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

[Desdichado]

Actually, there is evidence for psychic phenomena. In fact, the U.S. Air Force had a remote viewing program for over 20 years. There have been numerous missing persons cases solved with aid from so called clairvoyants. There have been many people who have demonstrated with reasonable degree, clairvoyant abilities that cannot be explained in whole.
There also are yogi, who can perform incredible physical acts with their bodies, demonstrating extreme willpower/mind over matter. Of course, there is also deja-vu, which lots of folks experience, but we still don't know what it really is, other than mental salience tripping over itself perhaps.

Now, these are not to be confused with anything in the game. Some have felt that perhaps these events are due to freakish coincedence, and others feel they are representative of capabilities of the human mind that we simply have not discovered the limits of.

Yes, I've read about those government remote viewing programs.

However, I've read about them in the same sources that I read about Majestic-12, the Roswell cover-up, Hitler's deals with aliens and the occult, and all kinds of other things that I don't take any more seriously than I do psychic powers.

 

[DonTadow]

I like them, but I use the Unearthed Arcana variant whereas they can interchange with magic. I also use the elements of magic system.

I explain this in the storyline of my campaign as an artifact was implanted into the heart of the earth millini ago which, as a side effect gave many psionic abilities (that they perceive to be magic).

 

[Desdichado]

No, by definition they're fiction. Fantasy is its own genre within the broader category of fiction, just as horror, crime, historical fiction, SF etc are. Fantasy and fiction are not synonymous.

I quite agree. But it seems to me that you are the one who is conflating the two and ignoring the differences. Psychic powers are indeed fictional, but are just as fantastic as a dragon. They don't exist, and never have, so they fall into the realm of fantasy. You seem to be unable to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy except by the trappings which surround them, which are actually beside the point. Star Wars is fantasy despite having space ships, aliens and blasters, because space ships, aliens and blasters does not mean science fiction; those are just trappings that are often associated with science fiction. But by themselves, they do not make a work science fiction.

A few years ago, there was a protracted debate in Realms of Fantasy magazine about what is fantasy and what is SF (a debate you're no doubt already aware of). The editor concluded that SF is the fiction of ideas while fantasy is the fiction of imagery. The ideas that are fictionalised in SF are normally scientific or technological. As such, they have fictional scientific/technological rationales (which can be termed "pseudo-scientific/pseudo-technological"). Campbell provided just such a pseudo-scientific rationale for mental powers rooting them in SF.

Actually, I was not aware of that, but I strongly disagree with the conclusion that the editor reached. He also seemed to have confused substance with window dressing. A work isn't science fiction just because it has technobabble, and a work isn't fantasy just because it eschews techno-babble. In theory, a work of science fiction could leave the science unexplained in the main text, but the author has it all worked out in his head. I'm not familiar with any such work, but it would be science fiction, even if it didn't really look like it. There are plenty of other examples of fantasy using techno-babble that calls itself science fiction, but it is not, except from a marketing perspective.

Science fiction is predicated on extrapolations of scientific theory, or at least scientifically grounded speculation on things with which we don't know any better, and so they may be true. Technobabble does not make it science fiction, because it merely disguises the fact that what it has going on has no scientific validation whatsoever. Fantasy is predicated on things that are flat-out impossible in the real world as we understand it. It does not mean swords and dragons, although it could. Fantasy could be set in the far future on a colony of a planet around Rigel, and it would still be fantasy.

When you unstop the the pseudo-scientific/technological bottle, the fiction of ideas replaces the fiction of imagery. Once one thing has a pseudo-scientific basis, why not another? Very soon, everything within a fictional world can be explained pseudo-scientifically and elements that require relatively simple pseudo or even real science and technology become possible. In a world where matter can be manipulated by the electric activity of the brain, there's no reason not to have more mundane science and technology such as telegraphs or even bicycles.

Pseudo-science doesn't particularly impress me. And the use of technobabble, as in Star Trek, or psionics, does so even less. At least from the perspective of convincing me that it's science fiction -- I don't mind pseudo-science, but it's important to remember that that's all it really is at the end of the day. And to keep in mind that we're talking about science fiction, not pseudo-science fiction.

Which is just a fancy way of dressing up fantasy.

 

[Jarrod]

I suppose I should vote...

I don't have a problem with psionics as a point-based power system, although I'm a little twitchy about the lack of components for psionic abilities. My real problem is the _names_. While I'm not running (or playing) High Fantasy by any means, the words "Ecto-", "Psycho-", and "Meta-" coming from a character will just make everyone stop and go "huh"?

