Purpose
Poisons are
a common source of wonder, confusion, danger, and ultimately
character death in role-playing games. Between the number and variety
of effects of poisons as well as complexities of the mechanics of the
game system, the balance of realism versus playability can be
difficult to achieve.
Different
game systems approach the problem differently. At one end of the
spectrum, simulation-based systems often try to reflect the effects
of different poisons in terms specific game mechanics. The danger of
this approach is that the more heavy a game system in terms of
mechanics, the more complex the rules for poisons become and the more
difficult they become to play. At the other end of the spectrum,
narrative-based game systems choose to either eschew or only lightly
document the effects of poisons on character in terms of the game
mechanics and simply frame poisons descriptively in terms of how the
characters perceive and are affected by them. The danger of this
approach is that while descriptive and easy to play, in those
situations where estimation is difficult due to the lack of knowledge
of a poison or experience of a director (or the players) can cause a
breakdown in the fragile suspension of disbelief required for story
centered games are trying to attain.
The problem that I see as a director (and a game designer) with these two traditional game-design methodologies is that there is the potential to fall short in cases where a director might want either a heavier mechanic-system for his ordinarily rules-light game or a lighter system for his rules-heavy game. In keeping with the HiBRiD philosophy and my own penchant for hacking that which needs no hacking, I have decided to tackle this rather esoteric problem in a novel way.
Rather than
approaching from either of the aforementioned traditional directions,
I am going instead to explore the problem in several steps. First, I
will reduce the complex mathematics required in modeling the effects
of poisons in our own world to a more intuitive, descriptive model
with just enough simple mathematics to get ideas across. I’ll then
apply this new numbers-light model towards the two different ends of
the game-design spectrum simultaneously, with the hope of giving game moderators the tools
they need to build their own playable poison system based on real
science to fit in with the game system and style they wish.
Part One:
General Science
An
Introduction to Pharmacology
Poisons
are chemical compounds that affect the structure or functioning of a
living organism in some way. The scientific and clinical study of the
interactions between poisons (and other chemical compounds) and
living organisms is referred to as pharmacology.
Pharmacology can be further broken down into a number of branches,
however, this discussion will limit itself to two branches in
particular. The first branch, pharmacodynamics,
refers to the study of how a chemical compound affects the body of an
organism. The second branch, pharmacokinetics,
refers to the study of how the body of an organism affects a chemical compound.
To
easiest way to begin discussion of both of these branches of
pharmacology is to begin by thinking of any organism as a container
of water with an input valve and an output valve. Pharmacology begins
when the first molecule of a chemical compound enters into the
container of water and ends when the last molecule of a chemical
compound exits the container of water. As I go though this discussion
of pharmacology, I will come back to this model and simply add or
subtract things as needed when necessary to make a point.
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