[MUD-Dev] What about drugs?

[Martin Keegan]

On Sun, 13 Jul 1997, Nathan Yospe wrote:

> How does one simulate an LSD trip? Cannabis? Halucinations, for some

Island had a drug called "jet". The name was chosen because, crucially, it
*sounded* like the name a drug (cf ecstasy, speed, crack). A small scandal
erupted in the UK over a comedian who invented a fictitious drug called
"cake" (also has the drugname-like qualities) and got government ministers
to comment on it.

> cases, obviously... and perhaps slowdown and garbled action/information...

The effects of jet were:

you seemed to be admin-level when you did 'status'
you kept saying "I'm glad!"
walking was difficult. You'd sometimes be told to 'mellow out'
you acquired wizard powers on every 10th (or so) command
the player titles on the 'who' listing were rearranged
your stats suffered
random objects, mobiles and players seemed to appear in your room
you'd occasionally overhear a snippet of a conversation in another room,
	or see what people were typing
occasionally, you are told that "Your mouth tastes of strawberries"

> but how does one simulate the mental lethargy of pot, or the weakening of
> cause/effect one gets from alcohol? I don't, incidentally... I'm one of
> those people who gets very intellectual under alcohol... and far less
> human. Somehow, I can't see this as workable in a mud. Perhaps something
> along the lines of reduced information feed, with random fires of too much
> info from random and often unimportant sources?
> 
> Feedback is appreciated.

In my latest mud effort, drugs are addictive (Island didn't have this).
I'm concentrating on interesting psychadelic effects. One effect I want to
achieve but can't implement well is for time to appear to slow down.
 
Another thing I'd like is for geometric patterns (carpets, the stitches in
clothing etc) to dance and pulsate. Doubtless some sweetsucker will tell
me "Nah. Too realistic, man" :)

Mk