The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: nastynateBest I've managed was actually around eight I think, not counting a co-DMing thing with 15 players which was a logistical nightmare.

Anymore than eight and I have trouble letting individuals really shine, without losing the party related focus. I really like letting my players have their own specialized encounters from time to time.

*Oh wait, I ran with nine in an old planescape campaign with level 20+ PCs...I don't recall too many issues either...hmm that was fun.

-Nasty-

20+!?!?
No that is a group!
CRs really go out the window with those numbers.......
 

No such thing as CRs in those days...

Quote from: nastynateNo such thing as CRs in those days...

Ahh the old days........

I came into this discussion a little late, but I'm surprised to see that I'm the only "Hate psionics" vote in the poll at this stage in the game, even though that poll option's worded a little more strongly than I would have phrased it myself.

In terms of game mechanics, I am an elementalist. I want to make some simple and flexible building blocks available to players for the task of building the characters they want to play. With this in mind, we already have a well-realized set of mechanics for the alteration of reality, and psionics are redundant when stuck on top of this magic. The PHB alone contains numerous ways to make a "psionic-style" mentalist or thought-powered reality-shaper without touching those psionic rulesets at all.

So it's partially that, and partially a flavor thing. Handled properly (but that's another issue entirely!), magic is entirely magical enough to lend interest to a game and a world without being supplimented by psionics. (If you use psionics and use them skillfully, the reverse should also be true. I'd have no problem with using the psionic rules exclusively and getting rid of the magic ones; I just don't think the two coexist well.) The idea of a world where psionics and magic both exist as distinct and seperate supernatural forces strikes me as suited for a highly-specialized niche game, but as a "baseline" idea, I don't like that sort of duality much at all.

As an aside, I've played in psionics-enabled games where many of the other players looked at psionics vs. magic in terms of "which system has mechanics that will be easier for me to exploit?" That's not the kind of thought process I try to encourage. Maybe it's just those players. *shrug*

Quote from: Luminous CrayonI came into this discussion a little late, but I'm surprised to see that I'm the only "Hate psionics" vote in the poll at this stage in the game, even though that poll option's worded a little more strongly than I would have phrased it myself.

In terms of game mechanics, I am an elementalist. I want to make some simple and flexible building blocks available to players for the task of building the characters they want to play. With this in mind, we already have a well-realized set of mechanics for the alteration of reality, and psionics are redundant when stuck on top of this magic. The PHB alone contains numerous ways to make a "psionic-style" mentalist or thought-powered reality-shaper without touching those psionic rulesets at all.

So it's partially that, and partially a flavor thing. Handled properly (but that's another issue entirely!), magic is entirely magical enough to lend interest to a game and a world without being supplimented by psionics. (If you use psionics and use them skillfully, the reverse should also be true. I'd have no problem with using the psionic rules exclusively and getting rid of the magic ones; I just don't think the two coexist well.) The idea of a world where psionics and magic both exist as distinct and seperate supernatural forces strikes me as suited for a highly-specialized niche game, but as a "baseline" idea, I don't like that sort of duality much at all.

As an aside, I've played in psionics-enabled games where many of the other players looked at psionics vs. magic in terms of "which system has mechanics that will be easier for me to exploit?" That's not the kind of thought process I try to encourage. Maybe it's just those players. *shrug*

I think honestly that anyone who has ever played in the old Dark Sun campaign setting (like myself) realizes that magic and psionics can harmoniously exist and even compliment one another. The big problem with psionics is that as an additional mechanic tacked onto an already exisiting setting, they serve no purpose.

I tend to think of magic as the ability to harness the latent arcane power present in the fundimental make up of the world (like another form of science) through various incantations, and complicated formulas. Psionics on the other hand is simply something that exists potentially in all intelligent creatures; it is the harnessed power of the mind.

For psionics to be part of a setting, it needs to be accounted for throughout history, and have documented or at least understood, impact upon society and the world. Magic has had an impact upon the world, and psionics should have the same. Without this equal footing, there is no way psionics can really be seen as anything other than a secondary and obscure entity.

Mechanically it is a bummer that psionics and magic are different entities. It would be nice if a single system were embraced to handle both magic and psionics, and the differences were simply based upon flavor like visual characteristics, components, and effects. However it is difficult to get rid of the Vancian magic system; after so many years, it has become almost synonomous with D&D. Psionics has a better system of mechanics (I know people will contests this, but it really is true), but it has less over-all acceptance, because of a long history of broken and imbalanced effects in both first and second edition.

In summation psionics is not liked because of mechanical differences from the the widely accepted and understood Vancian system of magic, and because the current settings really haven't focused upon making psionics part of the world. Eberron has taken steps towards incorperating psionics, but the designers still stuck it on a distant continent, where it could easily be ignored by those with misgivings. If psionics can be ignored, they will be.

-Nasty-

That's pretty much exactly it. Psionics are often an afterthought mechanic, and settings don't incorporate them well. Dark Sun did, and Eberron tries really hard (Kalashtar are a pretty neat way to pull psionics into the lore rather than just the mechanics, if you ask me), but many settings barely even try to justify psionics with their history and cultures.

So I guess our only differences on the issue of psionics, is that I love them despite the failure of specifc WotC "official," setting support. But that's why we have homebrews now isn't it?

-Nasty-

Quote from: Luminous CrayonThat's pretty much exactly it. Psionics are often an afterthought mechanic, and settings don't incorporate them well. Dark Sun did, and Eberron tries really hard (Kalashtar are a pretty neat way to pull psionics into the lore rather than just the mechanics, if you ask me), but many settings barely even try to justify psionics with their history and cultures.

As a 25 year veteran of the game, I find the Psionics mechanics of 3.5 superior to the magic mechanics, which is why my CS uses the base psionics mechanic to flush Vancian crap magic in favor of spell points etal.

I, for one, took psionics into account as soon as I started creating my CS.  It was really quite simple.

It is true there is redundancy in psionics and magic, but there is redundancy in the magic subcategories of divine and arcane.  There are redundancies throughout the game.