From: thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley)
Subject: Re: Psionics
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 19:00:43 GMT

In article <0154@calsci.UUCP> calsci!al@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com (Al Petterson) writes:
>Psi is central to all of the following SF stories, among others: Brin's
>_Uplift_, Niven's _Known_Space_, Asimov's _Foundation_, Clarke's
>_Childhood's_End_, Bradley's _Darkover_, McCaffey's _Pern_, Foster's
>_Humanx_, Lucas's _Star_Wars_, and Roddenberry's _Star_Trek_.  Do you claim
>all these stories violate genre by including psi?
>
As a side note, how do you write rules that cover all of these?

Uplift:  Telepathy primarily, some strange stuff, some FTL.  Some humans have
these abilities strongly, some alien races are much better.
Known Space:  The general run of parapsychology, including luck manipulation.
Only some humans.
Foundation:  Telepathy, group mind.
Childhood's End:  Development of humanity into a group mind.
Darkover:  Telepathy, weather control, some destructive abilities, some
unexplained, individual ability varies widely.
Pern:  Inter-species telepathy, dragons seem to have this universally.
Humanx:  dunno.
Star Wars:  Ability to survive physical death in meaningful form, psycho-
kinesis, enhancement of normal abilities.  Not clear whether everyone has
these abilities or only certain people (but the latter is implied).
Star Trek:  Whatever the plot demands at the time.
and more...
Stranger in a Strange Land:  psychokinesis, total destruction of things,
telepathy in martian, clairvoyance for anybody trained.
Lensman series:  telepathy, including doing nasty things to other minds,
apparently some psychokinesis but very restricted, a new sense for physical
things, along with machines that will serve some functions.  Some people are
very good psionically, most are untalented and untrained.
Instrumentality:  Universal telepathy (with mechanical assistance available),
mind control.
Practice Effect:  the ability to enhance machines, present in everyone,
some are much better.

>In a given *specific* SF world, psi may or may not have a part.  But any SF
>roleplaying system which purports to be "general" rather than tied to a
>specific vision of the future should include psi, or much of SF cannot be
>modeled using that system.
>
There are two problems here.

First, the variation between specific worlds.  I've listed a few above, and
obviously you can't use the same rules for all of them.  I'd recommend
a meta-rule system like Hero as your best bet.

Second, a world with significant psychic abilities will be different from
a world without them, at least for psychic characters.  Some possibilities
are government recognition and regulation of psionics, genocide of psychics
so that psychics must hide and are effectively powerless, an organization
of psychics independent of government that runs psionics (and possibly the
rest of society as well), anarchy in which psychic characters are hassled
(or stomped on) from older, more established, psychics.

These are parts of the general SFRPG problem, in that a general SFRPG must
model a large variety of conceivable universes.  What is the speed and cost
of space travel?  How wealthy is society?  How much destructive capability
does the average citizen have at her disposal, and how is she constrained
from using it?  What are the capabilities and status of computers?  How good
is the medicine available?  Are there numerous, few, or one intelligent
species?  The genre is even more varied than fantasy.

For a general SFRPG, start with a meta-rules system like Hero (GURPS may lack
the psionic system you really want), modify point costs as necessary, and
design a universe.  (This is the hard part.  Consider that any encyclopedia
is an attempt to describe our situation as concisely as possible, but falls
far short of the detail needed for role-playing.)

For a specific SFRPG, write the rules to suit the setting.  Include psi
rules as needed.  Make them as good as the rest of the game, if they are
needed, and don't tack on a set of rules just for the sake of having them.

DHT