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Author Topic: OSR Psionics my way  (Read 7806 times)

Spinachcat

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #30 on: January 07, 2022, 04:22:25 PM »
When I did my article on OSR psionics, my goal was to make them separate from magic, mostly by operating differently.

However, everything a PC does "special" is effectively a Super Power and we know this from a litany of "point build games" from Champions onward. Champions *MAY* have been the first to explicitly tell players to re-skin generic powers to fit the character design and that's really the underpinnings of every other game system that has "unique" spells or powers for various classes and races.

Thus, HOW psionics differs from magic on a SYSTEM LEVEL is probably  not as important as how it differs on a SETTING LEVEL in the game. If you can alter the mechanics so psionics "feels" different magic in actual play, all the better.

BTW, psionics is magic in Tunnels & Trolls. It's in the basic description and then effectively tossed aside.

Wrath of God

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #31 on: January 07, 2022, 05:32:10 PM »
Quote
When I did my article on OSR psionics, my goal was to make them separate from magic, mostly by operating differently.

However, everything a PC does "special" is effectively a Super Power and we know this from a litany of "point build games" from Champions onward. Champions *MAY* have been the first to explicitly tell players to re-skin generic powers to fit the character design and that's really the underpinnings of every other game system that has "unique" spells or powers for various classes and races.

Thus, HOW psionics differs from magic on a SYSTEM LEVEL is probably  not as important as how it differs on a SETTING LEVEL in the game. If you can alter the mechanics so psionics "feels" different magic in actual play, all the better.

BTW, psionics is magic in Tunnels & Trolls. It's in the basic description and then effectively tossed aside.

Indeed. Like in 3.5 difference is magic proper is Vancian, while psionicism is Point Buy, and few differences in actual powers made more for a vibe than some actual deep difference.
I think it's possible to have various "supernatural" powers with widely different both gameplay and in-universe meaning, alas that demands some craft.
Alas I don't think it's a difference that really exist on pulp level, because pulp settings by very nature are mostly furniture for cool cinematic stuff.
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palaeomerus

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #32 on: January 07, 2022, 06:52:14 PM »
I think there are merits to any interpretation of psionics including using coventions in a genre to set a standard through particular works (like "vampirism" rules following Dracula or Salem's Lot or Anne Rice or whatever) but this is about G-Bugle building his own version so he gets the final word, the editorial fiat, after he looks over the suggestions proffered. He gets to decide if it's quantum wave collapsing by privileged observation or vibrations or cosmic dice rolling or spirits acting on the psycho-ether or people's minds touching ancient machines buried in the Earth by a prior civilization or a brain mutation that produces a new lobe or irradiated lobster protein extract injected into the neck near a ley line during a dimensional syzygy or wishes or...
Emery

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #33 on: January 09, 2022, 02:11:31 PM »
Psionics is the goofiest shit to ever come out of D&D. Why does anyone like this? What are the Appendix N sources for Psionics that people apparently enjoy so much?

PencilBoy99

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #34 on: January 09, 2022, 03:38:44 PM »
Darkover? was that appendix n?

Wrath of God

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #35 on: January 09, 2022, 04:30:42 PM »
Quote
Psionics is the goofiest shit to ever come out of D&D. Why does anyone like this? What are the Appendix N sources for Psionics that people apparently enjoy so much?

It's just cool. Especially since arcane magic is sort of dry, as underlying theory imply some terrible rituals and sacred geometry we really do not see, psionics profits because its magic simple in its nature and yet efficient.
"Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.”

"And I will strike down upon thee
With great vengeance and furious anger"


"Molti Nemici, Molto Onore"

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #36 on: January 09, 2022, 06:39:29 PM »
Psionics is the goofiest shit to ever come out of D&D. Why does anyone like this? What are the Appendix N sources for Psionics that people apparently enjoy so much?
Psionics is basically scifi magic. Some of D&D’s influences include scifi. IIRC there was at least one adventure involving a crashed alien spacecraft.

https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/psionics

Trinculoisdead

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #37 on: January 09, 2022, 08:34:27 PM »
Yeah okay, so it's from the sci-fi side of things. No wonder I bounce off of it so much.

