No more Psionics?

[b-dog]

Is psionics done in the new Dungeon Fantasy Roll Playing game? If so it is a shame because I liked psionics. If not then I would like some rules for some power ideas I have. In my game world, Elder Things are the ones with psionic powers. These powers are not spiritual like mana, Infernal or Divine. They are alien powers that are from the mundane realm. In fact the Elder Things in my game world are from the mundane world just as mortals. They live in the blackest parts of space, hiding there until the stars are right and then then they can unleash their destruction. If Creation is the apple made by the Divine then Elder Things are maggots rotting it from the inside. They are beings that should not be yet somehow exist, neither good nor evil just a sad part of reality.

The powers I want have to do with Warp Flight for beings like the byakhee who travel vast distances in space to serve those who summon them. They really do fly in space but they are able to warp through it to get to places fast sort of like teleportation. Another power is warp communication where the person with it can communicate over vast distances.

[ArchonShiva]

They’re in DF, not DFRPG. They’re probably easy enough to bring back using the DF supplement, but accidentally summoning elder things is a lot of extra work for the GM, and I think the intent of DFRPG is “Any player can pick any template”, which is also one reason almost all abilities that add new creatures to the table have been excised.

[Kromm]

Psi for delvers comes with a lot of near-unavoidable burdens:

• GURPS-style ability builds can be hidden, but making psionics viable requires some way to get alternative abilities and fairly priced levels into the game, which at its least math-heavy adds a two-page table. Making this stuff interesting means including a pages-long list of adjunct abilities (in GURPS terms, perks and power-ups) as well. Together, these things would consume a lot of real estate in Adventurers.

• To keep the game fun for gamers who create psionic characters, we'd also have to add tasks for psi – and notes for using psi for existing tasks – in Exploits. We'd want to sneak in at least some of the GURPS powers system so such heroes could use extra effort and Talent creatively. And we'd have to add the usual advice to the GM on making these delvers useful and rewarding them with meaningful treasures.

• Wait, there's more! What you like about psionics – and what makes psi in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy different from psi in other games – is the link to Elder Things. We would have to include the chance of psionic threats and dangers caused by power use. That would add more tables and a bunch of specialized monsters. It would also give the new GM (and the DFRPG assumes first-time gamers) a new headache.

• Finally, there's the question of reasonably psi-proofing tough monsters that are designed to face swords, arrows, spells, poison, fire, and all the other stuff delvers can do even without psi. At a minimum, we would have to discuss giving monsters some resistance to psi. As the game is meant to be playable out of the box, we would more likely have to add extra traits to monsters so the GM wouldn't have to.

That would be a lot of added word count. While it's true that "warriors get the entire combat system" and "spellcasters get all of Spells," those labels cover more than one profession – and those are sword-and-sorcery professions in a genre where swords and sorcery are central. Adding all of the above overhead to accommodate a single, odd-man-out profession that's at best peripheral to the genre would be extremely questionable.

Psi for monsters is already there, though! It's just conveniently reduced to end effects so that gamers can get on with the game: the psychic screams of the horrid skull and psychic wailer fungus; the psychokinetic DR and life drain of the Demon from Between the Stars; the enhanced perception and levitation of the sphere of madness, and those plus the death gaze of the eye of death; the teleportation, time-warping, and unusual senses of the watcher at the edge of time; and of course the psychokinetic DR, parries, and blows, and telepathic Terror, of the mindwarper. It isn't packaged as "psionic," but that's mostly to avoid creating a convenient category of abilities for heroes to negate. This keeps psi alien and otherworldly, which I believe is what you want.

So . . . it's there! It just isn't there for PCs to use. The easiest way to look at it would be like this: "If it's a weird ability of a monster in the Elder Thing class, it's psionics."

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Psi for delvers comes with a lot of near-unavoidable burdens:

• GURPS-style ability builds can be hidden, but making psionics viable requires some way to get alternative abilities and fairly priced levels into the game, which at its least math-heavy adds a two-page table. Making this stuff interesting means including a pages-long list of adjunct abilities (in GURPS terms, perks and power-ups) as well. Together, these things would consume a lot of real estate in Adventurers.

