The latest purchase from my FLGS, pt.10

Traveller Book 4: Psion by Lawrence Whitaker

Since rediscovering Traveller a few weeks ago, this time in its current Mongoose edition, I have grown to appreciate the depth of the system for dealing with all sorts of different science-fiction genres. I suppose Mongoose has come to a similar conclusion as they have begun adapting several of their licenses to the Traveller system, including Babylon 5 and Judge Dredd. Obviously, incorporating such a wide variety of campaign settings demands that the core rules have to be made more flexible and nowhere is that design imperative more obvious than in the psionics rules, as described in Traveller Book 4: Psion. In the "Third Imperium", the default setting for Traveller, psionics play a prominent, but subtle role. One of the main races contending the Imperium for control of the galaxy is the Zhodani, a race of humans in which the ruling caste is made up of telepaths. Mistrust of the Zhodani leads to similar mistrust of psionically-gifted individuals within the Imperium. Therefore, those with latent psionic abilities often have a difficult time finding training and support. Even those who do have developed psychic powers often refrain from using them as many planets have laws forbidding their use. Psionics in the default Traveller setting are, therefore, generally weak and often discarded completely. On the other hand, psionics in Babylon 5 are front and center. Such powers can decide the fate of whole civilizations.

To accommodate such a wide range of psionic capabilities, the rules have been greatly expanded in two important ways, psionic strength and advanced talents. In the traditional Traveller game, psionic strength is a 2d6 roll with a -1 DM for each 4 years of adulthood spent without training. This would give a typical starting psionic character 6 or 7 psi points. Since even something as basic as reading someone's thoughts would cost 2 to 3 points, and a psionic assault would cost 8 or 9 points, we are obviously not looking at high-powered psychic abilities here. Psion introduces new levels of psionic power with examples of campaign settings where such levels would be appropriate. For example, a hard sf setting with prominent psionics, such as Babylon 5 would have a power level of basic psi + Int DM, just a slight boost (and a bit low in my estimation). A science fantasy setting such as Judge Dredd, on the other hand, would have a power level of basic psi x 2. At the very top of the scale is what is referred to as transcendent culture sf (Dune being an example). An appropriate power level for such a campaign is given as basic psi x 2.5.

Beyond the basic psionic talents of telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, awareness and teleportation, Psion introduces a bunch of advanced talents, some of which will knock your socks off. Among the most powerful of these are dimensional manipulation (i.e. interdimensional travel), ship integration (i.e. folding space), tapping (i.e. psychic vampirism) and temporal manipulation (yeah, time travel). These new advanced talents really open the door to using Traveller as the be-all-and-end-all of sf game systems. I've definitely found my system.

-Rognar-