Playing a Psychic in RIFTS, Part 3: Not All Psychics Are Equal

Last week I talked about the importance of getting into your man's head. This week I'm going to expand on that by showing a very basic application of that concept.

RIFTS assumes that there are three grades of psychics: minor, major, and master. Master psychics are those whose powers are strong enough to become Occupations in their own right (Burster, Mind Melter, et al). Major psychics possess notable power in depth or breadth, but not both; many of them blend their powers with a suite of mundane professional skills and acumen and thus become strong through a form of hybrid vigor, as their powers allow them to fill gaps that mundane capability cannot fill (stronger Cyber-Knights, Operators, etc.). Minor psychics use their powers as augmentations to an otherwise ordinary professional training; they lack depth and breadth, but what powers they do possess often allow them to operate better at their professions than would be the case otherwise.

In the lived experience of these characters, how they experience their powers and how they incorporate their powers into the rest of their lives will inevitably result in a very different perception of what their place in the world is and how they relate to it.

• A minor psychic's few and shallow powers means that they will see psychic abilities, by and large, as an adjunct to everyday life that they are privileged to possess and enjoy. It is unlikely that their powers will allow them to so dominate their surroundings that they cease to see non-psychics as not that different (and certainly capable of beating them, should they wish to be a threat); this is the way that even highly-skilled soldiers and security experts see themselves with regard to others and the world in general, if they are honest with themselves- they have a distinct edge, and that can (and does) make a significant difference, but nothing more, so don't disrespect others lest you find that edge negated when you need it.
  
• A major psychic's powers can possess enough breadth or depth to, at the least, put them well past what competent ordinary folk can do with the same training; they have to possess augmentation of some sort to keep up. Major psychics routinely create a very distinct perception of themselves and their place in the world through their hybridization of their powers and their professions; being a grunt with Sixth Sense is just another grunt with a useful trick that can be overwhelmed like any other, but a Cyber-Knight is an elite warrior whose powers--blended with his martial training--put him on par with Crazies, Juicers, and Full Conversion Cyborgs. He's special, a clear step up from the norm, and he knows it.
  
• A master psychic is someone whose entire identity stems from their powers. They self-identify as, and perceive life through the status being, a psychic. They see that they are not ordinary folk, and their powers easily put them on par with powerful magicians or highly-augmented soldiers despite no need for formal training or external apparati. God Complexes are not uncommon for a lot of such figures, especially if they did not grow up in a psychic community or come under the mentorship of an equal in psychic ability, and once that takes hold it is often self-reinforcing (and therefore difficult to break); it is a very clear mark of a well-disciplined, well-trained, and mature personality who resists such narsistic and egotistical tendencies in favor of maintaining the true view of individuals as just that regardless of a lack of powers.

Next week, I'll begin breaking down the psychic into a set of archetypes (as I did with magic-users), with these power categories as guidelines.

Playing a Psychic in Rifts, Part 2: Getting Into Your Man's Head

A key thing to comprehend, with regard to playing your character, is that you need to get into your character's head and perceive the environment from his perspective. This includes the experience of using your character's abilities, so you need to imagine the physicality he exhibits when he uses certain abilities. Once you can do that, you will find that your perception of how your man thinks will become far more lifelike and therefore your performance will greatly improve.

While this is applicable to any character in any role-playing game, for a psychic it is very significant due to the interaction of his powers with his body and his environment. The game reflects that the use of psychic powers taxes the user's endurance by the use of Inner Strength Points, which means that the usage of psychic powers is very much a usage of power channeled through the user's body- something that is finite within a given interval of time, but extendable with experience as it reflects conditioning gained as a byproduct of earning that experience.

So, take a moment to imagine how your psychic experiences his powers. He's always had them, even if they didn't manifest until his adolescence or adulthood, so there was always some telltale sign of their presence; he heard things, saw things, felt things, etc. that others did not--or, at least, others not psychic--and these signs grew until his latent powers manifested and blossomed into full expression. Depending on what powers you choose, your character's early life and experiences with his powers just about tell you the story for you because they won't happen any other way.