• To keep the game fun for gamers who create psionic characters, we'd also have to add tasks for psi – and notes for using psi for existing tasks – in Exploits. We'd want to sneak in at least some of the GURPS powers system so such heroes could use extra effort and Talent creatively. And we'd have to add the usual advice to the GM on making these delvers useful and rewarding them with meaningful treasures.

• Wait, there's more! What you like about psionics – and what makes psi in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy different from psi in other games – is the link to Elder Things. We would have to include the chance of psionic threats and dangers caused by power use. That would add more tables and a bunch of specialized monsters. It would also give the new GM (and the DFRPG assumes first-time gamers) a new headache.

• Finally, there's the question of reasonably psi-proofing tough monsters that are designed to face swords, arrows, spells, poison, fire, and all the other stuff delvers can do even without psi. At a minimum, we would have to discuss giving monsters some resistance to psi. As the game is meant to be playable out of the box, we would more likely have to add extra traits to monsters so the GM wouldn't have to.

That would be a lot of added word count. While it's true that "warriors get the entire combat system" and "spellcasters get all of Spells," those labels cover more than one profession – and those are sword-and-sorcery professions in a genre where swords and sorcery are central. Adding all of the above overhead to accommodate a single, odd-man-out profession that's at best peripheral to the genre would be extremely questionable.

Psi for monsters is already there, though! It's just conveniently reduced to end effects so that gamers can get on with the game: the psychic screams of the horrid skull and psychic wailer fungus; the psychokinetic DR and life drain of the Demon from Between the Stars; the enhanced perception and levitation of the sphere of madness, and those plus the death gaze of the eye of death; the teleportation, time-warping, and unusual senses of the watcher at the edge of time; and of course the psychokinetic DR, parries, and blows, and telepathic Terror, of the mindwarper. It isn't packaged as "psionic," but that's mostly to avoid creating a convenient category of abilities for heroes to negate. This keeps psi alien and otherworldly, which I believe is what you want.

So . . . it's there! It just isn't there for PCs to use. The easiest way to look at it would be like this: "If it's a weird ability of a monster in the Elder Thing class, it's psionics."

Could you make psionics like the way Call of Cthulhu handles Lovecraftian powers? Maybe since the PCs have a world view where there is Magic their mind translates psionics as magic using spells and rituals. Maybe there are spells that use psionic energy the way spells are used in Call of Cthulhu. The spells are very secret and they really don’t do too much other than contact Elder Things or summon them. They can’t control them the way magic can control demons or spiritual beings due to the fact that Elder Things are not spiritual. There may be weird spells that allow travel through space or reanimating the salts of the dead too. But for the most part the PCs never really have mind blasting psionic powers or senses. Maybe some mana spells or other types of magic can detect strange energy fields alerting the PCs that Elder Things are around but no pure psionic powers. And maybe some weird science stuff too.

[b-dog]

The four powers of the universe might be the two external ones, the Infernal and the Divine representing morality of evil and good and the two internal ones, natural and unnatural. The natural force is the Creation which operates according to the way the Divine made it with animals and plants and so on. The unnatural force is also within Creation but hidden away. It is a sort of chaos that is what the Elder Things are composed of. Maybe whenever there is order which is what nature is then there might have to be disorder to balance it? Each of these forces is trying to shape the universe. The Infernal desires the spirit or soul and wishes to corrupt it while the Divine wishes to purify the soul of spirit. Nature just operates as the medium for the battle between the Infernal and the Divine. The Elder Things have no concern for what happens to the spirit or the soul they just desire to eat and destroy and or carry out strange plans that make no sense to anyone but themselves.

[b-dog]

The material is temporary while the spirit is eternal. Mortals are created in the Material world and then their morality determines where they go in the spirit world; the Infernal or the Divine. This is the order of the universe, material transcends into spiritual. But within this order is chaos which breaks the order of the universe. The Elder Things are material yet they are immortal they are what should not be. They turn the tables on the order where the spiritual is transcendent of the the material. They break all the rules. They should not exist but somehow they do. They are material dominating the spiritual. The mind flayers er I mean mind warpers crave the brains of man because the brain is where the spirit or soul is housed and by devouring the brain they devour the soul or spirit and thus material destroys the spiritual.