Filthy habit, smoking - but the new character I'm working on strikes me as a hard-boiled, rough and tumble fellow who always has a lit cig hanging from his lips.

Okay, this would be the Addiction obligation - but I've never actually had that angle in play in the game yet. So how would you handle it? Throw him a black when sneaking because smokers have a distinct odor? Blues and/or blacks to charm depending on the circumstances of who he's interacting with (Bogart looks cool as F with a cigarette, but someone allergic would be annoyed?) Perhaps a social interaction difficulty upgrade when he's gone a while without sucking on a butt?

Thoughts?

***EDIT ***

And what do you think about buying it off? That going cold turkey for a while would be enough for the obligation to drop over time?

I don't know about buying off the obligation, but quitting cold turkey should impose a steep penalty on any social interaction except for coercion; because it tends to make the person really crabby.

I think that Obligation is for something a lot bigger than smoking.

This is just 'flavor' for a character, as far as I'm concerned...

Given the variety of alien biology I'm sure what one considers stinky others would find fragrant and still others wouldn't even have noses to smell it. Bottom line is I wouldn't involve on an environmental penalty.

Buying it off and doing the cold turkey thing would probably be Setback(s) or a temporary reduction in Strain threshold mitigated over time or something like that.

I've dealt with this in game and this is how we handle it.

This addiction is going to have a daily cost, so how much is the PC spending on his tabac sticks per day? 20 Cr? 30 Cr? Is this stuff readily available? So the PC is going to need to spend the money to avoid the withdrawal symptoms.

For something as insidious and addictive as tabac, I'd recommend 3 black if the PC doesn't have access to his tabac. (Yeah, I've helped people try to get off this stuff IRL and I think this is VERY appropriate). As for long term quitting, have the PC make weekly Resilience check and if they succeed, remove 1 blk die. (May be multiple blk die for 2+ advantage.

As for the daily effect for continued usage? I think you have a good read on either 1 Blk for it being distracting or 1 blue if it for some bizarre reason "helps" in a situation.

I have a PC who always narrates smoking something. He smokes before saying anything, after saying anything, or often *instead* of saying anything. It's a hoot.

I just leave it as narrative fluff, and I think it's better that way. If you quantify every element of your PC, you won't enjoy the scenery as much.

The campaign is currently on hold ( ) but if it became a story element it would simply be for amusement. "A Despair, you say? I think that minion group just smashed your last pack of cheroots. Setback until you can get to a convenience store..."

It seems a bit weak for an Obligation, unless you really lean into it - withdrawal shakes, nervous breakdowns when going a day without, coughing up a storm all the time , always stinking of cigarette smoke, etc.

you dont want to buy my death sicks, I need to go home and rethink my life. Some geezer in the bar just told me.

2 hours ago, Bishop69 said:

I think that Obligation is for something a lot bigger than smoking.

This is just 'flavor' for a character, as far as I'm concerned...

Never been a smoker, then?

Generally, if I was GM'ing, my first question to this would be to ask if you want to gain anything from it? This very much seems like a desire for a certain bit of narrative flair, and growing from that is some ideas of how it could be played up. But all I'm seeing are negatives. Do you want the addiction to be the actual obligation of the character? Or is there some other narratively interesting obligation your character might have? I guess of course you could have a few obligation points in addiction, and more in something else. If you want the story of the character to be a battle with addiction, then sure, take it as an obligation and run with it.

I once had a GM that penalized a player saying they wanted to wear a cowboy hat in a game where location based damage wasn't really a thing. First encounter after that he was taking extra damage because the enemy was hitting him in the head. As well (same GM, same player), the player indicated they wanted their personal shield generator to be a spinning belt buckle when activated (for style reasons), and he got penalized I think on a generic combat check. This didn't work out well at the table and it wasn't very enjoyable. It felt like we couldn't add flair to our characters and really stifled creativity at the table. While not specifically the reason for this, it should be noted we don't game with that GM anymore.

I'd say treat is as a low value Addiction Obligation.

And for those who think that giving up smoking is an easy matter, heroin addicts have said they had an easier time giving up heroin (one of the most addictive street drugs around) than they had giving up smoking.

As for how to handle it, as long as the player has a pack of smokes on hand (which they generally would), then it's more of an RP thing. If their Addiction Obligation gets rolled, then I'd say that's an instance of where they're out of smokes, and so suffer not only the strain loss but also a setback die on their skill checks, with said setback die being a result of lack of concentration, jitters, and just plain irritability; having grown up with smokers and having several friends that are themselves smokers, all three of those are very real things.

With regards to reducing that Obligation... that's up to the player. After all, the Obligation rules do state that an EotE PC is always going to have 5 points of Obligation no matter what they do. So a PC that starts out with a 20 point Addiction Obligation could slowly begin weaning themselves off the smokes, cutting down from two packs a day, with the player and GM discussing just how much Obligation to drop based on how the PC is doing with kicking the habit. But in general, I'd keep the reduction of Obligation slow and gradual, such as 1 or at most 2 points every adventure that the PC manages to avoid chain-smoking, with maybe a 5pt reduction if their Obligation came up and they were able to make it through without inhaling half a pack of smokes along the way.

