Limited Range of Psychic Powers

[Ian Absentia]

Well, that was a helpful discussion regarding psychic abilities that went south.

!i!

[Old Man Henerson]

8 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Well, that was a helpful discussion regarding psychic abilities that went south.

!i!

Yeah... Sure was.

[Atgxtg]

12 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

Well, that was a helpful discussion regarding psychic abilities that went south.

!i!

Not necessarily.

Look, with any discussion there are going to be conflicting  viewpoints. It better to be aware of them all  before  modifying rules  and running the game.

For instance, if  players (and NPCs) can flash fry someone per firestarter, or teleport 1000 meters into the air, or  whatever, then the GM needs to be aware of how easy that will be to accomplish, and how that will impact the  campaign, or even it a campaign is still possible. Or it psychic powers will need certain safeguards and restrictions.

The setting makes a huge difference on how the  powers impact the game too. Something like mind reading and teleportation could  greatly affect any sort of mystery adventure.

There are lots of things to consider, especially in the contest of a campaign.

One thing I'll point out is that any sort of  exceptional  ability tends to paint a target on someone back in combat. Just like how in real combat the guy carry the flamethrower tended to get shot at  more than  guys carrying  rifles.  So the GM will need to factor this into things for both he PCs and NPCs.

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Old Man Henerson]

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Not necessarily.

Look, with any discussion there are going to be conflicting  viewpoints. It better to be aware of them all  before  modifying rules  and running the game.

For instance, if  players (and NPCs) can flash fry someone per firestarter, or teleport 1000 meters into the air, or  whatever, then the GM needs to be aware of how easy that will be to accomplish, and how that will impact the  campaign, or even it a campaign is still possible. Or it psychic powers will need certain safeguards and restrictions.

The setting makes a huge difference on how the  powers impact the game too. Something like mind reading and teleportation could  greatly affect any sort of mystery adventure.

There are lots of things to consider, especially in the contest of a campaign.

One thing I'll point out is that any sort of  exceptional  ability tends to paint a target on someone back in combat. Just like how in real combat the guy carry the flamethrower tended to get shot at  more than  guys carrying  rifles.  So the GM will need to factor this into things for both he PCs and NPCs.

 

All very good food for thought. I will have to look over the psychic power list to see how it all works. I am not too worried about mind reading since my game is more action oriented. But I will keep it in mind. The enemies will have plenty of psychics as well so a good deal of the enemies will be on equal fooding with the players in that regard.

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

The enemies will have plenty of psychics as well so a good deal of the enemies will be on equal fooding with the players in that regard.

Just keep in mind that the bad guys being on equal footing in bad. If half the NPCs kill half the PCs every week you don't have much of a campaign.

 

Other things to watch out for is how long it takes to do something psychically, what can be done about it, and can people even notice it? It's not all than fun in a game for a PC to  just drop dead without any warning that something was wrong or anything they could do to stop it. It's basically the ambush situation only with something other than weapons, and that makes it easier to pull off. They players might not have any way of knowing that the romantic couple drinking wine at the street cafe are the ones frying their  brains.

[Old Man Henerson]

10 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Just keep in mind that the bad guys being on equal footing in bad. If half the NPCs kill half the PCs every week you don't have much of a campaign.

 

Other things to watch out for is how long it takes to do something psychically, what can be done about it, and can people even notice it? It's not all than fun in a game for a PC to  just drop dead without any warning that something was wrong or anything they could do to stop it. It's basically the ambush situation only with something other than weapons, and that makes it easier to pull off. They players might not have any way of knowing that the romantic couple drinking wine at the street cafe are the ones frying their  brains.

Yeah. I will fix that and keep an eye out for it. Thanks again  for the tip.

[foolcat]

On 12/4/2019 at 9:50 PM, Old Man Henerson said:

Hi guys, the game I am setting up will eventually rely heavily on th PCs using psychic powers, but the list of psychic powers seems fairly limited. I think I can overcome this if I add a few power ideas from the Earthbound series, but I am not sure if that would take away from the mental nature of psychic powers and turn them into superpowers instead.

What do you guys think?

