Old School Psionics - the final word

As long time readers of this blog knows, I started a project to clone Supplement III since I am fond of psionics. I have reached the end of the road of that project, and it wont materialize as intended.

The fact is that when you delve deeper into Supplement III, you realize that this some of the worst written rules in the D&D canon. The editing is abysmal and the rules contradictory and clunky.

There are two ways to approach this, one is to rewrite it to conserve the feel or the other is to try to untangle the mess and present it the way it was intended. I had intended to do the latter, but I found it was way harder than expected. Partly I guess that comes from loosing all respect for the original after spending some time with it. I also felt the tug to just write my own, but then it would not be a clone.

But, after all those negative vibes I am happy to say that someone have managed to create a set of rules that have that old school feeling, preserve thrust of the original and are clear and lucidly presented. I direct you to the Retroroleplaying blog by Randall Stukey. Randall have written the very cool Microlite 74 and Microlite 75 rules, and those contain a very workable and excellently presented rules for psionics, in the spirit and style of Supplement III.

My project floundered, but at least someone managed to present something instead. My hat off to Randall for his great work.

Update on my rules project

Today I realized I haven't been thinking on my psionics rules in a while. Some real life happened, and even though it seems like the subject is always buzzing around the web, I haven't managed to calm down and be creative. A few days like that and suddenly a fortnight have passed!

The project is still on, and I keep thinking that psionics in fantasy is a cool addition. One problem I have though, is I keep shifting back and forth between doing the traditional cloning, and new development inspired by the old sources. Some ideas from the old sources are antithetical to how I think rules should work, and still I would like to at least preserve the feel of the quirkiness of the source.

I'm definitely going to make another serious push this week. Maybe I can hash out a definitive stance at least.

An update on psionics

Some of you might be waiting with baited breath for news on my psionics project. No? Well. I'm going to tell you anyway.

I've rewritten all the old powers and rescaled a bunch of them. I've been thinking about what it would make sense to include, while at the same time keep the flavour of the original rules. Some of those powers are quite out there. Still waffling on a few of those.

In the old rules there are different procedures for attacking different targets with Attack Modes. This is quite involved, and I wonder how much can be slashed while keeping the flavour. I guess most of it can be simplified. I've already tossed out the point based system. For some that might be heresy and mean I have already left the original far behind. So be it. I think one reason psionics aren't more popular is that they are just too fiddly. I want it to be strange, but not cumbersome. Now psi combat is based on d20, AC and roll for damage. I think it finally makes sense. You be the judge.

Lately I have felt a bit sluggish, and it seems like everyone around me have a fever, flu or a cold right now. Not exactly a catalyst for your creativity that.

First pass at cloning Eldritch Wizardry psionics done

When I started this project I felt like I wanted to get a grasp on how playing a psychic in the early days of the hobby would have been. Now I can say that it must have been a pain in the arse!

I don't know if it was lack of time, bad rules writing or bad rules editing, but believe me when I say that the psionic rules for OD&D is a mess. There are three different tables, depending on whom you engage in psionic combat with, and the rules for the psionic points are quite opaque. For example, Psionic Attack Strength is mentioned a few times, as is Total Psionic Strength. Oddly enough no definition is available for "defensive psionic capabilities", but a mention that they are the same as Attack Strength. So why on earth do you mention it!? Are the Attack Strength Points only used for Attack? Well, Total Psionic Strength is defined as twice the Attack Strength, which are then mentioned in the attack table. You are then very probable asking yourself why you double it up in the first place, or not call it something more intuitive?

Anyhow. I have started doing this as an exercise in gaming archaeology, and for my own enjoyment. Enjoying getting riled up about 35 year old rules is a bit, peculiar. Right? I'm probably just as nutty as those guys who wrote those crazy rules.

This have convinced my that I really need to write my own rules, without points, that feel like the rest of OD&D. I'll keep as much as possible of the old stuff, but do something with ability damage, AC and to hit numbers like regular combat uses. Wish me luck.

Ability damage, through psionics

Guess what? I'm getting more and more interested in doing my own take on psionics, whole cloth.

One thing I'm really sold on is ability damage. If somebody slaps you around with an Ego Whip, shouldn't your ego suffer? Do you feel wise no more punk, getting some Id Insinuation rammed down your psyche? It sure hurt my WIS.

This project grows.

How to make OD&D psionics more sensible

If you haven't had the opportunity to read the psionics rules in Eldritch Wizardry I can tell you they are very labour intensive. There are quite a few tables to roll on, and tables with modifiers for this and that. One table actually have the Death result. I bet it's because the head explodes.

So psionic combat. How do you make it work? This is what I'm thinking.

It would make sense to streamline things to use attack bonuses depending on mode, and have different modes being used to defend against different attacks. Also, it would make sense to have some sort of "mental" AC based on those defense modes. That way it would be just the good old roll a d20 and add modifiers against an AC. It would be far quicker than the fairly involved procedure in EW with points for this and that. I also like the idea of attacks targeting stats directly. In Traveller it works fine, so why not in a OD&D look a like?

It's a fine line to walk trying to clean up some old rules and making shit up whole cloth because it just makes more sense.

Quite fun little experiment this Eldritch Wizardry cloning attempt.

What's the "feel" of psionics in fantasy gaming?

Being submerged in different versions of psionics rules lately have reminded me of my initial reaction when I read the Psionics book for D&D3.0 back in the day.

In that book they have a sidebar, or something like it, where they discuss the relation between magic and psionics. It basically boil downs to "it's just the same, with different looks" and they of course claim "game balance" it best preserved that way. Some days I wish all power gamers who out of envy bitch and moan about not having the same power as everyone else would all disappear to Mars or Jupiter.

I think psionics should be different from magic. Why would you have a character utilize both psychic powers and magic if they are all the same? Because they ran out of spell slots but have Power Points still? Please!

• Psionics should not be visible. Thus it has no material, verbal or somatic components.
• Psionics should be focused on mental processes like thoughts, emotions, perception and the mental processing of physical stimuli.
• Psionic combat should make your head explode if you loose:
• Psionics should not replicate the basic Magic User spell list. 
• Psionics should be alien!
  
  

Or what do you think?

Some oddities in Eldritch Wizardry

I have, like I have mentioned both here and elsewhere, started to take a serious stab at write some psionics rules inspired (or cloned) from Eldritch Wizardry.

I already know that my favourite way to do it is not the way it is done in EW. Way to fiddly and too much senseless calculations. I'm not sure I want to clone the mess, trying to make sense of it or just rewrite it my way inspired by the general concepts. But, I want to take a stab at "getting" it as it is.

Now I have a problem. I have been staring at that little booklet, with its very jumbled set of rules, for far too long. I can't seem to find any indication of when Basic and Superior powers are gained. Have I read that somewhere and right now stare straight at the text where it explains how they differ? If you can point me to where in the rules that is, please do!

This reminds me of the last time I tried to make sense of the LBBs. I ended up reading S&W to make sense of it!

Anyone good with the minutiae of the OGL?

I have the last few days been working somewhat on a clone of the psionics rules from Supplement III, Eldritch Wizardry, to OD&D. Part of me have wondered why this have not been cloned before. I took a peek at the psionic book for 3.0, and found that the content was not Open Content. But, in the 3.0 SRD found online the psionic rules where there. So, how do you utilize that SRD? In the 3.5 SRD there are some parts missing, like the psionic attack and defense modes. How am I to use the first SRD then? I'm not very good at the legalistic parts. It's my understanding that I should be good just by putting in a reference to the SRD, copright so-and-so, in paragraph 15 of the OGL included with my clone text. Anyone have any feedback on that?