What's a good plot reason to grant the players psionic powers?

[FormerlyHemlock]

1a) The Grandfather Paradox is sometimes referred to as "Excedrin Headache Number (square root of (negative PI))".
Calculate this number.

Google handles that one without a problem. It's just i * sqrt(-pi).

 

[SkidAce]

Travel though a psionic teleportal to another location.

Its old, its broken, there's a % chance you gain some psionic powers from the stress.

You gain powers and get to explore an old psionic location lost to time, which would give you hints to whats going on and opportunities to test new powers.

"The door opens at your command, you feel drained and weakened".


Good times.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Where No Man Has Gone Before....

They could pass through an energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy...

 

[Skyscraper]

So I've been doing a lot of campaign building. I've been trying to build a campaign off the premise of psionics, and I've done a lot of stuff, I've made a new dragon type, I've stated the Elan's from 3.5, ect. But I wanted the players to feel included in all this psionics that's floating around, but what is a good plot way to give them these powers without having them simply start with them?

You perhaps mean "what a good reason to grant player characters psionic power?"

Because I'm sorry to break the news to you, but even as DM player brains are pretty much out of your reach.

Or so they say...

 

[Ovinomancer]

In the Scarred Lands there was the beginning of a story arc that involved players catching a "language virus" created by a race of extinct aberrations. The virus twisted something in peoples' minds that made it so that they could no longer be understood by, or understand anyone who wasn't also suffering from the virus, even by magical means. In addition to making it completely impossible to communicate, it also opened the characters up to being able to level up in psychic character classes.

Someone was shameless about Snow Crash.

Google handles that one without a problem. It's just i * sqrt(-pi).

Shouldn't it be i*sqrt(pi)? i *sqrt(-pi) is just -sqrt(pi).

As an electrical engineer, I do so love that I work with invisible things, described often with imaginary numbers, that still will kill you quite dead if you touch them/stand in front of them.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Shouldn't it be i*sqrt(pi)? i *sqrt(-pi) is just -sqrt(pi).

Yes, typo on my part.

 

[spectacle]

Let the characters find an old tome, such as the Necronomicon, that reveals horrible truths about the universe. These revelations take their toll on the characters sanity, but now that they understand the true nature of existence they also discover ways to mentally maninpulate it.

 

[Uchawi]

They wake up and were part of the psionic matrix.

 

[famousringo]

A person hates his grandfather, so he invents a time machine, goes back to when his grandfather was a little kid, and kills the child. Now the time traveler both does exist and cannot exist. Additionally, his grandfather both does not exist and must exist.
Solve the Paradox.

Oh, that's easy. I just use the kid's time machine to strangle the ungrateful snot before he learns how to build a time machine. Universe saved. No need to thank me.

As for psi powers, maybe they could get inhabited by symbiotic life forms, or powerful spirits. Same thing, really. Or perhaps a god of knowledge, ancient fey, or mysterious githzerai could offer to pry open their third eye in gratitude for some service.

 

[GameOgre]

The player enjoys a can of Psiostachios.




*known to cause Psionic Player Characters, read those labels!