On a related note, take a moment to imagine what it feels like when your psychic uses his powers. From some point in his brain, a thought resonates at just the right frequency to become the right effect. He will instinctively use his body, as necessary, to guide the use of this power and employ it to the desired end; a Mind Melter or Psi Warrior will, without thought, form one hand into a firm grip upon the Psi Sword that he wills into existence while a Burster will scan with his eyes the place where he'll ignite a fire a moment before willing it to spark and flare into existing. Telekinetics will gesture with hands or similar limbs as if they were either manipulating it by touch or conducting it into place. While most of these instinctual gestures are actually not needed (and therefore can be trained out of practice), the psychic's experience of the flow of power from his brain, through his body, and then out into the environment to create the effect is often unchecked by training--Mystics actively avoid it, in harmony with their own belief in emergence and intuitive cognition, for example--often correlates bodily movement (great and small alike) to effective use of power, making psychics and magic-users seem to overlap far more than is actually the case.

You will know a learned, trained, and veteran psychic (therefore) by how often he omits such tells in the use of his powers, but this means that he has to somehow deal with the fact that the instinctual displays also naturally discharge any excess energy (and I mean that in the real-world sense, not a game mechanic sense) that the use of such powers naturally produces. Psychics who are telekinetics (or other psychokinetics, such as Bursters) flail their arms about because it is a very natural method to direct and expel such energies; psychics who deal in their powers otherwise have to find other manners to cope with discharging the adrenal rush that comes with using those powers.

A savvy observer can learn how to read body language to find these tells, and other psychics are very good at learning to do this quicky due to their own psychic ability, making psychics most effective at sensing their own- this is one of the reasons for why Psi Stalkers and Dog Boys are so very effective. There are some natural tells that can't be avoided (usually associated with powers like Psi Sword/Shield and those like it), but most--across all categories--can be omitted with discipline and practice, and replaced with far more subtle ones that allow them to escape the notice of observers. Psychics with a past in organizations (great or small) whose presence persists will do this with their members; this, by the way, is one of the many reasons for why the Coalition States' inner elite of telepaths and other psychics remains well-hidden. (More on this later in the series.)

So, get into your psychic's head. Get into his body. Imagine how it feels to use those powers, and you will go a long way towards comprehending your man's mind and perspective- which will, in turn, make playing your man a far more satisfying play experience.

Playing a Psychic in Rifts, Part 1: The Basics

Welcome to the next series at Stabilizing Rifts. After spending so much time on magic and magic-users, it seemed natural to go a step to the side and talk about psychics.

I'm going to follow much the same pattern as I did before, with this post and a few others covering the basics and establishing the foundation for the rest of my posts on this topic. Then I will cover the broad archetypes for psychic characters, followed by the posts on specific Psychic types. Instead of "P.C.C.", I will use "Psychic"; "Occupation" will be used where relevant, as I did with the magic-user posts.

That said, the basics.

• Psychics are born, not made, barring a few exceptions throughout the Megaverse. Magic can be taught; psychic powers are inherent from birth, though they may be latent in expression until a triggering event is had. How they manifest varies greatly, but they tend to conform to a series of archetypes that are commonplace (with variation) across the Megaverse.
  
• Psychics do not manifest obvious displays of power use, in the way that magic-users do, when using their powers. They can be still, silent, and display no audio or visual effects by default. While many psychics do make gestures, etc., it is not required; the mark of a disciplined psychic is one that ruthlessly exploits this fact to his benefit and the detriment of his opposition. (Specific powers, on the other hand, can and do make such displays; it's hard to ignore a Psi-Sword suddenly manifesting in a user's hands.)
  
• Psychic are much in the same boat as magic-users who don't truly understand their powers; they can, and do, acquire a body of practical techniques but true comprehension of what their powers are and how they work remains beyond most psychics' grasp- and it cannot be taught, as such. Psychic training is, therefore, akin to martial arts training is that the process is intended to be a controlled stress environment wherein senior psychics oversee juniors and guide them in how to make the best use of their powers. (Think X-Men, Xavier's school for mutants.)
  
