ESPionage/Cold War and Psionic Powers

[Christopher R. Rice]

So I'm working on my setting bible for NYC (Next Year's Campaign) and right now I'm expanding psi (I'm using GURPS Psionic Powers). I want to give psychic ability a Cold War feel and I'm wondering if Psionic Powers is missing something from "real world psychic" abilities. I'm also looking for cool ideas to stat up.

Any posts are appreciated. Thanks!

[AlexanderHowl]

Psionic Powers only gives one interpretation of psychic phenomena. To give it a Cold War feel, psychic powers should have a Backlash (something like either Agony or Ecstasy).

[dcarson]

Goats should be especially sensitive to them.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Goats should be especially sensitive to them.

And cats. Have you ever seen your cat stare intently at the wall for half an hour? Se is seeing into other realms.

[lvalero]

You might want to read "project MKULTRA" available documentantion including "mental rays", using of drugs and torture to stimulate PSI powers.

Probably the Russian intelligence counterpart will be also as interested as the CIA. So, they will also have their own "MKULTRA" project as sinister as the american one (or even worse!)

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by lvalero

You might want to read "project MKULTRA" available documentantion including "mental rays", using of drugs and torture to stimulate PSI powers.

Probably the Russian intelligence counterpart will be also as interested as the CIA. So, they will also have their own "MKULTRA" project as sinister as the american one (or even worse!)

Cold War-era drug experimentation panning out with psi could get particularly hairy, considering one of the drugs they played around with was LSD...

[johndallman]

We played a pretty successful 1960s psi powers campaign, with significant Cold War elements, using stuff from Psionic Powers.

A telepath and a clairvoyant working together can be very effective at finding stuff out, although they aren't great at combat. Our TK user and probability manipulator did better at that, although mundane backup men with guns were more effective.

[Curmudgeon]

Not "real world psychic powers" but definitely Cold War flavored books involving psi would be: Alexander Key's novels Escape to Witch Mountain (1968) and The Case of the Vanishing Boy (1979) used then contemporary-settings, so were set late in the Cold War period; John Wyndham's Midwich Cuckoos (1957) and Chocky (1968). Film versions such as Disney's Escape to Witch Mountain (1975), Village of the Damned (1960) and its sequel Children of the Damned (1964) would also help for flavour.

Daniel Keyes Flowers for Algernon (short story 1958/novel 1966) filmed as Charly (1968) doesn't deal strictly with psychic powers but as a related experiment to make the mentally retarded, "smart" would carry a lot of the appropriate flavour.

A possible plot to borrow would be a science-fiction movie who's name escapes me but was from the period that involved aliens providing both sides of the Cold War with six small (about fist-size) spheres, which if three are brought together by one side will allow the other side to be annhilated mentally.

Spoiler:  

US finds that they can be fine-tuned to only kill the dedicated Communists.

[AlexanderHowl]

The Power Talents of Astral Projection, ESP, Probability Manipulation, and Telepathy are quite thematic of Cold War-era psychic powers, especially if you give them Backlash and/or Trigger. For example, you could have a character with Precognition (Backlash, Resisted by HT, Agony, -50%; ESP, -10%; Trigger, Cocaine, -30%) [5]. They are capable of seeing into the future, but they require a bump and risk agonizing migraine headaches when they do so.

More blatant psychic powers are the stuff of horror stories in the Cold War-era and should be reserved for enemies (if they are controllable) or victims (if they are Uncontrollable and Unconscious Only). They should really only be allowed for PCs (or PC Allies) if they have Uncontrollable. Uncontrollable and/or Unconscious Only would represent the inherent danger of blatant psychic powers, as seen in movies like Carrie and Firestarter, as well as keeping PCs from immediately making blatant psychics. For example, you could have a NPC victim with Burning Attack 10d (Aura, +80%; Melee, C, -30%; PK, -10%; Unconscious Only, -20%; Uncontrollable. -30%) [50].

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Anders

And cats. Have you ever seen your cat stare intently at the wall for half an hour? Se is seeing into other realms.

It's well known that cats exist in a superposition of all possible cats until you look at them and collapse their wave function. Schrodinger vastly underestimated their abilities.