The sordid history of psionics (rant)

[User3]

Okay, here's my updated rant on psionics and magic, inspired by Josh Kablack's excellent (if dated) rants on the nature of roleplaying games.

2: There is no reason Psi should ever be treated as a different force from magic.

None.

While you can find works of fantasy in which Psionics definitely plays a distinct role, to my knowledge, there is not a single novel ever written (again excluding

hack-written game-derived works) in which both Magic and Psionics appear as clearly distinct forces. The only reason for Psi to be different than magic is ignorance of the

source material and Gygax's desire to hose his players.

So here's a brief history of psionics. Feel free to correct me on any points I have gotten wrong. I haven't actually played a game of D&D 1st Edition nor have I followed its

evolution before 3rd, so this might not be totally accurate.

AND NOW, THE SORDID HISTORY OF PSIONICS.

So way back when, when 1st Edition D&D came out and psionics wasn't published yet, psionics was the same thing as magic.

You can see this reflected in the wizard's spell list. Wizards (sorry, mages) got staples associated with psionics such as ESP, Dominate, Telekinesis, etc. There wasn't a

particular theme associated with psionics (such as psionics=futuristic magic=traditional) because the split DIDN'T EXIST.

Gary Gygax, under the influence of some futuristic sci-fi cinema decided that the supernatural powers that the characters wielded could be forged into a unique power

system for this game.

Because Gary Gygax was a dumbass who liked to hose his players, he decided to split up the spell list for effects that traditionally went to magic-users such as

telekinesis and astral projection and whatever and used his made-up source (i.e. which felt more 'futuristic') to decide which effects went into which column. Then to sex

it up he made a bunch of new powers (like mind blast) and slapped a coat of RPG paint on it in the form of removing the spell slot mechanic and replacing it with power

points. Which is pretty much the worst idea ever.

If you think that this idea is farfetched, remember that way back when 'illusionist' used to be a class completely split from mage. They had pretty much the same mechanics

but specialized in illusion magic. Later editions combined these two spell lists because the idea was dumb and arbitrary. Of course, later we got the sorceror class. Sigh.

Of course, his psionics tradition, being pulled out of his ass, needed a reason to justify itself. Unfortunately, instead of falling by the wayside of history like his 'illusionist'

class, a group of very dedicated people thought the idea was cool and decided to make up a lot of stuff about it to flesh it out and give it a reason to exist.

This is why psionics in D&D doesn't resemble ANYTHING like 'psionics' in other sources. Psionics in D&D is about having your brain travel to the 5th dimension (astral

space), ectoplasm, creatures who suck out your brains to make themselves more powerful, and mind crystals. Maybe I just don't remember right, but I don't remember

Professor X tapping into a mind crystal to blast enemies with brain waves.

Of course, you can see examples of psionics being ridiculed for the hokery it is among people who remember its origins. In Shadowrun, the 'psionic' tradition is explicitly

made fun of in the sourcebooks for being an incomplete and arbitrary understanding of what magic really is. Which is basically what Gary Gygax did.

Unfortunately for us, the circle of fanboyishness is as incestuous as a European monarch and Gygax's Wrongthink has unfortunately anchored itself into our nerd psyche.

Shit, man, we have MARVEL COMICS attempting to establish a difference from magic and psionics even though in pre-D&D source material there's no such thing.

Fuck you, Gary Gygax. Your prank went way too far and now we're paying the price by still having to deal with your crummy psionics system in D&D to THIS DAY and

being unable to fix it because even people who have never played D&D before 'know' there's a difference between someone using their mind to zap someone and using

magic to zap someone even though the game system makes no goddamn difference.

Oh, and psionics in 3rd Edition is broken and pretty much unsalvagable. Here's why.

http://bb.bbboy.net/thegamingden-viewth ... ][br]Again, this is directly due to Gary Gygax's influence. Fuck you, man.

[User3]

Yes, everyone knows that psionics before 3.5 was simultaneously eating shit and being shot in the head. Everyone knows that nova-ing with psionics is ridicolously easy, and its also absolute shit. Everyone knows that complete psi is the worst book wotc has EVER put out, no matter WHAT way you look at it. Everyone knows this. WE GET IT. SHUT UP.