I really like how psionics are handled in M-SPACE (based on Mythras Imperative), and I‘m definitely going to use the whole shebang or parts thereof as I see fit for a sci-fi setting I‘m converting to M-SPACE.

Powers, which unsurprisingly are handled as separate skills, are divided into the three domains of Sense, Mind, and Matter, with a total of 31 powers over all three Domains being described in the book. There’s a hint about forgotten domains/powers, e.g. Destruction (Pain), or Weaving (Teleportation). Characters may be restricted to using one domain, or are free to learn powers from all of them, depending on GM decision. Each domain may further be divided into three Power Arcs, with each arc representing a set of requirements that have to be met in order to learn or use powers from that arc, like having a POW of at least 16 to learn powers from the first arc, POW 18+ with one power at 90+% and the lowest at 60+% to learn powers from the second arc, etc.

All in all I think this is an excellent and balanced foundation to start using psionics in a setting, with enough room for developing own ideas. Shoutout to @clarence for writing and releasing M-SPACE, I really enjoy it.

[Old Man Henerson]

18 hours ago, foolcat said:

I really like how psionics are handled in M-SPACE (based on Mythras Imperative), and I‘m definitely going to use the whole shebang or parts thereof as I see fit for a sci-fi setting I‘m converting to M-SPACE.

Powers, which unsurprisingly are handled as separate skills, are divided into the three domains of Sense, Mind, and Matter, with a total of 31 powers over all three Domains being described in the book. There’s a hint about forgotten domains/powers, e.g. Destruction (Pain), or Weaving (Teleportation). Characters may be restricted to using one domain, or are free to learn powers from all of them, depending on GM decision. Each domain may further be divided into three Power Arcs, with each arc representing a set of requirements that have to be met in order to learn or use powers from that arc, like having a POW of at least 16 to learn powers from the first arc, POW 18+ with one power at 90+% and the lowest at 60+% to learn powers from the second arc, etc.

All in all I think this is an excellent and balanced foundation to start using psionics in a setting, with enough room for developing own ideas. Shoutout to @clarence for writing and releasing M-SPACE, I really enjoy it.

I do not have M-SPACE so I am not sure how I could adapt it. I looked it up on the net, and I see it is related to BRP, so It would most likely work out. How do the various domains work?

[Lloyd Dupont]

I made a (longer) list of SciFi psionic power (I have 2 powers with special range rule for Elerian) ... It hasn't been tested yet.. and not sure whether I made it with BRP or Mythas in mind. Will post it tonight if that can help!

Edited December 12, 2019 by Lloyd Dupont

[Lloyd Dupont]

here some untested yet Psionic idea I had.. it was written for Mythras, but might give you some idea anyway!  

While the ruleset might not seem too important... there is some flavor to each game system's power system.. so you probably will have to tweak those powers, even if you like them!  

 

MyScifPsioninc.docx

[Questbird]

This thread is related, though more about tropes in a psi campaign than mechanics of the powers (though it started off that way):

 

[Atgxtg]

On 12/7/2019 at 11:16 AM, Old Man Henerson said:

I do not have M-SPACE so I am not sure how I could adapt it. I looked it up on the net, and I see it is related to BRP, so It would most likely work out. How do the various domains work?

It's a generic set of SCi-Fi rules, mostly based around a simplified system for creating and running  spacecraft.  Originally it was written for BRP, but due to financial reasons was changed to use Mythras as it's core system.

[Old Man Henerson]

Wow, I have not been back here for a while, a lot of good replies. 

14 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

here some untested yet Psionic idea I had.. it was written for Mythras, but might give you some idea anyway!  

While the ruleset might not seem too important... there is some flavor to each game system's power system.. so you probably will have to tweak those powers, even if you like them!  

 

MyScifPsioninc.docx 184.46 kB · 1 download

Thanks for the rules set, it has a lot more things that I think the Psychic powers should have included like the ignore pain power. I wanted to include a power like that in the campaign I was working on too.  You should check out the video game Earthbound, they have a lot of cool psychic powers you could use as inspiration.

13 hours ago, Questbird said:

This thread is related, though more about tropes in a psi campaign than mechanics of the powers (though it started off that way):

 

Thanks for the link, I will defenately be watching this thread now.

