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Conflict can be as simple as buying breakfast from the innkeeper, facilitated by the protagonist's need to eat and the innkeeper's presence with food, and resolved by the protagonist's willingness to pay two copper pieces for breakfast. It could even be just a general concept of "conflict" with...

As mentioned in the appendum to my first post, in a fictional world of some sort. Thankya kindly! I get the feeling you already have an answer and want the rest of us to guess at it. I assert that the two components of an RPG are as follows: 1. A system that facilitates and resolves...

Wherever you want it to take place. Adding context would only serve to exclude roleplaying games on the fringes of convention, and that is not necessary. Adding the context of "with people around a table" would exclude groups who play on the floor or via the internet. Adding the context of "not...

There's no great mystery to it. The system of a roleplaying game is a means by which players can facilitate and resolve specific conflicts. The conflict is between a protagonist (the PC in question) and an antagonist (either another character in the game or the environment). By facilitating...

But you overlook many, many things about ego whip. First and foremost, it doesn't come into its own until mid-to-high levels (mid levels for the wilder). Before you can augment it high enough, it's mostly for show, since charisma damage which is less than enough to knock someone out means...

I wouldn't. The wilder sounds like boatloads of fun. You'd probably enjoy slapping some folks into a coma, until you ran across your first undead and found out that your combo doesn't always win the game for you. Same for the other characters. Of course, rather than outright vetoing your...

An interesting character only needs 3 things: - The ability to interact in interesting ways with other characters (both PC and NPC), whether this be in the form of a funny accent, a loveable personality, or interesting quirks. This could be as limited as yelling corny catch-phrases while...

Even if it became the core mechanics for 4E (which I sincerely doubt... if anything, I'd see them making it a little more like AU/AE's system, which'd be fine with me), I'd want psionics to still exist on a flavor level. Too many good memories with psionics in my games to be able to stand losing...

Fewer Monster Manuals. These are almost as useless to me as modules and adventures are, since I vastly prefer using NPC humanoids as opponents in combat. I get plenty of little monster suppliments from campaign settings and other supplimental material (like the monsters included in Complete...

It doesn't matter / other. The crunch should be logically organized for ease of use and arranged in such a way that it supports the setting's fluff. I don't care how you do it, just do it. I prefer getting the basics up front, then including specific bits of crunch to prop up or support fluff...

Another (somewhat long) thought on the matter: Relative to magic, the primary strength of psionics is the gathering and relaying of information. The impact this has on a society depends on how widely-available this ability is. For the purpose of this little thought-experiment, we will first...

Rituals to call forth the favor of powerful spirits and to bind their servants to your body. Most of the time, it simply "looks" like odd and somewhat unsettling coincidences which follow in your wake (stealing a little from ta'varen in the Wheel of Time, I know). Half-seen faces peering out of...

1. I run a psionics-only game, so the XPH sees a lot of use. In my other games, it still sees some use. I like me my psionics, and this is after hating them vehemently as recently as 3.0E.

Ditto for me. My incarnum is just heavily modified enough that it doesn't look anything like neon-glowing soulmelds anymore :)

The three big keys to making a successful pure-psionic setting which you should keep in mind are: 1. Psionics are darker than traditional magic. Relative to traditional magic, psionics have a psychological-horror twist to them. It is at once a paradoxical system of "magic": on one hand, it...

I run one like this now. I run it as more of a failed age of discovery game, with former colonial powers trying to come to terms with the native (largely Meso-American and American Indian cultures) they share space with. Psionic characters fill all the roles that spellcasters once did, plus it...

Anything but 1. Adventures aren't worth the paper they're printed on for me. Everything else gives me plenty of ideas, mechanics, and fluff to mine. Adventures, for me, are just useless.

And on the other end of the spectrum, one game I run only allows XPH psionics. Arcane and divine magic (and any classes or abilities associated with it) are banned. In my other games, pretty much anything goes, but players should speak with me about it first. I find that players who are willing...

Just wanted to address this while I had the opportunity: You've said this numerous times before, and saying "many powers" is both incorrect and misleading. If you bothered to count the powers in the XPH, you'd see that a vast majority simply do not have this advantage. Out of the 256 powers a...

This is going in circles. You're bringing up things which have already been discussed. I take it that since you're now ignoring my recent points, you're conceding all of them, thus making a strong case for psionics being balanced. And as I and others have said, traditional spellcasters get the...