Trying to make psionics different is like trying to do do complex quantum physics while hanging upside down, while getting ass raped, while having shit shoveled down your mouth. Its just not fucking worth it. It should be the EXACT same as magic, but rather then having retarded components and talking, its just hating someone to death with your mind.

I mean fuck. Make a wizard. Call yourself an Erudite. Make a psion. Call yourself a wizard. Its all flavour. NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT FLAVOUR.

[User3]

Psionics started out as a set of monster abilities. Check out your old monster manuals and you'll see that certain creatures have psionc "attack and defense modes." I'm not entirely sure what the rationale was. Said creatures tended to live deep underground, on the astral plane, or similar remote locales.

The Psionics Handbook came from a desire to allow players to be 'psionic' (whatever that meant). As you say, it was focused on comic book-type abilities, and did not have the same Vancian restrictions that magic did. "D&D weird science superheroes" would be a very apt description, especially in the case of wild talents.

The 3e Psionics Handbook updated psionics by mucking around with the disciplines (schools) to give 1 to 1 correspondance with ability scores, adding crystals, generally following a spell-type system rather than a feat-type system, and removing wild talents.

3.5e played accountant with MAD and added augmentation, but all the 3.x flavor has been basically the same. Crystals and aberrations.

...


Ok, so as for the ranting:

Remember that there has never traditionally been a partitioning between flavor & texture in D&D. Vancian casting didn't seem a good fit for most 'weird science superheroes,' so a new set of mechanics had to be developed. Whether the mechanics were good or not (they weren't) has nothing to do with whether the flavor was good/appropriate or not.

And I don't think anyone likes the crystals.

[virgil]

Until the mid-1800s, all of the stories out there didn't make a difference between magic and psionics, because it was all magic. Even then, fantasy stories had the magic people do it on a plot level you can't really replicate in a game anyway, so they aren't the best sources for your game.

If you have psionics, then you're specifically having to use material created within the last one-hundred years. If any fiction tried to mention both psionics with magic in the same sentence, it was usually to say that psionics were behind the legends of magic.

The reason there's so little difference between the two is because fiction about one usually ignores or trivializes the other as a misinterpretation.

I can tell you this, before psionics was actually named, the supernatural was almost universally the realm of non-mortals. Mortals that used magic were considered alien and spent most of their time away from humanity. Once psionics was named and stories were told about them, external supernatural events were trivialized at best. As time passes, psionics became associated with evolution and psychology. External forces entered once in awhile, as aliens and ghosts, but not much else.

If you try and have the concept of psionics & magic coexisting as wholly seperate forces, you have to make up your own 'source material', because fiction almost always ignored one in favor of the other. Therefore, you need to consider the general flavour behind each, which was basically magic is external and inhuman, and psionics are internal and can be the next stage of humans.

[Maj]

Therefore, you need to consider the general flavour behind each, which was basically magic is external and inhuman, and psionics are internal and can be the next stage of humans.

So, in essence... Magic : Fantasy :: Psionics : SciFi ?

Whether the mechanics were good or not

Most of the people I game with prefer the basic power point style of casting to the typical spell slots. Admittedly, the mechanics are not what they could be, but despite the subtraction, in my experience people seem to understand better and prefer the concept over spell slots.

[tzor]

I’m going to quibble with your analysis because I disagree with the premise. Gary did not unify his magic; spells were isolated not only by type but by level so to find a third level wizard’s fireball you had to look in the third level area of the wizard’s section of the spell list. But with only minor exceptions the spell system was more or less the same. Psionics, on the other hand was slapped on to the rules set just as the hand to hand rules were. The whole mechanics of psionics were like oil and water to the rest of the system. While fighters, wizards, and everyone else worked on one minute rounds, the psionic combat worked on 6 second segments. Psionics were so oil/water with magic because their very nature suggested that they were supposed to be a radical alternative to Vancian magic.

