I think it should be addictive, yes, a real drug. If you quit it cold turkey there should be worse withdrawals than if you cut down on your use of skooma little at a time. Also, you should be able to get pretty messed up by the drug, if you use it for a great period of time, it should really mess with your head as real drugs do, for example, if you use a large dose of skooma everyday for a long period of time, you should maybe start to hallucinate, have trouble controlling yourself, trouble relaxing, maybe trip out or something like that, something that makes your character seem crazy and out in the deep edge of the pool. The longer you use it, the harder it is to quit and the more severe are the withdrawals. I think that is how it should be.

And I also think there should be more drugs than skooma

Beer and wines should have addictive effects, as well as Skooma. We shouldn't however be addicted to it for drinking one bottle, not even three. All of these addictive stuff that could make us addicted to it should have an effect that is like a de-buff. When we first drink the Skooma for example, we should get stronger and more endurable, maybe even resist elements a bit better and move faster. Lets say those effects gave us X points of effect on those things. The de-buff should effect all those areas, but with only one third of X and it should also add a bit more negative effects, such as easier to knock down. The de-buff effect would gradually go away, but it should take at least 1 or possibly 3 in game days for that to happen. Now I come to the point of what I'm trying to say: When we are de-buffed, (but not yet addicted), we could take a new Skooma to get all de-buff effects away and be stronger and more endurable, resistant to elements and faster once again. Doing so however would effect our "resist addiction meter" very negatively, possible leading to addiction straight away. Being without Skooma would add us a permanent de-buff that never goes away, worse than the one we would have without addiction and it would only get worse all the time, adding more negative effects on us.

So basically what I'm saying is, drink as many Skoomas as you want until your character pukes, he still wouldn't get addicted. But lifting us with the help of Skooma out of the de-buff situation would make us almost instantly addicted. In this case, I would be totally for addiction.

An addiction cure should exist in the game, but maybe not as a spell effect. Alchemy effect of the other hand, why not. Maybe a sort of potion that you can drink instead of Skooma when you feel like you have to take it, gradually taking the addiction away. After a few bottles of the alchemy stuff instead of skooma, the addiction would be away. But again, not if you drink 5 bottles of addiction cure instantly, curing should take a few days.

"Skooma skooma skooma I've got fun in my room-a, got some work to do now!" -- Just kidding .... (Scooby Doo?)

Seriously, here's the way I think Skooma addiction should be handled.

1.BENEFITS: Skooma should double your strength the first 40 times you use it. Warriors & fighters would be addicted to using it from level one when they're weak and need that extra strength to win their battles when at first level they svck so bad. It's a cheat, yes, but a costly one. At about 25 you're already addicted but there are no problems yet. Skooma's high cycle should last 48 hours, crash cycle while beneath 25 uses is 96 hours. After 25 uses, you can't break your crash cycle and escape Skooma's addiction.

2.DETRIMENTS: when Skooma "wears off" after each high, you act as if you're drunk. You get the drunk special effect, drunk stat reductions, etc... Using Skooma again clears these effects. Skooma becomes truly addictive at 25 uses. From then on, you are addicted. Your character can't go back to normal after this. Skooma's effectiveness begins to go down. After 80 uses, it can only give a 40% boost. After 150, only a 20% boost. You then lose 1.5% per every 10 thereafter.

3. ADDICTION: If you stop using Skooma for more that 12 hours after your crash cycle once addicted, you will now begin to experience Paranoia. Paranoia would be a new affect for TES in that it would do something special. At the early stages of the Paranoia disease, your brain merely manifest things that aren't there. You will see shadows out of the corner of the gaming screen but when you turn your gaze to look, everything is normal again. When you look down, and then look up, sometimes you'll see some red eyes peering at you from inside store windows or near the corner of buildings where something may be hiding. If you look away and look back, they are gone. You will sometimes hear footsteps behind you, following you, the steps appearing almost in sync with yours, but just off enough to know they aren't yours. But it gets worse from there....

4. PARANOIA in the final stages: after 100 uses of Skooma, you are totally Paranoid. You may be talking to a friendly NPC about some quest when suddenly your screen warbles (like you pressed the Degauss button) and when it clears you're talking to some evil spirit being and the game uses real-time audio manipulation to change the pre-recorded audio into something darker or deeper, but at the same speed (not slowed down, just deepened, like a Audacity effect). It's still uses the same dialogue but now you see a monster instead of a person. In town, you may see a monster like an orc or troll draw their sword and attack you. But actually its just an NPC walking by (but the game actually shows a monster attacking you) and when you strike back, hitting him, you're arrested, but when you look back the man you struck (an innocent bystander) is holding his arm and staring at you with fear as if you're a crazed animal. You never know who is real or who is a monster. Your own mind becomes your enemy, where everything is a trick of or a shadow of your own making. You may walk into a town and see a legion of demons killing prisoners, but when you go into destroy the demons, once you get arrested, you would look back and see a mother playing with her child instead. Who now thinks you're the monster. And quickly runs off in terror of you.

