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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 7673700" data-attributes="member: 2067">These get at the same thing - something that complies with the laws of physics in a way we don't understand or as-yet unknown without breaking them is still magic, because "magic" isn't exclusionary or specific. Anything can be magic. Battlemaster superiority dice can be magic. Anything can not be magic. A wizard's fireball can be nanobots or a flamethrower. XP can be magic. HP can be magic. Level can be magic. Laser pistols can be magic. Saying that it's the laws of physics we don't understand is just another gloss on "it's from a pact with the devil" or "it's from my blood" or "its ki" or "it's luck and skill and practice." It's an excuse for supernormal stuff to occur. It's a distinction without a real difference. It's all applied phlebotnium, in the end. It doesn't actually describe any real way that psionics is different in play from any of those other things in the way that they are used by a practitioner. It's ultimately pretty meaningless at the level of play experience. I can run a wizard tomorrow who uses the laws of physics in novel ways and using all my power from within myself to read minds and predict the future and leap between dimensions. How is such a character not a psionic character? What don't they have that a psionic character has? What can't they do that a psionic character does? Which is what I'm hoping to drill down into more - ignore the excuse for the power, what differentiates them in their use from other effects? Don't tell, show - how is this different? In what way? What is the change? To get at how psionics might be different in play from wizards or clerics, we should get at how they are different in the moment in the fiction, so how are they different? What does using a psionic power look like and how is it distinct from what it looks like when a wizard casts a spell?   [MENTION=68021]Das[/MENTION]uul 's stuff is a solid (if a bit specific) start.</blockquote>

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