[+1 dismissal]We need to talk about a standardization of prescriptions

[BurgerBB]

Currently there are 0 standards for what constitutes for a prescription because literally anyone can put their own prescription in. Despite providing a robust array of antidepressants, here are some of the things that I've seen requested:

• Tramadol, 5u-10u
• Paracetamol, 5u-10u
• Dylovene, 5u-10u
• Iron Pills, 5u-10u
• Tricordrazine, 5u-20u (Talked to them in looc about it)
• Potent, difficult to make, antipsychotics given in Mental Institutions

I've ahelped some of these but it was deemed okay because it didn't break any realism or powergaming rules, and I've talked to some of these people looc depending on whether or not I was in the mood to argue with people to explain how some of these medications hog vital ingredients (carbon, acetone, iron) or how the medication itself was very difficult to make intentionally because it's an incredibly potent antipsychotic.

And people do powergame with these medications. Someone with a Paracetamol prescription said "I don't need any painkillers, I'll just use my prescription" after being injured. I've seen iron pills be taken by people who were bitten by vampires and go "Oh, my iron deficiency issues must be acting up!" I could imagine someone downing a bottle of tricord or dylovene when in near crit to save themselves.

So on top of a planned prescription rework, I highly recommend that a policy change on what constitutes appropriate medication is implemented as well. This needs to be deliberated upon so I know which medications to included that are covered through NanoTrasen's health plan. My proposed criteria is a simple criteria: It must be a low to moderate strength mental medication and/or entirely cosmetic. No more iron pills. No more dylovene. No more ACTUAL painkillers. Cosmetic medication only.

[Doxxmedearly]

As the only other person who plays chemist as much as you, I don’t mind people having scripts that aren’t just for mental illnesses. It’s not uncommon for people to be prescribed painkillers for chronic pain and pills for vitamin deficiencies (Iron, in this case). That’s not unrealistic.

However, I support the idea of standardizing what can be allowed in a script. Not only for powergaming (which I haven’t witnessed, but that’s just my experience), but for unified standards and sort of providing guidelines to people who very well might not know much about scripts.

My thoughts on your examples are this:

• Paracetamol should be allowed. This is an over-the-counter painkiller.
• Tramadol… tough choice. On one hand, people take this. On the other, it could affect your job performance. Unsure where to be on this.
• Oxy should NOT. This is a powerful painkiller that would realistically affect your job performance.
• Iron should. Deficiencies exist.
• Dylovene and Tricord should not. This actually does come off as powergaming to me.
• Moderate strength mental medications… sure. I agree Olanzapine/Risperidone/Paxazide should be off-limits. Escitalopram, on the other hand, is a common one.
• Other uncommon ones I like. Kyres’s dreg takes Imidazoline with a dropper because of Eridani eye implants that cause issues. That’s great! Mine is supposed to get a small inhaler of Pulmo to combat buildup in her lungs (Administered by a doctor). It adds flavor.

However, I further agree there needs to be reasonable limits to the STRENGTH and AMOUNT you are authorized to be given. No more full pill bottles. If you have a paracetamol script for 5u for joint pain, awesome. You’re getting three to get you through the shift.

So, for example, we could say Paracetamol could be limited to 10u maximum, with a total of X (2-4 maybe) for the shift, and that’s all you’re allowed. Same with Iron. 5u, and you get one or two. Enough to RP taking one, not enough to powergame with. If we allowed tramadol, 1-2u pills, and maybe like, one or two for the shift.

A reasonable amount of mental medications would be 1u-5u, and only the moderate stuff. You should really reasonably only need one for a shift. 

To people who are unfamiliar with scripts: It’s really uncommon that you’ll have a medication that needs to be taken more than once or twice a day, and anything above four is… really, really rare. Therefore, when writing your records, consider that your work will probably only fill you enough for the rest of the shift or day, and you’d probably have the rest taken care of at an off-work NT pharmacy. 

