Psionics: Do you use 'em or did you lose 'em

[Ruined]

Depends on the campaign I'm running. Current Scarred Lands game? No. I wanted to go more a traditional fantasy route. The Planescape games I've run? Sure, why not? There are mind flayers in plenty of locales and all sorts of oddness that makes psionicists seem rather normal.

 

[KB9JMQ]

Over the years no one has ever wanted to use them and I don't like them but I have never stopped anyone from using psionics if they wanted to.

Now in my Eberron game I have a Kalashtar Psion so I have someone using them but I have yet to throw a psionic using creature at them.

 

[Zander]

Psionics is a completely fantastic notion. It doesn't belong in Sci-Fi because there's no scientific basis for psychic powers. "Psionics" is fantasy be default.

Psionics, a portmanteau for psychic electronics, is as pseudo-scientific as most of the technology on Star Trek.

 

[Desdichado]

Psionics, a portmanteau for psychic electronics, is as pseudo-scientific as most of the technology on Star Trek.

So? Even if I agree with that, and accept the ultimately silly word psionics as a gaming artifice for what everybody else calls psychic powers, it still doesn't change the fact that it's not science fiction. By its very nature, it's fantasy.

 

[EricNoah]

XPH psionics really works for me.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not to get TOO technical, but Psionics (as a concept, not the name) originated neither in pure Sci-fi nor in pure Fantasy, but more in horror...the two genres' bastard love-child.

The evil mesmerist, dominating the minds of lesser men...The pyrokineticist looking at you and going "Burn..."...flinging objects across a room with a thought...

this was all fodder for horror/pulp for decades before either Sci-Fi or Fantasy picked up on it.

Not that anyone will let that fact sway them either way, of course.

And if we're talking pseudo-science...

Look at the way alchemy is depicted both in fantasy and in its own real texts- its a "scientific" process with fantastic elements. Some supplements have "Artificers"...and who hasn't used/fought against some kind of "Clockwork" opponent?

 

[The_Gneech]

Look! An obvious distraction!

*erases a post with errors in it*

-The Gneech

 

[Insight]

I like the idea of psionics, but I'm not sure I buy them in a fantasy game. Maybe as an alternative to magic, but not both at the same time. I could get behind a setting that was predicated on psionics being the only form of 'magic', and I like the rules that are in place (I have only seen the SRD version of 3.5 psionics). I don't like having both magic and psionics in play in the same setting.

There should be an option in the poll for "I like Psionics, but not mixed with magic."

 

[kigmatzomat]

I use 'em in my game and have even managed to make the term "psion" seem appropriate for DL. (Form o' magic developed by one of the Scions taken by Reorx, "scion magic" becomes "scionic" and drifts to psionic when translated to Solamnic.)

Of course I also had it be an extension/discovery of a monk (gasp!) so I think a couple of people would catch fire in my game. "Wait, psionic monks?!? Brain...so hot!" Whooosh!

Why'd Reorx take the psionic monks and other scions? They used powers/technology the gods couldn't control so they killed or kidnapped them..

 

[Aethelstan]

Psionics just feel all wrong in the quasi-medieval setting of D&D. Player #1: I draw my sword.
Player #2: I ready my wand. Player #3: I use Psycholuminesence. I'm sorry, but that's a real mood-killer for me.