Pisonics also, under 1E, had a very odd ebb and flow. A person expert with a sword could find a number of ways to kill a person who was not expert. A person expert with magic could dice; slice and stir fry a poor person who was not expert in magic. 1E psionics, on the other hand was designed to go against people expert on 1E psionics. (IIRC there was only one attack that was effective against non psionics.) Psionic attack was a multi value game of Rock Paper Scissors. (Once again, it’s a question of “how not Vancian can we get?”)

As far as I can recall crystals came much later; mid 2E at the earliest. (Original 2E killed psionics just as they killed the cantrip.)

[Draco_Argentum]

1182444249[/unixtime]]Vancian casting didn't seem a good fit for most 'weird science superheroes,' so a new set of mechanics had to be developed.

Vancian casting isn't a good fit for most things involving supernatural powers.

[Amra]

The last time I touched Psionics was back in 2nd Edition. After the initial "Oo, what can we do with this" period of curiosity, I hated having to deal with a completely different mechanic to everything that had gone before and I hated the fact that magic and psionics interacted so poorly. I've been gaming with some members of my group for 17 years or so and even the most rabid Dark Sun fan (to the extent that he has never run a campaign in another setting) hasn't wanted to touch Psionics. The same rabid Dark Sun fan eagerly awaited the first 3E Psionics expansion in the hopes that it would be playable.

A week after his book turned up, he arrived at our gaming session with a face like a smacked arse and declared "Psionics still blows goats". When someone who *wants* to like it that much can't find anything good to say about it, it doesn't make me inclined to try it...

I'm not really qualified, therefore, to comment on 3E Psionics because I've never really seen the point. Reading this thread, I'm glad I've never bothered!

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I would personally be happy if they made a character with the wizard spell list that cast (Int-based) using power points instead of spell slots. Give them enough to cast exactly like a wizard missing one highest-level spell (unable to specialize). Now, give them the ability to nova like a wizard can't by spending additional power points (slightly better than wizard, essentially a 3rd level spell and a 2nd level spell would be a 4th level spell). Give them bonus feats, base attack bonus, and saves of a wizard. Give them the proficiencies of a peasant. They get to use all items like a wizard of equal level.

The psion’s class skills are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and any 3 others (chosen at character creation). They get just as many skill points as a wizard.

Instead of a Spellbook, they get a "Psionic Crystal" that stores all of their accumulated knowledge (exactly like a spellbook). A Psion must spend 15 minutes after 8 hours of rest to refresh her mental abilities.

Then:
1 - psionics do not require material/semantic/verbal components (slightly better than wizard)
1.a - psionics must still have a material focus for components worth more than 1 gp (possible exceptions).
2 - If you are hit casting a spell, you have to make a concentration check just like a wizard
3 - Casting in a grapple has a DC 20+spell level concentration check (slightly better than wizard)
4 - Psionics can be countered with the Counterspell action. Psionics can counter wizard spells with the Counterspell action.
5 - Psionics can be identified through a Spellcraft check (for a Still, Silent spell)
6 - Psionics can be dispelled with a Dispel Magic, treat a psionic Dispel Magic as an ordinary Dispel Magic.

There, now give all entry-level psionics some flavor/moderate ability to replace the ability to specialize and we're done. Examples of said ability follows:

Pyrokineticist - Treat all spells that do fire damage with +2 CL, you can control all non-magical fires (you may pick any 3 5' squares within a fire and put them out, or any 3 5' squares bordering a fire and move a fire there, you may mix-n-match, resolve each choice independently).
Mindspy - treat all divination spells with -1 Power Point, you may Detect Magic at will.
Mindbender - You make people do shit, all spells that require a Will save have +1 DC.
Trickster - All illusion (figment) spells you cast are 10% real.
Neutrallizer - All Abjuration spells are cast with +2 CL, you may supress all magic in a 5' square for 1 round (as per Dispel Magic) as a standard action.
Maker - All Conjuration(creation or summoning) spells are cast at -1PP, you may make 20 cubic feet of material as a standard action, it's duration is 10min/level.
Booster - All spells that allow Saving Throw (harmless) are cast at -1PP, you may use the Aid Another action at Range(medium), this increases to a +4 bonus at level 6, and a +6 bonus at level 10.

edit - keep trying to come up with ways to add to their "spellbook"

[User3]

1182444249[/unixtime]]Psionics started out as a set of monster abilities. Check out your old monster manuals and you'll see that certain creatures have psionc "attack and defense modes." I'm not entirely sure what the rationale was. Said creatures tended to live deep underground, on the astral plane, or similar remote locales.

