Getting Drunk!

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by Albin Johnson

Drinking is a genuine part of the adventuring lifestyle. For this reason, it seems necessary to introduce rules on drinking for Star Frontiers. One can only imagine the wild variety of alien concoctions one would encounter with so many races present. Also, the effects would be equally bizarre. Finally, it would make things much more interesting in a game if there were ways to measure drinking ability and incentives for making your character hand over hard-earned credits for something the player doesn't personally experience.

Included here is a list of drinks from the various races of the Frontier. Each one differs in its strength, its effects, and how much gusto a character earns for drinking it.

Every time a character takes a drink, he or she must pass a Stamina check. Failing a Stamina check requires a roll on the Drunk Table (below) to see if the drink had serious effects. Naturally, the more drinks one takes, the lower the chance of avoiding being drunk. A drinking character has what is called a Standing Stamina. This begins as the character's normal Stamina and drops with every drink. This is the Stamina score used to check if the character is drunk.

Potency Factor

Each drink has a Potency Factor (PF) associated with it. This is the number subtracted from the Standing Stamina every time drink is consumed. A referee must keep a running total of drinking characters' Standing Staminas, subtracting Potency Factors for every drink and rolling against the new result to see if anyone is drunk. Once a check fails, a character suffers from a random effect derived from the Drunk Table.

If a character enters combat or is injured while drinking, the Standing Stamina is regarded as their current stamina. If it is reduced to zero then the character passes out with Stamina points equaling their original Stamina minus their Standing Stamina when the fight began.

For example: Yalua enters a cantina with a current Stamina of 55. He takes three drinks at PF of 5 each. His Standing Stamina is now 40. He passes all three Stamina checks and avoids rolling on the Drunk Table. However, he gets in a fight and is beat to a pulp until his Stamina is reduced from 40 to zero. He wakes up later with only 15 Stamina points left, feeling very sore, close to death, and wishing he'd taken in a holo-movie instead.

Fortune Points

Every drink has a Fortune value associated with it. This is loosely related to the Potency of a drink and represents a reward for surviving the experience. The more potent the drink, the more respect and achievement he earns in drinking circles. This is the component that makes for a built-in incentive for drinking among roughneck adventuring types. These Fortune Points can be saved and used later as raw percentile point bonuses to any rolls the player chooses to use them on later. This is at the referee's discretion of course. Fortune Points cannot raise the chances of a skill or ability roll above 100% and the maximum allowed to use on any single roll is 10.

Drunkenness

Effects - Drinks have effects associated with them regardless of whether or not the character passes a Stamina check. These include the sensations they cause as well as modifiers to ability scores.

When rolling on the Drunk Table, it is reasonable to assume that stronger drinks will result in more drastic behavior sooner than weaker drinks. For this reason, when rolling on the Drunk Table the GM should add the following modifiers to the dice rolls, depending on the PF of the drink.

Potency Factor (PF) Modifier to Drunk Table
0 – Very Weak +0
2 – Weak +5
5 – Potent +10
10 – Very Potent +15
15 – WOW! (not commercially available) +20


Roll Drunk Table
01-05 get friendly - character picks up an unattractive patron
06-10 get friendly - character gives away something of value
11-20 get stupid - character does a little dance on a table
21-25 get stupid - character disrobes partially or fully
26-30 get stupid - tries to do a trick, falls for 1d10 damage
31-35 talk loud - becomes rude, 50% chance offends someone
36-40 talk loud - shoot mouth off, 50% spill important info
41-45 talk loud - shoots mouth off, 30% start a fight
46-50 get violent - character breaks something at random
51-55 get violent - character attacks someone at random
56-60 get violent - character picks fight with multiple people
61-70 throw up - stay conscious
71-80 pass out for 1d10 hours
81-90 throw up, pass out for 1d10 hours
91-00 pass out for 2d10 hours


Drink FP PF Effects (per drink)
Vrusk Drinks
Nectraa 1 0 calms, -3 DEX/RS, +2 INT/LOG
T’Lak’Tis 2 2 nervousness, +2 DEX/RS
The Needler 5 5 Prickley sensations on skin, -5 DEX/RS
Anaphylaxo 10 10 --

Yazarian Drinks
Yazirian Ale 1 0 calms, -2 DEX/RS, -2 INT/LOG
Ponjo 2 2 mood enhanced, drinker becomes annoying -5 PER/LDR, -2 INT/LOG
Hakosoar 5 5 -5 DEX/RS, -5 INT/LOG
Berzerker 10 10 popular drink before battle, +5 STR, -5 INT/LOG

Human Drinks
Beer 1 0 calms, -2 DEX/RS, -2 INT/LOG
Wine 2 2 -5 DEX/RS, -2 INT/LOG
Whiskey 5 5 -5 DEX/RS, -5 INT/LOG
Sledgehammer 10 10 -10 DEX/RS

Dralasite Drinks
Shmoolak 1 0 drinker becomes friendler, +2 PER/LDR, -2 DEX/RS
Flubbra 2 2 --
Opho 5 5 --
Flat Circle 10 10 named for Dralasite’s fondness for shapes. This describes the shape of a Dralasite when he’s drunk!