This may be one of my biggest annoyances with this game. How the hell do they know I'm smuggling drugs around? And then all I have to do is unload the damn stuff on their desk, right in front of them, and they're good to trade with me.

Any known mods that resolve this little issue? Or is it just something we live with?

I have only heard that in morrowind, last i recal in skyrim they'd buy it like it was mushrooms. NEVERMIND I thought becuase of the background pic this was skyrim. yeah that is very annoying.

There's a mod called "hide the skooma" that allows you to trade with Moonsugar and Skooma in your inventory. It is included in the http://webpages.charter.net/manauser/morrowind/ pack by ManaUser.

They see it smeared all over your character's face. Om nom nom

But seriously, good question. It hadn't occurred to me, since I generally just dump the stuff in a pile in my player house and forget about it. A mod that adds more depth to moon sugar would make sense, but I think what is in place was probably Bethesda's simple fix to prevent you from selling it to the vendors who would not partake in that trade. A lot of Morrowind's dialogue was awkward, like the repetitious rumors and hits or whatnot, but with a lot of mods fixing that stuff, the moon sugar greeting seems to stand out a lot more.

If anything, a fix having the vendor detect the presence of the moon sugar in the room would be half a fix. Perhaps it has a strong odor and it's obvious you are carrying it, but at least making it so that you have to dump it outside would make that more believable. So detecting it in the room and changing the dialogue to "You'll Have To Get Rid Of That Moon Sugar That I Smell..." would fix the problem.

Manauser's mod doesn't change the fact that the merchant knows you have it, but it does indicate you might have left it hanging out of a pocket in plain view and allows you to "hide it" from the merchant.

Perfect! Thanks! There's a few more mods in this pack that seem interesting too.

I'd much rather go with a fix that makes it less annoying, than even more annoying, but those are some good points. Maybe it does smell. I'll consider the above mod an "odourless skooma" patch

Here I was searching for it, thinking it was called 'Hide The Sugar'.

Oh, weird. I'll have to give it a spin. So long as it allows me to trade.
Perhaps it's a game limitation if the only way around it is to pretend the player has 'accidentally' left it in full view. Strange that we can't just leave it in our bag/pockets out of sight.

I think we need a mod that simply gets rid of the illegal drug system altogether and instead just gives a penalty to disposition. The illegal drugs thing always struck me as them trying to apply something not many people like in the real world to the game world.(just like how on Dr. Who there are like no guns in many cases)

I agree. This brings to mind the fact that dealing in Dwemer goods is supposed to be illegal, but everyone does it, even when there are guards present.

I always use http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=mods.detail&id=3626, where they only react if you try to sell them drugs.

Well, keep in mind that Morrowind has a TEEN rating (13+), not a mature rating. "Drug Reference" is a thing, yeah? .... obviously ESRB didn't catch the drug smugglers sealing drugs inside a slave's belly in order to smuggle it. They probabaly stopped looking after the NPCs said "You'll have to get rid or that Moon Sugar."

Ah, I forgot about that one. It's been too long since I've played with mods...


The ESRB probably didn't read all of the books either.

It's because of a game limitation. The game only "knows" that you have skooma or moonsugar in your inventory when you talk to a merchant because it can check for that via a dialog filter. What the game can't check for is if you dropped it somewhere, like right in front of a merchant. For that, you would probably need a script.

How do NPCs detect the moon sugar or skooma in the first place? I know Ajira buys it from you, but the script attached to her includes nothing related to any kind of "ignore drugs rule" or something, and I can find no script that relates to moon sugar at all.

Thank you Jac.

Hum.. there is Drug Realism too..

Oh, and there is a mod to make Dwemer goods illegal to trade to most, but it does a little more than just that.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=7075

Of course, in the game, what people tell you seems to indicate that nobody seems to really care about the law against trading Dwemer goods.

I can't find out where the barter dialog is, but it's item->ingred_moon_sugar_01>=1 to determine if you have any moon sugar in your inventory when you talk to an NPC.

Thanks, Asuru, I'll check that one out.

Except this does the exact same thing that the drugs thing does. The merchants will magically know if you have the items on you.

Yeah, I just mentioned it since it is relevant. It's the only mod I know of that touches Dwemer goods though.

Hmm, gives me an idea . . .

I literally just spoke to a Dark Elf in game about that. He mentioned it is technically illegal, but he's never heard of someone being arrested for it. So seems the lore paints it to be one of those old redundant laws no-one really cares about.