The Psionics Handbook came from a desire to allow players to be 'psionic' (whatever that meant). As you say, it was focused on comic book-type abilities, and did not have the same Vancian restrictions that magic did. "D&D weird science superheroes" would be a very apt description, especially in the case of wild talents.

Psionics actually comes from the back of the 1st edition AD+D Player's Handbook. Possibly the 2nd (or later) printing thereof, but certainly its first appearance was a 1st PHB. The monsters are a consequence of that.

The Psionics Handbook came around in 2nd edition because some morons actually liked 1st edition psionics and so TSR obliged them. They also made it actually playable, as opposed to 1st edition where you had to roll d% to see if you had any psionic talent, and then roll to figure out which one (or ones) - there was no other way to get psionics. Remember hte 2nd Psi HB wild talent section? Think that but far far worse. (And that was crappily balanced as it was).

So not only was it tacked onto the basic system (sort of like the 1st edition Bard - don't even get me started), it was also a complete hack and not actually playable in practice. Its the type of thing you'd check for while making characters in your spare time because you were 13 and not chasing girls because you were a geek. (Hey, most of us were probably in that boat, right?)

Shit, man, we have MARVEL COMICS attempting to establish a difference from magic and psionics even though in pre-D&D source material there's no such thing.

Actually, Psionics and Magic have always been different in Marvel. Since the 60's we've had Professor X (mutant telepath) and Doctor Strange (sorceror supreme). Magic might occasionally be able to duplicate telepathy, but the magician is just dabbling, and most magic-using characters never show any hint of psi-like spells (though i'm pretty sure Dr. Strange has shown a little). "Psionics" in the Marvel Universe is almost wholly the province of mutant characters (Professor X, Jean Grey, Rachel Summers, etc...), although Marvel calls it Telepathy and Telekinesis.

--Squirrelloid

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1183451687[/unixtime]] Its the type of thing you'd check for while making characters in your spare time because you were 13 and not chasing girls because you were a geek. (Hey, most of us were probably in that boat, right?)

Hey, I chased girls when I was 13. They ran like hell, too.

[rapanui]

I prefer the angler fish approach: hang gifts and trinkets within their reach and then... *snack*. Oh... wait.... we're talking about mating aren't we?

[Draco_Argentum]

Unfortunately you could be talking about some fetishes.

[tzor]

1183747763[/unixtime]]Hey, I chased girls when I was 13. They ran like hell, too.

I never chased girls at 13. If you sneak up on them real quiet like and act polite they don't run away.

Now at the age of 16 ... that's another story.

Still I never knew about AD&D until the second semester of my first year of college. I still remember my shock and horror at the opening scene of E.T. where they had kids playing AD&D. Kids!

[Catharz]

And that was when Tzor first started hearing the thoughts of others. The shock and sense of loss had unleashed a power within him which he would spend the rest of his life trying to understand and control...

[Morzas]

Sorry for the necro bump, but how did 4e attempt to handle Psionics? I remember they were going to make the Monk psionic, and then I rolled my eyes and quit playing it for good.

[Lago PARANOIA]

4E psionics is just as pointless as all of the other power sources. The monk mechanics are pretty cool, but the Battlemind/Ardent/Psion take one of the worst problems of 4E D&D and magnify it with power spam. The non-monk classes, unlike the other post-core classes, are actually pretty damn good in terms of pure combat effectiveness -- but seriously, a Human Ardent has no reason to ever change their non-Daily/Utility powers after level 7 and they only significantly averagely worse in melee than a Warlord (while everyone else drastically underperforms, so this is actually really good). Half-Elf and/or Warlock-hybrid Battleminds can contemptuously achieve Ranger-level damage without working too hard for it. Psions are the second-best controller in the game by a squeaker (barely outperforming druids) though are still a country mile behind wizards.

