Is psionics and psychics about actually controlling things with your mind or just casting magic but concentrating...

That's not a real reason

Some people find telepathy and ritual or faith magic conflicting atmospherically/aesthetically-wise.

Like a motorbike in a medieval setting, or worse a cell phone that also works. Or Gods fordib, a MAC!

It was for Occam.

thing is there are times where the alien nature improves rather than detracts

like say, magic is relatively well spread, major trading cities and capitols of large nations have learning institutes, divine and demonic magic exists and can be manipulated (though the latter with significant consequences).
It's not natural but it's a somewhat known aspect of reality and can be understood through intense study or patrons with identifiable moral directions.

Meanwhile psionics is used for everything related to the extradimensional horrors and all that lies beyond the veil of normalcy, it's weird and out of place because it's origin is equally weird and out of place. Those with abilities are the ones that have looked beyond reality and remained at least sufficiently mentally intact to survive.

Because you have two ways of achieving similar effects and results but two different tones. They're at odds with oneanother, both aesthetically and atmospherically.

Wow, someone likes NWoD

Not really, the opinion is based on mysticism from our reality. I don't like NWod at all, and did not know they had this thing till you mentioned it. They just copied it from mysticism from the real world of course.

Psionics literally only make sense if you subscribe to philosophical idealism(in laymen's terms: the position that mind precedes matter and is the fundamental substance of reality)
But the same goes for magic
Either one is the exertion of the ideal over the material
I think the main difference is that magic is more structured and ritualized. Magic relies on symbols, and perhaps draws on archetypical dynamics in the collective unconscious to produce effects.
Psionics, by contrast, is the simple exertion of a single exceptionally powerful will. It's like flexing a muscle, but the muscle is your mind.

Psionics; Internal geometries (symbols, archetypes etc)
Magic; External geometries (symbols, archetypes etc)

In my opinion, pisonics should operate through a sort of mental altered state and willpower over the physical world. Only some people can do it, and it requires immense concentration. Everything else fades away as you concentrate on an object, using your mind to force it to float in the air and move it freely as raw manipulation.

Magic is a separate and more mystical thing, it manipulates energy or acts through spirits or whatever other fluff you happen to give it. I don't think there is anything wrong with having both in the same setting, but I think one or the other is enough for all but the most gonzo worlds.

the means is often as important as the effect
like a wizard and a psychic can both kill someone
the wizard does it by blasting that person with a spectacular blast of electricity
the psychic does it by concentrating and having the person drop dead out of nowhere

A wizard can curse someone or have an effect without showmanship.
A psionic can blast flames etc.

Yeah, I suppose that works.
Either way, you learn magic through a combination of reason, empirical study, and research, teasing out what resonates with the collective unconscious and produces results, possibly tapping into observations of mythic patterns found in the traditional folklore of one's upbringing. This process resembles literary analysis and Jungian psychology.
Psionics, you gain through introspection and meditation. This may involve the disciplined use of psychoactive drugs, and exploration of the hallucinatory realm within.

But you're going into setting specifics now. It sounds like you're talking about DnD psions. But something like Dark Sun, psions and magicians couldn't be further apart, in tone and mechanically.

also even in regular D&D settings nothing says psions and especially mages need to have access to all their abilities
just have the psionic like spells and spell like psychic abilities not exist

>atmospheric

Sounds more like you are just a brainlets, you just think it doesn't mesh well because you have no frame of reference other than generic "medieval" fantasy.

>Psionics, by contrast, is the simple exertion of a single exceptionally powerful will. It's like flexing a muscle, but the muscle is your mind.

But that's reductive and wrong, not all psionics work like that, you could say the same shit about magic.

I follow ghostbuster lore and treat it more as "is all magic just psionics"

All magic is applied psionics/psychokinetics, using the mind to tap into the surrounding aether/dimensions for magical energy.

Spells, rituals, verbal chants are but simply tools to enhance a persons ability to summon forth PKE.

I prefer it to be a subconscious version of magic. To compare it to making music, sorcery would be learning the arcane arts through study and practice to make a song, whereas psionics is picking up an instrument and playing a song perfectly. The psion wouldn't even be able to explain how they're doing it because they don't know.

