Vices / Creature Comforts / Not-quite-addictions
Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2015 5:53 pm
So a while back when eating from the chef was made much more important, it really made that job role flourish. It's not been a total transformation but it seems by and large to have improved the game.
With that in mind, I propose that we give all players a vice. They'll need to consume this, ideally, every 20-30 minutes, or suffer a small penalty, be that mildly annoying messages ("You could really go for a cigarette.") or something more meaningful (a slight slowdown is the obvious candidate, or a slight speed boost for being satisfied).
Players would pick their vice from alcohol, caffeine, sugary snacks, smoking, or a random one of those each time (probably as part of having a random body). These are all either accessible through vending machines or from the bar, and they can all be carried with you if you need.
Ideally, this would encourage people to leave their workplace more often, or get others to fetch them certain items. It would lend added emphasis to the fact that you're playing a character, and not yourself. It could allow for sabotage situations in which various vices were denied to the crew (say, if all vendors were destroyed), forcing them to get help from botany or cargo or whatever. And finally, many of the items are mechanically interesting too: alcohol makes you stumble if you drink too much, and you become less able to communicate: cigarettes light fires and make it slower to put on internals, caffeine makes you jitter and keeps you a good temperature, and so on. Even snacks can be overdosed on (though you'd need to try pretty hard). So this would be mostly to encourage roleplay, more moving around the station, and to increase the desire to interact with certain items (the cumbersome cigarettes, or the unfriendly bartender). Fun? Not fun? Good idea? Bad idea?
With that in mind, I propose that we give all players a vice. They'll need to consume this, ideally, every 20-30 minutes, or suffer a small penalty, be that mildly annoying messages ("You could really go for a cigarette.") or something more meaningful (a slight slowdown is the obvious candidate, or a slight speed boost for being satisfied).
Players would pick their vice from alcohol, caffeine, sugary snacks, smoking, or a random one of those each time (probably as part of having a random body). These are all either accessible through vending machines or from the bar, and they can all be carried with you if you need.
Ideally, this would encourage people to leave their workplace more often, or get others to fetch them certain items. It would lend added emphasis to the fact that you're playing a character, and not yourself. It could allow for sabotage situations in which various vices were denied to the crew (say, if all vendors were destroyed), forcing them to get help from botany or cargo or whatever. And finally, many of the items are mechanically interesting too: alcohol makes you stumble if you drink too much, and you become less able to communicate: cigarettes light fires and make it slower to put on internals, caffeine makes you jitter and keeps you a good temperature, and so on. Even snacks can be overdosed on (though you'd need to try pretty hard). So this would be mostly to encourage roleplay, more moving around the station, and to increase the desire to interact with certain items (the cumbersome cigarettes, or the unfriendly bartender). Fun? Not fun? Good idea? Bad idea?