Pharmacology for Gamers: Part One

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.