[Psi] [Path/Book Magic] Path/Book Psi Powers

[Prince Charon]

An alternative way of expressing psi abilities, by treating them as a form of Path/Book Magic.

Magery might be renamed Psionic Aptitude or Psychic Aptitude for purposes of this style, and Path/Book Adept could be called Psionic Adept or Psychic Adept, if it is based on psionic energies rather than being Path/Book Magic that simply uses psionic terms (or perhaps there's no difference in-setting).

The core skill of this style may be either Autohypnosis or Meditation, or there could be two different styles, one for each skill. Expert Skill (Psionics) is a Complementary Skill of the core skill (though a different style could use Expert Skill (Psionics) as its core skill, that's not the way I'm thinking of this one). Each Power defaults from the core skill at -6, just like a normal Path/Book style.

Power of Astral Projection [IQ/VH]
Power of Ergokinesis [Will/VH]
Power of Extra-Sensory Perception [Per/VH]
Power of Meta-Psi [IQ/VH]
Power of Probability Alteration [IQ/VH]
Power of Psychic Healing [IQ/VH]
Power of Psychic Vampirism [IQ/VH]
Power of Psychokinesis [Will/VH]
Power of Telepathy [IQ/VH]
Power of Teleportation [Will/VH]

Meta-Psi replaces Anti-Psi, covering both disrupting psi abilities, and enhancing or otherwise modifying them. If you don't want to use Meta-Psi, it can be replaced with Anti-Psi, or Anti-Psi could be entirely separate (a Book style, or just leaving it a power).

The energy cost of a ritual (assuming Energy Accumulating magic) is equal to the character point cost of that ability at the intended level. For psi techniques, work out how much the enhancement it's based on should increase the cost (see Psi Techniques, GURPS Psionic Powers pp8-10), and add that to the energy cost of the ability.

Alternatively, for a lower energy cost, more similar to those found in GURPS Thaumatology, divide the character point cost by five (round down) to find the energy cost. To find the skill penalty for Effect Shaping magic, I suggest working out the character point cost as above, and dividing it by ten (round down). So, Astral Travel 1 would cost 28 energy in the first version, 5 points in the 'closer to GURPS Thaumatology' variant, or Astral Projection-2 for Effect Shaping magic.

Book Magic could still exist in this sort of setting, just using psi-based rituals instead of the standard ones (or creating new ones by playing around with modifiers).

This may just be the way psi works in the setting, or it may be magic imitating psi. In a setting with Universal Latency, Path/Book Psi Powers could coexist with the standard psi abilities, and perhaps be a way to awaken abilities that the user did not at first have access to.


Thoughts?

[Prince Charon]

I think I should post some links relevant to this thread, before I forget about them again: One of the main inspirations for this idea was Authentic Thaumaturgy, by P. E. I. Bonewits (see also his website). In short, the book shows how to translate how psi and magic work in Bonewits's belief system (or how they work in the real world, if he's right) into role-playing games. It could also help to look at the 'Magic Spells' section of the Psionics page on Atomic Rockets (a mainly 'Hard SF' website), which effectively, if kind of begrudgingly, summarises and explains the concepts involved in the book.


Thoughts?

BTW, if anyone cares, one of the SF setting ideas that I'm working on (not ready to be posted yet) uses the 'Path/Book Psi' system.

[Prince Charon]

Something I first posted in Irar, the Jewel in the British Crown, which is the thread for the idea that I mentioned above (the specific form that Path/Book Psi takes in the setting starts in this post, if you'd like to go there directly):

The way I recommend handling Effect Shaping ritual psi on a character sheet is that you decide how your character normally uses it (and thus what level of the advantage makes sense), use that to work out the normal default, and then if you need to use the ability at a higher or lower level, the technique gets a penalty or a bonus.

For example: John has Autohypnosis 15 (he learned it before awakening psi powers, for the mundane benefits) and Power of Telepathy 13. He normally expects to implant simple suggestions in people within a short distance, so level 3 works fine. That's 30 points, so the default is Power of Telepathy-3. He buys it up to his skill level.
John intends to blackmail Congressman Barnes, and since Barnes is always ready to shake hands with a potential donor, John sets the Suggestion ('Seduce <this woman>,' in this case, with <this woman> being an image of John's partner Mary, who is in on the scheme, in the dress that she's going to wear) as a conditional ritual to go off when he touches the Congressman; since he can get skin-to-skin contact with the mark, he prepares the ritual as if it were Suggestion level 1, which has a penalty of -1 - this gives him a +2 bonus to his effective skill with the ritual.
Later, John needs to give a more complex suggestion to a target that he isn't going to be able to get as close to, but he can at least be in the same room. Complex suggestions require Suggestion 5, which defaults to Power of Telepathy-5. So, John prepares the ritual with a penalty of -2 to skill (set to go off when he bites a piece of peppermint candy), and hopes that he can get close enough not to add any more penalties, because an effective skill of 11 worries him. If he were a more skilled ritual psi, he would look for other bonuses, but that won't occur to him until after the ritual goes off.


