There seems to be total lack of context, at least in your post, so

Perhaps start with the overall game idea, and find out what role drugs should have in it?

I mean, what effect are you aiming for with the drugs concept (what happens with and without drugs, for example), and how does it fit in the game message or game experience that you are giving to the players?

Stuff you can do in a game should generally fit in the environment or the experience of the game. If you have a MegaXXX-SuperLaserBlaster weapon, it makes perfect sense in an alien world far in the future where you kick alien ass, while it would be totally awkward if you write a detective mystery solving game at earth in the late 1920s.

Rather than thinking "sex = 3 for aspirin", think how are drugs a "weapon" like above, and what is appropriate as effect without attaching numbers (good/bad is enough probably at first). Then connect properties in the game to having the drug, and the way they interact. The values will then come by themselves, probably.

There seems to be total lack of context, at least in your post, so

Perhaps start with the overall game idea, and find out what role drugs should have in it?
I mean, what effect are you aiming for with the drugs concept (what happens with and without drugs, for example), and how does it fit in the game message or game experience that you are giving to the players?


Stuff you can do in a game should generally fit in the environment or the experience of the game. If you have a MegaXXX-SuperLaserBlaster weapon, it makes perfect sense in an alien world far in the future where you kick alien ass, while it would be totally awkward if you write a detective mystery solving game at earth in the late 1920s.

Rather than thinking "sex = 3 for aspirin", think how are drugs a "weapon" like above, and what is appropriate as effect without attaching numbers (good/bad is enough probably at first). Then connect properties in the game to having the drug, and the way they interact. The values will then come by themselves, probably.

Sorry, no idea what fallout is about. Hopefully someone else can help you.

Sorry, no idea what fallout is about. Hopefully someone else can help you.

Ah, right.

I think my original reply still stands, the list of drugs is not going to give you an answer here. You need to look at your game, and find out what properties make sense for the player in the game. Eg "health" makes sense in some games, and "amount of fur" makes sense in other games.

You will also need some form of range for the properties here. Does health run from 0 to 1, or from 0 to 1000000000 ? How do things work without drugs would be my next step. (Eg gun shot means 10% death, for example, which translates to some number, since health has a known range (eg 0.1 if health runs from 0 to 1).)

This also means you have to find the good and bad things that can happen, and attach changes in player properties to those events.

All that gives you a baseline behavior. Eg I can take on 3 enemies, but not 20, since I am dead with 10 gun shots.

Then start thinking what drugs should change from that baseline.

You could check what effect each drug has in reality (as a source of inspiration), and how strong/weak drugs are relative to each other. Then try to decide how drugs affect the player. What properties are affected, and how much?

People develop tolerances for some/different drug, so that they have to take more after regular usage

Effective dosages for different people also vary

The dose and frequency also affect the resulting sideeffects (some drugs are quite toxic and excess leads to greatly escalating damage) so you want to have a spectrum of effects as the amounts/timings increase.

You may want to add antibiotics/antiseptics .. antivenoms ? Innoculations ? Steroids ?

Mixing combinations can lead to additional sideeffects

Some drugs are used external, others internal