Telepathy in traveller?

[aramis]

Hans is utterly wrong about the CGen, at least pre-TNE.

100% have trainable levels of PSR, but only a fraction have any trainable ability (about 30% are completely untrainable to do anything with their PSR, and of the trainable, of whom some 30% will have insufficient strength to be of note... so only half the population has useful potential at age 18, and it drops with age.). An institute requires pop 9+... and are illegal and hard to find.

Therefore, by CGen, it's a non-issue.

Under MGT, it's far more of an issue, since they can't be bothered with canon... so their CGen reflects about a 1% chance of training in service, and even then, a majority won't have terribly useful abilities.

And of all psionicists, just about 9% are telepaths, and about 9% are clairavoyants.

And, using CT, minimum PSR by ability to be used:

TPa 1
CV: 2
TK: 1
Aw: 2
TPo: 6

And for significant abilities:
TPa: 4
CV: 5
TK: 3*
Aw: 4
Tp: 7*

Given the drop in power over time, most people, by the time they seek training, have dropped below significant abilities

 

[rancke]

Hans is utterly wrong about the CGen, at least pre-TNE.

No, I just don't think the rules for PCs acquiring psionic skills is the only way people can acquire psionic skills.

100% have trainable levels of PSR, but only a fraction have any trainable ability (about 30% are completely untrainable to do anything with their PSR, and of the trainable, of whom some 30% will have insufficient strength to be of note... so only half the population has useful potential at age 18, and it drops with age.). An institute requires pop 9+... and are illegal and hard to find.

Criminals are illegal too, and unlikely to run institutes. They're not unlikely to run psionic training, though. And that goes even more for covert agencies.

Therefore, by CGen, it's a non-issue.

CGen implies that everybody who gets tested have a psionic potential of 2D-<terms>. If you make a few very reasonable assumptions, you get a lot of psionic criminals and spies.

Assumption one: If you test someone between the age of 14 and 18, he'll have a psi potential of 2D. However, since I don't want to waste time defending that assumption, I'll ignore it for the rest of this argument.

Assumption two: The techniques for testing and training can be transmitted to people who do not belong to a psionic institute. Corrolary: Over the course of 300 years, a lot of crime syndicates have acquired members who can test and train people. Spy organizations have done the same.

Assumption 3: Someone with a psionic potential of 5 or more are able to acquire useful psionic skills, unless he's really unlucky with his "die rolls".

I don't think either of those assumptions are unreasonable, and if you just stick to #2 and #3, you get 58% of those tested having useful levels of psionic powers. If you accept #1 too, you get 72%.

Under MGT, it's far more of an issue, since they can't be bothered with canon... so their CGen reflects about a 1% chance of training in service, and even then, a majority won't have terribly useful abilities.

Just test a lot of people and pick the best of the bunch. Test a thousand and you get 83 with a potential of 10 or 11. And a government has access to a lot of thousands of people.

And of all psionicists, just about 9% are telepaths, and about 9% are clairavoyants.

So out of our 83 adepts, we have 7 telepaths and 7 clairvoyants. Some of them would be double-talented too, wouldn't they?

Given the drop in power over time, most people, by the time they seek training, have dropped below significant abilities

Oh, I don't think most people would seek training at all. But I do think spies and criminals would seek people to train.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

Gents,

Leaving questions about the number of potential psions and the like aside for the moment, I'd like to get back to just what the various CT psionic powers get you. Icosahedron's and Major B's posts about the activities of a "counter-strike" team combing a city for the players make for a nice thought experiment.

Look at Read Surface Thoughts. You get a peek at 60 seconds of someone's stream of consciousness. How much pertinent information can really be gleaned from that? Unless the target just happens to be in a meeting in which he and his fellows are discussing their nefarious plot, you really aren't going to get much, are you?

(A stream of consciousness is a tough to describe because it's so very hard to write down. Once you begin to pay attention to your thoughts, your brain is no longer perking along in a stream of consciousness. A book on writing I once read suggested this trick for writers attempting to jot down text resembling a stream of consciousness. You set an alarm for a short period in the future, more than a few minutes and less than an hour, and then go about your business. When the alarm goes off, you immediately jot down the last series of thoughts that passed through your mind prior to the alarm. It's harder than it sounds, but you do get better at it after a few tries. Believe me, even if you perform the "interrrupt" at work or during some other seemingly focused task, the notes you produce will be an eye opener. We're rarely as focused as we'd like to think we are.)

