Man, this is why I love Eberron fluff!
.-= Graham´s last blog ..Damn you, Dave! You and your… logic… =-.

In Eberron lore, the continent of Sarlona got torn up something like 3,000 years ago by the Sundering. Arcane war got out of hand and ripped holes in reality, killed significant percentages of the population, etc. In come the Inspired (in my campaign, led by the Emperor, in a blatant theft of WH40K fluff), who are intensely psionic, who lead the continent to unification and everlasting peace (at least until my PCs ruined everything). Propaganda started to twist “arcane magic” (recognizable by somatic & verbal components, books & runes, and flashy elemental effects) into madness-inducing muckery with the fabric of the universe. It didn’t help that reality storms keep tearing the place up and letting planar beasties in as after-effects of the arcane Sundering.

The Inspired are naturally psychic, but they don’t have a good handle on the arcane. For them, outlawing and demonizing the arcane gives them an unending scapegoat to keep people afraid of the strange, an excuse to go on witchhunts for ‘heresy’ (read: dissidents), and a convenient way to keep those who use a power they can’t really use well under control.

Psi, on the other hand, is easy to distinguish because it’s almost not flashy at all. Someone concentrates, and someone else gets their brain fried or an object starts to move. Because one can ‘sense’ a psionic mind (per my house-ruled flavor), the Inspired also pick up early on wild talents and take them away to be trained… and brainwashed, so they can build their power and minimize sources of raw power that aren’t under their control.

On a side note, I love the new 4e psions because the 3.5e psions’ elemental blast powers and such overt effects always felt awkward. When it comes down to it, psi really should be subtle, I feel. Telekinesis and telepathy feels right.

Maybe I’m just misunderstanding it, but it sounds like magic was outlawed but psionics was allowed somehow? Or is it that psionics came about because magic was outlawed?

I just hope it wasn’t the case where magic was outlawed out of a fear or lack of understanding but psionics were somehow given the green light. That just seems completely unbelievable to me, personally.
.-= Tonester´s last blog ..WS: Trip to FeilongShan =-.

Now, for a more mainstream game that does not have a lot of different sources of ‘magic’ in terms of what powers spells, I can see it being something different. I guess I am in the same dragonship as Wyatt.
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited What to Drink =-.

Anyway, lessons I learned to make psi feel unique: Psi and magic interact with each other, but someone with Detect Magic can only detect the presence of psi, not what it’s doing, and vice versa. If there’s a crystal or a Siberys shard involved, it’s psi. I also played up the mystic end, as I mentioned, and the clincher was that any psionic character had a sixth sense; they could tell when another psi character was nearby, sensing their presence. That enabled some great moments, like when the Big Bad approached, and the seer started to go pale as she -felt- his approach long before other evidence showed.

Basically, make it feel like the Force from Star Wars, not like Akira or Starcraft’s Protoss. Mysterious, meditative, almost coy, while being straightforward and focused in its own ethereal way. Not like magic, which is bright, chaotic, flashy, eccentric in its versatility yet codified by the experiences of ages of mages.

It can be a little difficult as a DM to have a psionisist in a 2E game because the character can just bust into the baddest NPC enemies mind and render them unconcious…if you let them. The thing is, as a DM, you know that the character has the capability to do that. So, you have to prepare for that inevitability.

Now, that was 2E (I never really got into 3E Psionics), but 4E is a different animal. 2E Psionics had all sorts of different rules for psionic combat and using powers (the original way in the handbook, the way presented in the second edition of the Dark Sun setting, and the way presented in the Skills and Powers book). 4E Psionics will go with the established flow and will work just like any other power source works.

4E is the simplest version of D I have ever played and I am loving it!

To me, Science involves Gravity, Atoms/Molecules, Genes, complex chemistry and physics. Something that I don’t want to see mentioned at all.

Psionics is just another flavor of magic, like healing, summoning or necromancy. It’s in fantasy literature, as it is in myth. I look at a lot at the Yogi mystics and Chinese mythical heroes, and a lot of that stuff falls into the Psionics category. Besides, Wizards have been able to play with telepathy and mental control for a while, so it’s not been something a wizard couldn’t do before.

The only thing I think that makes Psionics get associated with Sci-Fi are two things:

1) That it just happens to pop up in Sci-Fi materials more often than Fantasy. Mainly because magic is hard to explain in science jargon.

2) The modern-ish words. Biofeedback, False Sensory Input, Fission, Fiery Discorporation. ‘False Sensory Input’ just sounds far too modern, and rather alien coming out of the mouth of a guy in robes and tattoos standing in front of a dragon. Certainly, these words have their proper latin roots and all, but it’s as mood breaking for some as ‘Dragon Tail Cut’ and ‘Golden Wyvern Adept’ is for others.

Ultimately, Sci-Fi and Fantasy are the same thing described in genre-specific jargon. Moving from one place to another is a teleportation spell, or a teleportation machine. A melee weapon composed of light is either physical light and fire in the shape of a sword, or crystals projecting heat and light or a piece of steel with a tazer attached that with an on/off switch. Things we have today would be described in superstitious terms if they were dropped 500 years in the past, and things experienced in the past would be explained in scientific terms if they were encountered today.

I personally just want to look through the superstitious lens, rather than the science-related one. Flying vessels are fine – as long as it’s an airship, and not a jet plane. Psions are just mind mages.

@Wyatt: I love that you’ve modded magic to be more mind-based, but to me that’s effectively just what I would call magi-psionics.

To me, it just seems like mindless fluff (pun not intended) in D&D – mechanics that could just as easily be created using other power sources and just changing the way they are manifested.

I’m not saying they never belong in D&D, but I’d only be okay with it under very scrutinized conditions or story and it would definitely have to be an exception for me and not the rule.
.-= Tonester´s last blog ..WS: Trip to FeilongShan =-.