Isn’t that sorcerers

Psionics (in the Gygaxian sense) is about being x-men, and the original list of powers was straight from the siddhis.

becaus psyoniks is ghey

I played a character that was a hybrid psion/sorcerer, and the way that I rationalized the distinctions between magic and psionics are that they are fundamentally different forces.
Magic is a feature of the universe that can be studied and manipulated, almost as a form of esoteric science.
Psionics, on the other hand, are an extension of the user's consciousness. It's the spirit's ability to reach out into the physical plane to manipulate matter, or to interact with other minds.

Magic is about exploiting glitches in the laws of physics for your own benefit.
Psionics are about exerting a will strong enough you make minor changes to reality on a small, localized level.

You're fiddling about with terms which have no agreed-upon definition in this community.

Personally, I don't often see the point of having different kinds of magic in a setting. If you can explain the thing that's going on, it's not magic. If you can't explain what's going on, why have you created two categories for the supernatural events?

Rifts has Psionics and magics, but there are way more spells than powers and psi energy converts to mp 2:1
On the other hand psi powers can be used faster and have less restrictions on use

user, you already have several conflicting power sources.

More power sources and different systems can only give verisimilitude to a setting, since not everyone does it the same, and the means and results are not always the same.

Settings that have all the unexplained stuff come from a single macguffin (All magic is a type of psionics, all magic is just personal will, etc etc) always suck.

I want one guy to get their powers from studying a book to do fireballs, another guy to get their powers from being a creep bag who stabs dolls full of hair, and a third guy to get their powers from power overwhelming, and a fourth guy to get their powers from gods, and for their powers to only interlap by coincidence.

I treat psychic powers in my own settings as a mutation which allows somebody to receive and interpret waves of Brain Radiation™ as meaningful information. No force lightning or telekinesis, but if you have physical contact with your victim you can do more subtle things like forcing peoples hearts to stop beating, inflict brain haemorrhaging psychological trauma, and forcefully rifle through their memories for information.
A psychic who can do things like that without actual physical contact is regarded as one of the more "personally" powerful humans, but bullets should generally do to them what they do to everybody else.

I just feel like overall it's just a poorly thought out excuse to have magic. The concept is usually never approached from the kind of traditional science fiction writer mindset that enables good, believable world building and storylines to emerge from its existence. It tends to be one of those things like FTL where everybody else is doing it and you'll be damned if you don't do it as well.

>empath psychics
Damn, another victim of bad opinions.
We'll have to get him to containment before he starts stating a preference for black trenchcoat over pink mohawek.

hey man as long as you stop pretending the setting is realistic or particularly well thought out as soon as you whip out the brain lightning, idgaf what you do really

I'm not going to pretend it's realistic, but fuck you, it'll be as well thought out as I goddamn want it to be.

If I so choose, it will be a goddamn space fantasy DOCUMENTARY PICTURE SHOW

>tfw they just want Star Wars to have elves and orcs in it
>don't want to think about how anything would work and interact
>oblivious to the fact that the technological revolution would pretty much end at the printing press allowing the mass production of scrolls and widespread magical education

It varies by planet to planet!
You know, depending on whether the species involved are MUGGLE SCUM.

Except. Dark Sun Psions are D&D Psions, dipshit. Dark Sun is a D&D setting. They feel different because it was one o the few settings that didn't shove Psionics in a corner where it could be ignored at GM convenience and went into the legitimate differences. Psionics works very well in fantasy settings, people don't give it a chance because dumb grognards.

A Psion and a Wizard are going to act very differently in many situations.

Psionics in my setting is controlling and projecting the power of your own soul/chi/energy whatever onto the environment. Only humans and orcs are capable of doing this for a few reasons.

There's no real difference between arcane and divine magic in the setting though, arcane magic is just Divine magic rituals that got leaked out from the Elves/humans controlled by elves and tends to fuck everyone around them since it basically gives the gods a direct line to traitors and rogues. Granted, magic in this setting is more like "sacrifice a couple of babies for a good harvest over the next couple of decades". If you want fireballs and lightningbolts, you're going to be playing a Psychic.