Psionics -- why do people bother?

[Psion]

Psionics has three syllables in it, and is therefore 50% cooler than magic.

Gygax unearthed "Dweomer" to compensate, but it's just not the same.


Simple answer, IMV, because psionics are cool and a bit more mysterious. In the D&D game, magic is laid bare and well understood by the players. However, at best, one or two players in the group will have a keen interest in psionics, so it makes psionics an interesting tool for the GM to use to keep players intrigued and worried. Contrary to those that suggest psionics doesn't fit fantasy, I think that this feel is MORE fitting of fantasy than the magic-as-a-science feel of core magic in D&D.

Whoever said psionics rules were always problematic has a point. In the past, it has always circumvented the power scales built into the game. At last in 3e, they got it through their heads that to work right, it needs to work a little more like magic. XPH restored a little uniqueness to the system while retaining most of the power checks, and is the first version of psionics that I have been able to run without house rules to the main psionics rules.

Which at this point is more than I can say about the core rules...

 

[Psion]

Me and my friend came up with this theory: Nearly all of the pro-psionicists have gaming experience in a Dark Sun campaign.

Let me lay this theory to rest. I have no special adoration for Dark Sun and didn't play many games in it.

I felt psionics had a place in fantasy long before Dark Sun. For those who base your definition of what belongs in fantasy on novels, I kindly refer you to Norton, Bradley, Kurtz and Brust.

 

[Henry]

Because they are different in feel.

I always find it interesting that many people don't feel that it fits a swords and sorcery style game, because the concept of purely mental abilities or magic powered solely by the mind rather than ritual has has run throughout many different fantasy tales - usually with names like "path of the mind" or "mindwalking" or "mentalism." It may not be a necessary component, but it has run through novels like Katherine Kurtz' Deryni series, and many others I'm surely unfamiliar with.

The biggest complaint I've seen so far is that many people are put off by the term "psionic" sounding science-fictiony, and the other terms stemming from greek root words that make it sound more futuristic. I don't think "psionics" sounds that futuristic, no more so than "Necromancer" or "Astrology" or "Antipathy".

 

[s/LaSH]

Why psi?

Why not?

So long as it's as integrated with the world as magic, there's nothing wrong with it. You could use it to add a weird Victorian flavour (gotta reread A. C. Doyle's The Lands Of Mist some day... that's the one where Professor Challenger investigates psychic goings-on in the heyday of psychic culture), bring out the old-school feel of Dark Sun (for all its revolutionarity, I reckon a lot of Dark Sun's amoral, gritty feel can be blamed on Howard and other people writing before Tolkien, and some of the icky psi stuff can be just as Cthulhuoid as you could wish), throw in some Indian-style mystics with weird control over mind and matter (your fakirs and such, doing Weird Stuff since time immemorial), or just replace magic, as many people have said.

It's an option. It's even an option that can very easily be included. It's not to everyone's taste, and I wouldn't want to shoehorn it into someone's game if they didn't want it. But it's not as strange as you'd think...

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I think 'psionics' is just a fancy 'majjycke' style of renderic 'psychic', which comes from the ancient Greek for 'soul', psyche. I can't think of anything more evocative as a power source, and this linguistic root is older than alchemy, hermeticism, and possibly even elemental theory. Cool, huh?

 

[DragonLancer]

I'm not a big fan of psionics, but thats because they use a different system to magic, so it doesn't slot in as easily as the majority of new material for D&D. That said, I feel that psionics can add something different to a campaign, and since there have always been psionic monsters in D&D (Mind Flayers, and Aboleth for instance) they do sort of fit in.

I run Dragonlance, a world where psionics don't exist, but I added them as a rarity, and build them into the world's background.

Also, prior to the XPH psionics rules where not very good at all. The XPH has come along and its all much more balanced and playable.

 

[Henry]

Gygax unearthed "Dweomer" to compensate, but it's just not the same.

It's still only two syllables, for starters...

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I hate psionics in standard D&D. Always have. The usual reasons, already mentioned, which boil down to "psionics is science fiction, not fantasy." But I've given that more thought, with the advent of 3E, and it's no longer that simple for me, if I ever completely understood my opposition to it at all.

I've realized I could see myself using psionics in a fantasy game ... even D&D (sorta). There are certain "feels" in fantasy that are better served by psionics than by D&D-style magic. (The biggest example for me is the Deryni universe, or something similar.)

So if I did use psionics in a fantasy game, say D20 Deryni, it would be (a) without any other form of "magic," (b) limited to the more subtle powers and disciplines (i.e., no actual morphing of the body, though glamers work fine), and (c) called and thought of as "magic."

What it comes down to is that I'm against mixing types of "magic," not so much against mixing psionics and fantasy roleplaying. (Oh, as an aside, I also hate the monk class in standard D&D, and my opposition to them feels the same as my opposition to psionics.)

 

[WayneLigon]

I have always been mystified by the presence of psionics in DnD.

Why have they persisted? They have always seemed like a bad idea for a "swords and sorcery" game like DnD. Why wasn't (or isn't) magic enough?

Only Col_Plydoh knows for sure But I'd be willing to bet that Kurtz's Deryni series had a strong impact on the decision to include psi in D&D, as well as Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series and Norton's Witch World series. All three present a very 'psionic' magic system; Kurtz specifically left the door open in her writing that what the Deryni were doing was not magic period, but that they were mutants who could impress their power on others (See her notes in either Deryni Magic or Deryni Archives). The Darkover 'magic' is psionics. The writing of Leigh Bracket and others may also be an influence.

A lot of early fantasy was sold as SF because, well, SF sold and fantasy didn't. So, writers that might otherwise have written fantasy wrote highly fantasy-flavored SF, where 'magic' became the more acceptable 'psionics'.

 

[RavenProject]

I bother because there are a lot of psionic powers, that are far more subtle and low-fantasy style than arcane or divine spells. I love low-magic and rare-magic campaigns and psionics can provide me a low-profile way to include mystical effects without roaring fireballs and thundering lightning bolts from the sky. For me, psionic powers seem more "realistic" than magic and this is the reason I do not only like psionics but instead favor them above mage classes.

 

[Henry]

Me and my friend came up with this theory: Nearly all of the pro-psionicists have gaming experience in a Dark Sun campaign.

I think it was the other way around: Dark Sun was liked by many pro-psionics gamers because it used Psi, not because they came into Psi via Dark Sun. You may see a lot of pro-psionics gamers taking up the Eberron flag, now, because there's a whole NATION of psionically active people in it.

in terms of the "Medieval Europe." (White-centric aren't we) What about the Indian yogi's with the ability to shape both body and mind? Australian aborigine's ability to travel into the dreamtime? Chinese seers advising the emperor?

Not the way I'd phrase it, but true; there are lots of different examples that one can follow for different fantasy flavors, and still be "fantasy."

While I'm ranting, might as well get rid of monks. I don't remember Gandalf chatting with Crouching Tiger the monk.

..And indeed, there are lots of anti-psionics gamers who DON'T like monks, either; it's just not their brand of fantasy.


Oh, and Hitler did a lot of things, but "crack me up" wasn't one of them.