So rename all the powers to make them fit in, and sure

In fact, I think of it this way. A society of learned psionic-types would be likely to develop a language about their powers that defined the above terms and all of the others, so that "ectoplasmic cocoon" made sense and concisely described what they were doing. The equivalent group of mages would be talking about "superheating the atmosphere with a point gate to the plane of Fire".

The characters talk about "goo sheath" and "fireball"


As for Fantasy/Sci-Fi, I have no idea _what_ I'm talking about, but Psionics always seemed to me to be Sci-Fi's magic. As in "It's sci-fi, so we can't do magic; we'll use psionics instead". End result is you have people talking to each other over planetary distances, but in fantasy it's a spell (and has ritual, etc.) while in sci-fi it's psionics (and has boosting power generators, a radio signal, etc.).

 

[Psion]

I never said that psionics are scientific or rational. They are, however, pseudo-scientific and have a rationale.

Oh? What would that rationale be? It doesn't have a rationale that's any more scientifically grounded than magic.

Psionics aren't magic. Magic has a considerably older (literary) history dating back millennia and lacks any kind of pseudo-scientific basis.

Again, I beg to differ. It's a different style of magic. It's magic with "willing things to happen" vice arcane gesture and rituals. Any this paradigm does go back quite a ways.

Even if it does stem from more recent sources, that is hardly unusual for fantasy. See below.

While there is a partial overlap between SF and fantasy (Star Wars is a good example), just as there is between other genres (Aliens, for example, which is a cross between horror and SF), SF and fantasy are not the same. Several authors including Hickman & Weiss and Poul Anderson have used the incompatibility of science/technology (or the pseudo versions thereof) and fantasy in their novels. If there were no difference between the two, these stories would not have made any sense.

Please do not strawman my arguments. I never once said that there was no difference. I said it's not a dichotomy. Sure, there are stories that if you just randomly threw elements in, they would not fit your framework. That's not to say that stories can't have their own elements that do make sense together.

Elsewise stories like Pern, the Coldfire Trilogy, and Darkover (fantasy worlds that are posited to be space colonies) would not exist.

 

[Desdichado]

As for Fantasy/Sci-Fi, I have no idea _what_ I'm talking about, but Psionics always seemed to me to be Sci-Fi's magic. As in "It's sci-fi, so we can't do magic; we'll use psionics instead". End result is you have people talking to each other over planetary distances, but in fantasy it's a spell (and has ritual, etc.) while in sci-fi it's psionics (and has boosting power generators, a radio signal, etc.).

But that's exactly my point. It's magic sheathed in techno-babble so as not to offend the science fiction community by completely pretending to be nothing more than fantasy.

Which is exactly why I don't understand the "I don't like D&D psionics because it's too sci-fi" attitude. There's really nothing very sci-fi about them, except for some of the terminology sounding vaguely technobabble-ish. Not to mention the fact that D&D was built on a model that already combined the two genres. Why do you think some of the very earliest adventures included dungeoncrawling through crashed spaceships and the like? Gary Gygax and Co. were olde skool S&S fans, and in olde skool S&S, fantasy and "sci-fi" elements freely intermingled.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Basically, my position is include Psi in the core rules the next time around. Why?

Not because I love it so, but rather because if they do, they'll be forced to playtest it alongside the other core classes. They'll know before release whether the psi powers are balanced re: other spellcasters, etc.
That said- I don't see that much of a balance problem with the current XPH stuff.

I agree, the psionics have been controversial afterthoughts for too long and should be rolled into the core system. The XPH has streamlined the system so that it is as easy to use as any other d20 mechanisms. (Remember 2e psi combat? Blech!) Only the fear that its inclusion will alienate buyers (or more accurately, eliminate a separate product sale) will justify its non-inclusion in 4e. (Not that I want to see 4e anytime soon. I thought 3.5 could have waited another 2 years.)

 

[Kanegrundar]

To the original question:

I use psionics all the time as both a player and a DM. Psionics is used by me as a DM just as much as magic users IMC's. This time around Psionics doesn't feel like the horrible after-thought that it was in eariler editions.

Kane

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While I'm not running (or playing) High Fantasy by any means, the words "Ecto-", "Psycho-", and "Meta-" coming from a character will just make everyone stop and go "huh"?

And yet, if you were running a campaign set in ancient Greece or Rome, the PCs would understand PERFECTLY what you meant by those prefixes...

We can't help that your PC's are a bunch of underecucated heathen!

 

[Methos]

I like them; but have not used them yet, partly since the campaign I'm running is focused on core, with only bits and pieces of non-core thrown in.

The non-core material is a lengthy list of feats and about 11 prestige classes that are non-core.

In my next campaign, I will introduce the Scout, the Warlock and possibly psionics and maybe a new race, possibly Goliaths.

Cheers

Methos