IMHO, the "peeper" isn't going to get much unless they "tune in" during some time when they absolutely know the target is dealing with issues the "peeper" is interested in. Otherwise, they'll only get 60 seconds of jumbled pieces of which a very few will be useful if they're very lucky.

Why use Read Surface Thoughts at all? Because it's the only one in which the target doesn't know he's being scanned. (Psions will still know they're being scanned however.) If Probe is used, the peeper tips his mitt and the target can simply change his plans rendering the information gained useless.

The peeper and his group aren't going to be handed everything they need or want to know thanks to a single scan. Instead, just as with normal interrogations, the peeper and his group will have to use multiple RST sessions with multiple targets to build up a reasonable assessment of their opponents' intentions.

Look at Combined Clairvoyance and Clairaudience next. You get 15 seconds of "video" from the target location. Again, just how much pertinent information are you going to gather? And, again, unless targets just so happen to be holding their final planning summary when you "tune in", the answer is "Not Very Much".

Let me also ask just what you can see/hear in the target location. Imagine you're peeping into a hotel room. Can you look into a closed closet or is that another location? How about the room's fresher? Or under the bed or other furniture? Could you look into a book lying on a table? Or past the top page of a stacked pile of documents? Or open dresser drawers?

How much looking and listening can you do with CCC in fifteen seconds? Physically searching a room takes quite a bit of time, why would psionically searching the same room be that much faster?

When you add psionic strength costs and recovery times to the mix, the "peeping" effort gets even harder to perform and much less frequent.

Now, I can see both RTS and CCC working marvelously in certain situations. Fifteen seconds of CCC would be a superb thing to have moments before a SWAT team blows down a door, Only two of the six are awake, one is taking a leak and the other is sitting to the right of the door with a shotgun across his lap.... RTS would be too; The fellow in the chair isn't particularly wary. He hasn't heard any noises and is thinking about that waitress, what he'll do with the money, the gravball standings, and the ache in his back... What I can't see is psionic peeping being some game distorting activity. Game changing certainly, but the players can take common sense precautions just as they would against more prosaic techniques.

Psionics thus isn't some magic attribute that will allow the players' opponents to easily thwart their plans with trivial effort. Rather, psionics is just another tool in an already large bag of investigating techniques.


Regards,
Bill

 

[rancke]

Psionics thus isn't some magic attribute that will allow the players' opponents to easily thwart their plans with trivial effort. Rather, psionics is just another tool in an already large bag of investigating techniques.

And I submit that it's a tool that a number of people will pay money to deny their competition (be it political, military, commercial, or whatever) the use of. I don't really see an Imperial general officer feeling all that reassured that there's only a few percent chance that his plans have been compromised.


Hans

 

[The Oz]

Look at Read Surface Thoughts. You get a peek at 60 seconds of someone's stream of consciousness. How much pertinent information can really be gleaned from that?
Regards,
Bill

While I agree with Bill in how Read Surface Thoughts works, and did this with my players, they soon found a way around it, somewhat. They just arranged to have a leading question asked to the target that would cause him/her to think about the subject the psi was to 'peep' for, just as the psi spent the PSP to activate the power.

It took decent timing and was not always effective, and usually caused suspicion in the target's mind, but it might get the information. It's the old "Don't think about pink elephants" trick and I allowed it to work when the PCs set it up right, or when I wanted them to get on to the next part of the plot.

 

[Whipsnade]

And I submit that it's a tool that a number of people will pay money to deny their competition (be it political, military, commercial, or whatever) the use of.

Hans,

I never said it wasn't.

I don't really see an Imperial general officer feeling all that reassured that there's only a few percent chance that his plans have been compromised.

And I never said he would.

All I'm suggesting is that psionics isn't some magic bullet or panacea for investigators, spies, and other types. It's just one more tool and, as with all the other tools in their bag of tricks, thoughtful people will take precautions against it.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

They just arranged to have a leading question asked to the target that would cause him/her to think about the subject the psi was to 'peep' for, just as the psi spent the PSP to activate the power.