Using Skooma instantly cancels all ill effects and makes you feel sky high again. The lowest Skooma's potential boosts will go is 10% after 300 uses.

With the temptation of power this good, especially at low levels when there is full benefit but no repurcussions to contend with, many players will indeed seek after Skooma simply because it's cool and its power is alluring. Once hooked as a gaming cheat, they won't want to back out ... in effect the PLAYER becomes addicted to using Skooma natively, such that there is no need to pretend he's addicted, because he wants to use it. It's only when the benefits are outweighed by the cost that the player will begin to backpedal, just like a real drug user. And by then, it's too late. This would be a really-interesting version of Skyrim to play through. The durations I've given are not too tedious and you can go several days between hits so again it's not too tedious to use it or find it... It with its awesome strength boosts, it would be something very different and offer quite the incentive to try it out.

THIS! THIS EXACTLY! Bethesda - You have got to put this into Skyrim! YOU HAVE TO!

I was gonna slay them dragons
But then I got high...
I was gonna learnin' new dragon shouts
But then I got high...
Now Alduin ate Tamriel, and I know why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeYsTmIzjkw

I agree with most of what Skystorm77 said but I think that the stats boost should be a lot higher. I'm thinking in terms of players using it as a one of to complete a particularly difficult quest. It could be a sort of cheat button but one that if you abuse it will ruin your experience of the game. I found myself using most of the fallout 3 drugs like this, storing jet etc. until I encountered a room of super mutants.
I think there should be less powerful, less dangerous drugs and potions but that skooma should be overpowered. Also there should be a one of quest to cure skooma addiction, to allow players who made a mistake to get back on track but to prevent this being abused the cure should negate all skooma effects forever so you can never use it again

I agree! That's awesome. You can get a cure, some magical one time fix, but then Skooma use is over. But now we need some kind of a balance. Otherwise people would use Skooma to cheat excessively until they were addicted to the point where it wasn't any good any more, then just use the "fix" and be out of trouble, and be way further ahead on their character development than someone who didn't.

Therefore, a certain percentage of all your experience while using Skooma should be held in reserve (it's still applied toward your character as long as you don't use the Cure) and if you should choose to use the Cure, you must also receive a negative bonus of having the experience you gained during its use removed all at once, such that you will lose however many levels of experience that entails. That would set your character back a long way, as it should, as the cost of using a dangerous drug.

Someone who is 25th level might lose 2 levels, while someone who is 50th level and then receives the cure might lose 10 levels! Someone who is 75th level and uses the cure loses 20 levels! OUCH! (Do you really want to be cured? As with any BAD addiction, there must be a hard choice to make ... )

I don't care really about withdrawavl effects, I want to hallusinate!

(I mean I want to see visual effects on the screen...)

This is how I'd do it. First of all if you take it your stats are boosted. If you don't keep on taking it they they start to drain. ie withdrawel. As such you would have to constantly take the drug for the withdrawel not to occur. If you want to stop using than you have to wait it out. I know this ainbt realistic but waiting, sleeping, etc. doesnt help. It has to be real time gameplay.

It doesnt have to be stats that are boosted. While "high" Your stamina, health and magicka bars are increased. Yor attacks get extra kicks etc. While in withdrawel each of these are decreased. The longer your'e in withdrawel for the graeter the decrease. If you are in withdrawel long enough your stats will slowly [very slowly to be prcise] rise back up to normal. The more skooma you take the greater the affects of withdrawel.

Skooma could be insta booste wich could keep you going for days [stamina, health] but the second it wears off a temporary superdowner occurs. After which the withdrawel happens.

The drug should be relatively common. But if you are caught with it on your person. A cold prison cell on a tiny island off the north coast awaits. And you may be able to sleepe the prison sentance away. But not the withdrawel symtoms.

I chose yes, but a new adiction system.

ONLY skooma should make addiction.

On marksman and magic, we could be less accurate, when in need (shaking), more more when we took skooma.

Do less damage, when in need, in close combat...ect

Some drugs (marijuana) aren't physically addictive, but others (meth, heroine, etc.) are very much so.
You go through physical withdrawals because your body wants more and is becoming dependent on the drug to function in a heightened state.
Skooma would be addictive and you would have physical withdrawals such as decreased strength, maybe slightly blurred vision, and slower speed.

Okay, to start, skooma should be addictive and that addiction should affect your stats as well as the visual appearance of the game. The altered appearance would be one way to help mimic the effects of the psychological state the drug puts you in when you're high, when you're coming down, and when you're in the multiple stages of withdrawal. Whereas some people in this thread have focused on the statistical effects the addiction should have on your character, my post will focus on the visual ones...visual details that help the player feel the addiction him/herself.

(Wow look at the colors man...)

