Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: Poindexter on <04-30-14/2343:53>
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marijuana, cocaine, heroin, peyote, etc.
These are things that have been part of human society since we've had a society, yet strangely, none of them are mentioned in the drugs section.
Have they gone away somehow? And if so, HOW?! Some of those plants would take a concentrated and intentional worldwide cooperative effort to kill off for good.
Anyone got any ideas?
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Bliss appears to be a descendant of heroin, much like morphine is. Given the effects are similar to one of the known effects of morphine, it was probably originally developed to take over the niche that morphine took from heroin. Novacoke also appears to be a descendant of cocaine.
It appears these drugs have mostly been supplanted by refined versions of themselves. Much like how heroin and cocaine supplanted earlier drugs.
Edit:
I left out this important part: Bliss and Novacoke come from the same plants as heroin and cocaine, respectively.
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Well, Novacoke seems to imply cocaine, so I'm with SlowDeck on this one.
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That's the essence of it, yes. Like most other RPGs, I think the developers of SR didn't want to have to worry about their players going around talking about having an addiction to something, you know, real - because that sets the 'rents and the raving superchristians against you, y'know? Hence, made-up drugs that are, in essence, the old standbys.
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That's the essence of it, yes. Like most other RPGs, I think the developers of SR didn't want to have to worry about their players going around talking about having an addiction to something, you know, real - because that sets the 'rents and the raving superchristians against you, y'know? Hence, made-up drugs that are, in essence, the old standbys.
i assumed this was probably the reasoning, but any teacher/babysitter/parent/pastor/warden who hears kids talking about slangin "novacoke" is still gonna ask a lot of uncomfortable questions.
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And if they ask about BTLs, they'll learn that reality hasn't even gotten to the scary possibilities of what could be on the streets yet...
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Zen sounds like a really short lived LSD.
Marijuana should still exist. It is a highly cultivated weed. It can grow anywhere. Although the stuff that grows anywhere no one wants.
There are probably are/were less legal problems with putting fake drugs in a RPG as opposed to real ones.
or
When magic re-entered the world these drugs awoke, realized the harm they had done, and committed suicide.
Rats, I need to post faster.
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I think marijuana still is around. Take a look at the effects of Deepweed and what it is associated with.
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That's the essence of it, yes. Like most other RPGs, I think the developers of SR didn't want to have to worry about their players going around talking about having an addiction to something, you know, real - because that sets the 'rents and the raving superchristians against you, y'know? Hence, made-up drugs that are, in essence, the old standbys.
i assumed this was probably the reasoning, but any teacher/babysitter/parent/pastor/warden who hears kids talking about slangin "novacoke" is still gonna ask a lot of uncomfortable questions.
The catchall term for all those people (you forgot the panic-obsessed media) is "Moral Guardians." Emphasis on the quotation marks.
Of course, given the fact that the majority of the drugs are just restricted (two are apparently common - Psyche especially) another answer could be the old drugs stopped being made because their main customers started demanding more potent stuff, resulting in stuff like novacoke and cram.
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I think modern drugs were left out on purpose. The old schoolers, who played in the '80's, all remember the backlash against D&D because there were demons in the rulebooks. That alone made D&D off limits to a lot of young players. I think that if parents skimmed the rulebook and found whole chapters on weed n' cocaine, the next generation of young gamers would not have access to Shadowrun until they are older. They found weed on 6k yr old neanderthals who were pulled out of the ice. If they pull me out of the ice 6k years from now, they will probably find some on me as well. I think most GM's just 'fiat' those drugs right into the world around the new designer drugs written about in the game.
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I think marijuana still is around. Take a look at the effects of Deepweed and what it is associated with.
Although I tend to associate the two. The Effects: +1 Willpower, +1 Mental limit, just don't seem to jive with the effects of marijuana.
I know the description says its Kelp, but then many people have claimed pot to be something else.
"No, officer it is Thyme and Sage, honest."
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The old schoolers, who played in the '80's, all remember the backlash against D&D because there were demons in the rulebooks.
I personally had a crazy woman a few doors down from where I lived as a child tell her kids they weren't allowed to play with my brother and me because we played D&D, and thus were devil worshipers. Good times.
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I think marijuana still is around. Take a look at the effects of Deepweed and what it is associated with.
Although I tend to associate the two. The Effects: +1 Willpower, +1 Mental limit, just don't seem to jive with the effects of marijuana.
I know the description says its Kelp, but then many people have claimed pot to be something else.
"No, officer it is Thyme and Sage, honest."
Awakened kelp. It was nothing special until the magic came back.
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The drugs to worry about aren't totally chemical in nature any longer. They're technological (BTLs) and Magical (BADs) now. ;D
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The old schoolers, who played in the '80's, all remember the backlash against D&D because there were demons in the rulebooks.
I personally had a crazy woman a few doors down from where I lived as a child tell her kids they weren't allowed to play with my brother and me because we played D&D, and thus were devil worshipers. Good times.
