Psionic Careers

[Golan2072]

Once my expanded belter character generation will be complete (this week), I'll move on to consolidate my expansion of Paul Elliott's Task System; once that will be done, I intend to tackle the issue of psionics IMTU.

While Psionics suffer from extensive prejudice (and heavy legal restrictions except for military/intelligence use) in the Solar Triumvirate, the Serpentis Quadrant Alliance is far more tolerant towards it; in fact, most children on higher-tech Alliance world (TL9+, Pop 5+) go through free psionic testing at the age of 18, and those with high potential (PSI 10+) are offered free full training (and a subsequent government job for atleast a four-year term).

Alliance Psionics is overseen by the Special Comitee on Psionics (SCP, or Comitee 13), which is a regulatory organization; it deals mostly with lisencing various Psionic activities, investigating Psionic crimes, financing Psionics research and setting standards for Psionic training. It also provides the Alliance military (and other governmental branches) with trained PSIs.

Also, Alliance soldiers sometimes get free Psionic training (as in LBB3) as a Mustering Out Benefit.

My question is: Has anyone (cannon or fan) ever created a Psionic character generation career for Classic Traveller? How should the aquisition of Psionic powers be handled during character generation?

Also, I am thinking about generating the PSI stat by rolling 3d6-6 (with a DM for age as in LBB3); my intention is to lower the chance for higher-level Psions and to allow for a portion of the population who are not Psionic at all. What do you think of this? Should it be 2d6, 3d6-6, or 4d6-12?

 

[mike wightman]

The Zhodani character generation charts in the CT alien module are probably a good place to start.

There is no separate psionic career as such but psionics are built into ech of the other careers.

Maybe the Droyne career charts could lend some inspiration too.

 

[mike wightman]

Oh, and 4d6-12 should give you the range you want

 

[Flynn]

Don't forget the Darrian tables, where psionic power references were added somewhat willy-nilly.

If you're willing to look outside the box, there's a psionicist career in T4 that could easily be adopted to CT.

-Flynn

 

[Golan2072]

IMTU distribution of Psionics in the population:
33.6% of the population don't have any PSI-Factor at all.
66.4% of the population have some PSI-factor (1+) at age 18.
9.7% of the population have a good level of PSI (7+) at age 18.
0.1% of the population have the MAXIMUM PSI potential (12) at age 18.

The PSI "Factor" (Psionic Strength in LBB3) is generated by 4D6-12. Also remember that only a fraction of those with substantional PSI-factor recieve training, even in relatively PSI-tolerant polities such as MTU's Alliance.

 

[Whipsnade]

4601,

How prevalent do you want psionics to be in your setting(1)?

That 0.1% figure may seem low at first but have you done the math? It's only one per thousand after all.

Using that figure and rough current world population numbers, the US and EU would have roughly THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND powerful psionicists in their societies, China and India would each have over ONE MILLION in their societies, and Earth as a whole would have over FIVE MILLION psis.

Those numbers are kind of beyond the 'Babylon 5 small minority used by the government' motif and pretty close to the 'Traveller psis are nobles and rule the Consulate' idea.

Just my 0.02 CrImps.


Have fun,
Bill

1 - Very nice materials by the way. I've been following each bit in all the different forae you've posted them in. Ever think of creating one document and giving it to Hunter to host in the fLibrary? Hint, hint, hint...

 

[Golan2072]

About psi pervailance (sp?) - remember that most PSIs dont get draining; prejudice in the high-pop Solar Triumvirate mean that only a handful of the high-level PSIs there get training (either by underground groups or by secret agencies), so the number of active PSI-12s is about one per 100,000.

The Alliance is far more PSI-tolerant but has a much smaller population; but not every PSI wants to go through the not-so-pleasant training procedure (sensorary deprivation and such) and the following career. So for the Alliance, the actual number of PSI-12s would be about one per 10,000, which is about 10,000 on the capital of Lerna (with its very high, for the frontier, population of 100 millions); other Alliance worlds have lower populations.

And thanks for your liking of MTU; I'm publishing it through Stellar Reaches one piece at a time, and eventually it will all be published as one VERY big PDF.

 

[Maladominus]

Just wanted to chime in that.... I swear I think I saw a 3rd party sourcebook called "The Psionics Institute"

Not sure if that sourcebook was meant for CT, MT or T20. But it might be worth looking into if you're very serious about characters equally serious about a psionics career.

 

[The Oz]

I had a "Psionic" branch in the Federal Stellar Union Intelligence Service that I created for my Rimward Horizons campaign. In that service you could roll "Psionics" which was a cascade skill that let you attempt to learn new psionic powers or improve your ability with existing powers.

I still have those character generation tables with me.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Actually, Maladominus, what you're remembering is Psionics Institutes for T4. (Definitely not 3d party.) Not a bad price for that electronic version, BTW.

 

[Maladominus]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Actually, Maladominus, what you're remembering is Psionics Institutes for T4. (Definitely not 3d party.) Not a bad price for that electronic version, BTW.

Yup that's the one I saw!