8 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It's a generic set of SCi-Fi rules, mostly based around a simplified system for creating and running  spacecraft.  Originally it was written for BRP, but due to financial reasons was changed to use Mythras as it's core system.

It looks interesting, I might have to check it out some time.

[Atgxtg]

13 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

It looks interesting, I might have to check it out some time.

It's major point, is that it breaks down a ship into "modules" and uses those to  do  most of the math/heavy lifting. I think BRP Mecha might have been better suited to your camapign idea,  but it is out of print. 

[Old Man Henerson]

34 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It's major point, is that it breaks down a ship into "modules" and uses those to  do  most of the math/heavy lifting. I think BRP Mecha might have been better suited to your camapign idea,  but it is out of print. 

Anything is good, though I am now very sorry that it is out of print.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Old Man Henerson said:

Anything is good, though I am now very sorry that it is out of print.

Well it's  not too hard to come up with something, depending on what you want to do. What size vehicles do you need for the game? There are some basic formulas I can give you that can be used  to help stat up vehicles.  

Edited December 13, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Old Man Henerson]

On 12/13/2019 at 9:53 AM, Atgxtg said:

Well it's  not too hard to come up with something, depending on what you want to do. What size vehicles do you need for the game? There are some basic formulas I can give you that can be used  to help stat up vehicles.  

I was thinking of using some stats that the big golden book gave on the mecha that was on the back of the book, but I did not know if I should just take them or get creative and make my own. The mecha for my game would be 10-15 feet like in my other post to you. Thanks for the offer on the formulas, I would very much appreciate it.

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, Old Man Henerson said:

I was thinking of using some stats that the big golden book gave on the mecha that was on the back of the book, but I did not know if I should just take them or get creative and make my own. The mecha for my game would be 10-15 feet like in my other post to you. Thanks for the offer on the formulas, I would very much appreciate it.

Okay, I'll send you an email with the math in game terms.  Basically use use the SIZ tablre I send you to work out mass and engine thrust (STR) and can work out some other details using real world math,  simplified  into game terms.

[Old Man Henerson]

6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Okay, I'll send you an email with the math in game terms.  Basically use use the SIZ tablre I send you to work out mass and engine thrust (STR) and can work out some other details using real world math,  simplified  into game terms.

Okay. Looking forward to getting them. Thanks again.👍

[Mugen]

Other possible RPG sources for Psionic powers are GURPS Psionics (3rd edition) and White Wolf's Trinity/Aeon.

GURPS breaks Psionic abilities into Power Levels and skills. PL is your raw "Psionic Force", while skills help you control it. For instance, Psychokinesis PL 20 let you lift a truck, but unless you succeed at a Telekinesis skill roll, you won't be able to control its trajectory. It offers a good range of Psi abilities and settings ideas.
Conversion to BRP will require that you find a way to set characters' Power Levels.

Trinity has 6 Abilitites, which are all broken into 3 sub-abilities. For instance, Psychokinesis has 3 sub-abilities : Telekinesis, Thermokinesis and Force Fields (in 1st edition it was Telekinesis, Cryokinesis and Pyrokinesis).

[Old Man Henerson]

On 12/16/2019 at 4:42 AM, Mugen said:

Other possible RPG sources for Psionic powers are GURPS Psionics (3rd edition) and White Wolf's Trinity/Aeon.

GURPS breaks Psionic abilities into Power Levels and skills. PL is your raw "Psionic Force", while skills help you control it. For instance, Psychokinesis PL 20 let you lift a truck, but unless you succeed at a Telekinesis skill roll, you won't be able to control its trajectory. It offers a good range of Psi abilities and settings ideas.
Conversion to BRP will require that you find a way to set characters' Power Levels.

Trinity has 6 Abilitites, which are all broken into 3 sub-abilities. For instance, Psychokinesis has 3 sub-abilities : Telekinesis, Thermokinesis and Force Fields (in 1st edition it was Telekinesis, Cryokinesis and Pyrokinesis).

I will have to look in to it. Thanks for the tip. Perhaps the character's power level could be related to how high their POW score is?

