Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Jarrod" data-source="post: 2252687" data-attributes="member: 13253">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 &quot;Ecto-&quot;, &quot;Psycho-&quot;, and &quot;Meta-&quot; coming from a character will just make everyone stop and go &quot;huh&quot;? So rename all the powers to make them fit in, and sure <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> 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 &quot;ectoplasmic cocoon&quot; made sense and concisely described what they were doing. The equivalent group of mages would be talking about &quot;superheating the atmosphere with a point gate to the plane of Fire&quot;.The characters talk about &quot;goo sheath&quot; and &quot;fireball&quot; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />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 &quot;It's sci-fi, so we can't do magic; we'll use psionics instead&quot;. 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.).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jarrod, post: 2252687, member: 13253"] 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.). [/QUOTE]

Verification