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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jackelope King" data-source="post: 2780124" data-attributes="member: 31454">The three big keys to making a successful pure-psionic setting which you should keep in mind are:1. Psionics are darker than traditional magic. Relative to traditional magic, psionics have a psychological-horror twist to them. It is at once a paradoxical system of "magic": on one hand, it shows how someone can change matter, time, and space itself with nothing more than pure will; on the other, it shows how inherently helpless we all are, as if someone were to seize control of your mind, he could control your every movement, shut down your heart, or even trap you in a world of your own nightmares forever. All at once the mind is the greatest weapon and the greatest vulnerability a person could have. Someone who can manifest psionic powers is painfully aware of the fact that for every amazing power he has, there is another power out there which could steal all that free will and illusion of control away. Then look at the lack of healing powers, creature-comfort powers (akin to the Tiny Hut line of spells, healing spells, spells which create food and water, etc.) and some of the more gruesome psionic powers (decerebrate rips out bits of the brainstem, mind seed turns someone into a copy of you, microcosm locks someone in a fake world of their own creation and leaves them comatose, etc.). Play this paradox up.2. Psionic powers are the same as traditional spells and they're different from traditional spells.  Psionics can fill many of the roles in a society that traditional magic would. Transportation with psychoportation powers, manufacturing with metacreativity powers, etc. On the other hand, psionics also enjoy very different strengths from traditional magic. A psionic society would be able to very easily pry into the minds of its citizens with telepathy and very easily gather information on a wide scale with clairsentient powers. The dark nature of psionic powers can be played up here as well: psionic enforcers could walk around with the power ego whip ready to lash out and bludgeon disidents into unconciousness, and use it as a means of torture in interrogation. Finally, aside from shapers manufacturing goods for people and nomads transporting people, psionics offer few benefits to someone other than the manifester. While a sick peasant might seek out a cleric for magical and instantaneous healing, they wouldn't do something similar in a psionic world. The local psion is someone who took a hard look at someone last week and left him screaming on the ground in the fetal position, clawing at unseen wounds. Since psionic characters are poor at affecting other characters positively, people are likely to have more cynical views of them.3. Psionic creatures provide excellent support for the feel of a psionic game. Throughout the development of psionics in D&D, different extremely flavorful creatures have cropped up, especially the mindflayers. The mindflayer is, in essence, a microcosm of what a psionic world can be. Egos are pushed to the extreme by the excessive power characters can wield over one another, and the mind becomes the centerpiece of society. Threats to the body pale in comparison to threats to the mind, and these are ubiquitous in psionic worlds. Rather than sending another slew of Tolkien-esque monsters to harass PCs, take advantage of the unique and horrific feel of psionic monsters like the mindflayers, the intellect devourers, the callers in darkness, and the like. Psionics might dredge up the stuff of nightmares from the darkest corners of creation. Cthulhu-esque horrors from the Far Realms and other monsters from the Far Realms are excellent fodder for psionic games. Feeling lazy? Just slap the pseudonatural template on goblins or your favorite fodder of choice, and suddenly you have otherworldly monsters right out of a world Euclidian geometry forgot. People are comfortable with traditional monsters, but psionic monsters of this sort are new and frightening to most players. Goblins elicit yawns. Screeching masses of withering ectoplasmic tentacles trying to silence the minds of others are unknown and frightening.</blockquote>

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