D&D 5E Psionics in a sci-fi D&D

[jmartkdr2]

There is one thing about it, it's pretty clear, at least from this poll, that people are not satisfied with a reskinned magic system but, want a unique system for their psionic characters. I might disagree, but, I can see when I'm very much in the minority here.

I think that's the story I'm seeing as well - except "unique" just means 'not just a reskin'. It doesn't mean "a totally new subset of rules that don't interact with the rest of the game."

 

[jmartkdr2]

But again, why is a “good psionic system” different from a magic system?

Why is a "good alchemy system" different from a general magic system? Why don't we just refluff sword attacks as fire bolts and have nothing but fighters?

Because mechanics inform the fiction, and if psionics is the same as wizardry you haven't come close tto the trope of "psychic powers."

 

[Grendel_Khan]

In Shadowrun 4e: "The Awakened world is permeated by mana, the energy of magic. Mana is invisible and intangible. It cannot be detected, measured, or influenced by machines, only by living beings. Mana is sensitive to emotion and responds to the will of the Awakened. It allows magicians to cast spells and summon spirits. [...] Magic can be defined as the manipulation of mana. Sorcery is the manipulation of mana to create or influence effects known as spells; Conjuring manipulates mana to call forth or affect spirits." "The Magic attirbute is only available to characters with the Magician, Adept, or Mystic Adept Qualities."

This having something that only certain people can sense and use - no matter what technology or training is used - feels like something that would give a dividing line between STEM and something super-STEM. I'm sure it has some flaws, but if one went with that, would it make psionics just be STEM if the stuff being manipulated could be detected, measured, and influenced by machines or any trained living thing (so we can make a device to see and deflect the brain waves, or we could train pretty much anyone to do it), but be super-STEM if there's no way to do those things?

Edit: I might have the "no matter what training part" wrong from the game standpoint, but it makes it seem even more supernaturally.

I think bringing Shadowrun into this discussion is good context, because it gets into some of the setting assumptions baked into most 5e games.

SR's main premise is, What if you injected magic into the modern world and didn't hand-wave the social, political and scientific impacts? So you have stuff like MIT becoming MIT&T ("and Thaumaturgy), and corporations exploiting magic like they exploit everything else. Most magic isn't some spooky legend whispered about in village squares. You can see footage of it anytime you want.

Most 5e fantasy settings, though, aren't particularly high-tech or advanced, so even if someone in some college of wizardry developed the scientific method and applied it to magic through experiments and created a systemic understanding of magic, how does that get disseminated? Even if it's a steampunk setting, are people really consuming that kind of information on a global scale on their imp-powered difference engines or whatever? Usually not. So magic usually remains a mystery. Hell, there are tons of people in most fantasy settings who've just never seen it. That's not so in a modern-day or sci-fi setting where magic is fully integrated--they see it all the time, even if second-hand.

Now take those different paradigms (fantasy villagers whispering about magic on one side, MIT&T postdocs showing the equivalent of the Verge their latest conjuring experiment on the other) and replace magic with psionics. Is there anything inherently more quantifiable or measurable about psionics than magic? I wouldn't think so, or else decades of doomed attempts by our own world's academic parapsychologists to prove the existence of any psychic phenomena would have resulted in something other than embarrassment and defunding. Maybe in a sci-fi setting you could measure the temperature increase when a pyrokinetic concentrates in a certain way, but why assume that we'd crack the code any more or less than the scientists in Shadowrun have cracked magic? And just like in Shadowrun, even when scientific rigor is applied to magic, there are higher mysteries to be discovered--the same as in current, real-world scientific fields. What the hell is dark matter, etc.? So in a SF setting maybe they've confirmed all sorts of things about psionics by observing and reproducing its results, but does that mean they've fully dissected and reverse-engineered every aspect of it? We haven't done that in 2022 with stuff a lot of people assume we have, like how the brain really works.