As for going cold turkey, that wouldn't mean the Obligation goes entirely away either. In fact, I'd say that the PC would only lose points off the Obligation after several sessions, but that the drop in value should be correspondingly higher, such as dropping 3 to 5 points of Obligation after several sessions. And if they happen to make it through a high-stress situation after their Obligation came up and did so without giving into their addiction, then I'd say that calls for an even bigger drop; could well be that "moment of clarity" that alcoholics refer to as what makes them finally ditch the bottle.

At first blush I'd probably make a 5 point Obligation. If no cigarette's are available at first, just a black, but increase that negative as game days go by, up to maybe 3 or 4 blacks or even an upgrade. If the PC can power through the negatives building over several sessions they can buy off the obligation. Rolling the obligation would mean for one reason or another there's nothing available. That last blaster bolt shot you right in the cigarette pack, burnt up in an instant flash of tobacco smoke.

edit: I have to laugh because I didn't notice the OP was Desslock, and guess what, I'm his GM, so I guess my decision goes :-).

1 hour ago, themensch said:

Never been a smoker, then?

Pack a day for 15 years, actually... but this isn't real life. If a player wants to make a hard drinking, tough as nails, chain smoking detective, that's all good. Obligation is for Hutts, Bounties from Hutts, moneys owed to Hutts, or hardcore addiction to a drug that kills you tomorrow... that you need to buy from a Hutt. Besides, what's the concern about lung cancer when we have technology that can cure or replace anything short of a 'will to live...'?

I smoked...not for too many years, but it was up to a pack a day. Quitting was the hardest thing I'd done up to that point. So, sure, it's difficult, but it's not like I was incapacitated.

The point is, do you really want to make the game about smoking and withdrawal? Making it formalized into Obligation turns it into a story-vehicle, and the game will start to revolve around it. If that's what the penguin wants out of it, great. If it were me, I'd much rather have occasional fun with it (the setbacks can be amusing) than make the game about whether Sam Spade has enough cigs to last through the investigation before he freaks out.

8 hours ago, Bishop69 said:

I think that Obligation is for something a lot bigger than smoking.

This is just 'flavor' for a character, as far as I'm concerned...

Smocking is bigger than mild spice abuse, so I am not sure if a few points in that obligation would be really unfitting.
Imho a 5 point addiction sounds perfectly valid for a heavy smoker. Not naturally people receptive to addictions can have a rather wild spectrum of substance abuse and/or gambling and other addictions. That obligation can easily grow.
BTW, tobacco is about has hard to quit as heroine. They are in many ways quite similar, now the highs are naturally better with heroine, but so is your incentive to stop taking it.

Now the bigger problem is that it is harder to make stories around this addiction, nicotine is easy to come by, cheap, readily avaible, and with star wars technology not even a big health concern. Overall, I think the star wars setting itself turns heavy smoker into the same category as heavy coffee drinker even when the addiction itself is real.

3 hours ago, whafrog said:

If that's what the penguin wants out of it, great. If it were me, I'd much rather have occasional fun with it (the setbacks can be amusing) than make the game about whether Sam Spade has enough cigs to last through the investigation before he freaks out.

Naw, I really just want to be some color to the character, a bit like Jigen from Lupin the 3rd, where there is hardly a time when he not seen with a cigarette, usually one bent in a number of directions. I was never going to take it more than the 5 point annoyance level. It might occasionally add a black when he cant nip down to the corner smoke shop to pick up a pack. Get stuck in a life pod on a deserted planet and starts contemplating smoking random leaves - that sort of thing.

4 hours ago, Split Light said:

edit: I have to laugh because I didn't notice the OP was Desslock, and guess what, I'm his GM, so I guess my decision goes :-).

And there we go, the GM has spoken. We can all go home now!

40 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Smocking is bigger than mild space abuse

It depends what you're wearing under that smock...if anything.

13 minutes ago, whafrog said:

It depends what you're wearing under that smock...if anything.

The space must flow

5 hours ago, Bishop69 said:

Pack a day for 15 years, actually... but this isn't real life. If a player wants to make a hard drinking, tough as nails, chain smoking detective, that's all good. Obligation is for Hutts, Bounties from Hutts, moneys owed to Hutts, or hardcore addiction to a drug that kills you tomorrow... that you need to buy from a Hutt. Besides, what's the concern about lung cancer when we have technology that can cure or replace anything short of a 'will to live...'?

Well okay, I was there for a bit longer, a bit more extreme. I can see your point - some folks don't take to addiction like others do. Where I'm coming from, though, is the negative affect on a PC that can't get their fix - I reckon most smokers know what that's like. Thank goodness there's room for many opinions on the subject! I wonder if a hot midichlorian injection can reinvigorate a will to live?

I'm with Bishop69 on this.

Unless the player wants to make it a problem he has to struggle with/against, then it's just part of the character's set dressing, like the fedora (not trilby you savage), pad and pen, or old silver pocket watch.

If the character does want to make it an obligation thing, then there's already rules for how their "obligation" affects them. You get a reduction in strain when your obligation is rolled. Exactly what this represents is up to your whim. Strain reduction could be due to smoker's lung acting up, or withdrawal symptoms because you couldn't find/afford to stock up on your favorite Silk Cuts.

People seem to have some good ideas as to how you could go about "paying off" the obligation. I'd suggest two blacks for two game sessions, then one black for three more. Obligation paid.

Suggestion, the cigarettes are a replacement drug for harder stuff, when obligation triggers, the PC is tempted to go back to harder stuff.