Thoughts?

[Prince Charon]

Something that I should have said earlier in regard to Effect Shaping: the time it takes to perform the ritual. In general, I suggest that you have a base time, which is how long it takes usually takes to perform any given ritual with the penalty that you worked out (character point cost of the advantage, divided by ten and rounding down), and increasing or decreasing that amount of time changes the penalty. How long or short the base time for all rituals is, and how great the increments are, depends on the sort of game you want to do.

For example, if the base time for all rituals is fifteen minutes, and the penalty changes in five-minute increments (meaning that a ritual that is skill-5 for a 15 minute ritual will be skill-4 for a 20-minute ritual, and skill-6 for a 10-minute ritual), ritual psi will be significantly easier (skillwise) than if the default is twenty minutes, and the penalty changes as the time doubles or halves (so, that same ritual would take 20 minutes at skill-5, 10 minutes again at skill-6, and 40 minutes at skill-4). Since I might not be explaining this well, here are some base times and increment scales:

Base time: 15 minutes
5 minutes: -2
10 minutes: -1
15 minutes: 0
20 minutes: +1
25 minutes: +2
(+1 to effective skill for every further five minutes)

Base time: 30 minutes
15 minutes: -1
30 minutes: 0
45 minutes: +1
60 minutes: +2
(+1 to effective skill for every further fifteen minutes)

Base time: 20 minutes
5 minutes: -2
10 minutes: -1
20 minutes: 0
40 minutes: +1
80 minutes: +2
(+1 to effective skill for every further doubling)

Base time: 10 minutes
10 minutes: 0
20 minutes: +1
30 minutes: +2
(+1 to effective skill for every further ten minutes)

As I have not play-tested these, I cannot say while combination of base time and time increments is ideal, but I suggest that it mostly matters what sort of game you want to run.


Thoughts?

[sir_pudding]

How do psionic Books work? Like you read the Whole Earth Catalog and then it awakens an eclectic mix of mental abilities that are otherwise unrelated, but the same for everyone regardless?

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

How do psionic Books work? Like you read the Whole Earth Catalog and then it awakens an eclectic mix of mental abilities that are otherwise unrelated, but the same for everyone regardless?

That probably depends on the specific setting or GM, but the way I'd do it, the instructions for the various abilities are embedded in the Book, whether as direct information, or as subtext that leads the mind in that direction... or the Book itself (EDIT: meaning the physical object) is psychically attuned, has an astral entity attached, or is a piece of psychotronics, and guides the mind like that.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

That probably depends on the specific setting or GM, but the way I'd do it, the instructions for the various abilities are embedded in the Book, whether as direct information, or as subtext that leads the mind in that direction... or the Book itself (EDIT: meaning the physical object) is psychically attuned, has an astral entity attached, or is a piece of psychotronics, and guides the mind like that.

The weirder thing for me is the arbitrary list of rituals. That fits an occult grimiore, but is a pretty deviant approach to psi. Which isn't a bad thing, but probably does end up feeling more like cosmic horror magic than psionics as much.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The weirder thing for me is the arbitrary list of rituals. That fits an occult grimiore, but is a pretty deviant approach to psi. Which isn't a bad thing, but probably does end up feeling more like cosmic horror magic than psionics as much.

It doesn't feel as weird to me - think of a lone researcher/mystic, or a small group of them, studying various natural psychics and recording instructions for their abilities as they figure out how to perform/imitate them (also works as an origin for mana-based spell-magic or Book magic in a setting with natural Magic As Powers). On the other hand, I also don't see a hard line between 'psionics' and 'cosmic horror magic,' either (and didn't even before reading GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 14, which IIRC has psi-as-cosmic-horror).

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

It doesn't feel as weird to me - think of a lone researcher/mystic, or a small group of them, studying various natural psychics and recording instructions for their abilities as they figure out how to perform/imitate them (also works as an origin for mana-based spell-magic or Book magic in a setting with natural Magic As Powers). On the other hand, I also don't see a hard line between 'psionics' and 'cosmic horror magic,' either (and didn't even before reading GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 14, which IIRC has psi-as-cosmic-horror).

It's just that psionics is usually organized in related disciplines and not like being able to only do Astral Projection, Remote Viewing, Emotion Control, Access the Akashic Records, and Slay a Yak at 200 yds with Mind Bullets. Even the "real" books about developing psychic power typically group them in disciplines.