It is often said that the world is divided into two classes of people: those who like Van Morrison, and those who have met him.
Another such division that lies across the heart of humanity is those who can tolerate psionics in D&D and those who cannot. I wish to go out on a limb and say that most people who play D&D do not like psionics, and I will go even further out on said limb - indeed, to the point where it begins to bend so outrageously and strenuously that breakage becomes imminent - and say that this is even more true of grognards and those associated with the OSR. The chief complaint would be that AD&D psionics made things unnecessarily complicated, were overpowered, duplicated what magic-users or clerics could do, and ruined the tone of the game.
The last of these complaints bites most forcefully. Ultimately, it is not beyond the wit of man to develop an elegant and interesting psionics system for D&D and related games. But it is the tone which is the real issue. And this is because the existence of psionics is predicated on a metaphysics which is fundamentally incompatible with those of the typical fantasy world.
What I mean by this is simpler than it sounds. The point of psionics is that mind triumphs over matter. The stuff of the universe can be bent, twisted, and otherwise manipulated by the latent power of the brain. And the psionicist therefore simply decide whether he wants to attempt to shape reality, and does so if he has sufficient puissance. The point of magic in a fantasy setting is that it is supernatural - it is a mysterious overarching force which can be channelled so as to supervene in the physical world. Obviously it requires intellect to learn spells, but spells themselves are not outgrowths of happenings within the brain. They are things written down and memorised, yes, but their origins are extrinsic to it.
These different metaphysics tug in diametrically opposite directions. Does mind triumph over matter? Or is mind subordinate to supernature, which it taps into but never dominates? There is no right or wrong answer to these questions, but they tug themselves apart all the same. In practice, what I think this translates into is simply a sense that psionics 'feels wrong' in a high fantasy campaign setting. It discomobulates our sense of what 'fantasy' entails. This is not, though, due merely to genre expectation. It is a function of the fact that psionics and magic each require the individual to simultaneously adopt two, mutually contradictory, ideas about the nature of reality. Does it conform to (or can it be made to conform to) the mind? Or does the mind channel what is 'out there' in nature (magic) into real-world effects?
I think the awkwardness of bolting a whole separate complicated pseudo-magic system onto the game came first and the general distaste later, as well as being pushed out by the general homogenisation of what fantasy is "supposed" to be.
ReplyDeleteThink of the Black Seers of Yimsha. Think of Dark Sun's whole-hog incorporation of psionics as a natural extension of all living creatures, or Planescape's mind-over-reality, or (I'm not very familiar) Eberron's ruthless magic-is-just-science approach. Vancian magic is rather materialist to begin with, based on mathematics; I wouldn't really blink to see Cugel encounter some mind-controlling person or beast.
Heck, release a few preconceptions and reread this: ""[Frodo] felt a great malice bent upon him, and a deadly regard considering him[...] a pale deadly fire began steadily to glow within, a flame kindled in some deep pit of evil thought. Monstrous and abominable eyes they were, bestial and yet filled with purpose and with hideous delight, gloating over their prey trapped beyond all hope of escape. Frodo and Sam, horror-stricken, began slowly to back away, their own gaze held by the dreadful stare of those baleful eyes; but as they backed so the eyes advanced. Frodo’s hand wavered, and slowly the Phial drooped. Then suddenly, released from the holding spell to run a little while in vain panic for the amusement of the eyes, they both turned and fled together..." What is Shelob doing but imposing her will upon the external world? The hobbits channel external power with the Phial, but Shelob holds them in place with her own thought.
For evidence, introduced to D&D around the same time as the abominable EW/AD&D psionics system, also based on mind-over-matter, and also greatly clashing with LotR-style fantasy, was another concept but one that remains enduringly popular: the monk. People might often dislike monks for thematic reasons, but I've never heard it put the way you have, that they're metaphysically incompatible with magic.
I agree. In most fantasy worlds, psionics don't blend well. In a setting, like Dark Sun, they fit in.
ReplyDeletePart of the tonal issue may come from people overly associating psychic powers with current-day pseudoscientific ESP. This is a mistake; there's plenty of support in both eastern and western occult tradition for psychic powers that may be more to their liking, e.g.
ReplyDelete"The Passions of the Soul which follow the phantasie, when they are most vehement, cannot only change their own body, but also can transcend so, as to work upon another body, so that some wonderfull impressions are thence produced in Elements, and extrinsecall things, and also can so take away, or bring some disease of the mind or body. For the Passions of the Soul are the chiefest cause of the temperament of its proper body. So the Soul being strongly elevated, and inflamed with a strong imagination, sends forth health or sickness, not only in its proper body, but also in other bodies. [...]
Now by these examples it appears how the affection of the phantasie, when it vehemently intends it self, doth not only affect its own proper body, but also anothers. So also the desire of Witches to hurt, doth bewitch men most perniciously with stedfast lookes. [...] And certain women in Scythia, amongst the Illyrians, and Triballi, killed whomsoever they looked angry upon. Therefore let no man wonder that the body, and soul of one may in like manner be affected with the mind of another, seeing the mind is far more powerfull, strong, fervent, and more prevalent in its motion then vapours exhaling out of bodies; neither are there wanting Mediums, by which it should work, neither is anothers body less subjected to anothers mind, then to anothers body. Upon this account they say, that a man by him affection, and habit only, may act upon another." - Henry Cornelius Agrippa
The issue's definitely not helped by the existence of creatures that can just innately do magic as inherent abilities, including 3e+ style sorcerers if your game has those.
ReplyDelete