In the Victorian setting, I'm working on, Painkillers are, obviously, going to be opiates of various forms (laudanum &c.). Considering Mr. de Quincey's Confessions and other contemporary accounts, moreover more recent events, addiction does seem to be an issue with those. As I'm planning the inclusion of the Obligation mechanic, anyhow, using it to depict above complication comes to mind. The question remains how crippling its effect to handle.

The ideas range from requiring

a simple Resilience check on any day the whole allotment of five Painkillers have been consumed (rather mild),

to a Resilience check on any day Painkillers are used, the difficulty determined by the number of doses consumed (quite harsh);

a failure resulting in an increase of Obligation (Addiction) by +1, of course.

I wouldn't mind any useful suggestions, by no means!

You need something for withdrawals as well, if you haven’t had a dose for more than 24hrs then add 2 Setback to every check until you have a dose!

Thats too simple but you need something. If the Obligation triggers then perhaps they have run out of their supply, withdrawals explaining the strain hit

29 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

You need something for withdrawals as well, if you haven’t had a dose for more than 24hrs then add 2 Setback to every check until you have a dose!

Something like that, I just think I'm going to allow a Resilience check to reduce/overcome it, difficulty probably based on Obligation (e.g. 1 purple per 5 Obligation).

But I don't expect supply becoming an issue, except under special circumstances; the substance is readily available and reasonably priced. At least it hasn't ever been with EotE. For all but working class, recreational use should be covered by their living expenses.

I kinda like it just the way you laid it out, though I'm gonna save it for use during some kind of military campaign game where the soldiers are taking some sort of combat cocktail of opioids, stimulants, and a few others all mixed in there so they can maintain a high (pardon the pun) level of alertness and combat effectiveness.