal symptoms.

Indeed dehydration and low blood sugar being other common causes of stuff like headache, fatigue and mild nausea, maybe better for a rapid temporary improvement. For many people washing a single asprin tablet and/or a multivitamin down with a can of non-diet cola will help a surprisingly high fraction of the time.

[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. ;)

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Interestingly, coffee was the first functional treatment for asthma

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!

[Phoenix_Dragon]

Originally Posted by Harry O'Gane

1) Is caffeine addiction treated as an addiction worth [-5] points or is it treated as a quirk?

Caffeine is actually listed under "Minor Addictions," so a quirk seems appropriate. It also mentions the generally-mild (Compared to other drugs!) effects of withdrawals.

2) Can coffee substitute FP lost by missed sleep? If it can, how much? Since coffee can be prepared in various ways, how much of it would restore a cup of espresso, a cup of latte, a cup of cappucino and how much a cup of black Turkish coffee?

Most I'd really give caffeine is, say, a +1 to resist falling asleep, but probably costing an extra FP of sleep/exhaustion when you finally do sleep, if you've been up long enough. Strength of the various different brews is probably below GURPS resolution.

Overdoses can of course cause problems, but I'm not sure how I'd model that. Increasing FP, IQ, and DX penalties, probably. Sufficiently high and you can start having more serious problems.

3) Does coffee increase anything temporarily, like perception?

It's supposed to, and have minor health-related benefits in moderation, but again, probably well below GURPS resolution.

[Lupo]

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

I think we are over-dramatizing the power of coffee, at least in GURPS terms.

Everybody I know (literally) drinks either coffee or tea every morning. If they were suddenly deprived of their typical breakfast/energizer, surely they would get grumpy.
But this should not be considered a quirk / disadvantages in GURPS terms. It is not a meaningful disadvantage if it is the "campaign norm"...

Let me make an analogy: most civilized people are used to have regular access to hot water. Most people I know would get grumpy if they were suddenly deprived of showers. Surely a physician could measure tiredness, poor skin tone and other physical symptoms.
Does this mean that everybody has a Addiction (Caffeine), Addiction (hot showers), Addiction (fridge), Addiction (sugar) and so on? This would make for very long, boring & similar character sheets...

Such common and minor traits IMHO are better considered as "setting features" and occasionally used by GMs as dramatic justification for minor penalties or failures (e.g.: "Since in the last few days you've been held captive, you are a bit weary and grumpy... -1 to rolls until you get some rest and a shower"; or possibly "I see you failed your HT roll to make guard in the jungle... it appears you were really tired and it is not easy to stay awake for the whole night without even a coffee...")

Of course if somebody wants to portray a character which is especially addicted to coffee and becomes really untractable without coffee, he's free to buy a proper quirk/OPH to reflect that.
But IMHO coffee in itself is, realistically, below GURPS' resolution.

[Darekun]

Originally Posted by Harry O'Gane

2) Can coffee substitute FP lost by missed sleep?

No, but I'd say it can roughly double the max food-based FP recovery. You still need to eat the food, but if you're already stuffing yourself American-style, caffeine can mean you get less padding and more FP.

It increases metabolism, which makes it easier to stay awake(one of the symptoms of sleepiness is metabolism reduction), which might be plusses to resist going from Drowsy to sleeping, or rolling less often. You still suffer the penalties from just being Drowsy, though they might be partly credited to distraction instead.

At higher doses the mind-racing, heart-racing, and jitters can make it hard to get to sleep. (That's probably Short Attention Span, in GURPS terms, except falling asleep also counts as a task that requires concentration.)

Recovering 1 FP now but losing 2 FP later is a stronger stimulant, getting into the prescription and illegal drugs.

Originally Posted by Harry O'Gane

3) Does coffee increase anything temporarily, like perception?

In people with (some kinds of?) ADD, it can reduce their symptoms in a fashion similar to Ritalin. My boss is in a middling category, where caffeine basically doesn't affect him except in massive doses, but Ritalin still helps his ADHD. So it can act as a mitigator for Short Attention Span. Whee :J

The metabolism boost is probably what it's "for".

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

* One cup of coffee has more caffeine than a can of Red Bull.

Dunno about Red Bull per se, but the energy drinks I've checked have a cup of coffee worth of caffeine per 2oz. (You do have to check the various herbal caffeine sources, which are more expensive but basically just caffeine.)

Originally Posted by obatron

If I don't have my daily 2 cup coffee dose by a certain point in they day (usually within 2-3 hours of waking), I'm told I can be a tad bit grumpy which apparently is just a nice way of saying argumentative, sarcastic, and a tad bit mean.

That's a pretty good description of the typical caffeine down. People who get migraines from it are rarer… It's a lot like PMS, really. Except in the forehead :J

Originally Posted by Xplo

Note that caffeine addiction wears off fairly quickly;

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.

A particular character or race could have an unusual reaction to caffeine, if the GM agrees; only the price is fixed across characters in that regard. In one fantasy setting I wrote up, elves could take ginger as a Cheap, Incapacitating, Highly Addictive, and Legal drug. And it can be taken as a Mitigator or Trigger.