Character Creation: Psionics

I can kill you with my brain.

The Game: Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution
The Publisher: End Transmission Games; out of business, but you can still buy this game on DTRPG
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Psionics has some weird history, most of which I'm not going to go into because it falls very quickly into the land of internet drama. So let's stick to the facts: Psionics was Kickstarted in 2014 and raised a meager $10K (but at the time, that wasn't bad for an indie RPG, honestly). It funded, they published it in Juneish 2015. I got my backer copy at Origins, one of a few signed and numbered copies (not something I generally care about). They had it for sale at GenCon 2015 and here's where it gets a little weird. 

They shelled out for advertising at GenCon. Like, there were huge posters on pillars. I think there was even a hanging banner or sign in the dealer's room, and I think they had their own booth. (Maybe this was 2016, I actually don't remember and my blog write-ups on the subject are no help.) Anyway, I also thought it was interesting; there was probably more money dumped into promoting the game than the Kickstarter brought in.

But what is the game? It's a sci-fi game in which you play "Espers" - people with psychic powers - on the run from a government agency (or rather, a glom of several agencies) that is trying to capture you and do evil things to you. There's actually a lot of detail about the agency and the "truth" of the setting that I didn't really read because I wanted to actually make a character and that stuff isn't relevant to chargen. The book also has an amount of interstitial fiction that would make a 90s White Wolf book blush, but on the plus side, it's not terrible fiction. Some of it I actually lost track of time reading. 

Game-system wise...eh. It's nothing special, and I know if I tried to pitch this to my table they'd stare blankly. Roll some d6s, you're trying to roll low except when you're trying to roll high except when you're just rolling 1d6 vs. another player's/GM's d6. It's not the smoother peanut butter, is what I'm saying. If I were going to run Psionics, I would probably port it into Fate or SWADE or something (although I'm nearly 100% sure there are similar games in both settings). 

I dunno. After reading/making characters for some of the company's other games (Anathema, Phantasm, SPLINTER) I was expecting to dislike this game, and as it is I think it's kind of cool. It's probably not something I'd be champing at the bit to play, and there are some truly wanky bits of writing (not least of which is the intro that starts off telling us to Google what an "RPG" is, but then doing a full fucking book report on Firestarter), but it's not a bad game.  

Right, enough blather, let's make an Esper. 

Two separate boxes

razzum frazzum

Name n' concept, huh? Well, for the third time in a row I don't have a particular concept in mind, and none of the the various types of psi powers call to me more than the others (that is to say, I think they'd all be fun to play), so let's randomly pick a theme song! 

That's "Blackbird" by the Beatles, which is actually a pretty appropriate song for this game. Not because the song is about psychic powers, of course, but because it was inspired by the Civil Rights movement. 

Well, I think I'll just lean in an try and make a character who can fly (it's possible as a telekinetic, but I don't remember if starting characters can take right levels; guess we'll find out). Delbert (please call him "Del") Farrell graduated high school a year early, and was kinda trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life - he's hella smart, but socially awkward and he's only 17 so not exactly mature. And then he figured out he could move things with his mind.

Del has been dreaming of flying since he was a little kid - not exactly an uncommon dream, of course, but Del dreams about it almost every night. He's always felt it was possible, in some weird way, even when he knew that physics don't really allow people to fly under their own power. But then he could, and he probably would have been happy just flying for fun forever. But then the Shop tracked him down (probably someone spotted him flying), and his parents, who were very much of the "the government is not to be trusted" school of thought, refused to give him up and immediately started calling lawyers and press. And the agents shot them both dead, grabbed Del, and threw him in a van. 

There, that's appropriate tragic for the setting, I think. So now we spend some Attribute points. We've got four Attributes (Strength, Speed, Wits, Will; the game makes a point of telling us that there's no Charisma or Wisdom because that makes this game so much smarter than D&D; I'm paraphrasing snarkily, ignore me). I've got 30 points to split up, minimum 1, and they're one-for-one until you crest 6, at which point they cost more. Let's see. 

Well, I want Del to have a high Wits rating because he's a smart cookie. I don't know that Will is necessarily high or low because of concept, but I happen to know that Will is kinda the god-stat in this game. I think that means I'm gonna have to keep Strength and Speed on the lower end, right? 

