Given the guy I once saw play a mage with Metaphysical Solipsism as a tradition, Psionics really isn't that weird.

Beside, it's just an idea of how the own magic works.
"All that research corps did is well and good, but it's not my brain they cut open. Because mine is special. But really, all of these others might be able to be just as special, if they'd just do away with their silly superstitions."

And a lame Tradition at that.


Tell that to the Technomancer who, with nothing more than the power of his mind, can access the Matrix and run with the Hacker big dogs. Or how about this... with nothing more than the power of his mind can make his body move as fast as a mundane with level 3 Wired reflexes. Finally... a Technomancer's abilities work in Space.

Repeat after me: a Technomancer's abilities WORK IN SPACE!** Now OOB, how does this work? It's not magic because of the whole space thing, but psionics don't exist... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

Honestly, I wrote up rules for Psionics and I had Tymeaus Jalynsfein look at them. So this isn't some un-beta'd fan wank. In fact, I made damn certain that they were not over powered, and I tried to make them have a different feel than magic, but I don't know how well I did.

If the OP (or anyone else) wants to see these rules then PM me and I'll send you a copy. If everyone wants to see a copy then PM me and I'll post them in this thread.


** == if someone has something that disputes this then please tell me which page.

Because everything gets better In Space.

Problem is, Psionicists can't do what technomancers do and vice versa. At best, Psionicists can claim to know better than everyone else on the subject but they can't really prove it.

Anyway, I always figured Psionics failed as a mainstream tradition not due to the "mind over matter" thing being a bad notion-- it is after all, a painfully general concept-- but rather due to its audience and inflexibility. Basically, psionics was a theory, not a faith, and it appears to be a theory that was investigated by empirically minded groups who were not impressed when they kept insisting that all of this stuff is really powered by the brain and that mana storms, voids and leylines are a bunch of silly nonsense. It was a tradition that didn't roll with the punches and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a few magicians out there who are "psionicists" but have otherwise accepted the mana based theory of magical expression.





Umm, except traditionally Psionics was kinda dumb and they actually DID think you were limited to just their own noggin as a power source. Things like Cleansing and Mentor Spirits weren't an option for them because they didn't think mana was real and because they'd think that a Mentor spirit was just a figment. Look, I totally think it's fine to have a psionic paradigm as the base template for what a Magician does and that it'd be quite functional, but if that's so it's likely because a truly pragmatic Psionicist would recognize that a lot of their predecessors were mistaken in the past on many points. If the reprints have moved away from the "old" psionics though I'd consider that a good thing. I like the idea of psionics and it's silly to give the concept a bad rap just 'cuz the authors decided that most psionicists were super stubborn back in the 2030s and '40s or whatever.

This post has been edited by Whipstitch: Feb 16 2011, 01:02 AM

Take a mage into outer space and have him cast a spell. Mage dies... horribly. The Mana void snuffs his life force like a hurricane snuffs a candle.

Take a Technomancer on the exact same shuttle and have him access the Matrix or use his more esoteric abilities... no problem. His powers work quite well.


No, the mere presence of Technomancers proves that Psionics exist in the SR world, but they are mistaken for mages or some such.

Think about it. With a thought a psychokinetic can move objects. The mage does the same thing with a few mumbled words. NOTHING to differentiate them at all.

Except there's techniques for manipulating mana and they are observable to the Awakened. A psionicist cannot just up and move things without manipulating the mana that (hilariously) they don't really believe in.

Wouldn't it be easy to simply have a psionicist as one who cannot enchant or learn to deal with spirits. So simply take magician with aspected magician as a 5 point penalty. Allow them to only use sorcerer and astral aspects with any other aspect as -6 dice or even forbid it entirely. Or the player could simply take incompetent for all skills that are not related to the astral and sorcerer skills for magic.

And they were actually quite nice... I like them... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)
Of course, I like me a Psionic Tradition as well. Magic is all about Paradigm. And Psionics are a Paradigm. Anything can be made to work, and work well, with a little thought and care.

I could see a technomancer believing their abilities are psionic, resonence is misunderstood, poorly researched, and hasn't left a large mark on society. Important to note though, resonance is not magic, technomancers have no access to the astral plane, or mana, and magic and resonence do not interact with eachother. Comparisons are silly.

The problem with psionics as magic is that it fails to explain the world, it fails to explain elves, trolls, dragons, free spirits, the ghost dance, mana storms, orichalcum, ghouls, insect spirits....the list goes on. A good tradition doesn't just need to explain how you personally can use magic, but how the world works. Psionics doesn't do that. It's a tradition followed by people who want to feel special and entitled, no matter what science says. And there is good magical science. Mages and especially chaos mages have learned alot about the workings of magic using valid scientific techniques.

Couldn't psionicists(?) believe that there is magic, but with a "that's not what I do!" kind of mindset? There could be a tradition that has a set of beliefs that are based on psionic-principles (or whatever), that purports to be a new way of doing things, parallel with magic. As TJ says, it's just a paradigm.

Since psionics really is magic, it's easy to wave any disputes away and say "It's magic!" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

I can believe that I am immortal by account that I haven't died and others have. It doesn't make it true but I can believe it. I never said someone can't have a psionic tradition, I just said it will make you a ridiculed outsider because all current 2072 science says you are wrong.

