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<blockquote data-quote="jgbrowning" data-source="post: 1483216" data-attributes="member: 5724">One Mind, Joining Power, Group Merge.... There are many different titles that could apply without using a modern naming convention. Personally, I'm not too fond of metamagic either. I don't know why they couldn't have just been called &quot;Magic Feats&quot; or &quot;Magic Manipulation Feats.&quot; *shrug*This is the root of the problem to me. The language used to name psionics is similiar to the language used in science or in the modern period. Pyrokinesis is how it would be described today, while fire control would be more &quot;fantasy.&quot;I just get the feeling that Mulder and Scully named a lot of these things... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Using the language (latin for a lot of these) that is also used in our modern world for scientific discourse increases the lack of fantasy. Ironically enough, given our American Cultural bias, using germanic roots words wouldn't be an issue so much to me as using latin. Although germanic words are used quite a bit in science (geology for one) they don't have the strong cultural association with the modern for most Americans.I think people know latin has this baggage. Just like if I was to call a psionic ability &quot;Flowing Red Dragon Claw&quot; or &quot;Thunder Punch of the Monkey&quot; would have an (albeit turgid) asian association.No. It's not just the name that's part of my issue, it's also the overall tone of the work. Just the change from &quot;caster&quot; to &quot;manifester&quot; rubs me the wrong way from this angle. And in case my tone is being lost through the written format, I'm far from fanatical about this. It doesn't even qualify as a pet peeve of mine, but it is one of the reasons why I think psionics are overlooked as viable by many D&amp;Der. It's jarringly modern.joe b.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jgbrowning, post: 1483216, member: 5724"] One Mind, Joining Power, Group Merge.... There are many different titles that could apply without using a modern naming convention. Personally, I'm not too fond of metamagic either. I don't know why they couldn't have just been called "Magic Feats" or "Magic Manipulation Feats." *shrug* This is the root of the problem to me. The language used to name psionics is similiar to the language used in science or in the modern period. Pyrokinesis is how it would be described today, while fire control would be more "fantasy." I just get the feeling that Mulder and Scully named a lot of these things... :) Using the language (latin for a lot of these) that is also used in our modern world for scientific discourse increases the lack of fantasy. Ironically enough, given our American Cultural bias, using germanic roots words wouldn't be an issue so much to me as using latin. Although germanic words are used quite a bit in science (geology for one) they don't have the strong cultural association with the modern for most Americans. I think people know latin has this baggage. Just like if I was to call a psionic ability "Flowing Red Dragon Claw" or "Thunder Punch of the Monkey" would have an (albeit turgid) asian association. No. It's not just the name that's part of my issue, it's also the overall tone of the work. Just the change from "caster" to "manifester" rubs me the wrong way from this angle. And in case my tone is being lost through the written format, I'm far from fanatical about this. It doesn't even qualify as a pet peeve of mine, but it is one of the reasons why I think psionics are overlooked as viable by many D&Der. It's jarringly modern. joe b. [/QUOTE]

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