> While it is fun to do so, I that that there is WAY too much time
> spent on drugs here, and use in the context of the game is excessive.
Actually, though I've posted to the drug thread, I've never personally had
a character use (non-alcolohic) drugs, and only a few times had PCs I was
GMing do it. <Shrug> Well, okay, a little dwarf haunch now and then, but
that's just a social thing.
> In terms of use, if one looks at historical societies, the primary
> uses of intoxicants and hallucenogens are of a religious nature.
Intoxicants? I'm not I can agree with that. Hallucenogens, maybe. But I
doubt that, say, every vodka or rakija-swilling Slav of times past was
doing it only because they wanted to get in touch with God. ;) Brewing
alone is what, something like 3000 years old? At least?
> The Amerindians who use peyote do so as part of a religious observance,
> wine is a sacrement, etc.
Wine was drunk long before it was used as a sacrement, and long before
Bacchus. And isn't the Peyote Church a relatively recent phenomina? But
yes, there are numerous examples of drugs being used in such fashion. If
you consider alcohol and tobacco to be drugs (which, IMO, they both are)
then I'd have to say that pre-industrial revolution, at least, most drug
use was not religious in nature. In fact, I recall that male Europeans in
Colonial American took in a staggering amount of alcohol a day --
something like 25% or more of daily calories came from booze. Not until
the mid-19th century did the trend seriously decline.
> Alcohol , marajuana, peyote, psylocibin (sp?), morning glory (LSD).
You might add opium, cocaine, tobacco, heroin (does it occur naturally?),
whatever it was the ancient Indo- Europeans used... my drug lore is about
01%, but I suspect there's a lot more than just 5 out there in the RW.
(one of those could be psylocibin -- I'd never heard the term before).
> Understand that I have no moral objections to their game use, but
> I find their application to be somewhat unrealistic.
Hmmmm... I'd throw out that this depends from culture to culture, and race
to race, in the first place. Second, different drugs may have different
effects on different species (e.g., Humans don't snort salt). So the list
of drugs would, IMO, be at least a multiple of a RW analogy (because in
addition to human drugs, you have things which effect trolls, elves,
dwarves, ducks, maidstone archers, etc., but which _don't_ effect humans,
or effect some races but not others, etc. I'd be most interested, myself,
in hearing about stuff for the non-humans -- I _do_ agree with you that
there likely aren't 10,000 different ways for humans to get high in
Glorantha. <g> I'd like to hear about what effects, say, an elf. (Mulch?)
Also, frankly, I can't see PCs using them much because getting addicted to something isn't particularly healthy for someone who's at least occasionally in combat/other crisis. I always rather thought of it as an NPC thing, but I might be alone on this.
James Frusetta
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