• Psychics, like mundanes, are diverse in both depth and breadth of power. All psychics are not equal, and as with mundanes they are going to fall into a hierarchy built upon that disparity of power as an emergent and persistent property of their existence- there is no "all men are equal" here.
  

There, we have some pillars to build upon for next week. See you then.

Playing a Magic-User in Rifts, Part 20: Epilogue

We're at the end.

Going over the way magic works, and the useful examples of how magic-use manifests, in RIFTS has proven quite instructive and beneficial to me over these past few months. Most of what I wrote about here can be applied to other RPGs, be they tabletop games (e.g. Dungeons & Dragons) or video games of various genres (e.g. World of Warcraft, Dragon Age: Origins), so I do hope that you keep them in mind. Furthermore, because I applied some real-world occultism (*gasp!*) to bring order to the usual Palladium mess of concepts and conceits, you can look over at the New Age and Occult shelves at the bookstore for sources to fill the gaps that Palladium's amateurism and incompetent approach leaves in the material.

So, let's review the core of magic in this game:

• Magic can be taught. At first it's by supernatural entities striking deals with ordinary mortals for the former's reasons, but in time it always turns into a wholly secular pursuit no different to how real-world science and engineering works: a body of lore on how the universe works, then applied as useful tools to solve practical problems and open new avenues of interaction.
  
• Magic is both science and technology; the use of spell and ritual is how the science is applied as technology. Since both are internal to the user, this makes the knowledge into the tool and not just a means to get to a tool; this is why magic is considered dangerous- it doesn't give people bombs, it makes people into autonomous bomb-throwing bomb factories.
  
• Magic is natural. It's powered by infinitely-renewable, clean (by default), naturally-occurring energy and the core of all use of magic is the ability to tap into this energy and transmute it into whatever form the desired effect takes. "Unnatural" magical energies, therefore, are caused by pollution into these natural clean flows by other entities. A magic-using civilization is one of the most environmentally-friendly ones possible, and it is always one that is post-scarcity so long as that magic energy remains available.
  
• Magic-using civilizations are, without fail, always going to become stronger and tougher than those that eschew it; you can't be a Megaversal power-player if you are not a magic-user. This is why magic-use is a leveling thing, restricted where it is used by those in power and outright persecuted by those that don't; this includes those civilizations who have access to powers akin to (but are not) magic, for all intents and purposes.
  

Magic, contrary to what most think, is Promethean. It is how a simple boy born in the middle of nowhere in a backwater world as the son of an utterly ordinary man can become a godlike being contending successfully with Megaversal powers on their own terms; other routes to that destination require qualities that cannot be taught, require transformation of one's body or mind, or have some other random element or external constraint forever freezing out people out and keeping down those let in. Magic alone has no such constraints; the limits to a magic-user's scale and scope of power is entirely dependent on the will, imagination, and drive of the user- and those already at that point are well-aware of this fact, which is why they act as they do (out of either fear or love) with regard to magic and magic-users. Magic is what makes mortals and gods into equals, and the gods never forget that fact- and neither do powerful mortals made powerful through the use of magic. Remember this in your games and characters to come.

Next week, I begin "Playing a Psychic".

Playing a Magic-User in RIFTS, Part 19: An Overview of the Megaverse

Aside from the core of North America (i.e. Coalition territory) and a few places with similar attitudes, magic-use is a far more complex socio-political matter and its going to leave its mark wherever it goes.

• The magical societies of the entire Megaverse, let alone Rifts Earth, are tied together by groups of Ley-Line Walkers (and those with the same power; this is an Atlantean-dominated group) and supplemented by Shifters (and similar practitioners). Massive levels of conspiratorial and operational capability requires their involvement; this is one of the reason for why "major power" and "institutional magic-use" go hand-in-hand, because non-users cannot operate on this level.
  