Player characters with psionics just feel like 5e sorcerers to me: special little flaming-haired emotion-casters. The ultimate in Mary Sue-dom: the edge-lord, the anime-god, the cheetos-dusted teleporting pussy-slayer. The "Ha, you thought I was done?..."

Wrath of God

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #38 on: January 10, 2022, 03:26:54 AM »
While psionics were described using sci-fi aspects, I honest easily can see them in some India-China paradigm of controling own mental and vital powers via meditation and hard training, instead of using some weird ritualistic sacred geometry and memorize complex formulas. The 4E choice to make Monk the Psychic Striker was I think good step in this direction.

After all most archetypes about psionic like powers came from XIX century spiritualism and parapsychology, not sci-fi really.
"Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.”

"And I will strike down upon thee
With great vengeance and furious anger"


"Molti Nemici, Molto Onore"

Trinculoisdead

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #39 on: January 10, 2022, 09:39:59 PM »
Mm yeah that makes sense.

VisionStorm

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #40 on: January 11, 2022, 12:11:01 PM »
While psionics were described using sci-fi aspects, I honest easily can see them in some India-China paradigm of controling own mental and vital powers via meditation and hard training, instead of using some weird ritualistic sacred geometry and memorize complex formulas. The 4E choice to make Monk the Psychic Striker was I think good step in this direction.

After all most archetypes about psionic like powers came from XIX century spiritualism and parapsychology, not sci-fi really.

Yeah, but a lot of that came from pseudoscientific attempts to explain magic and spiritual phenomena, at a time when sci-fi was taking off as a genre, which is where the association comes from. But psionics are literally magic using modern pseudoscientific terminology. Even to the degree that "psionic" depictions of how these supernatural abilities work might match Eastern Mysticism, those mystical traditions always existed before psionics and can also be found to some extend or another in western or shamanic mystical traditions, which are not exclusively based around rituals and complex formulas.

This is why attempts to differentiate magic from "psionics" at some fundamental level always fail. It's like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. The most you can hope for is establish different mystical practices with different pros and cons (like maybe rituals are much stronger, but take time and materials, while psionics are weaker and more subtle but can be done with your hands bound). But at the end of the day magic is magic and psionics are magic by another (pseudoscientific) name.

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #41 on: January 11, 2022, 12:29:23 PM »
Yeah, psionics draws from the Western occult revival, Edwardian pseudoscience and Eastern Mysticism. http://recedingrules.blogspot.com/2011/01/problem-with-psionics.html Traditional psionics (e.g. 3.x SRD, Dreamscarred Press) draws mostly from Edwardian pseudoscience and the scifi genre. Paizo's "occult" take on psionics draws mostly from the occult revival. 3pp like Meditations of the Imperial Mystics give monks psionic powers by another name, while 4e outright gave monks the psionic power source.

I prefer to use a universal magic system and then differentiate different power sources with different limitations, as is done by Spheres of Power. http://spheresofpower.wikidot.com/

Wrath of God

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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #42 on: January 12, 2022, 12:23:43 PM »
I mean I think one way to truly make it non-magical is to make it something like mutation from X-men, working just because, and not really art you need to hone.
So no complex disciplines - you merely have superpower because fake-biology, just like electric eel has electricity
"Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon.”

"And I will strike down upon thee
With great vengeance and furious anger"


"Molti Nemici, Molto Onore"

PSIandCO
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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #43 on: May 02, 2022, 01:13:18 AM »
Hello?
I know it has been a few months since this was posted, but I need to respond to this. One question, have any of you asked a real psychic about psionics?  do any of you have any personal experience with Psionics? Even one brief brush with the supernatural?
like all good writing, you need to do "RESEARCH", and you need to have "Experience" with the topic.
Why?
To make a really good book that conveys "WHAT" your topic is, what it feels like, what it means, how is it a part of the world.

