Mike Mearls on D&D Psionics: Should Psionic Flavor Be Altered?

WotC's Mike Mearls has been asking for opinions on how psionics should be treated in D&D 5th Edition. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that he'd hinted that he might be working on something, and this pretty much seals the deal. He asked yesterday "Agree/Disagree: The flavor around psionics needs to be altered to allow it to blend more smoothly into a traditional fantasy setting", and then followed up with some more comments today.

"Thanks for all the replies! Theoretically, were I working on psionics, I'd try to set some high bars for the execution. Such as - no psionic power duplicates a spell, and vice versa. Psionics uses a distinct mechanic, so no spell slots. One thing that might be controversial - I really don't like the scientific terminology, like psychokinesis, etc. But I think a psionicist should be exotic and weird, and drawing on/tied to something unsettling on a cosmic scale.... [but]... I think the source of psi would be pretty far from the realm of making pacts. IMO, old one = vestige from 3e's Tome of Magic.

One final note - Dark Sun is, IMO, a pretty good example of what happens to a D&D setting when psionic energy reaches its peak. Not that the rules would require it, but I think it's an interesting idea to illustrate psi's relationship to magic on a cosmic level."

 

[Morlock]

Interesting thoughts on this topic from another board:

I've of the opinion 'blend' and 'smoothly' should _not_ be words used when describing classic D&D-style fantasy. It should be more like a spicy salsa that for reasons contains chucks of chocolate-covered nougat and hashish.

Yes! Very well said.

That perhaps it has an origin in some sort of science, even if it is a science of mental discipline? To me psionic powers always have that feel that they are less hand-wavey than magic. You expect them to be more reliable, but at the same time less powerful, and maybe for anyone to be able to stand up to them in a time of duress, through force of will, where magic wouldn't allow that.

Again, very well said.

Maybe more "named" powers. Evard's Black Tentacles is one hell of an evocative spell name - more psionic powers with "names" would be cool.

Here, I disagree. I prefer that psionic powers lean more toward being powers, and away from feeling like spells. We call it "gravity," not "Newton's Universal Attraction." And named spells really scream "spell!" to me. Like something a wizard would want to patent. Powers are more there for the taking. They're not arcane rituals that depend on rigid adherence to a formula, they're powers that are explored and discovered through insight, practice, and, well, exploration. Or they're inherent. Either way, I see psionic powers as something tapped, not evoked.

I thought this was kinda funny:

Honestly, I don't see a lot of fiction where magic exists and there's also a totally separate kind of supernatural power that more closely resembles the sort of psychic powers you see in science fiction. I can think of fantasy where characters have powers that resembles psionics, but in that case those powers tend to be the primary magic system for the setting. A world where most of the wizard-types using one very high fantasy style "learn spells to do whatever" style magic system while another group has sci-fi style psychic powers does sound pretty atypical for fantasy (though probably not nonexistent--everything's been done somewhere)...

But then, so is a world where some people learn potentially omnipotent magic by memorizing books in some kind of fire and forget system, others are basically born with it like X-Men mutants, others gets a different kind of magic from gods, others get a different nature-themed variation of the god-magic, some people just sing magic songs, etc. If you're not looking at explicit D&D fiction, very, very few fantasy settings adopt the kitchen sink approach that D&D does. And I tend to think D&D works best by giving all the options for the whole kitchen sink, then letting individual settings and campaigns remove whatever elements don't fit the tone.

He basically just described the Marvel and DC comic universes.

A point I realized 3 years ago is that, if Psionics are supposed to be distinct from the Arcane, many wizard spells need to be psionic instead. The Psion has to represent everything mental: telepathy, telekinesis, scrying, and all force-generating powers like Shield. The Wizard, if it's not a grab-all for every non-healing special effect, should be limited to archetypical wizardry: summoning, evocation, and transmutation. The wizard controls magic surrounding the physical, elemental world. The Psion controls the mental, ephemeral world.

But that's not going to happen.

This parallels what I'm doing with my take on psionics, and a psionic setting. I've been really struggling to make the three categories he assigns to "archetypical wizardry" work for psionics. The more I look at them, the less I want to.

 

[Yaarel]

Well, I have psionics in my homebrew world. They are psychic individuals. There is nothing "science fantasy" about them or the world. Their inclusion from science fantasy sources at D&D's roots notwithstanding.

Same here. When I have psionics in a medieval setting, the characters are simply ‘psychics’. Some people have the ‘gift’ of ‘second sight’.

In my mythologically accurate Viking setting, the psychics are sometimes described as ‘shape strong’, meaning the aura of their mental self-image is strong enough to influence their body and to project outofbody to influence world around them. Teleportation is sometimes described as ‘traveling at the speed of thought’.

(There are no gods; the regions uninfluenced by the Roman gods, are animists.)

 

[Yaarel]

Yeeahhh. In theory. But most players can't or won't separate rules from the fluff they are attached. I've spent years mix and matching rules with settings, and when it comes to DnD Magic/Clerics and Superheroes they players won't make the jump.

