Pyramid 3/29: Psionics
http://www.rpgcentar.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/pyramid_3_29_psionics.jpg“>http://www.rpgcentar.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/pyramid_3_29_psionics.jpg” alt=”" width=”250″ height=”324″ />The latest issue of http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/“>Pyramid landed a couple days ago, and I promptly picked it up. It’s a very crunchy issue primarily aimed at those who use http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/psionicpowers/“>GURPS Psionic Powers, but can of course also be used in other contexts. The articles within are: Expanded Psychokinesis by Christopher R. Rice, Random Psionic Tables by Antoni Ten Monros, Eidetic Memory: Magic as Psi by David Pulver, The Edge of Psience by Kenneth Peters, Thoughtjustice by Andy Vetromile, Tokyo Psience Police by David Pulver and an appendix titled Averting Psychic Disasters! by Jason “PK” Levine. Read on for a review.
Expanded Psychokinesis brings us a new subcategory of the Psychokinesis power, Sonokinesis, as well as two additional PK abilities. The first is an attack called TK Burst, which weakens the molecular bonds of the target and causes microscopic telekinetic explosions. It’s a Malediction Innate Attack with a slew of secondary effects, and can also be used to weaken the target’s DR instead of dealing damage. The second additional PK ability is Belaying which lets its user slow his fall – a nice way of treating characters which can jump down a skyscraper relatively unharmed but don’t want the extra jump height of Super Jump. The meat and potatos of the article, however, is Sonokinesis, the ability to manipulate sound. It includes four diverse new abilities – Acoustic Manipulation which lets you create and manipulate sounds, Echolocation which is pretty self-explanatory, Muffle which is used to reduce noise produced, and finally Wail which lets you scream destructive harmonics for a variety of offensive effects. All of the abilities come with a plethora of Techniques and can thus be used in a wide variety of ways. And finally, the article contains new Sonokinesis-related Perks and packages in the vein of http://sjgames.com/gurps/books/psis/“>GURPS Psis, as well as a PK Bomber package.
Random Psionic Tables are a tool for (relatively) quick creation of psis with randomly chosen abilities. Can’t decide on which abilities to pick for your character? Choose them randomly! Need to generate some psionic bad guys on the fly? Well, it won’t be quite on the fly, but it will be only a couple of minutes. The tables work by listing all of the packages from GURPS Psis in a hierarchy which lets you generate characters with varying degrees of randomness, and also list a couple of new ones. Everything you need is a couple dice.
Eidetic Memory is a new regular column written by David Pulver. In this issue, he explores a treatment of psionic powers by using the GURPS spell-based magic system instead of the advantage-based one from the Basic Set and Psionic Powers. David’s motivation for this approach was his experience in running high-TL games where purchasing advantage-based psi abilities was hugely point-inefficient because of the availability of powerful gear. By using the spell-based magic system, characters can get more bang for the same investment in CPs with the sacrifice of some flexibility. The system preserves all the rules from GURPS Magic unless with a few exceptions, renames terms like Casting Time, College etc, picks the appropriate Spells (now called Abilities) and organises them into Power Group (ex-Colleges).
The Edge of Psience consists of two parts – Catalyst Creatures and Psionic Artifacts. The former describes catalyst creatures, the psionic analogue of magical familiars. It describes the bond between a psi and his catalyst creature, various benefits and drawbacks of such a relationship, and finally presents two very different catalyst creatures – Dreamhunter Snakes and Psychichu. The latter part is much more conventional – it presents a framework for creating items imbued with psionic powers by using Advantages with the Gadget limitaion, and also provides four sample ones: Astral Dynamic Filters, Excruciator, Psi-Blade and The Truth.
Thoughtjustice is a systemless article about policing psis in human society. It discusses various ways of doing so, from adaptations in the judical system to self-policing by the psychic community. Besides providing ways of publicly integrating psis with an otherwise normal society in a believable manner, it also creates opportunities for PC background development as well as adventure seeds.
Tokyo Psience Police is another systemless article – a near-future psionic setting in which Earth is induced into the galactic society all because of a fumble of two galactic cops hunting a dangerous fugitive (who crashes his ship into Mount Fuji slicing its top off, eludes captivity and later goes on to form a powerful criminal cartel on Earth). It’s a pretty light-hearted setting centered on Tokyo, which becomes Earth’s gateway to the universe. If by now you’re thinking that the setting is strongly influenced by anime – it is. One of the centerpieces is the namesake police department which draws its recruits from children and teenagers attending the Fuji Academy for Mental Evolution, situated on the now flat top of Mt. Fuji.
The issue ends with the obligatory Random Thought Table and Odds and Ends, as well as the appendix Averting Psychic Disasters!. It deals with stabilizing skills for psionic powers. For those unfamiliar with stabilizing skills already introduced for magic, suffice to say that it introduces the option to let specific mundane skills be able to turn critical failures on psionic power use into ordinary failures.
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