The Oz,

That's a neat trick! I'm sure it's one interrogators will take every opportunity to use.

I was looking at the question from a surveillance angle however. Icosahedron and Major B were discussing searching a city for suspects, determining their location, and eventually either taking them into custody or otherwise thwarting their plans.

Once the suspects are in custody however, your players' nasty little "psy-ops" trick would be a great tool in the interrogators' hands. Strength cost would be low as the peep and their target would in close proximity. Even better, using RTS in this manner still allows the target to be unsure are to whether they kept their secrets or not.

Makes me wonder if the IISS might occasionally use something similar when debriefing detached duty types... There's an adventure seed there...


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

And I submit that it's a tool that a number of people will pay money to deny their competition (be it political, military, commercial, or whatever) the use of. I don't really see an Imperial general officer feeling all that reassured that there's only a few percent chance that his plans have been compromised.


Hans

And, in the OTU 3I, it's a talent that, should the officials get wind of it, can publicly dispose of you in a permanent fashion, unless you happen to have that special documentation.

It's also a tool that, in the OTU, when the public gets wind of it, doesn't bother with the officials about half the time.

Killing psionicists is a great patriotic duty in the 3I. You are not factoring that in, either.

Bill:

getting useful surface thoughts is pretty easy... if you know what you're looking for. But it's going to be bloody slow, and requires someone prompt the victim. It's even useful non-psionicly... mos people have a tell when you hit a nerve; a good interrogator comes back to those subjects triggering the tells later. A psionicist interrogator will hit those with RST up, and get something, usually something useful, and make it look insightful when the next question is based upon whatever crossed the mind, triggering, hopefully, a useful further cascade.

 

[Whipsnade]

getting useful surface thoughts is pretty easy... if you know what you're looking for. But it's going to be bloody slow, and requires someone prompt the victim.

Wil,

Yup. The "trick" Oz described his players using would be most helpful in both a psionic interrogation and a non-psionic interrogation. Also, as you point out, multiple sessions would still be necessary unless the interrogatoring players scored some huge success.

However, my little thought experiment only addressed the situation that Icosahedron and Major B were discussing: A group of players being secretly located and examined at a "distance" by an opposing group which included psions. In this case, the chances that the group can ask the players prompting question(s) are essentially nil.

Naturally, the players should act and plan as if some opposing group is potentially out there, just as successful criminals and success intelligence agents act and plan as if the police and counter-intelligence officers are potentially out there. That means the players should take certain precautions. Its just good trade craft.

All of this talk about precautions and trade craft suggests a device that is missing from Traveller's inventory; a psi static generator. Remember the "white noise" device in Asimov's Foundation series? The First Foundation uses it to identify and "declaw" Second Foundation psions on Terminus? If the OTU has psionic shielding done to a personal level, why not a psionic static generator too?

RSB suggest something of this kind may exist in it's wonderful, and far too thin, section dealing with 3I psionics research. Likening psionics to the ECM/ECCM spiral, the 3I and later Regency apparently have mechanical methods that can "shut down" parts or all of the psionic "spectrum".

Statting out a psi static device could be fun. Assigning it a law level would be even more fun. How could the Imperium or it's member governments seriously attempt to outlaw such a device even though it would seriously effect the Imperium and local governments own psions? Uncomfortable questions would be asked when those governments are seen to be limiting the use of a device which "honest" citizens can use to protect themselves from the "perfidious Zhodani mind rapers".


Regards,
Bill

 

[Icosahedron]

Some useful thoughts there.

Yes, psionics has to be used constructively to be of any use, it's just another tool.

Except that a clairvoyant manhunt does seem to be unnervingly efficient.

I'm leaning toward Clairvoyance being unaffected by shields - or I was until I realised just how easily a clairvoyant can find someone. Having to move every couple of days is a major inconvenience, and impossible for military HQs etc.

I'd pictured clairvoyance as having a ghostlike remote presence, so you could spend your 15 seconds walking through walls and doors or poking your head into cupboards, etc. And you wouldn't need the light on to see inside the fridge, because clairvoyance doesn't operate via photons.

