Do you guys have psionics in your settings? Does it work with, against, or completely unrelated to magic?
Any characters that utilized psionics that you liked?
TL;Dr psionics thread.
>>46192397
What are the differences between magic and psionics?
Should psionics be classified a subset of magic, or a different beast altogether? Why or why not?
>>46192397
It's really the same thing as standard magic, but done through a different method, and psions and mages will typically argue stubbornly that they're two completely different things and their style is the much superior.
>>46192571
To make the divide work you really need to establish what magic is and how it works (as reasonably as you can anyway). With D&D it seems like magic is component based and involves calling or drawing outside influences or places in some way to do magic. Psionics has you will it to happen with your mind. You could call it just different methods to achieve the same thing but then you have things like their feats not overlapping and stuff to the point that psionics get their own metamagic feats in 3.5
Lots of fantasy fans seem to feel that psionics are too "sci-fi" for fantasy, but on the other hand many science-fiction fans seem to feel that psionics are too like magic for science-fiction. What's the ideal kind of setting for psychic powers to thrive in?
>>46194130
>What's the ideal kind of setting for psychic powers to thrive in?
Science Fiction. Take mass effect and star wars as mainstream examples. If you look past the veil of technobabble regarding some universal latent force, it's psychic powers. But they don't call it that, they don't need to say magic words to make it work, and practitioners only need to make cool poses when they're doing something hard. Also, it's exhausting, the ability to use it is pretty rare, it has limits, and is meant to be used alongside more conventional arms rather than totally replacing them.
>>46194130
In the same setting that tieflings, dragonborn, kender, and PC goblins and kobolds belong.
>the trash
>>46194605
What's wrong with using Goetic summoning and such in a sci-fi setting? Or good old Vancian wizardry? Or vodou? It makes as much sense there as psionics does, eg, none at all but it typically gets thrown in anyway.
More importantly, why is some kind of magic system seen as necessary in science fiction when everything that it does is already doable through technology (and probably better)?
>>46195155
Personally, Psionics sound more "practical" than all those other actions since it's implied you just need your own body energy and will to use it.
If you take the Mass Effect example again, all they need to use their powers is an attached adapter in their brains and a higher intake of sugar.
All those other things would require outside sources or would most likely be unreliable on multiple uses.
>>46192397
Generally speaking, in straight up fantasy settings, I just treat it as more "Eastern" magic. You know, charkras, ki, and all that jazz.
That said, I'm working on a pulp swords and sorcery game that's definitely not Dark Sun where psionics is the only "magic", most monsters and non-humans are the result of pseudo-radiation, and while most of the world is just barely out of the stone age, there are a handful alien ships that crash landed and a few rather.. interesting things got out.
>>46194130
Science fantasy. Psionics is what you call magic when the genre is fantasy but the setting is in the future. Unless it's Star Wars branded science fantasy, then it's called The Force.
You can also use psionics in modern settings but modern is the intersection of the future and the past so that's not really surprising or anything.
One specific place it would be genuinely interesting to use psionics would be a modern (or recent) setting where 70s-era New Age / human potential movement woo actually worked. That has lots of good material like healing crystals, astral projection, talking to dolphins, channeling aliens, and conflating eastern mysticism with quantum mechanics. Which all sort of fits under the "psionic" bubble.
>>46194061
Usually one has psionic potential because they've been fundamentally altered by the influence of the far realm.
>>46195155
>What's wrong with using Goetic summoning and such in a sci-fi setting? Or good old Vancian wizardry? Or vodou?
Absolutely nothing. It just happens that people like their SF magic cloaked in a layer of techno-babel, which is easier to do with psychic powers.
> It makes as much sense there as psionics does, eg, none at all but it typically gets thrown in anyway.
Very little in any science fiction makes any sense, people just selectively ignore or are unaware of the absurdity of most of it.
>>46196432
>Very little in any science fiction makes any sense
If that's the case, it's bad SF (objectively bad, because it's failing in its goal) and you should try something a little harder.
>>46197064
Yes absolutely. Neuromancer, Dune, Ender's Game, Foundation, Nineteen eighty-four, Snow Crash, all really awful science fiction. Really embarrassing failures.
>>46194130
Modern.
>>46195583
>a modern (or recent) setting where 70s-era New Age / human potential movement woo actually worked. That has lots of good material like healing crystals, astral projection, talking to dolphins, channeling aliens, and conflating eastern mysticism with quantum mechanics.
This is a setting 'aesthetic' that I really like and consider often, but I've never been able to make it work. Having a decker-esque character fiddling with his pouch full of coloured crystals to assemble an energy grid that can shut down the facility defenses, having operatives sit down and meditate themselves into a higher plane of existence where they do battle with the higher dimensional operatives of enemy organisations for control over control of higher concepts, etc.
I suppose we should be clear having said that the implementation I consider PERFECT is matching it up with things that the actual founders of that field would have been horrified by, namely big government/corporate control and conflict. Like, Coca Cola using mass prayer to scribe their logo onto the aura of the I AM presence in order to advertise their product at a level subliminal even to the laws of physics themselves.
>>46194061
Then why would anybody make this senseless distinction without specifying setting in question? Why is magic haram in sci-fi, but psionics are apparently okay? What is the difference? Just a name?
>>46197462
Yeah more or less. It's just mind powered magic. Scifi tries to give it a science paint coat. Earthbound, or at least its predecessor (Mother), even poked fun at RPG tropes by applying it to modern times and so magic became PSI. It's a symptom of modern genre fiction writers wanting magical powers in their post-medieval settings without including magic. Only medieval settings and older are allowed to have magic you see. Psychic stuff was picked up by these writers because it focused on the mind which meant the brain. After all, that's a real organ that's still rather mysterious with dumb pop science misinformation like 'only use 10% of your brain lmao' attached to it. So it's sciencey enough for sensible, modern, and enlightened settings. Then it happened enough times for people to think psychic stuff was always scifi and that it only belonged in scifi even.
>>46192397
>Do you guys have psionics in your settings? Does it work with, against, or completely unrelated to magic?
It's something completely different, clashes heavily with the rest of the setting and I hate myself sometimes for introducing it.
>>46195583
I think you should read Illuminatus!.
>>46192397
>Do you guys have psionics in your settings?
yeah
>Does it work with, against, or completely unrelated to magic?
it's entirely unrelated. psionics are pseudo-science, but still science. in-lore, psionic abilities are based on implants and stuff, but these implants are limited by the character's willpower. whenever a character uses a psionic power, he essentially subjects his own mind to the same power. so essentially, a person with low willpower can use psionics too, but he will destroy his own mind in the process.
magic should always be subtle and incomprehensible. if you can put stats and numbers on magic, then it's not really magic in my opinion
>>46192397
>Do you guys have psionics in your settings?
Yes. One of my favorite editions to D&D3.5
>Does it work with, against, or completely unrelated to magic?
Generally the magic and science side sort of work against each other, but the players tend to end up trapped in-between and work with both sides to stop the BBEGs.
>Any characters that utilized psionics that you liked?
We have a memorable pair of psionic characters in the group; an [ex]town guard Elocator (former npc taken over after a PC death) who often teams up with a relatively free-spirited vigilante Pyrokineticist (you know, the one who can't stop sticking their nose into the plot traps). Keeps the rest of us (artificer and urban ranger) on our feet, but the antics tend to be hilarious.
