Forum > Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion
OSR Psionics my way
GeekyBugle:
What the tin says, I'm working on the psionics for my games.
Since I can't leave well enough alone, the list is now 20 entries long.
Now I need to finish the mechanics (already started) and divide them into levels, what do you guys think?
Which discipline goes in which level?
Psionic Disciplines:
Biokinesis — The power of mind over body, of manipulating living systems, making cells grow or die increasing or decreasing functions. For example of curing yourself or others, falling into a death like trance, walking on burning coals/broken glass without suffering harm by increasing your skin toughness/resistance.
Cryokinesis — The ability to create/control ice, snow, using one's mind
Ego Projection — The ability to voluntarily project a mental body, during which time the consciousness leaves the body.
Empath — ability to apprehend/control the emotional state of another individual
Ergokinesis — The ability to influence the movement of energy, such as electricity, without direct interaction.
Mind Control — The user can control the minds of others, including their thoughts, perceptions, memories, emotions and personality. Depending on the user's skill and power, this can range from a trance-like state very similar to hypnosis, to the target being completely subject to the user's control. A skilled user may be able to control the minds of multiple people simultaneously. The target(s) can be placed in a semi-conscious state, where they may have no recollection of any actions that they perform while under the user's control.
Mnemokinesis — User can control memories of oneself and others, allowing them to modify, fabricate, suppress, influence, repair, restore, erase, detect, and view them.
Precognition — The ability to perceive future events
Psionic Shield — The user is highly resistant to any/all mental intrusion, including psychic or empathic powers, Hypnosis, Mental Hallucination, deception, etc. Mind readers only “hear” static, while mind controllers will have trouble manipulating those shielded.
Psychocompetence — The ability to gain skills by touching someone with said ability.
Psychometry — The ability to obtain information about a person or an object by touch.
Psychoprojection — The ability to project images.
Pyrokinesis — The ability to create/control flames, fire, using one's mind
Retrocognition — The ability to supernaturally perceive past events.
Telecognition — The ability to perceive distant or unseen events
Telekinesis — The ability to exert force, control objects and move matter with one's mind
Telepathy — The ability to transmit or receive thoughts
Telesthesia — The ability to see/hear/feel/smell a distant or unseen target using extrasensory perception.
Thermokinesis — The ability to control both heat and cold, using one’s mind.
Xenoglossy — The ability to learn to write and speak a foreign language by touching a living individual that speaks/writes it.
Pat
BANNED:
You've got significant overlap, like the thermo-, cryo-, and pyro- kinesis; tele- thesia and cognition; or ego and psycho- projection. Are you intending these to be separate powers, power trees, or something else? They don't seem to be defined enough to order them by power. Some also are very difficult to implement in a game, like precognition. Others can break games where secrets are important, like psychometry.
GeekyBugle:
--- Quote from: Pat on December 08, 2021, 08:41:31 PM ---You've got significant overlap, like the thermo-, cryo-, and pyro- kinesis; tele- thesia and cognition; or ego and psycho- projection. Are you intending these to be separate powers, power trees, or something else? They don't seem to be defined enough to order them by power. Some also are very difficult to implement in a game, like precognition. Others can break games where secrets are important, like psychometry.
--- End quote ---
Some overlap but not really once the mechanics are in place, Thermo only allows manipulating temperatures within a range, doesn't give you the ability to create fire/ice nor to control them.
Ego projection isn't an image, think of it like Astral projection.
Precognition isn't really hard to implement, I just need to nerf it enough and turn it into little more than hunches until higher levels.
Same thing is true for Psychometry.
Mishihari:
The list looks pretty good. The only possible additions I can think of would be a variety of direct mind to mind attack abilities, such as those found in AD&D psionics, the Deryni books, or the Octavia Butler books. You might also break out mind control into several skills, such as the ability to force emotions, compel actions, edit memories, rewrite personality, and so on.
GeekyBugle:
--- Quote from: Mishihari on December 09, 2021, 01:35:31 AM ---The list looks pretty good. The only possible additions I can think of would be a variety of direct mind to mind attack abilities, such as those found in AD&D psionics, the Deryni books, or the Octavia Butler books. You might also break out mind control into several skills, such as the ability to force emotions, compel actions, edit memories, rewrite personality, and so on.
--- End quote ---
Those are disciplines, think of it like magic schools/spheres. Each has different aplications.
Mind to mind should be telepathy, I'm still working on the mechanics, will add 2-3 different examples for each discipline for using it in defense/peaceful mode and another 2-3 for attack. And do it in such a way the player with the GM can come up with new uses.
Most of what you want me to break mind control into is already there.
But, here's the thing, I still need to break the disciplines into levels, a la spell levels. Putting the more powerful ones in the upper level and the less powerful ones in the lower one. The Psion knows the discipline, just hasn't really learned to use it in any reliable way yet. So every level the PC gains a new discipline and every uneven level he can also increase his control of one previously known discipline.
It's hard to explain, you'll need to wait and see when I have made more progress how it's all going to work.
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