Psionic Campaign

We’ve started a new D&D campaign, with one of the other guys as DM. (I was burning out, and need a break.) This new campaign is set in Freeport, a few weeks after our previous Freeport campaign ended (about two years ago, real time); the previous campaign had us running through the first three Freeport adventures.

For this new campaign, we’ve all decided to play psionic characters: two human psions and a human soulknife (my character), all brothers of a gypsy clan. Where our previous campaign had [some of] us playing heroes fighting the evil and chaos of Freeport (I was playing a paladin), this new campaign has us playing less than good characters out to take over the town’s seedy operations. We’re not playing evil characters (I wouldn’t like that), but we definitely aren’t heroes.

We’ve only played one game session so far, but it looks like this campaign direction will be fun. The psionic side of D&D is interesting, and new (to me), but it’s basically very similar to standard D&D magic. The psions are like standard D&D sorcerers, and my soulknife is like a standard D&D Dex-fighter. It’s all just different enough to feel different, but not so different to play differently.

I don’t know nearly as much about psionics as I do standard D&D magic, so I’m being mildly surprised by some of the things the other characters can do. I’ve always had a dislike of the concept of psionics in D&D — psionics feel more like science fiction than fantasy, to me — but I think this change of mechanics is interesting in actual play.

I still doubt I’ll ever bring psionics into any of my own campaigns, but it’s good to see and feel how they actually work in play, in a situation where I’m not running the game.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com