PDA

View Full Version : Second Sight, Primal Power, First Fears (Let's Talk About Psychic Stuff!)



The Rose Dragon
2011-03-31, 10:55 AM
So, psychic stuff. I don't really expect this to turn into a huge discussion (despite what the title might imply), and this is more to sate my own curiosity. But let's talk about psychic stuff about anyway.

What kind of psychic powers do you see in roleplaying games? Which games or settings have the power of mind as a large element? What kind of strange or not-so-strange mechanics are there for psionics out there? What fantasy settings have psychic abilities instead of or beside magic? Basically, tell me about roleplaying-related psychic things.

((And I know D&D has psionics in it. I'm not particularly interested in hearing about it.))

Sarco_Phage
2011-03-31, 10:57 AM
Well, the 40k RPGs do have their own brand of psychich mastery, which involves WARPE MAGICKE. Because the Warp is both their Hyperspace and their Hell-dimension, using a psychic power runs the risk of Daemons using your head as a portal to enter realspace, splattering you all over the place.

Jayabalard
2011-03-31, 11:46 AM
Well, there's GURPS Lensman (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/lensman/), which is the world of Doc Smith. If you're not familiar with it, it's space opera. The mechanics of the psionics are pretty much the same as any other GURPS setting, so I mean this as more of an example of a setting with psionics than game mechanics thing.

Sanguine
2011-03-31, 08:34 PM
Witchcraft has the Second Sight which has all kinds of interesting powers including telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and killing people with you brain. Though they don't actually use those names. It is also unique in that it is the only other type of Gifted powers other then Miracles that the Divinely Inspired are allowed to have.

Gensh
2011-03-31, 10:09 PM
If you don't mind a personal example, in all of my homebrew settings, everything metaphysical is arranged into triads of double opposites; more specifically, for everything, there is an opposite of form and an opposite of intent. The three different power sources that a character can have are chi (using one's own life force), mana (using ambient energy; opposite of form in that it takes from the environment rather than giving), and psi (using no energy at all; opposite of intent in that it doesn't manipulate power). While the first two are fairly straightforward, the second isn't so much, so it's less common just because no one really wants to have to listen to the explanation. In any case, I typically use psi to represent generic otherworldly things. They don't generate their effects through moving magical energy but rather just by doing so.

Comparatively speaking, ki is like a super hero, who just does things by himself, mana is like a commander who can ultimately do more things but must gather his troops first, and psi is like a king who simply demands things and they're done for him. Of course, there's always a balancing factor like overall less power or a higher points cost, but in general, psi is ignores standard defenses or countermeasures because it involves altering reality itself through the imposition of one's will and brute force rather than attempting to harmonize with it. For example, ki-based second sight would be precognitive reflexes, mana-based second sight would involve complex rituals to allow in-depth scrying, and psi-based second sight would be visions of the future that while uncontrollable, always appear when needed. On a related note, psi typically has a degree of exclusivity to cults of elder evils and cults of humanity/evolution/whatever, with the most powerful psychic usually being the god of atheism.