In other words, I still don't see what the functional or narrative difference is between psionics and magic, even in a SF setting where either or both have been studied by scientists and their existence accepted and witnessed by the general public. I think the real difference comes down to whether individual gamers think that there's something inherently "real" or scientific about psionics. To me, that's a misreading of the utter and complete failure of parapsychology studies in the real world. Psychic phenomena are as supernatural and nonsensical as fireballs, not to mention ghosts and ghouls. Assuming that a SF setting would explain psionics in a way that it wouldn't explain magic seems like an extension of that misread, as though we've figured out some kernel of the truth today, which would lead to some fuller understanding tomorrow. That's just not how it is. Like thinking in 500 years we'll finally get to the bottom of this dang Bigfoot business, and Slender Man too!

 

[Yaarel]

Why is a "good alchemy system" different from a general magic system? Why don't we just refluff sword attacks as fire bolts and have nothing but fighters?

Because mechanics inform the fiction, and if psionics is the same as wizardry you haven't come close tto the trope of "psychic powers."

Why is a "good alchemy system" different from a general magic system?

It isnt.

Alchemy is a method of magic.

Magic includes different methods to produce magical effects.

I view the Wizard to be more like alchemy (material components, protoscience), and Bard to be more like psionics. But both are equally magic.

Meanwhile, Warlock, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric, and so on, are each doing some different method of magic.

A Psion would be doing a different method of magic, much like a Bard, but often with more telekinetic force themes.

Then again, if the Bard had a college that specialized in force effects (Telekinesis, Fly, Shield, Mage Armor, Tiny Hut, Wall of Force, etcetera), it would be indistinguishable from a Psion. Such a college might use words to focus mental intentions. Or perhaps, the college uses thoughts only.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Why is a "good alchemy system" different from a general magic system?

It isnt.

Alchemy is a method of magic.

Magic includes different methods to produce magical effects.

I view the Wizard to be more like alchemy (material components, protoscience), and Bard to be more like psionics. But both are equally magic.

Meanwhile, Warlock, Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric, and so on, are each doing some different method of magic.

A Psion would be doing a different method of magic, much like a Bard, but often with more telekinetic force themes.

Then again, if the Bard had a college that specialized in force effects (Telekinesis, Fly, Shield, Mage Armor, Tiny Hut, Wall of Force, etcetera), it would be indistinguishable from a Psion. Such a college might use words to focus mental intentions. Or perhaps, the college uses thoughts only.

I don't see psions as inspiring, highly skillful, or performance-based. I think they really need their own class.

 

[Cadence]

It never occurred to me that some people watched Star Trek and thought the Vulcan Mind Meld or Troi's abilities were akin to magic in story instead of being just something that species could do based on biology and physics. That really changes the conversation for me.

(Star Wars on the other hand... midichlorians... choking sound).

 

[jmartkdr2]

It never occurred to me that some people watched Star Trek and thought the Vulcan Mind Meld or Troi's abilities were akin to magic in story instead of being just something that species could do based on biology and physics. That really changes the conversation for me.

(Star Wars on the other hand... midichlorians... choking sound).

I think it's more there's a lot of people who can't find a line between psionics and magic. Calling psionics "not magic" just never seems to come form a solid, logical place.

(Which doesn't imply that all magic is the same, just that the definition is very broad.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It never occurred to me that some people watched Star Trek and thought the Vulcan Mind Meld or Troi's abilities were akin to magic in story instead of being just something that species could do based on biology and physics. That really changes the conversation for me.

In that setting those abilities are based on biology and physics as they work in that setting. Just like magic in a setting where magic actually works!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I think it's more there's a lot of people who can't find a line between psionics and magic. Calling psionics "not magic" just never seems to come form a solid, logical place.

(Which doesn't imply that all magic is the same, just that the definition is very broad.)

Clarke's law. There is no line between science fiction technology and magic. Warp drive is Misty Step in a spaceship.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Clarke's law. There is no line between science fiction technology and magic. Warp drive is Misty Step in a spaceship.

As I've said, regardless of how much psionics is like magic, if you reskin a caster as a psionic, you are intentionally making your character less powerful/versatile to fit a theme. It just doesn't feel good. Psionics should at least have it's own class/classes with it's own abilities, even if it uses the magic system.