Monks suck just as hard as ever. They're not completely worthless or even dead last like in 3E, but they have no reason to exist other than modest multi-target damage and even other underpowered classes not geared towards being DPS like Swordmage and Invoker can whip their butts and get other bennies.


But honestly, contrary to the first post, I actually like the 3E D&D flavor of psionics. It's weird as fuck and doesn't have any real non-D&D thematic analogues, but it's definitely different and distinct. I'd keep the general New Age Crystal / Brain Sucking / Body Harvesting / Ectoplasm-themed psionics in the game. It's like Bowser or Zelda in Smash Bros. Not quite part of the core team, but a worthy inclusion if you have space.

[Morzas]

Oh, so in 4e, it was just another "power source" (did that ever mean anything mechanically or was it just flavor shit?) and it didn't run on its own weird subsystem or anything?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Oh, it had its own weird subsystem. It's motherfucking psionics run by Bruce Cordell, what did you think?

Okay, here's the skinny of it: for non-PP classes, instead of gaining encounter powers as you level, you gained additional At-Wills. These At-Wills you could burn two degrees of power points or use them without any power points. They were usually lame if you didn't burn any power points on them (except for a small handful) and with the higher-level powers you had to burn more power points to augment them. PPs weren't a daily thing (thank god), replenishing with each short rest instead. However, like most 4E D&D powers, there's not a particularly strong connection between the level of a power and its game effect so with a couple of rare exceptions you were better off sticking to your lower-level powers, since a fully-augmented low level power tended to have gonzo effects (like having 4 attacks or getting an off-action attack that granted a defense penalty) but only cost 1 or 2 power points.

If the system was balanced better it could've actually worked pretty okay for a 4E D&D system. Better than 5 Moves of Doom ayway. The problem was that the powers were woefully unbalanced between each other and in of themselves so even though you theoretically had a good deal of versatility that didn't go down much over the first few rounds, you ended up only spamming only a small subset of powers anyway. Psionics classes were one of the few classes in which being a human was actually the best race.

[ModelCitizen]

Oh, so in 4e, it was just another "power source" (did that ever mean anything mechanically or was it just flavor shit?) and it didn't run on its own weird subsystem or anything?

Instead of getting encounter powers you get more at-wills, and your at-wills can be augmented by spending 1 or 2 "power points." An at-will + 2PP is equivalent to an encounter power in terms of what you can do and how often you do it.

In a vacuum that's a better power system than AEDU. AEDU can't support situational attack powers, and psionics could - if Power X doesn't work in this encounter, aug something else. And that should be an improvement, it just doesn't work out in 4e. You still don't get very many powers and they're still bland and generic because, hey, you're still a 4e character. All it means is the game doesn't stop you from spamming the same generic powers over and over which pulls back the curtain on the grindiness of combat.

Also: Psions get a power at level 2 called Telekinetic Lift. You can move 400 pounds of weight. Not DM Storytime Units, not Skill Challenge successes, fucking pounds. In theory that means your character's out-of-combat shtick ("can exert force with your mind") is completely supported from very near starting level and if the DM tries to tell you it doesn't work you can look up weights on Google and tell him he's wrong. That's fantastic. But this is 4e, so it goes in the "utility" bucket with combat powers you're expected to take instead. I would say that 4e needs a few hundred more powers like Telekinetic Lift but people still wouldn't take them.

So psionics had some good ideas but trying to fix AEDU with just a few good ideas gets you nowhere and probably makes things worse.

[tussock]

History time, people.

Eldritch Wizardry, the third supplement for the Original 1974 D&D, gave us the Psi system. It's a collection of house rules from around the office, printed because fans were begging for more to buy.

Psi there was explicitly aimed at adding Victorian-era horrors and some Indian mythology to D&D. Gary wanted to remove the whole mess to a separate sci-fi game for 2nd edition.

The book also gave us PC Druids, segment-based combat division (which is why early Psi combat uses segments so heavily, it's also where 1st edition's d6 initiative and segment-based surprise actions came from). It's got the Type I-VI demons, the psionic monsters like Mind Flayers, and all the classic artifacts first appear there. Plus a few tweaks to give some power back to the DM after some spells had "taken away the mystery".

