Game: Atomik Psioniks
Publisher: Atomik Vortex Studio
Series: generic
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 9th, February 2003
Reviewer’s Rating: 8/10 [ Really good ]
Total Score: 8
Average Score: 8.00
Atomik Psioniks is an add-on from Atomik Vortex. Like the other add-ons you’ll need a copy of the Atomik Add-On Booklet to use it. Unlike the other add-ons Psioniks is 64 pages long and that’s the largest to date. The booklet is free and I strongly encourage anyone to download it first, check it out and make sure the concept of a generic, suits all game systems, add on is something that you’re comfortable with. Atomik Psioniks is such an add-on, you can use it with whatever roleplaying game or system you want to add psionics to.
Atomik Psioniks is a list of psionic powers for RPGs and it isn’t. The PDF download is more of an intelligent discussion of psionic powers in RPGs and of real life theories than it is a list of kewl powers. After reading this add-on I feel as if I could drop intelligent snippets of Steven Hawking theories into a conversation, reflect on Akashic Records and comment on the Buddic Dimension. I might even note that a powerful telepath wouldn’t need to be able to transmit 12, 742kms to reach around the world because he could simply broadcast his thoughts through the Earth. In fact, if you flick to the bottom of the download you’ll see a page of references the author has used. There are over a dozen books that all have the scholastic ring to them. I’m sure every student will recognise the publisher Prentice Hall. Atomik Psioniks does have that academic air to it and if you’re just after the crunchy bits then you might find yourself flicking past it. I didn’t. I enjoyed every word. I’m all psyched up to run a psionics game now and that must be one of the tell tale signs of a successful RPG product.
The add-on begins by looking at possible origins for the psionic powers. Suggestions include evolutions, drugs, a strange plague, the birth of the mind and more. The beginning is a good place to start. Atomik Psioniks moves on to look at what they call the “Nature of Psionics” and talk about just what the stuff of psion might be; Ether, sheer mind power, influenced energy or other options like the manipulated of probability. There are also different campaign settings where psionics might be appropriate to, super hero, far future, alternative history, mecha and more. Again we’re treated to fairly short but intelligent discussions and observations on these.
The rules for building psionic characters put the generic add-on rules of Atomik Vortex to the toughest test yet and I think they do very well. If the character has psionic powers and if game balance is to be maintained then the character must loose out elsewhere. The add-on rules help you work out just how much swapping and trimming is required. Psionic powers have different strengths too; the character might only be able to use them in times or stress or she might have Marvel Girl like control over them and factors like these also effect just how expensive the extra powers are. It might also be the case that psionic powers are fairly common in the game world or more likely incredibly rare and again the GM can decide whether this is going to impact on the character creation rules. With this attention to detail there’s no surprise when there’s a meaty list of psi-related skills: mediation, parapsychology and others.
The psionic powers are divided into chapter topics. Telepathy, the first chapter, is probably the most widely known psionic power. There are about half a dozen pages and half a dozen sub-sections within the chapter. Sub-sections look at specific forms of telepathy such as mind control, mental blasts, empathy and even memory transplants. This is a discursive chapter since most of the sub-sections really count as a single power in their own right but with varying degrees of strength and control. The discussions tend to look at what might be possible if such a power existed and therefore what the psion might do.
Telekinetic powers are nearly as well know as telepathic powers and they’re the focus of the next chapter of powers. It’s a slightly shorter chapter this time, about five pages long, but follows the same sub-sectioning approach. The telekinetic powers are slightly more “listy” than the telepathic ones. Within the sub-sections there are more instances of individual powers; being able to write with telekinetic powers is a low level talent but being able to fire pebbles and other such objects off like bullets is much harder. In this sense the add-ons lend themselves well to psionic powers. Much of the add-on generic mechanics is able being able to compare and contrast costs and compensation and this scaled comparison is perfectly well suited to increasing or decreasing levels of psionic talent.
This approach of one chapter per “parent” psionic power and sub-sections therein continues to the end of the download. There’s a good mix of powers that most roleplayers will be familiar with and a few more unusual ones that perhaps only ardent genre-readers might know. Perceptive Cognition, fondly known as pre-cog, has a chapter to itself and it has one of the most interesting “is it possible?” discussions in the whole supplement. It’s here that you’ll learn how to paraphrase Hawking ideas. Pre-cog’s cousin, Extra-Sensory Perception, ESP, has a chapter of its own as does Astral Projection. It’s the latter that talks about the various planes of being. Biokinetic Abilities, Thermokinetic Powers and Electrokinetic Powers each have the chance to shine – so to speak. Then there’s Psychodynamic Powers and that’s a special success for Atomik Psioniks as far as I’m concerned because I hadn’t heard the term before. Pschodynamic power is the psionic control of psionic power. If, for example, psionic characters produce a special psion energy as a result of using their powers then pschodynamic psions would be able to directly control that energy. The last chapter of psionic powers per se is for Teleportation and although that’s certainly one I recognise there are some great sub-sections, some specific uses of the power, that I hadn’t thought of and so Psioniks scores another on me.
The last chapter of the download is well worth it even though it doesn’t exactly cover psionic powers directly. Psionic Technology is all about – you guessed it – technology that utilises psionics to make it function or function better. Some mecha games or anime are a classic example of this: the giant mechas can only be piloted by telepaths or sometimes it is a latent telepath that makes for the very best pilot. That would be an example of pscyhotronics. There are plenty of other sub-sections in this final chapter, psychotropic drugs, for example and each one earns its space in the download.
Atomik Psioniks is the best of the first three Atomik Add-Ons published. It’s the largest and psionic powers not only suit the scaling comparison used by the generic system, they are also a classic example of just what you might want a generic add-on for. The download is a real read, I suspect that the type of gamer who’s only interested in the “crunchy bits”, the dice and dots, might not take to the Atomik series in the same way I have. If you’re like me and really do appreciate RPG supplements with a bit more academic bite in them (not to call the crunchers stupid) then you’ll probably find Atomik Psioniks as interesting as it is useful.
