How do you like you psionic flavor?

[MatthewJHanson]

The "default" flavor for psionics seems have a crystal "new-age" feel to it. Hyperconscious and Eberron have both tied it to dreams. I've hear other people who treat it as "just another type of magic." What flavor do you like your psionics to have? And is that how you would like to see published material?

(Please do not reply, "I don't like psionics of any flavor." I already know it's not for everybody.)

 

[el-remmen]

I like it as an ancient and mysterious power that is different from magic (and they don't interact well, i.e. I am in the psionics is "different" camp), and is not very common or well-understood.

 

[Roudi]

My preferential flavour is psionics as "new mental abilities". I like to approach it as an evolutionary feature and not a supernatural occurence. I prefer it to have a little bit of a "scientific" feel about it

 

[blargney the second]

I love Eberron's dream-flavoured psionics. The new-agey crystal stuff went out of style in the mid-90s.

 

[Psion]

The "default" flavor for psionics seems have a crystal "new-age" feel to it. Hyperconscious and Eberron have both tied it to dreams. I've hear other people who treat it as "just another type of magic." What flavor do you like your psionics to have? And is that how you would like to see published material?

It is a different type of magic... based on principles which link it to concepts like crystals and dreams.

There's one thing that I miss that has sort of been phased out by WotC that Hyperconscious gives me. I like the whole concept of psionic characters having a perception and ability to affect a reality other character can't. The mindscapes system recaptures it, but the core rules sort of dropped that, and I think that harms some of the distinction with arcane magic.

 

[el-remmen]

I like it as an ancient and mysterious power that is different from magic (and they don't interact well, i.e. I am in the psionics is "different" camp), and is not very common or well-understood.

BTW, i don't use WotC psionics, but Green Ronin's Psychic Handbook (slightly tweaked) as it is closer to the 2E psionics I prefer.

 

[Asmor]

Flavor wise, I'm somewhere between the new age fluff and just another form of magic. It's rare in my world, but not anything special, and most people would just consider it another form of magic if they realized it wasn't magic in the first place.

The actual practitioners, though, would have different terms and such. Very pseudoscientific.

And mechanically, I make it act exactly like magic. Psionics won't work in a place magic won't work, for example.

 

[BryonD]

A different way of controlling magic.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I like to leave it vague. A telepath I played once firmly believed that psionic powers were connected to a hindu-esque universal mind that underlies all reality, of which individual minds are merely small parts. The world is an illusion, and furthermore a corruption of the perfect universal mind that has caused this fragmentation, pinching off individual minds like a bubble pinches off a bit of air. Introspection can allow one to make a connection back to the universal mind, and from there the seeker can do things like make contact with other minds, reconstruct one's personal reality, and affect the corrupted reality which is itself part of the universal mind, since all things are part of the universal mind.

This does tie into dreams a bit, because the physical world is merely a dream of the universal mind, which is why the seeker can change it.

However, this monist perspective was only one character. I generally leave the origin of psionic powers out of the canon of my games, because I like it to be mysterious and open to interpretation. The funny thing is, it always works, no matter why you think it works, even though the system is based on a philosophical introspection exercise, which tells you something very important about the power. I suppose I'm inspired to a certain extent by Mage: The Awakening, in which reality corresponds to belief, and not vice versa. However, that leaves questions about what exactly is the meta-reality underlying the realities that make various approaches to psionics possible. This is exactly the sort of philosophical question I want to direct psionic characters toward, when they realize that their way is not the one true way, even though there should only be one way due to contradictions that would arise if it were otherwise.

 

[deClench]

Black, like my coffee.

With regard to magic, I prefer that it be kept separate and not overlap. In practice, that's a lot of work if both magic and psionics are active in the setting, so I usually play with overlap.

With regard to the presentation, I like it all. I know that's not what you wanted, but I think it's all good. I love the dream-approach from Eberron. I'm not crazy about the new-age connotations of hte crystal-approach, but it still works for me. I wonder if that new-agey vibe is what makes some people dislike psionics. I would love to see new approaches. The crazier, the better! ^_^