[g33k]

3 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

... Perhaps the character's power level could be related to how high their POW score is?

If you liken POW to STR, then you look to "skill" to apply either, in BRP terms.

Traditionally most BRP games set a couple of skill breakpoints... 75%, 80%, & 90% are all common, sometimes 75 & 90 both; and 100%, of course.

Then a PC has to get 3 skills above a breakpoint, or 5 skills, or 3 above a lower and one above a higher, or whatever the game-design calls for...

Then the PC is deemed to have achieved a certain degree if "mastery" and new options open up.  In the explicitly AD&D-esque "Classic Fantasy," this is part of the "levelling-up" mechanism.  In the old Mongoose "Land of..." supplements, it was "Ki Powers".  Etc etc etc. 

[Old Man Henerson]

1 minute ago, g33k said:

If you liken POW to STR, then you look to "skill" to apply either, in BRP terms.

Traditionally most BRP games set a couple of skill breakpoints... 75%, 80%, & 90% are all common, sometimes 75 & 90 both; and 100%, of course.

Then a PC has to get 3 skills above a breakpoint, or 5 skills, or 3 above a lower and one above a higher, or whatever the game-design calls for...

Then the PC is deemed to have achieved a certain degree if "mastery" and new options open up.  In the explicitly AD&D-esque "Classic Fantasy," this is part of the "levelling-up" mechanism.  In the old Mongoose "Land of..." supplements, it was "Ki Powers".  Etc etc etc. 

To tell you the truth, what I trying to do with the game was use the psychic powers as a base and expand it into Easter Chi powers than anything else. Though those kind of powers sound more like they belong to the super power range don't they?

I never played a very long game of AD&D, but the concept of leveling up does appeal to me a bit since that is what I am more familiar with. Still, it would take a long time to reach those brackets with BRP skill roles, how would you get around that?

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

I never played a very long game of AD&D, but the concept of leveling up does appeal to me a bit since that is what I am more familiar with. Still, it would take a long time to reach those brackets with BRP skill roles, how would you get around that?

Generally you wouldn't. Part of  the fun of the BRP system is that  players get to see their characters improve a little after each adventure or game session. So rather than adventuring for a cmonth or two and then leveling up and getting a bunch of bonuses at once, like in D&D,   n BRP the characters improve  a couple of skills after each adventure and overtime wind up in the same spot.

In fact, advancement in BRP tends to be a bit quicker than in D&D, since each level is usually only a 5%  increase to attack  and possibly skill scores, so a BRP character can get the equivalent of 2 or 3 levels worth of improvement with a weapon in under a month. 

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

To tell you the truth, what I trying to do with the game was use the psychic powers as a base and expand it into Easter Chi powers than anything else. Though those kind of powers sound more like they belong to the super power range don't they?

The Mongoose edition of Runequest (a BRP game (that is to say, RuneQuest begat BRP at Chaosium, but then RQ got licensed to Mongoose, who begat a variant (but similar, and easily translated) system as THEIR game) had an Eastern setting, with Land of the Samurai & Land of the Ninja.  These had Ki Powers.

That branch of the "family tree" isn't really pursuing the "eastern" line at the moment, but TDM's Mythras is a linear descendant (mechanically speaking), and typically in Mythras you'd implement the "Mystic Warrior" idea -- whether Shaolin Monk or Jedi Knight -- using the mechanics called "Mysticism."

 

2 hours ago, Old Man Henerson said:

I never played a very long game of AD&D, but the concept of leveling up does appeal to me a bit since that is what I am more familiar with. Still, it would take a long time to reach those brackets with BRP skill roles, how would you get around that?

The BRP mechanism is good as written, as @Atgxtg says!  The organic character-growth (getting better at the stuff you actually DO, needing to specially-train to improve stuff you haven't done) works really well.  There's no "moment" of level-up where you're suddenly better-at-everything (even stuff you've never done?!), but getting a little bit better (much more often) has its own satisfactions.

That said, there's several ways to speed up BRP progression if you want to.  I have seen: give bigger improvements on any skill-check for improvement; or make it be automatic bump, instead of a "check;" or allow the improvement-rolls more frequently.

Edited December 18, 2019 by g33k