I agree there needs to be a more standardized system, or at least a good example for people to go off of, with some reasonable limits. However, I don’t want to go and outright ban a lot of these things because a few people are powergaming scripts. I’ve seen them used to further RP, and I personally enjoy the interactions I get from filling them, and I want to have good faith in our server that people aren’t taking these to get small mechanical advantages. However, I'd love to see more structure and some limits. 

Edited November 26, 2018 by Doxxmedearly

[BurgerBB]

A plan I had was to introduce other medications that act as a painkiller, but are cosmetic. They can't put you out of paincrit, but it suppresses pain messages.

[Asheram]

In my personal opinion about Tricordrazine I believe that 1-3 units should be available over the counter for minor cuts and bruises that they feel doesn't require treatment from a doctor, but not as a prescription.

Edited November 26, 2018 by Asheram

[Zundy]

I know loads of people who take oxycodone irl and work. It's just a high level pain killer for high level pain. I could imagine someone who's got issues with their augs interfacing with their flesh taking this for pain as some RP fluff. Some standards would be good though. Maybe discuss it icly and raise it to CCIA.

[Doxxmedearly]

Fair enough, then. The issue we run into is that mechanically, these things metabolize slowly and have effects on the game. One unit of Oxy takes 200 seconds to metabolize, which is over three minutes of being (basically) immune to pain (On the flipside, my issue with mental medications is the opposite. They metabolize WAY too quickly, hitting people with withdrawal symptoms early). 

I don't have a problem with the types of medication. I think we need to guide people to reasonable script amounts, both in units and number of pills. I like seeing creativity. I like having conversations with Muhawir about his changing medications, or seeing Eze administer eye drops to herself. So I want to come at this gently. ICly, I only give people a few pills, because to me, the chemists/pharmacists at work should only be giving you things you need to get you through work (The hospital I work at does this with light pain medication). Your character would likely have a full script filled wherever they live, or at like, an ODIN pharmacy. But then again, that could be me looking at this from a totally incorrect angle. 

And so far, I haven't had problems at all! But if I saw some of these things that burger said (Like a script of 20u tricordrazine), I... would also have ahelped. That seems ridiculous. I would rather write up guidelines for reasonable prescriptions and run it by lore/ccia/whoever for players to reference than mechanical or hard "no" implementations. This is, again, because I want to have good faith in players. I have ways of handling these things ICly, but it still could benefit from more structure. My personal suggestion would be a limit on how strong (number of units) the pills can be based on the type of medication, and a limit on a number of pills (or how much of a bottle/inhaler) authorized for a shift. 

[Scheveningen]

Quote

I've ahelped some of these but it was deemed okay because it didn't break any realism or powergaming rules, and I've talked to some of these people looc depending on whether or not I was in the mood to argue with people to explain how some of these medications hog vital ingredients (carbon, acetone, iron) or how the medication itself was very difficult to make intentionally because it's an incredibly potent antipsychotic.

get rid of the limited chemical canisters and give us the passively regenerating chemmaster reserves back, that's what i say.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Scheveningen

[Carver]

On 11/26/2018 at 11:57 PM, Scheveningen said:

get rid of the limited chemical canisters and give us the passively regenerating chemmaster reserves back, that's what i say.

This would be the correct way to solve any immediate issues with what shouldn't be limited resources, such as iron. Not sure why such a thing was changed in the first place.

I honestly wouldn't mind seeing disabilities tied to prescriptions so people actually have a legitimate reason. Ex: Chronic Pain disabilities for specific body regions (lower back, eyes, head, etc.) with varying tiers of 'ouch'. Probably a bit annoying to do mechanically in regards to how many would be needed, though, unless they were very generalized (not limited to specific body parts).

[BurgerBB]

I'm perfectly fine with limited resources and I honestly prefer this system to what other servers have.

Chemical cartridges are perfect for NBT and I rather have all features revolved around this.

[Alberyk]

I don't think that a policy of its own is needed, either reporting the people that asks for too much so we can talk with them, or adding some mechanical way to handle them would be far better.

Voting for dismissal.

[Arrow768]

As mentioned by alb, you can already ahelp those with unbelievable prescriptions due to the "power gaming" and "believable character" rules

Therefore second Ing the vote for dismissal.