foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 15, 2016 15:32:48 GMT -5
Have you guys ever read HIERO'S JOURNEY by Sterling Lanier? Just read it a few months ago. Didn't actually like it that much as a book, but it totally got me thinking about this stuff and wanting to use more of it.
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Post by Scott on Jun 15, 2016 21:37:49 GMT -5
Now I'm kind of inspired to drop a psionic villain into my dungeon.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jun 16, 2016 9:34:10 GMT -5
When I was way younger, making that psionic roll was a big part of the PC creation process. As little munchkins we wanted any advantage we could get. I can only remember 2 characters ever getting it, but I don't have any memories of how it played out in the games. I can't remember ever having a psionic PC of my own. Same here. Everyone rolled for it like they were hoping to win the lottery! It hardly ever came up in any games I was in. I vaguely remember a DM making a Herculean effort to figure out and run a psionic combat BtB and it dragged on forever, but in game terms took virtually no time. And I also vaguely remember a DM running it like if you were psionic, you were more likely to attract psionic monsters (brain moles and so on), so it wasn't necessarily this great thing to be psionic. But that was very early on, like 1981 or so. In nearly all games I played in after that early time period, DMs simply didn't use psionics. It always seemed more like a sci-fi element that didn't fit the flavor of fantasy swords & sorcery, and it was just a bother. I like a rock/paper/scissors idea, or something to give psionic combat at least a little bit of variation and uncertainty.
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Post by Scott on Jun 16, 2016 11:18:33 GMT -5
Rock, Paper, Intellect Fortress, Shoot!
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Post by Scott on Jun 16, 2016 11:34:59 GMT -5
I think some monsters are attracted by psionic activity, and spells that resemble psionic ability. I can't remember if just being psionic was enough to attract them.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 16, 2016 12:02:49 GMT -5
I think some monsters are attracted by psionic activity, and spells that resemble psionic ability. I can't remember if just being psionic was enough to attract them. Psionic activity and spells that resemble psionic activity (which is a broader list than you might think - including, for instance, all healing and detection spells). When a wandering monster is indicated, if a psionic ability has been used within the last turn or a psionic-like spell within the last round, then 1 time in 4 the Psionic Encounters table is supposed to replace the normal encounter. This is bad news, because almost everything on that table is extremely powerful and likely to crush any psionically-endowed PC. Strictly by-the-book, every time a 1st level cleric casts Cure Light Wounds or Detect Magic there's a not-insignificant chance a mind flayer or intellect devourer or lich or demon price will show up to investigate. Which brings up something I mentioned yesterday - that the game needs more low-powered psionic monsters (besides the Cerebral Parasite), so that some psionic-based encounters can be more nuissance than instant death (or, depending on the circumstances, instant super-powerful ally - there's also a chance that a couatl, ki-rin, shedu, or titan will show up). The game needs a psionic equivalent to rats, spiders, and kobolds - creatures with, like, 20 to 30 psionic strength points.
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 16, 2016 12:12:42 GMT -5
Have you guys ever read HIERO'S JOURNEY by Sterling Lanier? Thats one that I never got around to, and quite frankly forgot about. I'm going to have to put that on my must read list. You know I might have already read it and forgot about it like FACE IN THE FROST. The weird thing about my old reading background is that I was trapped in that library with mountains of sci-fi fantasy as the only respite for 3 months a year. My dad had read Conan at an office higher up's behest in the late 70's and I was shocked that he would read it and that he liked it. However, it was short-lived because... well... he was flaming asshole. He gave me the white-framed paperback "CONAN" and my brother the white-framed "CONAN THE CONQUEROR" which I had for years until my brother stole it. You want to talk about why my thief campaigns are so accurate?
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 16, 2016 12:25:44 GMT -5
It's pretty much "Gamma World - The Novel" (proving once again that Jim Ward's creativity is way less than meets the eye) and full of great ideas and worldbuilding, but I didn't really like Lanier's writing (it seemed to me that he worded things awkwardly and had weird sentence structure, and not in a way that seemed like it was an intentional literary affect, just like he wasn't a very good writer) and I started getting bored with it about 100 pages before the end. I recommend it for D&D and GW fans, but it's pretty low on my list of "Appendix N" favorites.
