Literary source for anti-psionics prejudice?

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by copeab

I think a simple mechanic allowing someone to attempt to resist psionic influence -- which CT lacks -- would have been a much cleaner solution to game balance.

But this one carries a useful drama to it.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

But this one carries a useful drama to it.

Only if you are using the 3I setting, which I rarely do with Traveller.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by MrTim

Didn't Marc Miller say somewhere that the limitations on psi were entirely for game balance purposes?

IIRC, Yes, but I cannot recall where.

Note that it's blamed on a failed psycho-history action...

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by copeab

Only if you are using the 3I setting, which I rarely do with Traveller.

It's coded as rules, in CT & MT... the distinction was always fuzzy between setting and rules, as much of the OTU was codified in rules mechanics rather than spelled out as prose.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

It's coded as rules, in CT & MT... the distinction was always fuzzy between setting and rules, as much of the OTU was codified in rules mechanics rather than spelled out as prose.

How psionics were viewed varied by race and culture. Imperials, Zhodani and droyne all viewed psionics differently. That's not a rule, it's a guideline for one culture.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by copeab

How psionics were viewed varied by race and culture. Imperials, Zhodani and droyne all viewed psionics differently. That's not a rule, it's a guideline for one culture.

You can't play them. The LBB psionics rules (Bk 3 p38-47) don't cover them, but do explicitly tell you if the public or authorities find out you are psionic you roll 2d for the result: 2-3 nothing, 4-5 deported, 6-7 imprisoned, 8-9 tarred and feathered (Where did the inhabitants of this vacc world find tar and feathers? Nevermind), 10-11 lynched, 12+ lobotomized. There is nothing about cultures that have a different view of psionics (or laws or punishments for that matter), it's hard coded in the rules.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by malloyd

8-9 tarred and feathered (Where did the inhabitants of this vacc world find tar and feathers? Nevermind), .

They were in shipping crates. Which is how they manage the "ridden out of town on a rail" thing that's the traditional follow-up to tar and feathers.

You could call it "informal deportation" but "covered in unpleasant gunk and shoved into a shipping crate" actually doesn't sound that weird for a world such as you outline with Government type 0.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by malloyd

You can't play them.

Sure you could. That's what the CT Alien Modules were there for -- to play characters other than Imperial humans.

There is nothing about cultures that have a different view of psionics (or laws or punishments for that matter), it's hard coded in the rules..

It is my duty as a GM to ignore or override a nonsensical rule. To do otherwise is a dereliction of my duty.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by copeab

Sure you could. That's what the CT Alien Modules were there for -- to play characters other than Imperial humans.

Not until 8 years later (AM4 and 5, for the Zhodani and Droyne are both 1985). Traveller originally didn't even have a setting, much less one that included those races. Even in Mercenary and High Guard (1980) the Imperium is still a "remote centralized government referred to in this volume as the Imperium" rather than an actual setting.

Indeed from the wording of the psionics section, it's reasonably clear that it was written from the standpoint of psionics as something relatively new, poorly understood, and likely to be the wave of the future, not as an long established weapon of the enemy.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Indeed from the wording of the psionics section, it's reasonably clear that it was written from the standpoint of psionics as something relatively new, poorly understood, and likely to be the wave of the future, not as an long established weapon of the enemy.

It's also clear GDW ignored this in pretty short order. I see no reason I couldn't it either.

Also, looking at Supplement 11 (1982) they had something else in mind that conflicts with the Book 3 picture of psionics in several respects.

Since I started playing Traveller in 1983, precisely what was the "correct" version of psionics for me to use?