Quote from: Battle Mad Ronin;849249Never really understood their use in fantasy worlds, given the abundance of magic traditions to draw from. In Darksun they make some kind of sense, in most other setting they seem superfluous.

Pops up alot in some sword-n-sorcery settings where magic and psionics are about interchangable. Or in planet romance stories like John Carter of Mars. It is also integral to the whole Deryni series. Kurtz even gave them permission to do a race article in Dragon 78.

It seems like psi is more of a Sci fi trope than fantasy, with a few notable exceptions.  I used psi as kind of an "evolutionary correction" in Dark Sun.  Because most magic was killing the ecosystem, psi developed as a "safe" kind of magic that people could use.  Preservers were ultra rare.

Quote from: Patrick;849188Tell me your thoughts on Psionics!  Did you use them?  What was your favorite system to use them if you did?
For me, I loved Dark Sun, and I used the 2nd Edition D&D splat book for powers.   I always felt the rules could be done better, however- I seem to remember (maybe incorrectly) that you wanted to roll low to get a good result with your powers, and rolling low in 2nd edition just seemed wrong to me.
If I were to do anything related with psychic powers now, I would probably hack something from BRP or Runequest.

So much depends on the setting and rules used.

I hated psionics in D&D, especially AD&D. As a Player, if one of the other guys in the party had psionics then you knew that at least once a psionic monster a game would turn up that could TPK us just to keep that one psionic PC's Player happy. Dark Sun handled it well, because everything had psionics and everything wanted to kill you - it was an even playing field.

There are psionics in the OTU, but I rarely use them. An intelligent Player with psionics can break the Traveller game very easily. If you consider The Force to be psionics, then WEG d6 Star Wars handles it well.

I can see it in Lovecraftian horror or supers genres without any problems.

Psionics are very important in one of my homebrew worlds (Arn), all but unknown in the second (Hidden Valley) and there but uncommon in my version of the Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy. Arn's psionics were originally based on the rules in Eldritch Wizardry -- as that's what was available when I was originally creating Arn. They were modified heavily over the years -- gaining and losing complexity with time. The optional psionics rules in Microlite74 are a "Microlite20-ified" version of the psionics rules I'd use now if I were running an Arn campaign.

Allowed it once in ADnD and wasn't impressed.
Never used it again.

Quote from: Patrick;849320It seems like psi is more of a Sci fi trope than fantasy

Only because the word "magic" isn't in its description.

I love, love, love psionics in fantasy.

...and if you love something and wrote an article about it, you should shamelessly pander and promote it!
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_reviews_info.php?&reviews_id=63993&products_id=94955

...and to further stroke my inflated ego, I shall quote the review of Knockspell 6!

Ouch, My Brain Hurts! is a psionics article for S&W by Robert Lionheart. I think Robert's first line sums my thoughts up pretty well: "Are psionics an unholy heresy or a valuable aspect of old School fantasy roleplaying?" I'm on the fence on it myself, having experimented with it in AD&D 1E and I never found it very satisfying. Robert's system requires PCs to sacrifice XP earned to acquire psychic powers. It's a decent trade off for the additional power the PCs may attain. Being that the powers are limited in the amount of uses per day, they may or not be worth the XP cost, but it may be a viable option depending on the type of campaign you plan on running. It's a long article, and would have been a viable PDF in it's own right.

As people have said, outside of the D&D Dark Sun setting, I don't see the point of it.  I prefer it in my supers/sci-fi settings as it's typically less reality altering than magic is supposed to be.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;849370As people have said, outside of the D&D Dark Sun setting, I don't see the point of it.  I prefer it in my supers/sci-fi settings as it's typically less reality altering than magic is supposed to be.

That is the point, psi in D&D was originally less reality warping. It was great if you wanted a more natural setting replacing magic with mind powers like in some of the Conan stories where hypnosis, illusions, telepathy or telekinesis pop up as powers of the mind rather than arcane.

Let's put it this way: One day. ONE DAY! I WILL run my long planned AD&D1 campaign Psi-Lords of Greyhawk. One day.

There are settings where I prefer psionic over magic (the long-lost space colony fallen back into pre-industrial barbarism for instance) and there are settings where I prefer magic over psionics (like the average fantasy setting). There are also more than enough settings where I prefer to have no supernatural elements at all (most science fiction). I don't see much use for having both psionics and magic as two paralell features within the same setting. That always seems very redundant.

I think low-key psionics also fit well into Ravenloft--mesmerism, 'second sight', etc. OTOH, it's debatable whether Ravenloft fits well with D&D.

I used them in 1E. 2E and 3E. The best I have seen though has been the Dreamscarred Press work for Pathfinder. Best spell point system I have encountered.

I've never seen a Psionic rule set for D&D that I actually liked (Keeping in mind, I didn't start running D&D until 3e). I really like what has shown up in the 5e playtest though.

I think Psionics work well with specific fantasy settings as opposed to general ones. You can really get that weird prog rock 70's vibe with them in the right places.... But they'd stand out like a sore thumb say in places like Middle Earth.

As for other genres, I use them all the time in science fiction and superhero games, so no biggie there.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;849416I think low-key psionics also fit well into Ravenloft--mesmerism, 'second sight', etc. OTOH, it's debatable whether Ravenloft fits well with D&D.

(I personally think that Ravenloft would work better with Dragon Warrior, but I only have the newer reprint of it, so...) but you know, mesmerism, second sight, vague clairvoyance...  That really does fit in my head.

I love the Gothic appeal of Ravenloft.  This gives me food for thought.