Exactly. Add me to the list of players (and DMs) that cant make the jump out of baked-in flavor.

 

[Nifft]

Something I haven't really seen brought up in this thread so far, is the fact that 5e spells seem to have already stolen the main Psionics scaling mechanic: the fact that you have to spend a higher-level slot to get a higher-level effect.

Since 5e magic already works like pre-5e Psionics, I don't have much of a problem using 5e magic mechanics for Psionic stuff, especially for classes like the Monk, Sorcerer and Warlock which already kinda-sorta fit the flavor.

That said, I'd always like to get new cool things, so if someone comes up with an awesome set of mechanics which support multi-classing and integrate well with whatever settings I feel like using or inventing, that's awesome.


One last thought: what Monte Cook did for Arcana Evolved was make [Psychic] a tag which some spells had, and there were some characters who got special access & special casting when using [Psychic] spells. 5e already has a Psychic damage type, and [Mind-Affecting] spells, so this is probably not a difficult adaptation.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Something I haven't really seen brought up in this thread so far, is the fact that 5e spells seem to have already stolen the main Psionics scaling mechanic: the fact that you have to spend a higher-level slot to get a higher-level effect.

Since 5e magic already works like pre-5e Psionics, I don't have much of a problem using 5e magic mechanics for Psionic stuff, especially for classes like the Monk, Sorcerer and Warlock which already kinda-sorta fit the flavor.

That said, I'd always like to get new cool things, so if someone comes up with an awesome set of mechanics which support multi-classing and integrate well with whatever settings I feel like using or inventing, that's awesome.

I sort of touched on that in the other thread...

My first thought on how to handle psionics, is to collapse the 0 - 9 spell system into a small number of discreate powers. Each power has an at will manifestation (cantrip equivalent) and more powerful manifestations (unlocked at specific class level benchmarks) that require the expenditure of a certain number of points. At the DM's discretion, psi points and spell slots can be interchanged by multiclass psion/spellcasters.

 

[darius0]

Speaking for myself, I cannot change the fluff of the rules. For me, playing D&D is about immersing in the illusion of being in an other world. Simply seeing the word ‘gods’ when consulting character sheets and core books, spoils the illusion of the other world. I saw the mistake that stage magician made, and now the illusion is fail.

Moreover, the rules of the Cleric class that players must consult emphatically forces the player to pick a ‘god’. Not a patron, not an ethos, but a ‘god’. As per the rules as written. The Dungeon Masters Guide is infuriating because even the section that talks about alternative settings still tries to talk the DM into having gods in the setting anyway. No thanks.

The rules as written bakes in the flavor of unwanted gods into every aspect of the D&D class, even the spells. It is impossible to play an immersive game without being forced to deal with gods.

I could, of course, completely rewrite the entire Cleric class, and rewrite most of the spells, and rewrite swaths of the Players Handbook, in order to create a flavor that I enjoy.

Or I could play a different game that makes it easy to enjoy the flavors that I enjoy.

The reason why I continue my interest in 5e is I appreciate the mechanics. I value the effort WotC made to playtest this version of D&D. I respect the result. At the same time, I want to play *my* campaign setting. Not the setting brand that WotC is trying to force on me.

So does all "fluff of the rules" have to conform to what you like? Everyone will have things they like or don't like. All of everyone's opinions can't really be included.

The "immersion" argument is similar. People might not like monks, or drow, or dragonborn, or whatever else and by your reasoning it might break the immersion for them too, just because that is referenced in the description of another monster or be on the same page as something they are referencing. Those things shouldn't be removed or generalized just because a few people don't like the fluff.

It really is easier to not have gods in a campaign than you are making it out to be. Honestly, I usually have to force players to choose a deity just to justify their min/maxed domain choice. Players I have seen over the years of divine casters rarely really RP the worship of their gods much.

Here's what you do: when making a Cleric, choose a domain and just ignore the part where it says what gods usually have that domain or whatever it says there.

 

[aramis erak]

Aww, but the Far Realm is cool! I'd rather they continue making lore for it since it's relatively easy to take out an element of lore if you dislike it, but a lot of work to create lore if they stop providing it.

No it's not (on either claim of yours). It's actually much more of a pain when they tie abilities to some lame-ass piece of lore to extract them from it, because they usually write the rules to reference that lore. 5E is following in that lore-linked rules-writing tradition.

 

[Fralex]

No it's not (on either claim of yours). It's actually much more of a pain when they tie abilities to some lame-ass piece of lore to extract them from it, because they usually write the rules to reference that lore. 5E is following in that lore-linked rules-writing tradition.

Well, yeah, it shouldn't be so directly tied to something like the Far Realm that you're required to incorperate it. I was just disagreeing with it needing to be removed completely. Because it's cool.

 

[Nifft]

I feel like the Warlock patron "Great Old One" is basically the level of Far Realms which I want to see in the core rules.

 

[Yaarel]

Here's what you do: when making a Cleric, choose a domain and just ignore the part where it says what gods usually have that domain or whatever it says there.

No, thank you.