I'd pictured locating someone as being like zooming down in Google Maps, homing in on the area of interest from an unfamiliar postcode - except that the window will have a lot of drift and can't be centred on the target, your only certainty is that the target is always somewhere in the narrowing window.

Maybe my interpretation of clairvoyance is too permissive? Maybe the efficacy of shielding is a necessary balance?

Re chargen, from information in this thread or a recent other, I'm running with the idea of psionic potential being about one in a million, and PCs who choose to be tested just happen to have potential. The PCs who are not tested may or may not have potential - like Schrodinger's cat, you don't know until you perform the test.

 

[aramis]

Bill: I've never succeeded in reading Foundation. Asimov just leaves me cold.
So I'm unfamiliar with anything therein.

Icosahedron: I just completely omit shielded persons when describing a clairavoyantly observed room. Stuff they move, however, is a dead giveaway.

 

[rancke]

And, in the OTU 3I, it's a talent that, should the officials get wind of it, can publicly dispose of you in a permanent fashion, unless you happen to have that special documentation.

They should have thought of that before a gang leader or government agent forced them to join the program, shouldn't they?

It's also a tool that, in the OTU, when the public gets wind of it, doesn't bother with the officials about half the time.

They should have thought of that before a gang leader or government agent forced them to join the program, shouldn't they?

Killing psionicists is a great patriotic duty in the 3I.

They should have thought of that before a gang leader or government agent forced them to join the program, shouldn't they?

You are not factoring that in, either.

Oh, I think I am. see above.

Incidentally, speaking of patriotic duty, I don't think the Imperial leadership is any too pleased with the whole "Kill the psionics" attitude. I think it's something that's been forced upon them by the fear and loathing of the great unwashed. Considering the handicap it puts the authorities under not to be able to employ psionics openly to counter the criminals and the neighbors' spy agencies, it must be their fervent wish for the whole thing to go away. Too bad they don't dare employ psycho-history :devil:.


Hans

 

[Whipsnade]

Bill: I've never succeeded in reading Foundation. Asimov just leaves me cold. So I'm unfamiliar with anything therein.

Wil,

He's a bit of an acquired taste and too often a hard slog. Case in point, most of the chapters in the Foundation trilogy, a series describing the fall and rise of empires that control the entire galaxy, consist of a 5 or fewer people talking in a single room.

Icosahedron: I just completely omit shielded persons when describing a clairavoyantly observed room. Stuff they move, however, is a dead giveaway.

That's very interesting. As with many things in CT, the bareboned descriptions of the psionic powers leave a lot of leeway for GM application. There's the very old discussion regarding clairvoyantly scanning a darkened room for example. (I'm in the "Can Scan A Dark Room" camp, by the way.)

IMTU, clairvoyant scanning a room doesn't allow the peep to "slip" through physical boundaries in that space. Ico's example of a clairvoyant peep "sticking his head" into the room's fridge wouldn't work IMTU. Instead the peep would need to make another clairvoyance attempt which would specifically target the interior of the fridge.

I suppose the best to explain my take is that the peep's "presence" in the targeted area is wholly passive. Imagine examining a room with your hands clasped behind you back. The peep can shift his perspective within the targeted area in a manner similar to you moving your head, bending over, and stepping around the room. Just like you, he can't do is open drawers, doors, curtains, books, and so forth. Just like you, he can't move aside on piece of paper from atop another. He can't do anything that requires "hands".

Of course, a peep with TK can move something that will help a peep with CCC...


Regards,
Bill

 

[Whipsnade]

Except that a clairvoyant manhunt does seem to be unnervingly efficient.

Icosahedron,

I'm not so sure.

Going by the CT descriptions, which admittedly leave a lot up to GM, clairvoyance isn't some sort of psionic "Huff Duff". A peep can scan a known location, but he cannot pick a known individual out of a myriad of unknown locations.

I like your ideas concerning the peep using a personal item to "track" down a suspect and I'd use it in a heartbeat IMTU, but I can't find support for such a task in CT's very sketchy psionic descriptions.