• This includes the dimensions where demons, devils, angels, etc. reside; cross-dimensional schemes require command over ley lines and dimensional rifts, something that only magic-use reliably provides. Because these entities are the top-tier powers in the whole of the Megaverse, their conflicts will encompass and subsume everything else; they operate on scopes and scales that make even the long-term perspectives of god-like intelligences seem somehow subpar- but their motivations are hardly beyond mortal comprehension.
  
• Magical societies of any significant maturity will be aware as to the existence of other dimensions. Fully mature societies will possess a mostly-accurate comprehension of what the dimensional connections binding the Megaverse together are, and how they interact; this includes the critical matter of mana flows (i.e. very powerful such as Rifts Earth, moderate such as Palladium, or weak-as-shit like some other dimensions; the latter ones are avoided and treated as useless backwaters, sometimes exploited as a place to dump dissidents and criminals).
  
• The gods and similar powers are very powerful, and from a mortal and gameplay point of view might as well be omnipotent, but they are not truly alien in their mentality and not truly omnipotent either; when working at a Megaversal scope and scale, we'll see comprehensible motivations and actions coming out of these godlike beings. The illusion comes from the limited perspective that most beings possess relative to that of the greatest powers in the Megaverse; this means that perspective, knowledge, and paying attention are keys being a successful magic-user regardless of Occupation- it's how magic-users born as humble, ordinary mortals can become viable competition to the most god-like of entities.
  
• Operating at this level means that maintaining awareness, and quickly getting up to speed on local conditions, is vital; your man need to be as much a competent scholar and intelligence operator as you are a magic-user (which, given the real world history of occulism and occulist overlap with espionage and intelligence operations, is hardly unusual). Gandalf, returning to a well-known example, was as much a handler and operative as he was a wielder of knowledge often hidden and employed in equally hidden ways (in addition to actual supernatural powers). (There is also the examples of Jack Parsons, for those wanting inspiration for a Techno-Wizard angle, and John Dee for a more old-school example.)
  
• Operating at the Megaversal level means that your fiction inspiration starts with the Lensman series and those that it inspired: The Green Lantern Corps, the Nova Corps, and (inside the game) Cosmo-Knights. That doesn't necessarily mean that your man wields such power, but that your man does possess the capability to think and operate on that level and therefore may acquire that degree of power- but it's not strictly necessary to be effective.

Playing a Magic-User in RIFTS, Part 18: An Overview of the Three Galaxies

As noted in the Interlude, I'm bringing this series to a close as its useful life has run out.

This week, as an end-cap, I'm going to bring some notes about playing a Magic-User away from the core milieu of the game and bring my notes instead on the wider Megaverse over the next few weeks.

• The Three Galaxies has a norm of institutional magic use, such that de facto techno-wizardry is the norm (and by that, I mean that is it normal to view magic and science as separate, but complimentary, disciplines). Magic-users are core parts of all of the agencies of the Three galaxies, either as full agents or as associates/auxiliaries. Each of the major powers (and, by extension, many minor ones) recognize the power and advantage that magic use grants to those that employ it, so anti-magic sentiment is rare out of institutions and almost as rare out of populations. The sentiment of the Coalition States, therefore, is one of the things that would mark it as a minor power (if recognized at all) in the wider scheme of things.
  
• Institutional magic use also means institutional magic development and refinement. Unlike most of Rifts Earth, magic-users in the wider Three Galaxies are far more likely (regardless of the form of their magic) to enjoy the benefits (and pay the costs) of a formalized and systematized pedagogy. There will be "Harvard men", "Oxford men", etc. because institutions leave their marks upon those that pass through them and those marks become tells to those who are aware of them. Relationships between educational and training institutions and various agencies of Megaversal powers will form and normalize, much as they do in real life between our universities and governments or corporations. (e.g. The Consortium of Confederated Worlds' service academies will include magic-users, and those magic-users who come out of those academies will go on to join the CCW Fleet, and then those who survive will go on to political or corporate positions- and the potential for being a skilled magic-user will be one of the paths out of poverty for CCW residents seeking to better themselves using socially-accepted means.)
  
