Psionics--the Poll!

[Voadam]

So, why did D&D in its' various editions decided to have psionics in its' fantasy settings to begin with? They could have called it Psychic Magic or Occult Magic like PF1 did. But they didn't.

Early D&D did not have a hard fantasy sci fi flavor divide, there was a bunch of occasional blending and juxtapositions such as existed in sword and sorcery stuff like Lankhmar and Dying Earth. Gygax sent his group to Barsoomian Mars for instance as well as stuff like Expedition to Barrier Peaks and the displacer beast being an adaptation of a sci fi story monster.

 

[Corinnguard]

Early D&D did not have a hard fantasy sci fi flavor divide, there was a bunch of occasional blending and juxtapositions such as existed in sword and sorcery stuff like Lankhmar and Dying Earth. Gygax sent his group to Barsoomian Mars for instance as well as stuff like Expedition to Barrier Peaks and the displacer beast being an adaptation of a sci fi story monster.

The Dying Earth genre and John Carter's Mars eventually brought us to the 2e Dark Sun setting. A setting where everything was psionic to some degree.

 

[Desdichado]

So, why did D&D in its' various editions decided to have psionics in its' fantasy settings to begin with? They could have called it Psychic Magic or Occult Magic like PF1 did. But they didn't.

Because fantasy as it was conceived in the late 60s and early 70s; Gygax's formative years on the genre, was not so strictly defined where science fictiony concepts weren't around presumed to be inappropriate in fantasy. The Displacer Beast comes from a space opera story where it was some kind of predator on an alien world hunting astronauts. The gorillons come from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom stories on Mars. And on and on, and that's not even getting started on Barrier Peaks and Blackmoor.

If you're asking why is it STILL done that way, many decades later when things have changed, I'd shrug and say probably inertia. Plus most people don't really use psionics much anyway.
EDIT: I mean look at some of the trippy van art from that period, and tell me that psionics doesn't fit better than magic...

 

[Umbran]

So, why did D&D in its' various editions decided to have psionics in its' fantasy settings to begin with? They could have called it Psychic Magic or Occult Magic like PF1 did. But they didn't.

I cannot speak with the dead to really answer that question.

I can speculate that keeping genre expectations clear was not a priority to those authors.

 

[Scribe]

So, why did D&D in its' various editions decided to have psionics in its' fantasy settings to begin with? They could have called it Psychic Magic or Occult Magic like PF1 did. But they didn't.

I found a post or article some time ago, going over the decline of this type of fiction. There was a period where it was something that was very present in the mind of culture, but it eventually hit a wall and fell off completely.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Early D&D did not have a hard fantasy sci fi flavor divide, there was a bunch of occasional blending and juxtapositions such as existed in sword and sorcery stuff like Lankhmar and Dying Earth. Gygax sent his group to Barsoomian Mars for instance as well as stuff like Expedition to Barrier Peaks and the displacer beast being an adaptation of a sci fi story monster.

That's one of the things I love about early D&D. Genre lines are not what I want most of the time.

 

[CleverNickName]

That's one of the things I love about early D&D. Genre lines are not what I want most of the time.

Absolutely. Like my favorite (BECM, specifically Mystara): you've got kingdoms and technology based on Renaissance Italy, Vikings, ancient Egypt, and Atlantis, all at once, and all mashed together. There's flying castles, giant robots, a crashed UFO, and a buried city. They pulled books from the entire classic fiction shelf--Tolkien, Stoker, Stevenson, Shelly, Lovecraft, Asimov, Burrows, Howard, and more--and put them in a blender and hit "frappé."

There's nothing else like it, and probably never will be. (And all things considered: that's for the best.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, why did D&D in its' various editions decided to have psionics in its' fantasy settings to begin with? They could have called it Psychic Magic or Occult Magic like PF1 did. But they didn't.

Well, probably because Gygax was not at all hesitant to mix some SF in with his fantasy when of a mind.

 

[Alzrius]

Early D&D did not have a hard fantasy sci fi flavor divide, there was a bunch of occasional blending and juxtapositions such as existed in sword and sorcery stuff like Lankhmar and Dying Earth. Gygax sent his group to Barsoomian Mars for instance as well as stuff like Expedition to Barrier Peaks and the displacer beast being an adaptation of a sci fi story monster.

I thought I read back in (the original publication of) Playing at the World that psionics in D&D was also supposed to be a nod to the people who wanted to use magic points instead of Vancian spellcasting...but I'm not completely certain I'm remembering correctly.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Psionics is magic. It gets treated as a separate power because Joseph Campbell held pseudo-scientific views. I especially hate when a setting pulls "it's not magic, it's psionics" poop. I want sci-fi settings to own up to their use of magic or come up with better explanations for their weird powers. Psionics in fantasy settings should just be a different form of magic.