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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6817127" data-attributes="member: 996">Most of the terms traditionally used in D&D Psioinics, including 'psionics' are fairly modern.  Things like telekinesis, telepathy, psychic (referring to a person), medium, etc, are from the 19th century fad in spiritualism and theosophy (the influence of theosophy in the way people imagine the supernatural and the afterlife is really quite remarkable, given that the movement itself is all but forgotten).  Teleportation and psionics are from the 20th century (supernatural beings appearing or disappearing at will is a hoary idea, but the teleportation label is relatively new), and both were coined in the context of science or science fiction.If you feel like there's any kind of dividing line at all between sci-fi and fantasy (and many folks don't), psionics can seem jarringly out of place in a fantasy-genre RPG.  But then, so can a lot of other traditional elements of D&D, like Vancian casting, mechanical lobster submarines, giant amoebas, etc, etc, etc...Casting the new psion class the 'Mystic' and leaving some room for re-interpretation of the nature of its powers seems like a good idea for 5e, which wants to accommodate the full range of D&D fans, from those who have been irately banning psoinics since Eldritch Wizardry hit the shelves in 1976 to those who can't wait to reprise their stable of psionic PCs in 5e.</blockquote>