D&D 5E Unhappy with Psionics requiring Far Realms flavor

[Cybit]

If a player purchases a Far Realms Setting Guide, then that is where the Setting Guide needs to discuss how Far Realms relates to psionics.

The class has to function in many different kinds of settings, mostly homebrew settings, or settings inspired by popular shows and books.

Keep the baked-in settings away from the class descriptions.

I am unsatisfied with psionics requiring Far Realms flavor:

"
Psionics indirectly originates from the Far Realm, a dimension outside the bounds of the known multiverse.

"

I refuse to purchase products that are baked-in with unwanted flavor.



The Far Realms doesnt exist in my settings. Assuming it exists is inherently disruptive, and unwanted in most settings.

The antihuman implications of Far Realms flavor contradict the personal and humanistic flavor of ones mind.

D&D 1e psionics flavor is strictly about the brain, the mind, and the nature of reality. Far Realms need not apply.

Well, guess it is a good thing that there's nothing to purchase here so far, is there?

I wouldn't worry too much about flavor-y stuff like that carrying over; most of the playtest materials often start with those kinds of details and then are removed when polished IIRC.

 

[bogmad]

As much as it doesn't really bother me that the Far Realm is baked into the first two paragraphs of the "Otherworldly Power" section of What is Psionics, I really like the last two paragraphs where it talks about psionics being more common in campaign worlds where the "bonds of reality" have been twisted and warped away from baseline D&D; reiterates in the fluff that this is an optional system

If you had just that description without the mention of the far realm it'd be about the perfect fluff for me, and easy enough to insert the Far Realms into those settings where it exists without ruffling as many feathers.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Re-read the intro stuff, it calls out Psionics as a reaction to Xoriat, the realm of chaos when psionics was in the realm of Dal Quor before. Hopefully, they fix said oversight, but it wouldn't be the first time Eberron's cosmology got pooped on.

At the very least the reference should be changed to Xoriat and Dal Quor. Most Eberron player's point of contact with the psionic rules will be through the Kalashtar race, and they have no connection to Xoriat/the far realms.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I don't like the far realms connection either. I'm more than okay with the Far Realms being more steeps in Psionics than Magic, but I'm not okay with Psionics coming from the Far Realms.

Generally, I like flavor being attached to mechanics. I even like it for Psionics. I simply don't like this particular flavor.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Once again instead of making everyone happy, they decided to please a select few.

They could have easily had sections in the description that listed possible places that Psionics have surfaced but I guess that was too hard.

 

[Tony Vargas]

They could have easily had sections in the description that listed possible places that Psionics have surfaced but I guess that was too hard.

Generally, I like flavor being attached to mechanics. I even like it for Psionics. I simply don't like this particular flavor.

It seems like maybe that's a problem WotC is wrestling with: that the majority of it's fans are very clear in wanting hard-coded flavor-mechanics linkages, but that they are fragmented as to what that flavor should be. So, if they give a hard-coded flavor, they displease the majority (all those who don't want hard-coding, plus all those who wanted different hard-coding), and if they don't, again, they displease the majority who didn't want 'dissociated' flavor & mechanics.

It's a wonder they're still trying.

 

[SigmaOne]

The biggest problem I have with this is that it's meaningless to people who are new to the game. As with many things in 5e, it assumes you have some familiarity with the history of D&D. People new to the game won't. Far Realms? Just a couple of words. See also: creating four adventure paths in the Forgotten Realms without having released a FR setting guide, referencing various gods, etc within those adventures with no explanation. It's a tactic that implicitly involves relying on Google to fill in all the gaps for people who buy the product, assuming new players will figure all this stuff out. Maybe some players will stumble on DriveThruRPG and pick up an old PDF of the setting, but most won't, even if they do find out about it. It's disconcerting.

Anyway, I think this fluff should be provided as a potential explanation, along with others, such as specifically spelling out those for Dark Sun and Eberron, which already have explanations that should remain unadulterated. Fluff is good, but built in fluff that reigns in creativity, enforces a particular setting, or references intellectual property that isn't common knowledge, should be avoided.


Edit: That said, it's good that it is only fluff and can be ignored.

 

[The_Gneech]

Not real keen on this particular flavoring myself. Psionics entered D&D as a way of mixing sci-fi into the fantasy, and really I'd prefer it stayed as such. In a pulpy S&S-style setting where spaceships crash in the Barrier Peaks and you can get ahold of lasers as long as you get through the experimentation mini-game without melting your own face off, the pseudoscience of psionics fits nicely.

Making it "the magic that things with tentacles use" is just sorta "Eh..." to me.

-The Gneech

 

[painted_klown]

The biggest problem I have with this is that it's meaningless to people who are new to the game. As with many things in 5e, it assumes you have some familiarity with the history of D&D. People new to the game won't. Far Realms? Just a couple of words. See also: creating four adventure paths in the Forgotten Realms without having released a FR setting guide, referencing various gods, etc within those adventures with no explanation. It's a tactic that implicitly involves relying on Google to fill in all the gaps for people who buy the product, assuming new players will figure all this stuff out. Maybe some players will stumble on DriveThruRPG and pick up an old PDF of the setting, but most won't, even if they do find out about it. It's disconcerting.

Anyway, I think this fluff should be provided as a potential explanation, along with others, such as specifically spelling out those for Dark Sun and Eberron, which already have explanations that should remain unadulterated. Fluff is good, but built in fluff that reigns in creativity, enforces a particular setting, or references intellectual property that isn't common knowledge, should be avoided.


Edit: That said, it's good that it is only fluff and can be ignored.

Excellent point regarding new players. I am new to D&D with 5E, and have no real clue as to what tying psionics to the far realms even means, neither will my payers. LOL! I suppose, that just makes the fluff easier to ignore, as we can read it and disregard it as completely irrelevant to our games...

 

[SigmaOne]

The good news (I assume) is that they'll release a survey on this, and everyone and their brother can express their opinion on whether they want "Far Realms" hard-coded into the psionics class or would rather see a paragraph with a variety of possibilities and mentioning the classic Dark Sun, etc, origins.