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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Glade Riven" data-source="post: 5538143" data-attributes="member: 86468">Psionics, especially in D&D/D20, are a bit of an odd duck. Early on in the realm of fiction, fantasy, and scifi, it was a way to shoehorn magic-like effects into scifi. Super-science has then since moved on to radiation, genetic engineering, quantum theory, and nanotech, and with the exception of a resurgance or two here or there, it isn't nearly as prominant as it once was. Well, except for (maybe) the Force, but that insinuation may spark a flame war, so let's set it aside. Despite the sideline status it ususually occupies (unless you are big into Starcraft and Mass Effect), it is a staple of the sf&f genre. In D&D 3.x/D20, it just seems...I dunno. Tacked on. Granted, I haven't read the 2e and before stuff, but the inclusion of psionics into the SRD by WotC just seems more of an excuse to put out an alternative casting system than anything else. The handbook (and Expanded for 3.5) put forth a half-setting, some of it (as I understand it, and could be wrong) was from Dark Sun. Much of the fluff just really didn't speak to me, and the human based variants of the psionic races just struck me as flavorless and dull. Balancing issues aside, it felt like it was being different for the sake of being different, and nothing else. I suppose I'm a bit weird, looking for an angle to make psionics work for me.</blockquote>