[Basic] Disadvantage of the Week: Unusual Biochemistry

[johndallman]

Unusual Biochemistry [-5] is an exotic physical disadvantage. Your metabolism is close enough to that of humans to breathe the same air and eat the same food, but drugs have a strong tendency to misbehave when you take them. This disadvantage appeared during the 3e period, but I haven’t found out just where.

With this disadvantage, drugs intended for humans may work normally, have no effect at all, or work with side-effects of the GM’s choice, such as severe nausea (1d fatigue), or a severe version of the drug’s normal side-effects. Personally, I’d prefer to keep the effect constant for a given drug, but I’m willing to track medical details for characters. Drugs formulated for you are possible, but cost ten times the usual price according to p. B160. That’s a rather broad rule, which assumes that people with the same version of the disadvantage occur often enough that it’s worth creating such drugs and producing them in lesser quantities. Presumably, such drugs affect normal people as if they had Unusual Biochemistry. It’s unlikely to go unnoticed, so it isn’t a plausible Secret Disadvantage.

This disadvantage only tends to show up in settings with advanced medicine, or at least the remains of it. It happens to AtE mutants, and is common for Bio-Tech uplifts and bioroids, but is entirely absent from Fantasy. It shows up in the Infinite Worlds setting on the Fascinating Parachronic Disasters table, and in the unfortunate Mules of Reich-5.

I’ve seen this disadvantage in use, on a Felicia-2 bioroid played by someone else in a Transhuman Space campaign. It isn’t a big problem there, provided you remember you have it, you don’t like trying new narcotics, and your medical support is adequate. As it was a campaign with very little combat, and we had a good medical LAI, I don’t think it ever caused a serious problem. Has Unusual Biochemistry had shock value in your games?

[thrash]

Neal Stephenson's Anathem had this as a major plot point.

In real life, I accuse my wife of having a Quirk-level, nuisance version of this. She has a couple of unusual genetic markers (e.g., cilantro tastes like soap) and frequently has paradoxical reactions to common narcotics (e.g., Valium makes her hyper). We have to warn each new physician and discuss anesthetics before surgery, and fight with restaurants that "no cilantro means no cilantro," but otherwise it doesn't affect our lives.

[oneofmanynameless]

I've had an experiment character in a MH game get knocked out of a hunt for a little while by forgetting about it and taking anti-psi. They weren't completely taken out of the hunt, they were just highly intoxicated which was pretty funny. It comes up all the time in that game, but usually in terms of extra hassle to find the right drugs.

We did have a long debate about whether Unusual Biochemistry would influence an individuals personal smell enough for Discriminatory Scent to pick up and to make them seem like a different species, or different subspecies.

Edit: and in another MH game a different experiment who was built as a Gifted (Experiment) with the Psi upgrade took a psi-boost addiction and spent a lot of resources on specialized psi-boost.

[The Colonel]

Frankly this should be a lot more common in sci-fi, even assuming mutually compatible biospheres (in terms of gas mixtures and what have you), without some kind of Traveller level backstory, even very similar biotae should probably have this in relation to one another.

At the very least, you might expect some dissent from the same L-amino acids and d-sugars that we operate on. Likewise, even if they are using DNA and RNA like us, there may be some (literally) alien base pairs involved.

On the plus side, you're probably immune to all of the diseases on that planet...

[ajardoor]

Could this disadvantage count for alchemical elixirs in Magic and the psionic concoctions in DF (I forget): Psi? I guess not, but it would be...somewhat appropriate, maybe?

[doctorevilbrain]

Is biotae biota?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by thrash

Neal Stephenson's Anathem had this as a major plot point.

In real life, I accuse my wife of having a Quirk-level, nuisance version of this. She has a couple of unusual genetic markers (e.g., cilantro tastes like soap) and frequently has paradoxical reactions to common narcotics (e.g., Valium makes her hyper). We have to warn each new physician and discuss anesthetics before surgery, and fight with restaurants that "no cilantro means no cilantro," but otherwise it doesn't affect our lives.

I think that what Anathem had went beyond this. The Earth emissary's food was entirely indigestible to the protagonist, and even their air wasn't fully breathable. That's at least Restricted Diet as well as Unusual Biochemistry. I'm not quite sure how to represent the breathing difficulties, except perhaps as Increased Life Support.

[Ulzgoroth]

I'm curious what one would do if drugs for your biochemistry were more or less available than the as-written 'available but 10x price'.

Also, this seems like a physical-social Disadvantage fundamentally - it's about how your biochemistry relates to the reference society's assumptions, properly. Not necessarily about human medicines, if your context isn't human-centric! If a human character was immersed in a bioroid society, the Unusual Biochemistry would be on the other foot.

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Frankly this should be a lot more common in sci-fi, even assuming mutually compatible biospheres (in terms of gas mixtures and what have you), without some kind of Traveller level backstory, even very similar biotae should probably have this in relation to one another.

At the very least, you might expect some dissent from the same L-amino acids and d-sugars that we operate on. Likewise, even if they are using DNA and RNA like us, there may be some (literally) alien base pairs involved.

On the plus side, you're probably immune to all of the diseases on that planet...

I'd suggest to the contrary that perhaps it should be very rare in alien life. Not because drugs should cross over, but because they shouldn't cross over nearly so well as Unusual Biochemistry allows.

I'd consider the likely effects of a medicine on an alien to be, in decreasing order of likelihood: no significant effect, toxicity, and a potentially useful medicinal effect that is significantly different from the use in human medicine. Also the effective dose size could vary significantly in either direction.

If independently-evolved alien life had Unusual Biochemistry, that would seem to be making a big statement about convergent evolution on both the molecular level and the systems level.

Originally Posted by ajardoor

Could this disadvantage count for alchemical elixirs in Magic and the psionic concoctions in DF (I forget): Psi? I guess not, but it would be...somewhat appropriate, maybe?

In a setting where such things are important, a similar disadvantage for unusual reactions to magical or exotic pseudo-pharmaceuticals might make sense. Or might not, depending on how the exotic stuff works.

I'd probably want to have a different pool of side effects to draw on, though. Also, I think in most cases elixers aren't described as having 'standard side effects' like real medicines do? (Though GURPS books don't always present medicinal side effects either.)

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'd suggest to the contrary that perhaps it should be very rare in alien life. Not because drugs should cross over, but because they shouldn't cross over nearly so well as Unusual Biochemistry allows.

I'd consider the likely effects of a medicine on an alien to be, in decreasing order of likelihood: no significant effect, toxicity, and a potentially useful medicinal effect that is significantly different from the use in human medicine. Also the effective dose size could vary significantly in either direction.

I'd not considered it as far as the drugs ... I just got to the bit about food and stopped.

Originally Posted by doctorevilbrain

Is biotae biota?

Meant to be a plural.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Meant to be a plural.

I think originally "biota" was either a plural or a collective noun for living organisms. Pluralizing a plural is a bit odd! But if you conceive it as a collective noun meaning all the lifeforms of a region, then it would be an English word, and its English plural would be "biotas."

It looks as if Wiktionary agrees with this . . .