An alternative to the “famous vessel” approach.
The focus of dipsomancy is on inebriation, sacrificing control, getting shitfaced. With regard to this fundamental obsession of the school, the rules for gathering significant charges — drinking out of historically significant containers — seem inappropriate.
Alternative method for gaining significant dipsomantic charges: Drink the equivalent of five drinks all at once. The dipsomancer must consume the alcohol within 30 minutes, whether this means chugging a flask of bourbon, drinking glass after glass of wine, or playing a game of Marathon at a frat party.
Commentary: The rule seems balanced, with the point of comparison being Epideromancy: a fleshworker self-inflicts 11 points of damage (average roll of 2d10) for a sig or 3 points for a minor, a multiple of 3.5. I felt that raising this to 5 was appropriate for the dipsomantic ratio, since even a 5-drink impairment is more easily recovered from than a wound. From chargeless sobriety, a boozehound goes to a -20% impairment for a significant charge, and he can work up two or three of these in a night to power a big spell. This will leave him vulnerable, though, as the quick drinking leaves no opportunity to pace himself and keep his impairment low. In contrast, an adept who sticks to minor charges can maintain no penalty or a low penalty on a long-term bender, racking up dozens of minor charges while staying more or less unimpaired.
It prevents the “find a special cup” storyline, but that’s not a great loss. There are a couple of points that need clarification, though. The following conditions should do it:
1) The total penalty imposed for each significant charge should be -25%. It’s about the drunk, not the drink. “No penalty, no charge;” so the first drink doesn’t count.
2) Only continuous drinking generates a significant charge. A typical person can down the hard stuff at 1-drink-per-turn (5 turns total), but weaker brew takes longer. If you’re interrupted before you’re done (or if you try to go too fast and end up throwing up), you only get minor charges for what you managed to get (or keep) down.
I’ve been using a “it’s not the vessel, it’s the drink” notional variant. My dipsomancers are looking for rare bottles of this and that. Only the first drink gives them any special buzz, and after that they might as well be drinking domestic beer.
It has worked well so far, as it keeps the dipsomancers searching for new and esoteric drinks, which (for me) is better than giving them a single item that continues to give them free-ish access to bigger charges.
My NPC dipsomancers have a lot of bottles hidden away for the right time…
I’d actually go with an Oneiromancy style approach, where being drunk for 24 hours straight gets you a sig.
My proposed change:
Significant charges on a one-drink per one-sig basis are gained from a. any “safety” bottles from an alcoholic who has stopped drinking or b. the personal liquor supplies of someone who “drank themselves to death.” As always, GM’s option for what constitutes drinking yourself to death, but alcohol induced organ failure, accidents while drinking (most commonly but not limited to automobile), and a suicide facilitated by drink should be shoe-ins. Shooting a drunk person in the back of the head won’t cut it.
These are thematic in that they both represent the dipsomancer pursuing short-term gain through consuming, rather than heeding, what should be warning signposts along his way (a la the guidelines for their random magics). The stash of the deceased also underlines the spirit/spirits connection which drives a number of the school’s formula magics.