D&D 5E Dark Sun doesn't actually need Psionics

[TwoSix]

I guess much depends on what you define as "magic", and whether psionic powers are magical powers or not.
Personally, i have no problem viewing psionic as the third realm of supernatural powers after arcane and divine magic, but I know that some really insist on psionic being radically different.

No matter how different from magic they are, being able to blow stuff up with your brain falls under the "supernatural" umbrella.

 

[iserith]

Okay, let me redirect slightly, as my point seems to be not very clear:

What central theme in Dark Sun is removed if you take psionics out, other than just not having psionics?

Dark Sun, to me, was awesome because it subverted the tropes of fantasy and mixed in post-apocalyptic themes. The coolest stuff in Dark Sun, again to me, was never mind magics, but instead the defiler/preserver duality. Psionics always felt like a way to ignore that divide and have "normal" magic. As such, it is not required for any of the major themes of Dark Sun. Instead, it's loved not because it made the setting work but because people liked the mechanics, and that's cool but not necessary to have to do Dark Sun well. The argument that's commonly made is that you need a psionics system to do Dark Sun well, and I don't think you do, at all. Dark Sun would work perfectly fine without psionics.

@iserith and @Paul Farquhar's points about making monsters more weird is certainly a good one, but I'm not sure you need psionics to do that.

Sure, the monster issue can be solved by just calling it Innate Spellcasting (Psionics) as with githzerai (?). I'm just not as big a fan of "reskinning" in this edition as compared to D&D 4e. I'd rather there be a different ruleset, but otherwise agree Dark Sun could be done without formal psionics mechanics.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A great argument for why D&D doesn't need rangers too.

True.

 

[TwoSix]

Death to all false dichotomies!

Dichotomies can be good when they help emphasize the storyline and tropes of the setting. If you feel psionics is necessary to support a coherent visualization of Dark Sun, that's totally fine; I personally can see a vision of Dark Sun that does not.

I guess a conflict here is differing beliefs as to what the central thematics of Dark Sun are.

 

[Aldarc]

Dichotomies can be good when they help emphasize the storyline and tropes of the setting. If you feel psionics is necessary to support a coherent visualization of Dark Sun, that's totally fine; I personally can see a vision of Dark Sun that does not.

I guess a conflict here is differing beliefs as to what the central thematics of Dark Sun are.

I guess a conflict here is someone holding the belief that having one theme (e.g., defiling magic) somehow negates the other central themes (e.g., a harsh and alien world of psionics) of the setting.

 

[ninjayeti]

Does Eberron NEED artificers? Does Ravenloft NEED vampires? Does Planescape NEED Sigil?

The literal answer is no - you could do versions of all of these settings without some of their signature elements. But just because you CAN do it doesn't mean you SHOULD.

 

[Aldarc]

It seems like a stronger case could be made to exclude arcane magic from Dark Sun. Arcane magic screwed things up for the world, so it is no longer on the table as an option for PCs. Arcane magic is thus only the purview of rare NPCs, such as Dragon Kings, and this could be easily incorporated into stat blocks without needing arcane magic classes.

 

[DEFCON 1]

A great argument for why D&D doesn't need rangers too.

Heh heh... and this is why they've never bothered to "fix" the Ranger, despite much caterwauling by some players thinking it's a necessity. If people don't like the Ranger they got, they can choose to not use it or replace it with another one they find or design themselves.

 

[LordEntrails]

I've always felt that psionics detracted from flavor and setting of Dark Sun.

Perhaps this is because I played other settings with psionics that I never felt it was unique to DS. Perhaps because to me DS is about the destruction of magic, the abuse of great power that the world itself has almost been destroyed.

Adding a friendly superpower that replaces arcane magic was simple, to me, a crutch to allow players to have wizards by a different name. To have the superpowers of magic without the drawbacks of magic that are so central to the setting.

Psionics, to me, in Dark Sun was always a crutch to allow non-martial characters without the central costs or negative aspects of magic in the setting.

i.e. In this setting magic has a cost, you can't play a wizard without accepting that cost. Except if you play a psionicist, then it's just like a wizard in any other setting but without the uniqueness that defines wizards in this setting.

 

[LordEntrails]

p.s. I have no idea how to vote on the poll.