Stellar Quest: Thoughts on Psionics...

Good Afternoon:

In looking at Stellar Quest, I started considering the possible presence of Psionics in the game, as many of the inspirational material presented creatures or characters with psionic powers as adventure fodder. In addition, the ship's First Officer had some mental talents of his own. Finally, psionics have a place in science fiction. While I considered basing psionic potential on Wisdom, because it often represents insight or enlightenment, or Charisma, which is a measure of one's personal magnetism and self-confidence, in the end, I think I'm going to follow the lead of Starships & Spacemen and Traveller, and introduce a Psi ability score. Psi would be generated just like the six original stats, and follow the same ability score modifiers.

Given that I already have a branch of the Fleet based on each ability score, I would imagine that we should have a separate class based on the Psi ability, which I imagine we'd call the Psionic branch, Mentalist branch or Sensitive branch. The reason I want to go with a class for this is because I don't want to add yet another mechanic or level of complexity to a simple system. With a class, I have two possible options: I can either make it a basic spell-like system modeled after the Magic-User class, much like how it was handled in Savage Swords of Athanor; or I could use Specialties to create a pseudo-skill based approach inspired by Traveller. For the sake of consistency with other classes, I think I'd prefer the Specialties approach, but I am concerned that others may desire an approach more in tune with Swords & Wizardry.

What do you think?

With Regards,
Flynn