I'm leaning toward Clairvoyance being unaffected by shields - or I was until I realised just how easily a clairvoyant can find someone. Having to move every couple of days is a major inconvenience, and impossible for military HQs etc.

I'd allow shields to negatively effect clairvoyant scanning attempts. However, Wil's suggestion about shielded people not "showing up" in a scan seems to be in contrast to CT's description that psions in a scanned room will be unaware that the room is being scanned.

Maybe my interpretation of clairvoyance is too permissive? Maybe the efficacy of shielding is a necessary balance?

Maybe, maybe not. I guess it's a decision each GM needs to make for their TU.

Re chargen, from information in this thread or a recent other, I'm running with the idea of psionic potential being about one in a million, and PCs who choose to be tested just happen to have potential. The PCs who are not tested may or may not have potential - like Schrodinger's cat, you don't know until you perform the test.

That's a neat solution. Consider it stolen.


Regards,
Bill

 

[aramis]

Bill, I suspect you're misunderstanding me. A shielded person in a room, when observed by a CV, is invisible to the CV, but the things they move are visible, so if the SP moves something, the shielded person is given away.

IMTU, A clairavoyant has a perspective like a 360°x180° immobile webcam, in re the room. They can't move the point of view, but can change the angle of view. They have a 120x120° field of view... and it can be changed instantly.

Note that Clairaudience is an omni mic with directionality in 3D IMTU... (essentially requiring a tetrahedral micset to replicate mechanically...).

Combined CA/CV is both the above.

Unless you have a specific special for detecting psionic observation, you can't tell if you're being observed psionically.

 

[Icosahedron]

Case in point, most of the chapters in the Foundation trilogy, a series describing the fall and rise of empires that control the entire galaxy, consist of a 5 or fewer people talking in a single room.

You just gotta admire a writer who can pull that off.

That's very interesting. As with many things in CT, the bareboned descriptions of the psionic powers leave a lot of leeway for GM application. There's the very old discussion regarding clairvoyantly scanning a darkened room for example. (I'm in the "Can Scan A Dark Room" camp, by the way.)

IMTU, clairvoyant scanning a room doesn't allow the peep to "slip" through physical boundaries in that space. Ico's example of a clairvoyant peep "sticking his head" into the room's fridge wouldn't work IMTU. Instead the peep would need to make another clairvoyance attempt which would specifically target the interior of the fridge.

I toyed with that, too, but the logic didn't seem consistent. If the CV isn't using photons to observe (can see in the dark) and the point of view has had to penetrate some barriers to get where it is, why shouldn't that point of view penetrate more barriers?

The only way I could logically resolve that is the way Yoda describes the Force - the limitations are all in the mind. Maybe people are so used to barriers preventing access that they are psychologically unable to move the POV through an object. This leaves the possibility open that a high level, experienced CV might be able to see into enclosures, whereas a low level rookie might not.
Thinking about it some more, I might go with that solution - it gives more flexibility.

I suppose the best to explain my take is that the peep's "presence" in the targeted area is wholly passive. Imagine examining a room with your hands clasped behind you back. The peep can shift his perspective within the targeted area in a manner similar to you moving your head, bending over, and stepping around the room. Just like you, he can't do is open drawers, doors, curtains, books, and so forth. Just like you, he can't move aside on piece of paper from atop another. He can't do anything that requires "hands".

Of course, a peep with TK can move something that will help a peep with CCC...

Yes, I agree he should be able to move the POV around, but not move objects. I think the inability to see lower sheets in a stack of papers is about the inability to fine-tune the focus. (otherwise you get into the can of worms of why can't photonless CV have X-ray vision?..
The moving POV reminds of Dennis Wheatley's The Ka of Gifford Hillary.

I'm still not convinced about shields blocking a CV scan, although Aramis' suggestion does offer a possible solution. There's another can of worms here, all about how psionics mechanically functions and how shields stop it.

Of course, if Clairvoyance and Astral Travel / Out of Body Experience are aspects of the same thing, that would allow for some form of shielding that the 'presence' can't penetrate - a bit like a magic circle - but maybe that's straying too far from the straight and narrow...

Icosahedron,
Going by the CT descriptions, which admittedly leave a lot up to GM, clairvoyance isn't some sort of psionic "Huff Duff". A peep can scan a known location, but he cannot pick a known individual out of a myriad of unknown locations.

