Psi, Magic and coexistence in fantasy settings

[SD Anderson]

Poll, sort of. Do you prefer psi and magic to coexist in games?

[Wook]

Poll, sort of. Do you prefer psi and magic to coexist in games?

Indifferent. For my purposes in a fantasy setting they're just different flavors of the same ice cream.

[ed]

no. i want my psi with sci and magic with fantasy. i know, it's old school of me, but that's the way it should always be to me. i understand that in part it's a somewhat false distinction in that mind magic overlaps very heavily w/ psi but it does make for a difference to me.

ed

[TinSoldier]

no. i want my psi with sci and magic with fantasy. i know, it's old school of me, but that's the way it should always be to me. i understand that in part it's a somewhat false distinction in that mind magic overlaps very heavily w/ psi but it does make for a difference to me.

edI agree with ed. While the psi rules in D&D are cool, I think it should be an either-or proposition. Other games may handle the coexistence better, especially some kind of science fantasy thing.

[Lost Soul]

No mix for me either (and D&D doesn't need an entire additionnal magic system with all the rules and multi-edition baggage attached to it.)

[Detritus]

I'm not sure I've ever run a game with psionics, for any system. So I guess, no, no co-existence for me.

[carmachu]

No. I dont like psonics at all in my games....

[Origen]

Indifferent. I've never felt that psionics added something vital and irreplaceable to my games, but I have no particulate objection to them. Players can use them, but in my D&D games I've never had a player really want to play a psionic character, and I haven't yet exhausted the non-psionic monster resources of the MM, the MM2, the MM3, the Fiend Folio and the other 3rd party monster resources I have.

My DM for the 4-year evil campaign I ran in often ran creatures from hell or the abyss with levels of psionic classes or psionic templates to give them a different flavor. I might do that, someday.

[Chimaera]

I like the mixture. ed, somewhere, Steven Brust is weeping...

[SilverDragon]

In every D&D game I run psionics is present in the hands of certain monsters such as mind flayers but available for players really depends on the homebrew I have created for the campaign. Sometimes it's fun even in a non-psionics game to have an adventure in an all-psionic area and see how the players/characters cope.

[Haze]

Psionics have never featured in the games I've played but I personally tend to view them as distinct and therefore separate.

[ed]

chimaera: as you know, my sole familiarity w/ brust's work thus far is the khaavren romances. in that series i see no evidence of psionics as distinct from magic. i take it this is not true in the vlad taltos series?

ed

[Chimaera]

Absolutely... I like the concept of multiple paths to power and different means to the same ends. In the Taltos books, you have Psionics (sometimes referred to as Psychics), Sorcery, Witchcraft and Necromancy all as distinct things. They might make use of some similar skills on occasion or be used to accomplish similar ends, but they are distinct entities. I see no reason why, if there is magic, there has to be only one kind or why there would be a unified theory of it that was ubiquitously practiced.

I certainly take your point regarding the Psi/Sci-Fi, Magic/Fantasy thing, but there are exceptions and it can work. Depending on where you're drawing your source material from, psychic abilities have as much validity as more stereotypical magic...

[Parzival]

Indifferent. <shrug> They can. And sometimes it works well. I would say that it depends largely on the system, and on the focus of the different supernatural abilities within the system.

In the game I ran up in Seattle, there were three different "magic" system components in play. Dai Oni had standard magic, Doc Merc had spirit/ritual magic, and Majestic had psi. It didn't seem to phase anybody.

[JasonStarfire]

I try to make Psi feel like a strange supernatural phenomina in the magic-saturated world of D&D. I don't often include it, though.

I've only played in two games that allowed Psionics, both 3.5. One game I was playing a gestalt monk/psion in a shortly lived Eberron campaign. That was pretty sick.

[Parzival]

I guess I should add the caveat "not in D&D".
<shrug> This is due to the Psionics system, rather than the concept itself.
After all, most of the monk's supernatural abilities are readily attributable as psi abilities.

[ed]

chimaera: fair enough. i can't articulate my feelings any further than "that's just the way it is for me", and while not terribly satisfying aesthetically, is sadly the only response i seem to have. not, of course, that i dispute the validity of what you say. good gaming. :>

ed