Author Topic: Representing a "Wild Talent" (Psionics)  (Read 2412 times)

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Offline Zhaleskra

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Representing a "Wild Talent" (Psionics)
« on: August 22, 2016, 08:15:51 AM »
Before I discovered Planescape, Dark Sun was my favorite AD&D 2E setting. One of the main features of DS was that every character had a psionic wild talent. Later games also had the idea of psionic talents as well.

So I'm wondering what would be the best way to represent a character having such a talent, even if they choose to be an Adept or Fusion. I should mention I'm asking this both for Fantasy and Sci Fi. One idea was to have a character take a talent, perhaps "Active Psi Discipline" to represent a random Psi power they can use. That way they could develop that Psi Power without ever having to choose to be an Adept or Fusion at 1st level.

Looking forward to seeing your ideas. Thank you.
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Offline Thom @ ICE

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Re: Representing a "Wild Talent" (Psionics)
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2016, 02:25:45 PM »
Sorry - Dark Sun never really appealed to me, so I am not familiar with the concept you are trying to recreate.
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Offline Zhaleskra

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Re: Representing a "Wild Talent" (Psionics)
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2016, 09:03:28 AM »
I was in my Hack & Slash phase when I first saw Dark Sun. Over time, I've learned it's not the "hack'n'slasher's paradise" I once thought of it as.

Anyway, each DS character has a single psionic ability as a natural talent and it's randome. This in no way prevents them from becoming Psionicists during character creation.

Other systems have represented it other ways, for example, Alternity had an optional rule that if you were using the psionics rule, a character not of the Mindwalker profession could choose a single psionic ability as a talent.

I'm not entirely sure this concept would work with the way the HARP psionics system is designed.
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Offline pyrotech

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Re: Representing a "Wild Talent" (Psionics)
« Reply #3 on: September 24, 2016, 12:22:17 PM »
2 ways to handle a wild talent like psionic in HarpSF come to mind for me.

1) Give all characters an Active Psionic Field, and include in their Culture a single rank of a GM(random or otherwise) determined skill in that field.

This works pretty well within the rules set and doesn't really need much tweaking with the rules to pull of.  But it also gives players access to the full field of powers if they want to spend the points on them (probably 4 points per rank).

2) Take a lesson from the blood magic talent.  Price the wild talent like a blood magic talent and give one (single power not an entire field) to every character determined randomly by the GM.  This one would take a bit more tweaking with the pricing and rules to apply a spell based idea/talent to psionics but probably wouldn't be too hard to pull off.

I haven't gone real deep down this rabbit hole to see if there are any gotchas waiting around the campaign corner but these ideas jump out to me.

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-Pyrotech

Offline Zhaleskra

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Re: Representing a "Wild Talent" (Psionics)
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2016, 10:25:51 PM »
Well, I'm not planning on running HARP campaigns on Athas--yet--right now I'm just thinking of how to interpret NPCs who have wild talents.
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Offline Zhaleskra

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Re: Representing a "Wild Talent" (Psionics)
« Reply #5 on: April 19, 2017, 08:15:44 AM »
Now that I'm preparing a Science Fantasy game, my interest in this topic is sparked again. "Active Blood Psi Discipline" could work, and I was also thinking of "Skill Flexibility: Psi Discipline", which non-humans would either replace one of their racial talents to take or take some limitation to take.
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Offline RandalThor

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Re: Representing a "Wild Talent" (Psionics)
« Reply #6 on: April 20, 2017, 05:06:40 PM »
Sorry - Dark Sun never really appealed to me, so I am not familiar with the concept you are trying to recreate.
Blasphemy I tell you, blasphemy!!

Look like Pyrotech has some good ideas. Other than that, I would go with the single psionic ability as a Talent, with them able to spend DPs later on to increase their capability with (if that is even possible with the particular ability).
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Scratch that. Power attracts the corruptible.

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