Using the drug increases strength and speed while draining agility and intelligence, but I think when high on skooma, the world should seem to come alive with a 'drug-induced vibrancy' which basically represents an increased state of awareness, as your character's senses are heightened by the drug. In the darkness, it should become much easier to see without any form of light. In the day or well lit areas, the world should radiate with a vivid glow and your focus on anything alive and moving should be accentuated somehow. The world could blur slightly around the outline of anything moving about in your field of view on the screen, to help highlight and clarify your focus on that thing that is moving. This would be extremely useful for identifying threats in the area(almost like a version of detect life but without the annoying purple glow).

Next...(all good things must come to an end)

You should not suffer from addiction after a single use, nor should you become addicted from several well spaced out uses of the drug, but even when coming down from the effects of the drug in these 'addiction free' instances, some sort of mild, but dreary, color filter should alter your view of the world for a specific amount of time to create a slight sense of loss and despair that the player notices (the balance of the blissful high). This would essentially dull your senses and the increased sight you had while high. As you come down your sight should 'crash' below what your normal vision would have been like, had you not used the drug at all. The screen should darken, and muddy. It should become difficult to see at night; shadows and dark areas should become that much darker. Isolated light sources in the darkness should develop a high contrast, to the point that they blind rather than illuminate and become painful to look at. In the daylight the world should shift from vibrant and radiant to a dreary gray pall; seemingly sapping the color and life from the world. All of these effects should eventually return to the 'norm' once a certain amount of time has passed after you came down off the drug.

Next...(welcome to the dark side of the moon, sugar)

Addiction. Once addiction has set in through multiple uses of the drug within a compressed amount of time, then that normal vision you once had as a drug free character should no longer exist. Without the drug, your sight and view of the world should remain fixed along varying degrees of that bleak, dark, dreary, gray, muddied outlook on life. It should hinder gameplay and become an absolute nuissance to the player, forcing him/her to find more skooma to suppress the effect. It should eventually reach a worse state, in which your character seems to develop a form of tunnel vision and the perimeter of the screen starts to become terribly blurry, leaving only what is directly ahead, clear for you to see. This could represent the on-set of withdrawal, and should become increasingly worse over the period of several days without the drug. Also during this time, when withdrawal has set-in, your reticle or central point of focus should develop a twitchy, jerky affect, making it increasingly difficult to do anything accurately and efficiently, whether it be aim a bow, wield a sword or pick a flower. This effect should also get worse over time, until your focus shakes violently about, whenever you try to do anything at all. Use of the drug at any point during these stages of withdrawal will pull your character out of his state of despair, but will require more skooma to reach that initial high and even then the effects should not be quite as great as they once were. Then the lengthy process of withdrawal would begin anew.

Next...(cleanliness is next to divineliness)

If you manage to keep from abusing the drug through the withdrawal process, your character should eventually reach a point when he has become clean and the detrimental effects should slowly begin to subside, until your vision and focus have reverted back to a normal state. Lesson learned the hard way...stay off the skooma!

In all of the BGS games I have played so far, I have yet to Want to use the in-game drugs. Not just a matter of taste, but I havn't seen a mechanic for them yet that made the drugs Fun to use, something that my game character would enjoy. In the Fallouts when I get addicted to a drug, its just annoying - something to avoid and get rid of as quickly as possible - there is nothing really Positive to it. And maybe that's the point?

I dunno, I see drug addiction as a negative aspect that doesn't add anything really Fun to the game. It would be one thing if all the NPCs started acting differently towards me if I was drunk (including positive encoutners, maybe the beggars or poor trust me more if I'm drunk? Or perhaps a bartender would reveal more thinking I would forget anyway!). However they do it, there needs to be positive mechanics mixed in with the negative effects to make them worthwhile. Right now you get some low-increases to a stat or two - nothing that would make using them really worthwhile in my book.

However, if there were some unique things that happened to someone on drugs, it might encourage more players to tolerate the addictions in order to get the rewards on the other side. But then again that would be Directly supporting/encouraging drug use - something BGS is probably not quick to do. Thus I don't see drugs changing much - they will remain, have big negative effects and few positive ones.

We'll see

I agree with using Fallout's addiction system; it's simplest and it would fit perfectly. In fact, rumors in Oblivion stated that a certain NPC (forget the name, but he was a Khajiit and gave you the Garridan's Tears quest) was researching a cure for skooma addiction. Who's to say he or someone else didn't have a breakthrough in the 200 years between Oblivion and Skyrim?

that would be awesome!!!!!!

I am one of the few that voted no. I don't want this game to be like Fallout......I would rather it have purely negative affects on you then have a whole addiction system in Skyrim.

Skooma should raise most of your stats when you use it, but a while after your stats fall drasticly, but will slowly go back to the normal level.

Before Skooma: Normal stats
After Skooma: High stats
A while after Skooma: low stats