No worries - re-reading this thread, it sounded like people were arguing against having psionics at all. My reading comprehension fail - I think I'm worked into an arguin' mood right now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Nope, it actually exists. They inserted some of the other Digital Grimoire stuff like the Egyptian tradition and Heightened Concentration as well.

Except the fact that Resonance should only affect things in the Matrix. The fact that the Technomancer can push his body as fast as some slot with Wired Reflexes 3 means that it is something MORE that just Resonance, and since it works in space it is NOT magic.

I think that it is psionics that allows Technomancers to do what they do. Hopefully, when Catalyst loses the SR licence, the next owners of SR flesh this out a little more.



Isn't this is what Masking is for? Doesn't masking make it harder for the bad guys to know that you are a mage and that you just flung some bad juju at them?

Should it? Does it? Says who, on what bases?

Resonance is a new, barely researched, and very badly understood phenomenon. There's no telling what it might do. Just what we know it can.
Plus, what we know it can do is make a body-mind-machine interface. A TM gets physical damage from Black Hammer like everyone else.

Most of your stuff is your own opinion and is fine, this part is flat out wrong and I'm tired of people enterpreting it flat out wrong because it's used by the folks who are convinced that Techno's are OP.


A technomancer with mesh reality does not increase their meatspace speed, they can just perform matrix actions concurrent with their meatspace ones (a damn cool ability). So please make a tent pole argument wherever you wish but here.

BUT, He is not talking about Mesh Reality, Though, he is describing Acceleration...



So... it is not his fevered imagination that he is referring to, but an actual rule in the book... Mesh Reality allows the Technomancer who has 5 passes in the Matrix to mingle them simultaneously, which is a whole level of Cool different.

Masking is a nice trick and it can help if someone's assensing you, but that really only covers when you're laying low, not when you're actively demonstrating your abilities. Admittedly, I do think it'd be possible to slide some magic past an unprepared or inexperienced Awakened observer. But, ideally, to perform magic without another skilled initiate being able to detect that it is magic being done while in their presence you'd have to have Flexible Signature, Masking and enough Initiate grades to beat the Assensing while having a flexible enough signature to keep from just plain putting down a magical thumbprint while still casting at a high enough force to have the hits to beat an observer's counterspelling. And even then there's still Magic Sense to get by plus the inability to cast in sufficient background count that is a problem. A psionicist trying to prove that they are independent from external mana as a power source just like TMs doesn't really have a good answer if someone asks them to prove that they still have abilities inside a mana void.

Remember, TMs and magical theory both fall under the category of serious business in the SR world. People who claim TM like abilities have faced some serious scrutiny, much of it magical. If some joker really has enough mojo to convincingly make the case that he's doing this stuff with just his noggin and not with ambient mana as per modern thaumaturgy, he'd get some notice. And at that point it'd likely just take a visit it from Professor Schwartzkopf to blow the guy's cover. Psionicists claiming that they use what TMs use rather than being "standard" Awakened sounds like an interesting plot hook or fluff event, but not something would really hold up over serious scrutiny.

That's like claiming a relay powers a lightbulb with its clicking sound. Shadowrun magic is explained by the mage manipulating the flow of Mana around him (kinda like the old aether hypothesis), whereas psionics believe that their brain literally radiates some kind of energy which acts upon objects. And just like research into relativity made anyone but a few cranks abandon "luminous aether" IRL, the scientific research into mana in the 6th World has turned Psionics into a silly notion.


RE Accelaration, Technos do have some mutation of their neural system...

But mana is generated by life, and controlled by the mind. Doesn't seem all that different from psionics to me.

You seem to keep conflating your image of psionics the general concept with what psionics the-painfully-dumb-shadowrun-theory is. I do prefer a sixth world where psionicists just have a different explanation for what mana is over one where they're sticking thumbs in their ears though, so I approach things the same way, in effect.

This post has been edited by Whipstitch: Feb 16 2011, 05:39 PM

Oh, I thought it could make it harder to detect you using mojo. My bad.


Unless Psionic abilities really existed (Technomancers) and they could use their abilities in Space (the ultimate Mana Void)


What about the ability to draw someone who has NO cyber (or hell... NO equipment) into the Matrix? I might be able to understand a "mutation", but this ability? How do you explain it?


That's because they are always running HotSIM. If your hacker was always running HotSIM, then he would have the same problem.

A TM takes physical damage (by which I mean, damage which is physically manifested: stun) from Attack programs.

I get the impression that we're talking past eachother here. Yeah, psionics the broad concept includes technomancers. Insofar that psionics means inducing supernatural phenomena with psychic abilities, all traditions can be said to be psionic. However, the Psionic tradition has its own practices and tenants that do not offer any real insight into how to do what Technomancers do. Hell, it's apparently been found wanting in describing how stuff it can affect works. So while a Technomancer may start calling himself a psionicist for whatever reason, I don't see how that would do much to legitimize psionic practitioners that obviously can't do the same stuff. TMs certainly muddied the waters, but Psionicists still assense, cast and project like magicians, so people call them magicians. I guess they could try claiming otherwise but I'd think the magical establishment would call bullshit on them pretty fast.

We are talking past each other. When I say Psionics, I mean psychic phenomena that is separate from the Mana stream, just like a Technomancer's abilities are separate from the Mana stream.

The Psionic magic tradition is one big flaming pile of bullshit, with a nice vomit crust.