Psionics -- why do people bother?

[derelictjay]

Psionics as a whole I love, the concept of bending and manipulating things with your will alone, just rocks. But should you use psionics in conjuction with normal magic. You quickly find out that they are a tacted on system with no support. No campaign setting (excluding Dark Sun which is 2e anyways) has them as a main line affair, Eberron seems to be trying to patch them in with a country devoted to it, any I love how FRCS originally stated psionics as: yeah we got 'em, but you shouldn't use it.

Now, that I got that rant out of me. Any home brew campaign I've ran always gives support to psionics. If I have a psionic character he's gonna get psionic Items and boosts. And I always welcome someone who wishes to play a psionic character.

 

[snarfoogle]

I like power points and most of the crunchy bits of P'sonics, just not the flavor. I have the generic opinion of psionics not belonging in a fantasy game.

 

[ivocaliban]

I've never felt comfortable with psionics, either. I bought the 3.0 version of the Psionics Handbook, but I'm passing on the 3.5 version. I simply didn't get enough use out of the original. Having another system of rules to learn and remember makes psionics more of a complication than an expansion for me...and thankfully none of my players are really interested in them.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about psionics (at least in 3.0) is that so many of their powers require or affect other psionics. This often means you have to pad the game with more of those types in order for the player to feel useful and not just unique. They still seem to me as something that doesn't quite fit into the D&D game plan. That very thing that makes them mysterious also makes them seem alien in many campaigns, at least as I'm familiar with them.

All that being said, psionics have a great deal of potential, it's just that I've yet to see rules that really made them seem in the same world as other D&D classes. Perhaps it's the excessive use of "psionics" in comic books and science-fiction stories that have made them seem more like superheroes than mythic heroes.

I've used some of the ideas presented in the Psionic Handbook for special NPCs. I generally don't use any of the rules, for these NPCs, however. I just give use them as they are needed in my story. Luckily, they're about as common as drow paladins of Helm.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Dear sir, I believe you totally missed the point of my post...


I never said it was proven or disproven - only that it was scientifically researched. You can't deny that it hasn't been looked into. My point is that since it has been investigated from a scientific viewpoint, the "feel" of psionics for some is scientific.

Divine magic has also been scientifically researched (various studies on the power of offered prayers to effect recovery). Just as with psychic powers, there is no credible evidence of any actual effects.

The reasons psionics has a "scientific" feel is that many of the frauds try to concoct psuedo-scientific explanantions for how their "abilities" are supposed to work - various claptrap about vibrations or wavelengths, and occasionally a mangled version of quantum mechanics.

James Randi is far better at exposing this fraud than the news networks or scientific researchers - just as Houdini was, he is difficult to fool. Scientists are not used to having people deliberately try to deceive them.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

My two coppers on the matter...

As "psionics", I despise 3.x Psi. I think it's the stupidist psi-system ever conceived.

I did have a player that wanted to use them, so I re-flavored the system as a form of back-water Arcane Magic (Mysticism) used by primitive cultures based on fragments of psi-lore hidden within their myth and folklore, the last memories of their mighty heritage as a SpellJamming empire that spanned thousands of worlds. As such, the system works just fine, as written, and has enough association to psionics to provide clues in role-playing to its actual origins. (By the same token, the only Class from either of the WotC Psi Books used is the Psychic Warrior, renamed as the Mystic.)

For actual Psi, I'm using a revamped/rescaled version of the Psionics presented in the Fading Suns d20 game, being a Class/Skill system bolstered and expanded by Feats (referred to in-game as "True Psi"). I'm also considering GR's Psychic's Handbook for my next campaign, but no decision is yet made.

As for "why?", it has to do with the nature of psionics coming from "within". You aren't manipulating energy from outside yourself (ex: "The Weave" of FR, draining life energy ala Dark Sun, or other methods), nor must you belittle youself to a deity. Indeed, every campaign I've run for the last decade has featured psionics as a central component; My next campaign is distinctly Psi vs Divine in nature (specifically, self-empowered mortals using psience to combat the brainwashed followers of the parasitic deities), with no Arcane knowledge at all.

 

[Psion]

No campaign setting (excluding Dark Sun which is 2e anyways) has them as a main line affair, Eberron seems to be trying to patch them in with a country devoted to it, any I love how FRCS originally stated psionics as: yeah we got 'em, but you shouldn't use it.

Now, that I got that rant out of me. Any home brew campaign I've ran always gives support to psionics.

I was just about to say... "any campaign" leaves out scads of homebrews. Lots of us have psionics friendly homebrews. Then there are third party settings with psionics support, like Arcanis and Second World.

 

[Umbran]

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?

Because, with a million and more gamers, there are lots of different opinions as to what's a good idea or a good fit. There's lots of different opinions on what works and what doesn't. Thus, we have options. Go fig.

 

[Goblyn]

I like psionics; I also like magic. The difference between the two, for me, lies in the different implementations of the two: that of 3.x psionics is adequate; that of magic is horrendous. I've never read any Vance books, nor did I even hear of them before reading about them. Thus, any attempt to recreate or even even resemble them in DnD is lost on me as well as all those I've talked to about it and expressed similar unfamiliarity.

The option to have a magic system that DOES resemble magic as I've read in fantasy novels is nice to have, instead of being restricted to using a system that does NOT resemble any type of powers, let alone magic, that I've ever seen, be it fantasy, sci-fi, or what have you.

Being able to create and play characters similar to those that sparked my interest in playing DnD in the first place is what keeps me wanting to play DnD.

ANd that's why I bother with psionics.

But that's just me.