• Institutional magic use also means institutional awareness of the power that magic provides, and that it can be taught/bestowed upon others, so therefore magic will be treated like any other science or technology which poses a probable threat to a government: it will be regulated, restricted, confined, controlled, and otherwise fettered to minimize that threat while maximizing its benefit to the government. (Or, in actual anarchies, the nation.) Magic use outside of the boundaries set by the government will be like political groups outside such boundaries: they will go underground, act in secret, and operate in a conspiratorial manner. (Much like being a magician or psychic in Coalition territory.)
  
• Magic use in the Three Galaxies, while diverse in an absolute sense, will be homogenized in actual play due to players being in regular contact with the major institutions and their institutional cultures- which, as noted above, will include their magic societies. Local variations will not vary much, if at all, from examples found on Rifts Earth; it's going to be different sets of trappings, but the substance (and therefore the mechanics) will be the same. Shaman are Shaman are Shaman, as it were- and it is still quitely likely that the Kreegor will brutally exterminate them with superior magical prowess coupled to overwhelming conventional firepower should they decide to do so (which further homogenizes the Three Galaxies' magical community).
  
• The minor players, where not already given useful examples in the product chain (e.g. Splugorth), will conform to varying degrees to the examples of the major powers because it is necessary to do so to maintain some form of autonomy apart from them; if they are not lost colonies, auxiliary or vassal states, or otherwise derive their origin from a major power then they will do so because--admitted or not--the example of the major powers is better than their own development and they adapt to survive.
  
• One consequence is that magic-users, in general, will be encountered more often. The bulk of these encounters will be with the tradesmen or technicians of the magical community; their skills and knowledge are narrowly focused, and shallow in depth, but often honed to a professional grade of competency because they--despite being magic-users--are still ensconced in the same level of socio-economic reality as the mundane population. The magic that they work is the means by which they make their living, and as such they either the ambition or the ability to fully manifest the potential that magic-use in general permits to mortal users. This is the realm of NPCs. The technician who oversees the Rift Drive on a United World of Warlocks starship is a magic-using engineeer specialized in the practical aspects of Rifts and dimensional magic theory; he's, at best, Scotty- and not at all Saruman.
  
• Another consequence is that non-users will not take magic as seriously as they should most of the time because the users that they encounter do not wield world-smashing powers, or even city-smashing powers, or have the potential for such; no one worries that the dude making custom bikes in a workshop out of the way of the main street in town is going to unleash nuclear forces that can't be handled- that's what the magic-using technicians and tradesmen are at. As a consequence, the perception of difference between magic and science is somewhat blurred; the conditions for full and proper techno-wizardry are there, but the breakthrough cognitive thought just hasn't happened yet. (Not unusual in real history; the Greeks has steam and hydralic technology, but did not think to use it to do real labor due to the massive slave and servant population.)
  
• Warfare, therefore, will account for what the known norms of magical practice allow for and will--in all competent actors--be planned for as best as that actor's resources allow. As with warfare, so with personal combat; if you're in an environment where your opposition can freely move at short-range with portal mechanics, you're going to train to deal with that and have counters ready to go.
  
• The Three Galaxies is a setting where magic-use is open, wide-spread, and institutionalized magic makes possible. Play accordingly.

Playing a Magic-User in RIFTS: Interlude

While there are plenty more magic-using Occupations in the game, those that remain are now variations on the Archetypes that I put down early on in this series. It is not a useful employment of this space to go over such details, so I won't spend this entry or future ones doing that.

So, wrapping up this series will be some posts on magic-users away from RIFTS Earth, focusing on the other major milieu of the game (i.e. the Three Galaxies), and then--for you tinkers, designers, and others who're inclined to mess with mechanics--some posts on my opinions regarding the strengths and weaknesses of playing a magic-user, and how to exploit the former while fixing the latter.

After that, I'm putting this series on the shelf for a while and shifting gears to another pillar of power in the game: Psychics.