AD&D1 Psionics

[Celebrim]

The term psionic is analagous to bionic. Where bionic means biological + electronic, psionic means psychic + electronic; it originally referred to sci-fi technology for amplifying psychic powers. (Read Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe for an example.)

I'm not sure how this is an objection to my assertion. Perhaps you are just assuming I'm unaware of some fo the details, or perhaps you are just trying to amplify what I just said?

The term psychic is itself modern and pseudo-scientific, created in the late 1800s to lend a scientific air to the same magical beliefs that had existed since pre-history.

Right. So, 'psionic = psychic = magic' by your own description. Certainly in no edition of D&D have 'psionic powers' been associated with electronic augmentation, nor is that the most salient feature of even most science fiction uses of the phrase.

In stories with science fiction genera trappings, 'psionics' are usually used as a form of genera sleight of hand, to distract the reader or audience from the invocation of magic by dressing that magic in psuedo-scientific garb and give it a scientific air.

This however is not how they are used in fantasy settings. For example, in D&D, psionics were originally functionally used to represent essentially a native magical power that wasn't tied to character level (and hense study, experience, or profession). The continued existence of the idea of 'psionics' in the D&D fantasy setting where this function isn't fulfilled is somewhat odd, and really is nothing more than D&D's smorgaboard approach to fantasy.

The 19th-century spiritualists created all kinds of pseudo-scientific jargon for magic powers; they're the terms gamers use today: extra-sensory perception, telekinesis, etc.

For which we practicioners of fantasy games should be grateful, because the categorization of magical ability provides us alot of nice words to use in creating a systematic description of magical ability that would otherwise be difficult. However, psuedo-scientific mumbo jumbo is still mumbo jumbo.

So psychic (or psionic) flavor is really about keeping magical elements plausible in a modern, scientific setting

They are only more plausible if you accept the 19th-century spiritualists arguments that there is some scientific basis for telekinesis, telepathy, etc.

 

[grodog]

I played 1e both with and without them, as both a player and a DM, and overall I found the system OK/meh. There were a number of articles in Dragon 78 which expanded upon the original psionics system, and I leveraged many of the new attack/defense modes developed by the DM of our primary campaign at Penn State when we used psionics heavily, but all-in-all, they never felt very apt to the games I was running in Greyhawk. Perhaps they'd feel better in a setting more like Moorcock's Eldren/Erekose setting, or the Dying Earth, or even moreso in MA/GW.

I liked the new Disciplines, Sciences, and Arts, as well as the new magic items, in Dragon 78 quite a bit, and still used some of them even after I completely dropped psionics from PC usage.

 

[Jhaelen]

I've always been a big fan of psionics but the 1E mechanics for them were truly awful.

The 2E mechanics were fine with some house-ruling - if everyone had access to them (as in the Darksun setting).

The 3E mechanics were great. Better than the regular spellcasting system.

The 4E mechanics? I guess they'll be okay, judging from the preview.

 

[Thunderfoot]

I thought they had some really great design elements....paired with some very horrible mechanical implementation - ie good/bad.

I hated 3es alternate magic explanation, I always thought of magic as controlled elemental shaping- altering the universe to your whim by using components, formulas and verbal/somatic usage. I always saw psionics as using your mind to alter your surroundings or, at least having everyone else believe that you had done so. There were never verbal, somatic or components in the picture, which of course meant that a tied up psionicist could still function, without air, without sound and without tactile function, (in other word; underwater, tied up and gagged) while a mage, cleric, etc. couldn't.

Semantics, yeah, but it was what I liked. As for 2e, better, but still broken. I have yet to see any system really cover it well.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

All I know is that I must have been really, really lucky with percentile dice, because I had a lot of psionic PCs. Weirdly, though, my luck never seemed to hold when other players were around to watch me roll. That was pretty annoying.

 

[Bullgrit]

I only ever saw one psionic PC in my AD&D1 days: a paladin.

A few Players rolled for psionics, sort of "just to see," but only the one paladin actually made the percentage.

This 1st-level paladin played through one adventure, and had a pretty easy time of it. The Player willingly gave up playing the PC because the psionics were just too whacked out.

Looking at the poll results, I'm very interested to hear the thoughts of the 4 posters who think the AD&D1 psionic rules were well designed.

Bullgrit

 

[Hussar]

It's funny you mention paladins. Because the chances of getting Psionics was based on Int, Wis and Cha, and Paladins had such high requisites in two of those, paladins had probably the best overall chances of being psionic.