I think the best moment was when someone made reference to our GM how he must be a devil worshipper because he played D&D and he just stared the lady in the eye and said 'Demon Worshippers.... NOT Devil Worshippers Dammit...Get it RIght!!'
Of course this was the same gentleman who would invite Jehovah Witnesses in and invite them to listen to a few chapters from his 'bible'- A big book of Greek Mythology. :D
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The old schoolers, who played in the '80's, all remember the backlash against D&D because there were demons in the rulebooks.
I personally had a crazy woman a few doors down from where I lived as a child tell her kids they weren't allowed to play with my brother and me because we played D&D, and thus were devil worshipers. Good times.
I think the best moment was when someone made reference to our GM how he must be a devil worshipper because he played D&D and he just stared the lady in the eye and said 'Demon Worshippers.... NOT Devil Worshippers Dammit...Get it RIght!!'
Of course this was the same gentleman who would invite Jehovah Witnesses in and invite them to listen to a few chapters from his 'bible'- A big book of Greek Mythology. :D
That happened with a group I was playing with. The GM calmly stood up, pulled out his copy of the KJV, and read Matthew 7:1-23 to them. When he reached the words "Thou hypocrite," he roared them and the rest of his reading had an angered passion to it. He ended up repeating the final phrase of that section ("depart from me, ye that work iniquity") several times at the end, each one interrupting the crazy lady when she tried to speak. The lady left in a huff and didn't bother us again.
She got a nasty surprise a couple years back when her church got a new pastor. Give you three guesses who it was. And his first sermon covered Matthew 7.
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She got a nasty surprise a couple years back when her church got a new pastor. Give you three guesses who it was. And his first sermon covered Matthew 7.
Imagine if he still gamed, what the sign out front might look like...
Sunday: 10 AM Mass
Wednesday: 7 PM Choir Practice
Thursday: 1:30 PM Bingo
Friday: 6:00 PM RPG
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I'd be tempted to convert. Or at least socialize. ;)
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There's obvious analogues. Cram seems to be meth, more or less. Novacoke is obviously Coke+. I personally reject the idea that deepweed is marijuana, though... okay, yes, it's called weed but the effects of the obviously awakened deepweed are quite different from the effect of good ol' fashioned weed. I do find it highly amusing that it's one of the few drugs outright forbidden as opposed to restricted, though. I guess even by 2075 they haven't managed to legalize it. :'(
Personally, I assume the modern-day drugs are still there, and either a) legalized and/or easy to find and cheap or b) so flimsy in comparison to their new-and-improved versions that they don't warrant space in the rule book. So you can have a pot-smoking Shadowrunner, you just don't suffer negative dicepool modifiers or get to pick up an addiciton quality or anything. It's just a character quirk.
On an out-of-character level, I assume it's just bad PR to have "rules" about cocaine, heroin or methamphetine addiction in an RPG rule book. Like others said, putting "nova" in front of "coke" helps defray some of the vehement anti-RPG craziness. Granted it's on the downslope these days, but I imagine this was a factor in previous editions.
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She got a nasty surprise a couple years back when her church got a new pastor. Give you three guesses who it was. And his first sermon covered Matthew 7.
Imagine if he still gamed, what the sign out front might look like...
Sunday: 10 AM Mass
Wednesday: 7 PM Choir Practice
Thursday: 1:30 PM Bingo
Friday: 6:00 PM RPG
I would attend the hell (no pun intended) out of that, even if it wasn't my denomination.
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Honestly, it's quite possible that pot is mostly legal like tobacco in Shadowrun. I would imagine that the NAN has much less of a problem with it than the CAS and UCAS would, perhaps. It also wouldn't need to be in a book then for the same reason tobacco and alcohol aren't listed as drugs with specific effects.
Otherwise? Totally that most of the drugs were either made "obsolete" via things like Novacoke or just "fell out of style" so to speak. I mean, I highly doubt the book is intended to be a definitive list of all forms of drugs that exist in the Sixth World.
While many traditional intoxicants of the past, such
as alcohol and cocaine, are still around, they’ve lost
some popularity to the new breed of brainbenders.
Also, I would assume that despite having "street names", it'd be possible to have a fake license (essentially a fake prescription) for a drug that is the same chemicals, but a brand-name or something? I mean, it says things like Cram and Zen are Restricted, not Forbidden, which is certainly different from how such things are handled today.
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I personally reject the idea that deepweed is marijuana
I'd say Bliss, though that one's presented as more of an opium.
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As they have given up on trying to keep prostitution off the streets (only the more dangerous versions), they will probably not regulate things like marijuana anymore. Hell, it's legal to buy today in some countries/states, so why not in the 2070s. And it's fairly benign compared to what things like Tempo do.
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They need a awakened form of caffeine for all those wage slaves that worship the coffee pot in the morning for that extra zip.
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That's what we got Long Haul for, chummer. Some companies lace the Soykaf with it during crunch time.