In any science fiction setting, do you like psychic abilities? Why or why not?

>It's completely unappealing to me. If mostly because when I watch Bladerunner, I don't stop and think "man this would be so much better if Roy Batty were an orc and Deckard threw fireballs."

>Not wanting to see Deckard Cain throwing fireballs, and dealing with the strain behind each blast

I wouldn't want Roy Batty to be anything else other than a Replicant-type figure though. If he was an artificial orc that MIGHT be fine?

You're right, seeing Harrison Ford hurl magic around in this cerebral sci fi story does sound awful.

I dunno about you but for me the selling point is that the fantasy has more crystalline rules than "That's just how it is." It's given more explanation than that and is then combined with science that, while not present today, is certainly conceivable today, albeit in a more grounded form.

As for kitchen sink fantasy tropes, I appreciate the fact that it has more to it than the usual medieval fantasy cheese without going completely over the top like D&D has with its bestiary, the majority of which contains names that make no sense and are stapled to unconnected and inelegant blendings of monster bits and the rest of which are boring.

I like folklore and mythology, so any setting that integrates literally all the folklore in the world while still making sense and not going the way of Rifts (arguably) like Shadowrun has refrained from doing so is going to be the setting for me.

Psychic powers being "accepted" in scifi is because some science-fiction magazine in USA had an editor who really thought that psychic powers were real and insisted that the writers must put them in their stories since in the future science would have proven that ESP is real and how it works.

If he had instead believed in ghosts we would see a lot more space-ghosts in SCIFI.

If there's any hint of pulp you can bet your ass it'll have psychics. Anywhere from Vulcan mindmelds to Barsoomian thought locks.

Nobody's coming to take away your Bladerunner, man. It's not a story about Roy being an orc used as slave labour, etc. But that doesn't mean you can have stories where it is the case. Stories where you can explore the relationship of magic and tech.

No different from FTL and laserguns with sub-light speed projectiles that behave like bullets.

Well, I like the idea of just doing it as magic, though some consider that term undignified or unscientific and use a bunch of technobabble to disguise what's really going on. You might not get your traditional allotment of fantasy races under the same exact names, but did anyone really think convergent evolution was a good explanation for why there are so many aliens that look like variations of humans?

Of course, the official story would still be your typical sci-fi kind of thing. The truth isn't generally known by the uninitiated.

He isn't saying that you can't have that, you autist.

Meh. I like it in Star Wars because there's a whole psuedo-Asian mythology and philosophy that keeps it interesting, but in most settings I feel like psychics are just kind of boring. It has to add something to the setting beyond simply increasing the power level is what I'm saying - it works in XCom because humans can't do it and it makes the aliens scarier and battles more tense, it sucks in Mass Effect because biotics are just kind of a thing that exists and every single one of them seems to have some variation of the same tired "military experiments" backstory.

You're right. Sorry. I guess the message was lost in all that bitching and "nuh, don't touch muh khyber bank!"

That was pretty funny actually.

I'm glad someone got the joke.

Just saying what I don't like and why I don't like it bro. Only one getting mad is you.

Only mad I got is reflection of your projection.

It's good when done well, and bad when done poorly.

>I like things when they're good but not when they're bad.

Is there actually something that is bad when it's done well and good when it's done poorly?

>bad when it's done well

This can only really work if someone outright dislikes something on principal even if it's mechanically sound. Like, some people will tell you Titanic is a terrible movie. Even though on a technical and writing standpoint, it is incredibly well-done. And the only reason they say it's bad is because they don't like romances. Basically a disingenuous way of saying "X doesn't appeal to me"

>good when it's done poorly

Those old Asylum made-for-tv SyFy channel movies were like this. They're all terrible but they were made by people who thought they were doing something serious, which is where the charm comes from. Then they started making them shitty on purpose, and they stopped being fun.

>bad when it's done well
Intentional antagonism, ie being That Guy

>good when it's done poorly
ZUN art

Dunno what you're talking about. That little guy is adorable.

>it sucks in Mass Effect because biotics are just kind of a thing that exists and every single one of them seems to have some variation of the same tired "military experiments" backstory.
Did you actually pay attention to mass effect? Biotic comes with with Element Zero being fused with one's nervous system. On Earth it was actually industrial accident. For Asari it just natual.

I mean, explaination is kinda wonky, compared to everything else that is going on, but it actually runs on the same principles.

I see you're not familiar with ZUN's art.

While I do not view psychic stuff in sci-fi very highly, it is equally difficult (and retarded) to try and find a good, detailed explanation for just about anything else in most sci-fi

Shadowrun is an attempt to blend heist movies and dungeon-crawls. OD&D gave XP based on gold hauled out of the dungeon, which meant that dungeon-delving incentivized heist-style antics; Shadowrun makes the link explicit and adds a good deal of cyberpunk window-dressing.

Way I see it you shouldn't try explaining things in science fiction unless you actually know what you're talking about. Most things like faster than light and anti-gravity are accepted tropes which don't need a detailed justification for existing.

You can't claim your setting solves the FTL problem if you just throw around terms like "vector fields" and "dark energy". Your setting/story won't suffer for just saying "yeah there's FTL" unless you're a bad writer.

