[Torg] Psionics & Social

[Chad Dickhaut]

--- On Sun, 2/28/10, Jasyn Jones <jasynj at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Jasyn Jones <jasynj at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Torg] Psionics & Social
> To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
> Date: Sunday, February 28, 2010, 5:44 PM
> Opinion: The fact that psionics has
> to be broken up across so many
> axioms says to me "I don't fit any axiom well." If it fit
> any of these
> areas well, we wouldn't need to break it up.

"Psionics" is a nebulous concept covering a whole range of effects, 
even genres.  As KS Jim pointed out, mind meld is not pyrokinesis is
not communicating with spirits.  Either the individualized effects need
to be separated based on the mechanism or a common mechanism/framework
needs to be discovered/ worked out.  My chosen course is to discern
what constitutes "pure" psionics (as opposed to similar effects with different mechanisms) and see how it hangs together.  Here is my
process of pursuing that course.

Everything that calls itself "psi" or "psychic" is not necessarily psionics.  This is fundamental, but it's also often overlooked in 
discussions of psionics.  The term psionics has been used
to describe a wide variety of phenomena (from ESP to channeling
to spoon bending to fire walking), but these do not all necessarily
have the same cause or mechanism.  This is fine for discussion of
real world events (purported or actual), but it's not especially
useful from a game design perspective.  As such, I think it would be
useful to define what psionics is at its core.

Psionics is from a functional perspective "magic for non-magical realities".  After all, if a setting allows for magic there 
isn't much use in creating a mystical SFX that explicitly *isn't*
magic.  Psionics is therefore found predominantly in rationalist (if
not overtly "hard" science fiction settings. It allows for astounding,
"supernatural" effects in settings that don't otherwise allow for the
supernatural.  In my reckoning this is why Spiritualism, for example, 
is separate from psionics; seances and the like call forth actual spirits,
and the existence of spirits in the rationalist sci-fi where psionics
abound is dubious at best.  A psionicist may therefore encounter or even
communicate with a "ghost", but such ghosts are likely only memory/sense
impressions (what ghost hunters call "residual haunts") or possibly a
poltergeist or astral entity (a creature that never was human).  It
isn't enough to say the two appear to a casual observer to accomplish
the same goal; one has to look at how the goal is accomplished.  That is
why I (for the sake of clarity and ease of game design) favor defining
psionics from a rationalist sci-fi perspective and treating phenomena
that do not fit within that framework as something similar to but apart
from psionics.

So then, what are the genre trends for psionics?  The majority of settings
with psi are either modern (with a preponderance of those being low in
pervasiveness and/or power level) or future (these often have a greater
occurrence of psi characters than modern settings, and the power level of
their psi characters is greater than their modern counterparts).  Post-
apocalyptic settings by their nature were once either "modern" or greater,
so the existence of psi can often be explained as the remnants of What
Once Was.

> 
> Analysis: If we went with multi-axiom psi, then any cosm
> with Psi (or,
> with more than one form of psi, which is the most common)
> would have
> to have a high axiom in each area. Tharkold would be a
> better psi cosm
> than the Space Gods. (Munchkin axioms, ho!)

I'm not sure how Tharkold would be a better psi cosm than Space
Gods, considering that SG has higher Social and Tech (especially
since the LoF nerfs what Social Tharkold does have).  In any case,
under a multi-axiom model a cosm would have to possess sufficient
levels in the appropriate axioms, yes.  I don't see how that is
problematic, though, considering that in order for a cosm to have
any tool it must have axioms sufficient to support it.

> 
> Personal Criteria: For my purposes, versatility is one of
> the chief
> goals: Torg ought allow for as wide a variety of cosms as
> possible
> (without damaging gameability and other considerations).
> Maintaining
> versatility means that psi shouldn't be based on any one
> current
> axiom, less so a multitude of them.

I would argue that basing different psi effects on different Social
and Tech axiom levels allows for a greater degree of versatility
than you're arguing.  Under my model one can build cosms that reflect
the bulk of the genres that fall under "pure" Psionics.

> 
> Just for Social, a Social of 21 means every psi cosm with
> telepathy
> has to be at least a 21, no lower. That rules out "After
> the Bomb" psi
> settings (games or fiction). I know the "world law" answer
> wallpapers
> over this objection, but that just leads us back to the
> inadvisability
> of requiring multiple identical or nearly identical world
> laws.

Would you similarly argue that since super powers don't fit any
existing axiom well and it's "inadvisable" to require multiple
identical or nearly identical world laws to accommodate a host
of supers settings that we must therefore create a "Super-Powers"
axiom?  I would argue that after-the-bomb settings, though not
insignificant, are still a small enough subset of psi settings
that it is appropriate to explain them by either world laws,
localized axiom shifts, or some combination thereof.

> For magic, there is an additional objection: if telepathy
> is social,
> why are so many Divination magic spells that allow thought
> to thought
> communication not Social as well?

Because Divination is Magic; it has a mechanism that is defined by
individual will acting upon external supernatural forces rather 
than the individual utilizing a higher level of interconnectivity
with others.


> If extended to other rules changes, this guideline would
> mean saying
> no to all rules changes: "I want to keep the rules as they
> are rather
> than changing the rules each time anyone has a problem."

It's one thing to make changes to the rules in order to accommodate something the game designers didn't take into consideration, but it's another altogether to change core game concepts.  And that's what the
axioms are: the four pillars on which Reality rests in Torg.  Each
axiom is defined by the interactions of the Living and the Unliving,
and any proposed axiom must be looked at in the same way.  Tech is how
the Living may utilize the "natural", Magic is how the Living may 
utilize the "supernatural", Spiritual is how the Living may relate to
the Divine (or spirit, at any rate), and Social is how the Living may relate to one another.  I'm not saying one can't propose new axioms, but 
I would advise one inclined to do so to ponder by what new interaction
a new axiom is defined.

> > Note that I'm trying to address psionics as a
> > distinct and unified tool that shares some overlap in
> effect with other tools.
> 
> Well, "totally overlaps with other axioms" in that no
> single piece of
> it stands on its own. Techno-magic is one thing but
> techno-spirito-socio-magic is very different.

And it's nothing like what I proposed.  Psi is specifically *not* Magic,
and I'm inclined to remove the Spiritual aspect altogether (as it 
doesn't fit the rationalist sci-fi I previously mentioned).  As such,
we're back down to "Techno-Social" (not what I'd call it, but you get
what I mean, I'm sure), which is on par with Techno-Magic.

> 
> We could make the same argument for the Magic axiom: each
> spell that
> affects the natural world is Tech (as affecting the natural
> world *is*
> the Tech axiom), each that affects the mind is Social, and
> each that
> has some "not natural" effect is Spirit. Heck, some people
> have
> advanced just that argument in support of eliminating
> Spirit (i.e. all
> Spirit is Magic).

No, because I'm not talking about what the tool affects, but rather
what its mechanism is.  Magic is magic, Spirit is Spirit, and so on.
Magic that works through technology is Techno-Magic, and Psi is
scientifically-based mental processes that exploit Social and Tech
advances.

Chad