Most plausible Psionic powers?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I know 2 people who claim varying degrees of success in Astral Projection, although it postulates the existence of an astral plane, which is a much larger claim than of just psionics.

I'm sure if we look, we can find people that believe they have any power ever imagined. I don't see what purpose that would serve though.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Alright,

So were looking for things that could potentially be achieved by a TL13 society that would resemble psi powers.
...

Then your actual goal in this thread is for pleasant sounding technobabble for psychic powers. That's not quite how your initial posts came off, to me at least.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Then your actual goal in this thread is for pleasant sounding technobabble for psychic powers. That's not quite how your initial posts came off, to me at least.

Uh, Flyn- I'm not the OP on this thread, that was a response to the OP for vaguely plausible 'psi powers that aren't really psi powers' developed by a TL13 society.

Minuteman provided clarification for what he was looking for in post #19 of this thread, and that was my response to the concept.

[AlexanderHowl]

A TL 13 society is magical technology anyway, so everything is plausible, depending on the superscience allowed.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I know 2 people who claim varying degrees of success in Astral Projection, although it postulates the existence of an astral plane, which is a much larger claim than of just psionics.

Astral Projection assumes and probably requires a non-physical component to the human mind. I think smurf might be a hard-core materialist and find the idea anathema.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

Now for this setting I'd like to present some Psi abilities that are present in people do to radical biological engineering that's occurred in the thousands of years this civilization was in it's Golden Age. So I guess in the end I'm looking for psi powers that are just impossible for humans to do for biological reasons like lacking the "hardware" so to speak.

Is there some reason you want to call this 'psi'? There's no particular physical problem with genetically engineering a cell phone that lives inside the brain, at which point you have something that looks a whole lot like telepathy (only with other people with the same hardware), and possibly a whole bunch of other powers depending on just what other systems are still active and operating on the same wavelength. Likewise, there are a number of senses that can be enhanced somewhat, and adding magnetic or radio senses and low power emissions isn't out of line.

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm sure if we look, we can find people that believe they have any power ever imagined. I don't see what purpose that would serve though.

Perhaps determining what laypeople think is plausible is a better method than trying to assess what is scientifically plausible since the current scientific position is that psi powers don't exist. It is not hard to find someone who believes ESP is plausible, it is much harder to find someone who believes in teleportation

I find it interesting that people find astral projection plausible.

[Mister Negative]

I don't have a good answer for the OP, but it might be worth thinking about whether 'most plausible' in your campaign is:

violates the fewest physical laws

OR

damages the underlying assumptions of my game world.


It might be that 'plausible' powers undermine a lot of your intended campaign play (say, if you find ESP plausible, but intend on running a mystery campaign), while implausible powers don't do much violence to your setting (letting the guy hit people with TK isn't much more impactful than letting him shoot them).

It might be more fruitful to figure out what types of psychic powers you (and your players) want in your game, then work to cloak them in an aura of plausibility.

[somecallmetim]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I know 2 people who claim varying degrees of success in Astral Projection, although it postulates the existence of an astral plane, which is a much larger claim than of just psionics.

I'm not sure that it does. Astral projection as generally described by believers involves moving the locus of various senses away from the body. The astral plane is just a hypothesis put forward to explain how this is supposed to happen. Although in an RPG, it is probably a good idea to include the astral plane if such powers exist. It allows cool stuff to come from or happen there, and keeps AP from just being clairvoyance that requires you to ephemerally hoof it to whatever you want to see.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Uh, Flyn- I'm not the OP on this thread, that was a response to the OP for vaguely plausible 'psi powers that aren't really psi powers' developed by a TL13 society.

Minuteman provided clarification for what he was looking for in post #19 of this thread, and that was my response to the concept.

Oops forgot about that post way back there.
Either way, it seems like the real OP wants technobabble for the veneer of what modern believers would label psychic power.
As others suggested, I think it's best to first start at the power wanted then dress it up in suitable techno-attire.