I'm starting this thread to start thinking about what psionics system we want to use in the White Sandbox, since that is something I want to do as part of my agenda of inching towards the brink of this age of creation. How can we unlock these new powers of the mind without bringing the full apocalypse of AD&D crashing down on our heads prematurely? Please unleash your sage abilities on this problem, beginning with Eldrich Wizardry (right?) and not stinting until you reach modern retro-clone approaches.
A minigame that is fun and uses different things to hold. My recommendation: cards.
Warhammer 40k used to have a psionics duel minigame using a special deck, it was awesome. Perhaps sticking a card on your head. Alternately, drawing pictures.
psionics means to me …
attack and defense modes like
Id Insinuation
Ego Whip
Tower of Iron Will
that match up in a strategic matrix
and some kewl powerz like Mind Seed
I have never used it in a game.
If I'm reading Adrian right, he's saying that Psionics is basically a legacy sub-system with cool-sounding names. I'd agree with that wholeheartedly.
Tavis, what do you want the psionics system to do? I'm not sure any version of Dungeons & Dragons has ever answered this question with confidence. I get the impression that Brian "Mr. Moneybags" Blume liked psionics; TSR was publishing a lot of stuff and needed material to round out Supplement III. And from there psionics just sort of became the vermiform appendix of Dungeons & Dragons, passed to each succeeding generation without serving any obvious purpose.
If psionics basically just comes down to, "Crazy names for Wizard spells that aren't exactly Wizard spells" then the system doesn't matter much.
I once played a Psionicist in a 2e game. In my very first action, I attempted to disintegrate a Draconian, but rolled a critical fumble and disintegrated myself instead. That guy was THE BOSS of 1991.
James wrote:
Tavis, what do you want the psionics system to do?
I presume this is a rhetorical question, since you answer it so soon after:
In my very first action, I attempted to disintegrate a Draconian, but rolled a critical fumble and disintegrated myself instead.
Also:
- like multiclassing, it can take a character in a mid-career new direction
- like drugs, it can make ordinary things seem awesome 'cause they're crawling with color
- like drugs, it can make people show up out of nowhere and mess with you in mischievous and/or lifetime-imprisonment kind of ways just because you're high
- like drugs, it can make you disintegrate yourself with the power of your mind
- like, drugs
I can't talk to the psionic mechanics, since I don't remember them… was it was used as a way to bring spell points back into the game, ala RQ magic?
But story-wise I am a fan of psionics- the idea that it is like 'From Beyond' where the individual is tapping into another plane, and gaining power… but also now visible to beasties like intellect devourers and such. And of course being an extra tasty treat for any mindflayers in the area.
In the Reluctant Warlord, Lawrence Watt-Evans described warlocks working like psionists. Warlocks were an aberration- they appeared on the scene only a few decades previously, when a meteorite landed somewhere out in wilderness, causing a certain percentage of the population to suddenly gain Psionic type powers. The more a warlock used his power, the stronger he got- but the more sensitive he became to the psychic waves coming from the meteorite. Eventually they could resist the call and were drawn to go to the meteorite- unable to control their actions. No one who ever comes back after going to the meteroite, but the 'calling' in their mind fills all the warlocks with a sense of dread.
In a game mechanic approach something like that would be like a RQ/Basic RPG/CoC merging of Sanity and Magic points. You have a pool of 1d100 (or 5d20 or 10d10… )psionic points that can be used for any of the psionic abilities you have learned. (psionists can only learn abilities from one another, ala copying spells from another wizards spellbook.) A psionist can put as many points as the want into an ability. But the psionic points never regenerate on their own. so every time you use the power, your total drops further. Every time the psionist uses his power, the DM rolls percentile dice, and if he rolls over the psionist's remaining points, he has attracted the attention of a random psionic predator, on this plane or on the ethereal plane. If a PC reaches 00 points, then they go over the edge, and become a NPC, (like the cyber-psychosis rules in cyberpunk.)
hmmm… maybe a la 'From Beyond' the only way to replenish psionic points involves consuming the brainstem/pineal gland from psionic monsters. but on the other hand: ew.
hm, not sure that system feels very whitebox, but then again psionics is supposed to be alien, and as the age changes from Basic to AD&D, a psionic system from a Chaosium system would be pretty alien indeed. :)
it can take a character in a mid-career new direction
This Party on, Garth and this Things that make you go Boom! would be super sweet.
attack and defense modes…that match up in a strategic matrix
Exactly. Maybe using opposed rolls with d8s and d12s to accentuate the odd nature of psionics; maybe the Zocchian d14s, d16s, and d24s, too.
I've always thought psionics had an Eastern vibe to them, like siddhis (sp?) or something that monks in the K'un L'un Mountains cultivate the tao to activate the power of Iron Fist. Maybe by Eastern I also mean cosmic, being able to access the astral and ethereal planes, opening the third eye, awakening the pineal gland and such. On one hand, I like the idea of being born with psionic ability, but a class such as ascetic monks which dedicate themselves to enlightenment sounds cool, too.
OH also … many listed monsters, gods, and npcs have psionic stats. A good system should speak much the same language so you can open the MM and have the Shedu's stats mean something.
Yes, that's the immediate impetus: Anubis has psychic abilities I have to make sense of; so too do many astral encounters. I like the way that things outside canon get introduced through play and become known to the heroes but outside the lawful bounds of creation & thus hard to find, like wish spells.