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 16, 2016 12:46:15 GMT -5
I think some monsters are attracted by psionic activity, and spells that resemble psionic ability. I can't remember if just being psionic was enough to attract them. Psionic activity and spells that resemble psionic activity (which is a broader list than you might think - including, for instance, all healing and detection spells). When a wandering monster is indicated, if a psionic ability has been used within the last turn or a psionic-like spell within the last round, then 1 time in 4 the Psionic Encounters table is supposed to replace the normal encounter. This is bad news, because almost everything on that table is extremely powerful and likely to crush any psionically-endowed PC. Strictly by-the-book, every time a 1st level cleric casts Cure Light Wounds or Detect Magic there's a not-insignificant chance a mind flayer or intellect devourer or lich or demon price will show up to investigate. Which brings up something I mentioned yesterday - that the game needs more low-powered psionic monsters (besides the Cerebral Parasite), so that some psionic-based encounters can be more nuissance than instant death (or, depending on the circumstances, instant super-powerful ally - there's also a chance that a couatl, ki-rin, shedu, or titan will show up). The game needs a psionic equivalent to rats, spiders, and kobolds - creatures with, like, 20 to 30 psionic strength points. Here is the whole spiel from DMG page 182: and also most PSI creatures have circumstantial appearances written in their description: ELDRITCH WIZARDRY (1976)/MM (1977) CEREBRAL PARASITE: ELDRITCH WIZARDRY (1976)/MM (1977) INTELLECT DEVOURER: ELDRITCH WIZARDRY (1976)/MM (1977) SU-MONSTER: ELDRITCH WIZARDRY (1976)/MM (1977) THOUGHT EATER: Note that these quotes in EW to MM are word for word the same! MMII(1983) DRELB:
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 16, 2016 12:50:02 GMT -5
Sorry left out BRAIN MOLE which has variant writing from EW to MM:
EW:
MM:
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 16, 2016 13:17:11 GMT -5
It's pretty much "Gamma World - The Novel" (proving once again that Jim Ward's creativity is way less than meets the eye) and full of great ideas and worldbuilding, but I didn't really like Lanier's writing (it seemed to me that he worded things awkwardly and had weird sentence structure, and not in a way that seemed like it was an intentional literary affect, just like he wasn't a very good writer) and I started getting bored with it about 100 pages before the end. I recommend it for D&D and GW fans, but it's pretty low on my list of "Appendix N" favorites. You don't have to convince me that Jim Ward is a pod person. I think he made Arneson pale at taking too much credit! I believe the "development" by Brian Blume and "special thanks" to Gary are the entire hub of what is holding the content together in METAMORHOSIS ALPHA (1976). I got a complimentary copy of the MA (thanks to a fast-handed Rob Kuntz at GenCon 2002! You should have seen Ward's face!) that he did in 2002 after I got a copy of ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DEMONS & DEVILS (2001). Its terrible. Suffice to say that the GAMMA WORLD thing I've almost completely separated from Ward in my mind.
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Post by GRWelsh on Jun 16, 2016 15:53:15 GMT -5
EGG said he didn't use psionics, right? Yet, they still showed up in game materials, at least as late as S4 (1982). There were some new demon lords presented in that module that had psionic abilities -- maybe EGG felt like he had to include them on such beings, as the precedent had already been set. But that old hermit makes me wonder... He may have the most psionic detail I've ever seen on an AD&D NPC written by EGG.
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foster1941
Warlock
Duke of California, Earl of Los Angeles, Knight Bachelor
Posts: 475
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 16, 2016 16:25:04 GMT -5
There are also new psionic-endowed monsters in the MM2 (1983) - not just the other-planar monsters (demons, devas, etc.) but duergar and grippli and ustilagors couple others - and in the article in Dragon #103 (Nov 1985) he's still publicly on the fence about whether psionics would be included in the AD&D-revision-that-never-was. It's also worth noting that Psychogenics (psionics by another name) were included in both Dangerous Journeys and Lejendary Adventure. So it's not that Gary was opposed to the concept, he just seems to have been unsatisfied with the way it was executed in AD&D, likely for a lot of the same reasons we're mentioning here, and wanted to revise it. I think that post-TSR, when the opportunity to revise the system was no longer available and the decision was whether to take it or leave it as-is, his opinion hardened against it and he started recommending people drop it, and saying/implying that he never used it (which, as Gene's first post in this thread indicates, was probably both true-and-false - that he probably had some handwaved, ad-hoc, judgment-call-based system that he used rather than the formal/detailed system in the books - the same way he says he never used the DMG unarmed combat system - but the idea of psychically-endowed monsters and characters was present in his games).
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Post by geneweigel on Jun 16, 2016 17:01:39 GMT -5
Looking at it in the most crude manner and saying its shit is exactly how EGG created it for crude people to perceive it. If one can't DM/PLAY intelligent and/or sophisticated characters then its an automatic default reaction. Although it had the unintentional effect that the craftier DMs (present company? ) looked around and were like, "Well no one else seems to be using it...why bother?" Plus the piled on additional effect that the sophisticated continuance of D&D product literally died in 1985 didn't help either. Psionics bluntly is the power of the mind. INT/WIS/CHA in that order. Here are what I believe are the fundamental principles of psionics: I left out "physical appearance" but I think "judgement" might add to "DOMINATION" and "personal magnetism" might plug in to "BODY EQUILIBRIUM" and "AURA ALTERATION".
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Post by grodog on Jun 22, 2016 22:40:43 GMT -5
Have you guys ever read HIERO'S JOURNEY by Sterling Lanier? Just read it a few months ago. Didn't actually like it that much as a book, but it totally got me thinking about this stuff and wanting to use more of it. James H. Schmitz's short stories and novels offer a fascinating take on psionics; if you're not familiar with him, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Schmitz I like the stories a lot, and you can download free ebook copies by following this info I posted on FB a couple of years ago:
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