I like your ideas concerning the peep using a personal item to "track" down a suspect and I'd use it in a heartbeat IMTU, but I can't find support for such a task in CT's very sketchy psionic descriptions.

No, it's not in CT directly, it's a houserule extension. I just figured that if Traveller models the future of the real world, and Object Reading is a real-world psi skill (and I'm not opening a debate about whether psi is 'real', that's irrelevant) I figured Traveller's psionics rules should allow for it.
As for 'support' for it in CT, the 'Special' talent is a back door to an infinite range of possibilities:

LBB3 1st ed P41. "Individuals with special talent are capable of some activity which is not described above and generally dispensed by the Referee, in a manner of his choice."

That sounds to me like carte blanche support for anything you want to include.

My 'houserule' really is just to regard 'Special' not as a separate (and always more difficult) talent or subset of talents, but merely to regard the listed set of talents as 'non-exhaustive'. It made more sense that way (why should pyrokinesis and psychometry be more difficult to obtain and use than telekinesis and clairvoyance?) so I just tweaked the definition of Special by making the roll to obtain it talent-specific rather than always 9+, and I chose to ignore the 'suggestion' of dependency on a talisman. Really a very very small tweak...

I'd allow shields to negatively effect clairvoyant scanning attempts. However, Wil's suggestion about shielded people not "showing up" in a scan seems to be in contrast to CT's description that psions in a scanned room will be unaware that the room is being scanned.

Yeah, another good possibility. It all depends on how CV 'works'.

That's a neat solution. Consider it stolen.

Regards,
Bill

You're welcome.

 

[Major B]

Icos, had another thought over the weekend - a potential way to make the peep even more effective which may or may not be a good thing.

If, in addition to being able to look in on the target the peep could sense the direction to the target, the searchers could narrow their search area relatively small in just one night (assuming at least two "scans" from two locations.

Bundle your peep into a speeder, zip to the north outskirts for the first "scan" and take the azimuth to target, then zip over to the east side and do the same. Where the lines intersect, start your door-to-door search. If the peep can do three "scans" in one night, you could triangulate for more accuracy.

CV may not be the right talent for this, and for the right "feel" I wouldn't allow it without a focus item. It would have to have some restrictions because this talent would make the searchers even more dangerous and keep the players moving nearly constantly (if that is what you want to achieve). The best way to beat it would be to be moving while the peep is shifting from one scan point to another, throwing the intersect point off.

 

[Lycanorukke]

Assuming the peeper doesn't need photons to see...what happens with the 'audio' signal.

That is if the people are in a room and turn up the volume on the radio and bone mikes & earpieces, does the peep hear them (they aren't speaking aloud but are subvocalising) or would the peep just get an earful of radio noise? Would a Maxwell Smart style 'cone of silence' block the peeper?

One other - if a peep is tapping into a person with read or probe, would the peep suffer backlash if the person was hit with a neural stun weapon? Or if a stun grenade went off in the room?

 

[Icosahedron]

Major B, No I'm not trying to get the PCs moving all the time, on the contrary, I'd like them to be able to hole up for a few weeks, and I'd like military bases (or at least the most secret parts of them) to be unobservable, but I'm struggling to find a logical and internally consistent way of doing that. The peeps seem to be too efficient for comfort.
It looks like I'm going to have to allow for some form of shielding.

Lycan, good questions. It all depends on how psionics works, and that's left for the Referee to decide. I'm beginning to see why people don't use the psionics rules much.

Does anyone know if Mongoose's Psion addresses these problems, or is it equally vague? Does anyone know of a non-Traveller resource that handles psionics better? My game is heavily houseruled and outsourced already, so I'm happy with other sources. I just want the game to feel right. I don't care whose rules I use, so long as they create a logical and consistent universe for the players to enjoy.

 

[aramis]

GURPS handles Psionics better, but unfortunately, MORE effective psionics are present.

Heck, CORPS, EABA, HeroSystem, and Alternity handle it better. But they don't handle it as low-key/low-power as Traveller does.

A lot depends upon what you really want to do with Psi.