In some games (Shadowrun for example), you can take a negative quality to balance your character in the form of addiction. I was considering either a Moderate or Severe Addiction negative quality for a Shadowrun character, as it would be an interesting role-playing experience, but other than an addiction to caffeine, I have no experience with addiction.
My question is: What advice can you give on how to role-play someone with a moderate to serious addiction? Shadowrun was given as an example, but the system doesn't really matter. What source material, books and/or other media would you recommend for role-playing this?
Bonus points: How would you role-play trying to overcome an addiction?
Best Answer
In General
Addictions are something that are difficult to handle without rules support, because they tend to deal with something that is both outside your character's control, and completely alien to many players.
The key to roleplaying an addiction is to understand that your character is fundamentally not rational. The addiction is effectively attacking the decision centers of the character's brain, and elevating its own importance.
What you need to do, is imagine that keeping current with the drug has some reward attached to it... The more serious the addiction, the larger the reward.
The kinds of questions you need to be asking yourself are:
Would you leave your post for a million dollars?
Would you leave your post to save the life of a loved one?
Would you take a small penalty on the next adventure in exchange for more experience?
Clearly, the answer won't always be yes. The trick is getting the scale of the reward right... And to have the discipline to evaluate the decision as though your character were actually getting the reward (even though they aren't). Rules support helps with this quite a bit in many systems.
As Acedrummer notes, there are a number of potential pitfalls to the situation:
Don't be addicted to something so nasty that you'll become a major liability to the party (unless your group is really into that sort of thing). This is a general good practice: Don't put yourself at direct odds with your group. Annoying them can work, but don't take it beyond that.
Be aware of how optimally people at the table expect eachother to play. You are essentially playing poorly for the sake of the experience... Make sure that you have the right group for that.
Overcoming the addiction
So far as I'm concerned, this is something that should be handled primarily in-system. It has a lot to do with factors outside your character's control (their willpower, availability of help, supporting environment, and so on). Treat it like you would combat: make the roll, and then roleplay around the result.
The main point to note here is that, again, your character probably doesn't really WANT to kick the habit (even if they do). It can be treated as a tradeoff between the benefits of kicking the habit and some fictional reward, if you have the discipline to pull that off (it's harder than it sounds).
Also, if you received points for taking the addiction, you should generally repay them upon kicking the habit.