Psychic power is something extra to add to the person. Science fiction is usually about tools and sometimes writers want to add some built-in natural abilities.

It's not very scientific, but it allows to spice up the setting without going all magic. And there's usually no point in going all magic.

Does it really count as magic though?

Yes I know they are both basically 'make things happen with your mind' but there is a big schism between psychic powers and do anything Wizard magic.

Typically Psychic powers cannot be learned like magic, and even if they can it's more based on direct abilities and not school, elememts, or arcane symbolism. Psychics can move matter and create fire with their powers, but Wizards can typically do the same thing with greater flexibility and power. Psychic power can also be something that is straining to the body/mind, so it is something with an actual cost beyond spell points or slots.

I mean there us enough distinction that fantasy occasionally features both psyionics and magic, so a Sci-Fi setting with psychic powers can be said to just 'be magic shoehorned in'.

See I still don't see why the fantasy elements are necessary for that though. I can understand why people like the idea of playing an orc with robotic limbs driving a motorcycle through a cyberpunk city, but that's not for me. I feel there's plenty of interesting stuff science fiction has to offer without throwing the specific themes and tropes unique to fantasy into the mix.

The elves and magic and dragons just distract from the stuff I really like, which is the "science" part of science fiction.

I feel that psychics work better if you're going kinda retro-ish with your sci-fi. It's about the only kinda "magic" that should be in a sword & planet setting and works well in more space opera type games if you keep it in small doses.
I view it as something that works better in certain genres of sci fi ad is generally a better fit for science fantasy than straight up fantasy imo. It's just something, it isn't like robots where it can work in almost any sci fi setting; it only works in very specific types of sci fi.
It'd work well in certain kinds of post apocalyptic and x-files type stuff too I think.

For the most part, no. It's such an out-of-nowhere asspull 90% of the time.

>It'd work well in certain kinds of post apocalyptic and x-files type stuff too I think.

In an X-Files game it would be more of an oddity no one quite understands. Like, either only NPCs have it and it's something which warrants investigation, or if a player has it it's something they don't really understand and just kind of happens.

If there are psychic abilities in a sci-fi setting, they are either not psychic abilities (but instead some sort of technology), or it is not sci-fi but instead fantasy (magic exists.)

If the only kind of magic that exists is psychic abilities and other wishy-washy pseudoscience magic, then I hate it.

Yes, Star Trek TNG is fantasy. Fight me.

>A race of omnipoten god-beings
>space orcs who worship war gods
>zero real world constraints like relativity or aerodynamics
>teleporters

Sounds like fantasy to me. Won't fight you on that.

There's a gap of believability.
I wouldn't believe a sci-fi story where they treated illnesses caused by bad air or miasma, based on the theory of the humours, or where gravity was described in terms of aristotle's teleologic ideas, and where the sun orbits the earth, or where the theory of plate tectonics was assumed to be obviously wrong.

That's your personal hangup. Human brain is still a mystery, we can insert stuff into it better then into astronomy.

>it's not scifi but fantasy
>can't be both

you know, back in the day fantasy and sci-fi books were considered to be part of the same genre.

The human brain isn't in any particular way a mystery. It's a very complicated thing that does a lot of things, but all the basic and general functions of the various parts of the brain are very well understood.

ESP and such is exactly as magical as wizards throwing fireballs or fairies that live in hedges; there is no reason or cause to believe it is a real phenomenon.
It is completely made up, and it's not even that unclear, from a historical perspective, who made it up.

Back in the day, "terrific" used to mean something was terrifying.

>ESP and such is exactly as magical as wizards throwing fireballs or fairies that live in hedges; there is no reason or cause to believe it is a real phenomenon.
And aproximately as magical as FTL travel or aliens visiting Earth, but it doesn't stop you from enjoying fiction.

Your definitions are simply wrong.

Science fiction does not mean zero supernatural events can occur, it just means that it works on some scientific principle not yet understood or basically has any explanation other than souls or magic or Gods.

Sci-Fi is not fantasy, they are separate but distinct things. Star Trek is not fantasy as it functions on some kind of non magical rules, soft as they are. Basically it's not fantasy because they say it isnt.

Le hard Sci fi is the only REAL science fiction muh star wars is fantasy fags can GTFO

Welp. I'm not sleeping for two days now.

wut

I really like the psychic powers presented in Push.

While somewhat vague and personalized, each of them has great practicality while also being specific in character. The psychic scream one is kind of lame but other than that each one of these characters could be a sort of modern or sci-fi Wizard. Would also help cut down on magic user/psychic users being overpowered if they were utterly focused like that.

Nope, it's utter bullshit. I didn't buy Underrail due to it, and a lot of other games, when I read 'psychic' is a turn off. Bionics in ME counts as well.

>There's a gap of believability.

Only if you throw all understanding of modern physics into the trash.

Man, what games DO you play?

Esper abilities are to sci-if as magic is to fantasy

Psychic powers, actual Space Magic and Advanced Science

I tend to run a fairly gonzo/stew pot setting.

it depends, in 40K where it's basically fantasy with sci-fi veneer or blade and planet stuff then fuck yes. If I'm going for a more grounded game then I say absolutely fucking not even if it can be an option with the ruleset. This is partly so a party can't just 'magic' their way out of a situation though.