Note that this was the fourth official combat system for D&D in it's first two years. Much experimenting going on.


AD&D unified and cleaned up the older combat systems, at least compared to the early stuff, the Psi system was copied over mostly unchanged into an appendix (seemingly because he'd used the psi monsters the year before in the Monster Manual and they didn't work without those rules). It doesn't match mechanically with AD&D because it wasn't converted!

There was soon a Dragon article about cleaning it all up, making it work like the rest of AD&D, and making full Psionic classes. Most people ignored this the same as they ignored Psionics in general.

2nd edition removed it, then added back in using something very much like 2nd edition's proficiency system with new classes. The major mistake they made by this time was to remove most of the original power progressions, so you could disintegrate things at 3rd level or so. Whoops. The class is otherwise quite fun to play, if lacking some of the original flavour.

3e Psi added back in the original progressions as spell levels, which worked, but then made all the powers into fireball-like d6/pp effects, which missed the point dramatically. Like 2nd edition it totally misses the Eldritch Horror and Yogic elements of the idea, replacing that with new age crystals.

4e ZZZzzzzzzz.

[Midnight_v]

I wanted to chime in that there's no REASON that they should be the same thing... conceptually anyway.
There is a difference between Doctor Strange, and Proffesor X and and the girls from the craft and the girl from firestarter.
Now... mechanically, in 3.X I found it nice to have an alternative to "All vance casting all the time" and I not that in 5th they're kinda saying D&D is married to that iirc.
In my experiece most people hated psionics 3.x out the box for some "Psionics is completely different" shit from an earlier edition which the truth is mechanically it has to be effected by magic because having a variant magic that nothing is immune or has defense against is bad, even when they have magics no on is immune to sometimes. Those are just thing that need to be fixed.

Further, while people bitch about 50 diffrent subsystems indivitually, collectively people love that shit, it sells books and give people an opt out on shitty systems or systems they hate.

Above someone says "No one gives a fuck about flavor" this is only partially true. Some people really really do. . . we tend to hate those people. However, a designer should at least make the attempt to resolve what he's wrting as a descriptor to what he's written mechanically, otherwise even the lofty denner's will be life "WTF is this dick-breath talking about" that totally happens.

'sides... the psywar was kinda cool and was neither "broke" nor "shit", most times.

[Username17]

People like mind Flayers, Psychic Warriors, and Gith. No one likes Su Monsters, Intellect Devourers, or Thought Eaters. People like feeling special. No one likes having their Physical Damage resistance bypassed because an attack does "Earth Damage" or anything like that.

Moving forward, of course you'd have Psychic crap in D&D. You'd just want to get rid of most of its baggage, most especially the lack of transparency. But also most of the newage crystal bullshit.

-Username17

[sake]

Psionics classes were one of the few classes in which being a human was actually the best race.

Except by RAW that extra at-will humans got couldn't be augmented. (unless we're talking about cheesing the hybrid rules) Granted my group and I'd assume many others saw that bullshit and said 'fuck that noise' and changed it right off.

And I never really saw Psions as viable controllers... and if you removed Mind Thrust and dishearten spam, I'd even rate them at the same 'This Has No Reason To Exist' tier as Seekers due to getting stuck with the Mother May I style End of Turn effects and shitty action/surge sucking Summons mechanics that made all the Non-Mage Essential controllers blow chunks.

Yeah, in general aside from an all too brief period during 3.5, Psionics in D&D has always blown chunks The 3.5 stuff was kind of awesome though.

[tussock]

Hey now @sake, some of the Dragon Kings stuff for 2nd edition Psi was kind of awesome too. I saw a few people have a lot of fun playing 2nd edition Psionicists in general, they just suffered from the 3e Monk problem of not really being able to contribute, except when they dumped all their PPs and won.

I ended up giving them a pet Fighter to give them something to do for the rest of the day. Worked well enough, though the players in question were kind enough to not break the game with their PP dumps.