D is for Drugs!!!!

[GAZKUL]

trying to  come up with ideas and rules for narcotics, alternative combat drugs and different asmospheres for use in games, got the idea after watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and thought "hey i wonder what'd happen if one of the mob got some ether?!"

your thaughts?

[Adlan]

When it comes to intoxicants, the more fear and loathing style, I'd go with GM control, or Trust the player to rp it. Someone on ether isn't going to be much use in combat, so an objectivemight be better than as a character.

[Alyster Wick]

When it comes to intoxicants, the more fear and loathing style, I'd go with GM control, or Trust the player to rp it.

I have to agree on this point.  In way of anecdotal evidence, I had  friend who played a crazed Inquisitor who kept his entire warband jacked up on combat drugs.  One of the drugs' side effects was to cause hallucinations on a failed T test (I forget the benefit of the drugs). 

Needless to say, hilarity ensued.  One henchmen set a firebomb charge, then imagined that he had bugs all over him and rolled around on the floor.  Well, the bomb went off while he was still rolling around next to it.  One of the other henchmen came over to try and put the fire out on his partner (now unconscious) but ended up fumbling a hand grenade he was trying to throw at masses of imaginary enemies, subsequently blowing both individuals up.

Now I'll go on record saying that the entire ordeal was hilarious.  All players in the game had a good time and laughed at the absurdity.  That said, my friend who played the drugged up warband had little connection to his characters and had a very zany style of play.  That level of unpredictability (while far more amusing and varied than a character always in frenzy, for example) has the same potential to ruin a game.

Personally, I would look at mixing and matching elements of lowering speed, impairing WS and BS, increasing the likelihood of failing risky actions (failing them on 1s AND 2s perhaps), making a character fearless, making them paranoid, or revamping the hallucinations table and RPing the effects rather than just having them stunned (give the character the choice of what to do when they find spiders crawling all of their skin).