Psionic Abuse

[john112364]

Were you playing Gurps by any chance? IIRC 1st or 2nd edition Gurps psionics were very abusable.

And yeah. He was a total jerk.

 

[RainOfSteel]

How do you make psionics work in a game? How do you deal with a PC who either knows what everybody is thinking or who is capable of knowing that? What can be done here?

What game, what edition, what powers?

Beyond that, in a game with psionics in it, the player can hardly be the only one with such powers. If other people have them, they'll abuse them, too. Up to, and including, taking over people, business, kingdoms, you name it.

You can have two situations:

1) Where the psionics-users are already all in control, and therefore the important NPC was already a psionics-user and would have had defenses.

2) There exist defenses and ways to deal with psionics-users and since the NPC was important, the NPC would have had said defenses (or he or she would never have made it to being important).

Possibility: A rare tea from the "far away kingdoms of whatever-land" contains a drug that has no effect on a normal mind, but when psionics powers intrude, a backlash of energy is directed as the psionics-user, damaging their mind through screaming agony, making it obvious who did it if they're anywhere nearby. The tea is delicious and only as expensive as any other tea from a far away land, so it becomes common among the wealthy, but commoners and mid-range wealth cannot obtain it. Your important NPCs are protected against psionics at that point.

Possibility: If you're playing D&D 3.x, then you should rule that magic and psionics are the same, which is your exclusive right, so magical mental defenses, and especially Spell Resistance, work against psionics.

 

[Glade Riven]

Yeeaah....I probably would have just kicked him from the game right then and there. Or invoked Rule Zero from the get-go, no matter how high he rolled. He shouldn't know the stats of the NPC.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

If this situation occurred at a game I was running:

Jerk: “see, we don’t even need a gamemaster!”
GM Me: <rolls a dice behind screen. smiles evilly.> "NPC shrugs off your mind control, looks you in the eye with a deathly hate and unleashes uber death spell of kicking your arse."

Actually there's no way I'd have allowed the character in the first place. And probably not the player.

As for balancing Psionics, Rain of Steel has some really good points.

cheers.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In 3.x, psionics had a bad rep, not for being abusable (they weren't more abusable than magic), but because DMs generally didn't understand psionics to the extent that a psionic-enthused player would.

As a result, if a player did abuse the rules, the DM was almost helpless and often left angry and fuming. I know two DMs who banned psionics for this very reason.

TBH, I had the same thing done to me in 2e. Fortunately, as a psi-fan myself, I learned 3e psionics quite well, and of course got a new gaming group too.

 

[RainOfSteel]

2) Don't play with jerks

If it only it were always so easy.

 

[the Jester]

If it only it were always so easy.

It absolutely is.

You just don't play with jerks.

No gaming is better than bad gaming.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

There really ought to be a sticky rule here that says something like: State what game, edition, and/or level you mean when you post an "I've got a problem." I can't count the number of times that the first response to someone's post has been just that, with several others following suit.

Sorry for the threadjack.

 

[RainOfSteel]

It absolutely is.

You just don't play with jerks.

No gaming is better than bad gaming.

You are greatly oversimplifying the situation. The web of social obligations that bind a person may require that a game be played with a GM (who is a friend) who also decides to invite a player who is a jerk (who is not a friend). There is usually nothing that can be done to get out of these things without offending the GM. There are other combinations, too.

If you have no such social obligations, then you are in a more convenient position in life than I.

Your final option of no gaming is, of course, available. This can tend to develop into a permanent situation when others learn that the individual in question is inflexible.

 

[the Jester]

You are greatly oversimplifying the situation. The web of social obligations that bind a person may require that a game be played with a GM (who is a friend) who also decides to invite a player who is a jerk (who is not a friend). There is usually nothing that can be done to get out of these things without offending the GM.

I really don't think I am oversimplifying anything at all; it is actually very simple to begin with (imho). To wit: If a game isn't fun- don't play in that game.

Alternative #1: Talk to the jerk player about it. Maybe he can help make it fun after all.

Alternative #2: Talk to the dm about it. Maybe he can help make it fun after all.

There is absolutely no obligation to play in a given person's game just because you are invited, and- just like any fun activity that isn't actually a good time- if it isn't actually fun, there's no reason to keep playing that game. If a dm gets offended when you explain that you have to leave the game for whatever reason, that's a pretty fragile ego on that dm.

There's a common social fallacy amongst geeks that because someone is your friend, you MUST include them when you ______ (in this case, when you game).

That is nonsense.

Being a friend doesn't mean including someone in something that is less enjoyable because of their presence. If you're going on a date, you don't bring your pals along just because they are your pals, nor do you ask your sports-hating friend to go to the football game with you.

Moreover, if the guy is a jerk and is not your friend in the first place, where's the issue? Would you invite someone who likes to pee in the corner of the living room into your house just because he's a friend of a friend? Where does this sense of obligation come from?

Your final option of no gaming is, of course, available. This can tend to develop into a permanent situation when others learn that the individual in question is inflexible.

If by 'others' you mean 'jerk players,' that's probably okay. Being shunned by jerks is probably a net positive. Non-jerk players, knowing you won't play with jerks, will probably be secretly hoping you start a group of your own so that they can ditch the jerks too.

Not enough non-jerk players in the area? You can always recruit new ones. It's really not that hard, unless you live somewhere with a pretty sparse population.