Psi as Magic

[dataweaver]

I really liked the first Pyramid article in David Pulver's "Eidetic Memory" column, "Psi as Magic". In addition to the reasons given in the article, there's the additional advantage that Psi-as-Magic intuitively represents a trope that Psi-as-Powers only handles counterintuitively: namely, the idea that psychic powers are an innate human potential shared by everyone in theory - though in practice, only a rare few have sufficient aptitude to do anything useful with it.

That said, there was one line in the article that got me to thinking: "It wasn’t as flexible, but it was easier to use for players who were comfortable with the GURPS Magic rules, and proved to be a good fit for some types of campaigns."

OK; so Psi-as-Magic isn't as flexible as Psi-as-Powers. I'm not quite sure why this is, although I suspect that it might have something to do with the narrowness of effect of the typical spell. Still, I'll take it as a given. So why not apply some options to make it more flexible?

The first possibility for doing this is right there in the Basic Set: Ritual Magic. With this approach, each psionic power group becomes a Path, with the individual "spells" becoming Techniques. Two problems arise with this: first, you'd need a central VH "controlling skill" to act as a cap on the various Psi Paths. Second, having one Psi Talent per Path (in effect, a set of one-skill Talents) feels wrong. That said, both of these issues can be addressed with a minimum of trouble: if need be, you could just create a new IQ/VH skill called "Psionics" to act as a core skill; and if you don't like the idea of one-skill Talents, just replace the individual Talents with a single Psi Talent that applies to all of them.

That said, one reason why Psi-as-Magic system goes with separate Psi Talents per power group is because psychics tend not to branch out all that readily. On occasion, you might have a telepath who is also an esper and/or a psychokinetic; but for the most part, they don't mix. Without separate Talents to enforce this division, how do you keep things separate? One possible answer is in Thaumatology, in the "Strange Paths" box: in terms of Psi-as-Ritual Magic, the GM might require an Unusual Background for any character who wants to learn multiple Paths, perhaps even scaling the cost with the number of Paths known or learnable. Or maybe each Path requires you to have a "Latent <path>" Perk before you can study it. In the same way, I would strongly recommend removing the "defaults to core skill" aspect from psionic Paths.

Thaumatology provides another possibility for making psi-as-magic more flexible: treat it as Realm Magic. This is much more straightforward - so much so that you could probably use the Realm Magic rules as written. The main questions that would need to be resolved here would be: how many levels should there be in each Realm, and how much should each level cost?

[David Johnston2]

Just so people know, he's talking about the latest issue of Pyramid. As for his suggestion, it rather defeats the point since most people who are comfortable with Magic as is, aren't with the optional magic systems. If one wants to use an optional magic system...well Powers is already one.

[dataweaver]

It doesn't defeat the point. One of the motivations behind David Pulver's initial implementation of this idea was that Psionics-as-Powers was too expensive in a setting that had readily available ultra-tech; Psionics-as-Magic was an attempt to implement psionics in a way that wouldn't result in the psis being outpaced by other characters who dumped their points into attributes, skills, and/or wealth. The variants that I'm exploring here maintain pricing schemes that are more in line with Magic than they are with Powers.

As well, the point is to try out different ways to implement the concept of psi - in this case, something that is primarily skill-based with the only advantages involved being skill enablers and/or enhancers. Again, the alternatives that I'm exploring stay true to this notion as well.

Finally:

If one wants to use an optional magic system...well Powers is already one.

Well, yeah. It's one. And spell magic is another. But just because there are two options out there, is it pointless to explore further possibilities?

[zoncxs]

I really like your idea of making psi as magic using the ritual magic system. giving players trees to branch out from and if they want to learn other forms they have to have a unusual back ground perk in it to learn. With the talents, each talent should give a bonus to the psi skill and a few others that can benfit. If the player knows PK and has the talent for it then it might also add to jumping, lifting and even throwing, "he can perform these things better because he can use his powers to help" would be a good explanation.

if you plan on running a game with or without it, online with maptools maybe, let me know? :D

[D10]

Heh, i guess its about when a time comes when you want to try "realistic fantasy" hehe

Im in the same boat, magic seems so meh, lack of anything supernatural is equally disapointing, psi coated with the right clothes can be the middle ground that pleases me

Now the ardous task of creating a new world ...

[vitruvian]

It was a great worked example of how to twist a system like Hawthorne magic to represent something different.

Something similar could be done using spells with no or different prerequisites as the basis for superpowers. I'm torn as to whether to do the 'Power Talents' as variations on One College Magery or Single Spell Magery (7 spells is -50%, resulting in 5 point Talents, prerequisites could either be waived or bought off with a renamed Charm Perk), or variations on, what else, Power Investiture due to the built in limited spell list. Of course, a nice big Energy Reserve would be a necessity for high end power usage, and certain concepts like superstrength and permanent DR would still be done best by attributes or advantages since the corresponding spells are kind of wimpy, but I may work this out in a thread sometime soon for externally directed powers, particularly elemental ones.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by vitruvian

Of course, a nice big Energy Reserve would be a necessity for high end power usage, and certain concepts like superstrength and permanent DR would still be done best by attributes or advantages since the corresponding spells are kind of wimpy, but I may work this out in a thread sometime soon for externally directed powers, particularly elemental ones.

Superstrength and DR might be thought of as mTL spells (borrowing that idea from another thread). Higher TL versions might allow for ranges of traits that fit a scale or power level appropriate for the setting.