D&D General Questions Regarding the History of the Term "Psionics."

[StormbringerAUS]

I'd bet most D&D players probably aren't that familiar with the word, unless they played in Dark Sun or AD&D. It was part of 3E and 4E, but not heavily, and even in 2E it really wasn't that big outside of Dark Sun. Outside of these groups, I would doubt many people would even believe it's a word.

Psionics was back in AD&D I have never played or even looked at Dark Sun or 3E or 4E for that matter but we tried Psionics when playing in the early/mid 80s and using AD&D. So I am pretty sure players of that vintage would be aware of Psionics well before Dark Sun came along.

 

[Azzy]

Psionics was back in AD&D I have never played or even looked at Dark Sun or 3E or 4E for that matter but we tried Psionics when playing in the early/mid 80s and using AD&D. So I am pretty sure players of that vintage would be aware of Psionics well before Dark Sun came along.

Psionics were also in the original D&D game, in one of its expansions (Eldritch Wizardry, I think).

 

[Aaron L]

Psionics was back in AD&D I have never played or even looked at Dark Sun or 3E or 4E for that matter but we tried Psionics when playing in the early/mid 80s and using AD&D. So I am pretty sure players of that vintage would be aware of Psionics well before Dark Sun came along.

Yes, the psionics rules were right there from the PHB in 1st Edition AD&D, and as I recall from a thread on another 1E focused website one of the early AD&D writers stated that their inclusion was influenced by Dr. Strange comic books, which is just fascinating to me. Dr. Strange as a D&D character would have a mix of Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, and Psionicist abilities (learned Wizardly powers, training in innate gifts of Sorcery, magic channeled from Cosmic Beings like the Vishanti, and learned Psionic skills like Telepathy and Astral Projection. Dr. Strange has telepathic abilities the same as Professor Xavier or Jean Grey, but while Xavier's and Grey's abilities are natural expressions of their mutant abilities and manifested regardless of any training (indeed, they need training in order to suppress the ability and inadvertently read everyone's mind without meaning to) Dr. Strange had to undergo intense mental training to learn to tap into the parts of his mind to activate those abilities.)

 

[Aaron L]

Psionics were also in the original D&D game, in one of its expansions (Eldritch Wizardry, I think).

Yup; comic books, and Dr. Strange in particular, were apparently quite popular among the early TSR staff, as evienced by panels from Dr. Strange comics being used as covers for early D&D booklets. The psionics rules were apprently inspired in part by their use by Dr. Strange; Strange's psionic mental abilities are a separate set of mystical/supernatural abilities he learned alongside his magical powers, and I assume the idea of making the D&D psionics rules to be a distinct element apart from the system for magical spells was inspired by that fact. There are overlaps of course, the Telepathy and Teleportation spells alongside the psionic disciplines of Telepathy and Teleportation, but I have always assumed that those spells used magic to activate the psionic centers of the caster's mind to achieve the effects. When a Magic-User cast a Teleport spell, the spell actually activated the psionic areas of his mind to manifest the psionic Teleportation effect.

Either that, or the spells simply use magic to achieve the same results, and perhaps the spells were inspired by early Magic-Users seeking to duplicate the "natural" psionic abilities they had witnessed being manifested by psionically-active individuals. (I assume naturally occurring psionic abilities among certain individuals existed before mortals learned to use magic.) But I prefer the idea that the spells actually activate the psionic effects. I like a nice blending of magic and psionic powers like that. Either way makes no actual difference in the game.

 

[LordEntrails]

I can't agree with this; I cannot recall them ever actually using the word "teleport" nor "teleporter" in Star Trek; the teleportation device used in Star Trek has always been called a "Transporter" for as long as I can remember, ...
I was talking about the actual term "teleport", not the concept of teleportation itself.

Correct, the formal ST term has always been "matter-energy transporter". Which a definition of is "A transporter is a fictional teleportation machine used in the Star Trek universe."

I think cutting the difference between transporter and teleporter in common culture is a lot like arguing the difference between a "Kleenex" and a "tissue". Sure, they are different, but to the common person they are interchangeable.

 

[Shiroiken]

I quite often find myself having to pause and intentionally "dumb down" the things I am about to say so as not to alienate people.

I often have to clarify words I use with my wife, but she takes no offense. She's aware of her intellectual limitations, and that I am more educated and well read. When she reads her romance novels and comes across a word she's unfamiliar with, she has no qualms about asking me for clarification.

Of course, she's aware that she possesses FAR more common sense than I, so we balance each other out quite nicely

 

[generic]

I often have to clarify words I use with my wife, but she takes no offense. She's aware of her intellectual limitations, and that I am more educated and well read. When she reads her romance novels and comes across a word she's unfamiliar with, she has no qualms about asking me for clarification.

Of course, she's aware that she possesses FAR more common sense than I, so we balance each other out quite nicely

Dear god, I do hope that this is a joke.

 

[Bohandas]

IIRC the term "Teleport" was originally coined by the early 20th century paranormal investigator Charles Fort

EDIT:
I think the phrase "wild talent" was also coined by Fort

 

[Shiroiken]

Dear god, I do hope that this is a joke.

Not at all. We've been married for 21 years, and we're quite comfortable with each others failings (and our own).

 

[Tonguez]

The elevation of Psionics into a nerd vocabulary can be attributed to John W Campbell editor of “Astounding Stories of Super-Science” as a portmanteau of psychic electronics (as it was about quantifying units of psychic energy). It followed Radionics and preceeded Bionics and Cryonics.

Astounding Stories and similar pulp sci-fi of the 50’s claim the role of establishing Psionics

as for Teleport, I’d say it was Star Treks Beam me up Scotty