Wait, hang on. Human average is three. I could put all four stats at 6 - described as "Best (Real human peak" on the "realistic" scale of things and "very good" on the cinematic side of things, and I'd still have six points left. (Right? Yeah, 4*6=24.) So...sure, let's so that. And then I'll bump Wits to 8 and Will to 7. That's 6+6+8+10, which is indeed 30.  

Next I can roll a d6 to determine how attractive I am. I mean...why's this here? It's optional, and I guess I see the intent, but it's just weird to include this after this whole big long thing about how they're not included a social stat. Whatever, I'm not going to bother.

Derived traits. OK, I'll do 'em now, but there better not be any way to change our Attributes later!

Health is Strength x 6, so 36 for me. Initiative is...weird. Oh, I get it, it's 2d6 + twice your speed, but there must be a way to change that number of dice because it's blank on the sheet. Anyway, for Del it's 2d6 + 12. Defense is Wits + 3 (11), and KO Threshold is 10-Will (3). I get (Will x 6) Power Points, so 42, and Overflow Gauge is the same thing. Death Threshold is 0 - Strength (weird), so -6. 

Right, so. Skill Picks! The system here isn't a million miles from Chill, actually. Skills are either Trained or not, and then they can be increased to Apprentice, Expert, and Master levels. Those levels cost 1, 3, and 5 Skill Picks, respectively, and I get twice my Wits in Skill Picks (so 16), and then I get a number of skills in which I'm trained equal to my Wits. So if you're keep track, that's 16 Skill Picks and 8 Trained Skills. OK, cool. Again, seems like a lot for a teenager, but then again, I like when characters are competent. How ridiculously granular is the Skill list? 

It's...not the worst I've seen, and it does mention that making your own Skills is simple enough. OK, let's just go through the list and figure out what Del should know how to do and then figure out the levels afterwards:

Awareness
Bike (I assume this means "bicycle" since it's based on Speed, while Drive is based on Wits)
Blades/Brawling (I dunno, I think I want some combat skill, but I'm not sure what makes the most sense)
Calculus (quick, when was the last time you roll on a math-based Skill in an RPG?)
Chemistry
Drive
Spanish (fun fact, Spanish is not actually on this list. German is, but if every language is its own Skill, why not just say "Language?")
Hacking
Stealth
Subterfuge
Thrown Weapons (to be paired with TK eventually, I think)

That's 11 Skills. I...suspect I will need to find more. OK, let's go top-down. Has Del mastered any of these Skills? You know what, fuck it. He's mastered Calculus. I'll put 5 Picks there, taking me to 11. I'll say he's Expert in Awareness, Spanish and Chemistry (taking me to 2), and then I'll be Apprentice in Bike and Stealth. And then I'm Trained in Drive, Hacking, Subterfuge, Thrown Weapons, Blades, Brawling, Climbing, and...let's invent a Skill called Gen Ed to cover shit that a recent high school grad would know.

One starting combat Technique. I'll take Bull's Eye, since I've been watching Daredevil: Born Again and I think the possibilities of what a TK could accomplish with thrown weapons are endless.

Finally, the good stuff! I get 1 + [Wits/2) Psi Talent Picks, which for me means 5...no, hang on. The chargen chart up there says 1 + etc, but the book says 2 + etc. I think the book is right. That gives me 6 Picks. Unlike Skill Picks, though, these are just assigned 1-for-1, and there's not an upper limit, meaning if I wanted 5 levels in Telekinesis I could do that (I don't know that I do). What do I need to fly? I need Telekinesis 4. Suits me. Would I like to put points into either Psychokinesis or Pyrokinesis, or take Telekineses Talents? 

I think I'll take a level of Biofeedback (RAW, it doesn't let you do this, but I think that would allow me to survive on less oxygen, which is useful for flying) and a level of Necrokinesis (allowing me to touch people and damage them, and I think Del is complete unaware he can do this yet). 

And then the last bits are about shopping and picking weapons, and eh. I think I'll skip it. 

So! Del is 17. He's tall and skinny, he's got brown eyes and red hair, and fewer freckles than he used to. I think his view of Telekinesis is largely focused on transporting his own self around, which is neat inversion of how telekinetics usually roll. 

That's it! I'm just gonna upload the first page of the character sheet because the second page doesn't have much on it, other than the psionic stuff, which is important, but it's still not got much there (it's good sheet design, though, I think in play it'd be pretty easy to navigate).