Psionics: Yea or Nay?

[Desdichado]

I started this discussion on another board, but I thought it'd be fun to repost it here where the population is larger and possibly more D&D centric. What do you think about the idea of psionics in a fantasy game like D&D? Not any specific implementation of them, but the very concept itself?

 

[EroGaki]

My vote is for a very strong yay. I love psionics; sometimes I wish it was the main magic system instead of the vancian fire and forget method.

 

[IronWolf]

I went with hesitantly. I am not a big fan of psionics, never really have been. I certainly don't see any of my characters wanting to use them. I would likely shy away from a psionics heavy campaign.

They might work well for some people. Or maybe the DM has a good way to work them into a campaign in a manner that doesn't bother me as much.

Which is why I went with hesitant. Just because I can't get a good feel for them or make them work, doesn't mean someone else couldn't pull it off well.

 

[wedgeski]

I like the idea of psionics as an expression of inner power, manifesting your desires into reality by sheer, tenacious, razor-edged force of will.

I don't think it's out of place in a game like D&D for a character to have that ability, as distinct from arcane expressions, which channel the innate "magic-ness" of the world, and divine expressions, which are boons granted as rewards from the gods. That triumvirate seems pretty sound to me.

In my own campaign I happen to have categorised psionics as an infusion from the Far Realm, a place so different from everywhere else that it has its own sources of strangeness.

What is it about psionics that implies they *shouldn't* exist in fantasy? Was the original Gygaxian implementation steeped in meta-science or something? I don't really recall.

 

[Desdichado]

What about in a setting like Eberron or Dark Sun where they're built in to the framework of the setting from the beginning? Does that help?

 

[Desdichado]

What is it about psionics that implies they *shouldn't* exist in fantasy? Was the original Gygaxian implementation steeped in meta-science or something? I don't really recall.

Personally, I think it's the name that turns most people off. The same mechanics, called some other flavor of magic, would probably have been fine.

IMO, anyway.

 

[Verdande]

I like psionics and I always have. To my mind, there's not a whole lot of difference between some guy reading an arcane tome and suddenly being able to fling fireballs from the knowledge in his head and some guy meditating and suddenly being able to fling fireballs from the knowledge in his head.

I like it so much, in fact, that I usually run magic as psionics, where no materials are needed other than an active mind. I don't see how magic has anything to do with spell books or "spell focuses" or any other mumbo jumbo. Magic comes from, as they say, the Will and the Word, and what a practitioner chooses to call themself or their magic has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on their abilities.

 

[Dausuul]

I voted "hesitantly," but my real answer is, "They're okay in a setting specifically designed to incorporate them, like Dark Sun. And in many cases I like the mechanics better than standard D&D spellcasting. But as a standard flavor element, assumed to be present by default--hell no."

Personally, I think it's the name that turns most people off. The same mechanics, called some other flavor of magic, would probably have been fine.

Yeah, this. Imagine if the fireball spell were called Rory's rocket launcher; that's how psionics feels to me. In a setting where rocket launchers are appropriate, fine. But that's not the flavor of fantasy I generally go in for.

 

[Doug McCrae]

It's the name, which has a science fiction flavour, which is the main sticking point.

Here's a question - what sort of world is D&D set in?

1) A fantastic medieval Europe where the magic and monsters that were imagined to exist at the time do.
2) A Vancian ancient post-multiapocalyptic dying world where half-remembered science is now an art called magic.
3) A big old mess where everything with a vaguely pre-gunpowderish flavour got shoved in. And some other stuff too.

I'd say 3 is closest.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Yes, but not with a magic-like mechanic. The 3e SPUM psionics don't offer much; they're just an alternate magic system. Psionics with meaningfully different mechanics add a lot to the game though.