1. The Sybil, an ancient Greek order of women-only psychics. The earliest record of the Sybil goes back 4,000 years ago.
The Sybil, would serve as the "Oracle of Delphi". 
2. Oneiroi. the ancient Greeks created beings who had god-like power, but were not gods. Oneiroi were gods of dreams.
There is a modern Greek society of "Dream explorers" that dates back centuries.
3. The Roma (Gypsies), the wandering folk is believed to have some measure of psychic ability. These people are not Egyptian, They are not Roman, They are people who fled Mongol hordes and found no shelter in the countries they fled to, and fled through. Some say they are the "west of india" people that Nazis called "Aryan".
4. Mesmer, a guy who sometimes hung out with Benjamin Franklin, the inventor of hypnosis, was said to also have "Mind powers".
5. Nostradamus, a physician who supposedly concealed the details of his precognitive dreams in cryptic poetry.
6. Grigori Rasputin, the mad monk. A Russian mystic who was said to have precognitive visions, healing powers, etc. before the fall of the Tzar.
His enemies tried to kill Rasputin a number of times; Stabbing, poison, strangling, hanging, shooting him, even tying the man up and tossing him in a freezing river to drown... He escaped the ropes and the icy river purportedly only to die of "Exposure" trying to enter a locked Palace building.

"Psionics" has some "peculiar" personages who may have had "mental powers" dating back centuries. The oldest mentions in western history could go back - to millennia before the beginning of the Egyptian dynasties. Signs of human civilization do not "Suddenly Start" only 5,000 years ago. Evidence from gobekli-tepe push the origins of civilization back 12,000 years, and other "rejected" archaeological discoveries point to numerous cataclysmic "bottlenecks" that wiped advanced human civilization from the earth many times! There are archaeological sites that date back to the Mt.Toba Super volcano eruption 65,000 to 70,000 years ago! One "Forbiden archaeology" site in Mexico dates back 120,000 years... a time when modern archaeology states there were no humans in the Americas.

PSIandCO
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Re: OSR Psionics my way
« Reply #44 on: May 02, 2022, 01:44:40 AM »
1. Are people with psychic power Superheroes? nope. not even in the acknowledged C.I.A. remote viewing program. they are just people.
2. Are psychic people mutants, or evolved? Nope. the third eye (pineal gland) has been around for a very long time as a vestigial organ.
there are no humans to my knowledge born without a pineal gland, or one that is "Super-developed".

How does Psionics work? You may as well ask a quantum physicist how "observation" can change an outcome, or the various designs for experiments based on the "Double Slit" experiment, including "The quantum eraser".  Quantum wackiness is a bizarre metaphor for things mystics already knew. Nonlocality, teleportation, retrocausality, and a host of other strangeness that you should investigate. The Hawaiian Huna tradition defines distance as contact/familiarity... not a spatial dimension. "Two people shake hands they are forever connected by an unseen thread". A husband and wife are never far apart (spiritually).

Is the universe a hologram projected/emerging from higher-dimensional space/time, a computer simulation like "The Sims" on crack or the "Matrix" or something?
I do not know. "Information" does seem to the common thread though.

look at D&D cosmology, particularly the ASTRAL and ETHEREAL planes. ASTRAL is the dimension of thought. ETHEREAL is the dimension of spirit. you can regard these as some of "The light" that will create our hologram/universe.

A person, emerges from the three aspects;  Body (material), Mind (Astral), and Spirit (Ethereal).
The material world is explicate (EXPRESSED/MANIFEST), while the Mind and spirit are implicate (not observable).
A person is a higher dimensional hologram that has a presence that covers a surprisingly large area of space and time.
Consider EVERYWHERE you have ever gone. now consider EVERYWHERE the smallest fragment of you has gone, even smaller than Scent molecules!
The collected image that is your material body viewed through higher dimensions as well as space/time, is a massive "footprint", "Fingerprint", or "signature"... that is uniquely you.

Psychics are able to draw strength from all three "Images" or "ASPECTS" of the self. This is NOT the same as energy as defined by Physics. This psychic energy is YOU.
« Last Edit: May 02, 2022, 03:28:57 AM by PSIandCO »