I have no problem with magic being a science, so long as it's weird, forbidden science. What I hate is bourgeois magic, with enchanted items reduced to the level of modern consumer electronics. I dislike happy, well adjusted wizards completely integrated into society. I don't want the local barkeep casually noticing a Wizard and simply going on with his work. I don't want magical items being made with no more problem than knitting a sweater. I want magic that inspires fear and loathing. I want wizards who are engaged in Byzantine conspiracies. I want magic to be condemned by the ignorant Church, and Wizards who really are trying to make themselves into gods. I want magic items that are created through terrible rituals that must be hidden under the cover of darkness. To me, the split isn't between mysterious magic and scientific magic, it's between magic that retains its eldritch power, and magic drained of all its charm.
How do we WANT magic to work (Forked Thread: ... medieval war...)
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Fallen Seraph
First Post
I like my magic to be its own field of study that is influenced by and is influences science. So while a Wizard or Sorcerer or what not may be able to conjure up their magical potential without knowing the inner science of how it interacts with the physical, scientific world it is likely they would become better or understand magic more by understanding science.
Take for instance conjuring up a fireball. They can do it without knowing the science that influences it. But they would probably have more control over it if they did, in knowing that their magic causes strings to change their resonance to spawn the fireball out of nothing and such. At the same time to understand science a scientist would need to understand how magic influences it, so how does levitation spells influence gravity, how does lightning spells influence electro-magnetics.
As for Psionics that fits more fitly within the science idea. I quite like my Pseudoscience especially when it comes to Psionics. As such while magic while influences/influenced by scientific principles it still exists outside of it. Psionics on the other hand is a science and uses scientific principles (at least in this world, in that Pseudoscience ideas are actual science).
So yeah magic is mysterious and all, but with any good scientist, it can be if not completely but partly revealed and shown how it works. While Psionics is completely based around scientific principles, though like magic it can be done simply naturally but knowledge of how it works can focus a psionic-user.
Take for instance conjuring up a fireball. They can do it without knowing the science that influences it. But they would probably have more control over it if they did, in knowing that their magic causes strings to change their resonance to spawn the fireball out of nothing and such. At the same time to understand science a scientist would need to understand how magic influences it, so how does levitation spells influence gravity, how does lightning spells influence electro-magnetics.
As for Psionics that fits more fitly within the science idea. I quite like my Pseudoscience especially when it comes to Psionics. As such while magic while influences/influenced by scientific principles it still exists outside of it. Psionics on the other hand is a science and uses scientific principles (at least in this world, in that Pseudoscience ideas are actual science).
So yeah magic is mysterious and all, but with any good scientist, it can be if not completely but partly revealed and shown how it works. While Psionics is completely based around scientific principles, though like magic it can be done simply naturally but knowledge of how it works can focus a psionic-user.
Particle_Man
Explorer
You know, I never saw the psionics = sci-fi thing. Using the power of your mind to alter the world around you...I don't see how that involves THE FUTURE! in any way. Maybe it's something from before my time?
Also, I must admit that I laughed when I saw the second complaint of "Psionics are too sci-fi, they need to be more traditional!" right before "Psionics are too similar to traditional magic, they need to be more different!" .
For the first, I blame those movies, comics, etc., about mutants from the future using the power of their minds to move objects, etc.
For the second, yeah. The first complaint is fluff-based, and the second is crunch-based. I just can't win.
So what?
An ancient Greek probably would have said of someone who had the ability to see over the horizon that he had "television" or something close to that. The word would be the same as our term for the modern entertainment/informational tool that has become nearly ubiquitous, but its fundamental meaning is different.
That happens with words- they accrue different meanings over time.
After all, is the torch of 300 years ago the same as one you'd find in a British hardware store?
No argument, but again, its merely words. The concepts behind the powers themselves are old as dirt...is that really weighty enough justification for tossing the sub-system?
If so, what if the game's designers called Psionics Psychic Powers? (Again, given the nature of the sciences of the 13th-16th centuries, the names of the powers described might be as they are- latinate or of greek origins.)
I disagree...to a point.
The psychic- by any other name- generally sources his power from within. He is exercising his mind over matter directly- often his own matter- without arcane formulae, the intervention of spirits or powerful beings, tapping into pools of mana, etc.
As stated above, there are dozens if not hundreds of theories of magic in RW legend, myth and fiction, each with their own- sometimes contradictory- rules. The magical methods of the animist shaman isn't the same as the runecaster, the elementalist, the hermetic wizard, the hedge wizard, the diabolist, the truenamer, the binder or even someone whose power waxes and wanes with some kind of natural rhythm...
And only the being who directly manipulates raw magic (a spellshaper) knows that all are different pathways to the same kind of power.
What it doesn't justify is that magic and psionics don't affect each other.
Oh, but they do. Psionic-magic transparency dictates that magic and psionics work on the same level so long as it's beneficial to the wizard.
;_;
Also, I agree that calling psionics "Sci-fi" because the word "psionics" was made in a sci-fi book is nit-picking to the extreme. I see it in the same way Yahtzee sees a zombie game. If the enemy in question can be replaced by anything but a zombie, it's not a zombie game. Likewise, if the "sci-fi" word can be replaced by any other word, and the entire subject stops being sci-fi, then it's not sci-fi.
Doug McCrae
Legend
I'm not saying toss the sub-system, my point is purely about language. I'm saying *if* a DM wants a medieval/Tolkienesque feel for his milieu, and I believe many do, then 'psionics' is out. Not the system. The word. The word was specifically intended to have a modern, technological flavour. To sound like 'electronics', probably.
And I believe your justification, that a word is fine because the parts from which it's made are old, is a bad one. 'Psionics' has a modern flavour. 'Television' has a modern flavour. When we're dealing with rpgs, flavour is of great importance. Ideas, tone, worlds are communicated by the use of a few words, so it's important to get those words right.
Jack Colby
First Post
I want magic to work like it does in Conan stories. Is that too much to ask?
According to the XPH, you can have either Psi/Magic transparency or you can have them bypass each other.
I'm just saying that there is nothing in the subsystem that (to me) justifies the latter position.
The problem is that some people use that as an excuse to toss the system. They don't even try changing the terminology- its baby + bathwater out the window.
I disagree.
They only have a modern flavor from our modern perspective. Looking from the perspective of a medieval scientist/arcanist researcher the words would have entirely different meanings. They could have called extremely good eyesight- or possibly some kind of scope- as "television" (with the greek root "tele" and the middle English "vision").
The point is that there is nothing intrinsically modern in the language itself, just to the meanings we have ascribed to them.
Now, for some of the more modern chimeric terms, like "biofeedback," the argument is a bit weaker...but it is just a modern version of doing the same thing the English language has been doing since it popped up on the scene.
Consider "alchemy," a word we wouldn't toss, presumably.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alchemy
Yet its a combination of middle english elements and elements from older languages.
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