As a smoker (*sight*) maybe I can give some usefull feedback
If you want to truly relate in-game what a smoker without nicotine feels you need to understand how its addiction works.
- Physic addiction lasts 48 hours after the last cig and effects are difficulty to focus, unhapyness/angriness, dehydration (character should drink more)
- After these 48h, nicotine has been flushed away by our body so it's only psychological/self-conditionment
Of course there are a lot of studies but this is a quick summary. The main idea is that becoming a smoker is an auto brain-fu**.
So, here are few ideas to make the Smoker trait more realistic in-game :
For the Smoker :
- Being stressed after a while whitout cigarette
- Probability to have anxiety if stressed but not having cigarettes in inventory or if having cigs but no lighter or matches.
- Smoking a cig should have a kind of beta-blocking effects if the character has panic mood / it should also deal fitness malus / exhaustion
- It should also attract zeds in a way. Maybe because of cough ? or only the smoke ?
- Fitness malus overtime (lungs health deterioration)
- Hunger reduction
- Maybe symptoms of withdrawal after a meal ? Most of smokers needs a cig """"for a better digestion""""
For the quitting smoker :
- Stress/anxiety/sadness during 2 days : difficulty to sleep, more hunger if the character hasn't occupation
- Stress/sadness if the character sees cigs while exploring the world
- Huge relief/boost if the character smokes, but reset of the quit-smoking-logic.
For the non-smoker :
- Smoking causes sickness and cough the 5 first cigs, then only dizzyness the 5 next.
- Dehydration
- Beta-blocking effect
- Smoker trait appears itself after 10 cigs in a defined span of time.
I think it should be fun to set the border between the non-smoker who smokes once, and the character who becomes addicted. Maybe with auto-consumption like water ? It could lead to funny situations where you realize your character is newly addicted ("less cigs in inventory than last time I've checked..."), or if you want to test him : I left 1 cig in its inventory, will it be auto-consumed and am I doomed, or has my character recovered from his addiction ?
