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I know I've ranted about this in short form in the past but I've finally got a full post's worth of material about it now!
Hokay, so. MIND TALENTS! They've been around in literature and stuff since way, way before Spock made his debut on the scene. My first encounter with them in fiction that I can remember was - okay. In books, it was Monica Hughes's The Dream Catcher and then again in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door. On TV, it was that old 1990s X-Men cartoon (hey shut up, it was fun XD) and Counselor Deanna Troi. It's The Dream Catcher that's really the inspiration for how I write societies of people with mental talents; I wasn't really a Trekkie although I have a tone of friends who are. I don't doubt there's some Vulcan influence in my work too - but I digress.
The point of this post was not navel-gazing, it was how to write or RP mental talents in a way that doesn't annoy the bejesus out of people.
This is all my opinion, of course, and I know my way isn't the only way, but the examples I'm about to give are largely in the category of 'this is how NOT to do it well'. Discussion's more than awesome but pls refrain from talking to me as if I were a mentally defunct jumping bean XD
Of course every universe has its own rules; the examples I've given are from my own games and writing and from stuff I've seen myself. These deal with characters who have control over their gifts for the most part.
ETA: It occurs to me that I totally left out any stuff about n00bs. A n00b psychic is prolly going to get an eyeful of brain by accident OFTEN and end up flailing around because they would rather not have seen that dude thinking about that thing that time. This can ALSO be RPed or written annoyingly (along the "OH TEH MELODRAMAZ AND TEH WANGST AND TEH SORROEZ, and so on" lines of things) but for the most part I've dealt with developed psychics, so it's them I'm rambling about mostly. I'll likely deal with n00b psychics at a later date. This is principally about psychics who can control their stuff.
( words omg~ )
Hokay, so. MIND TALENTS! They've been around in literature and stuff since way, way before Spock made his debut on the scene. My first encounter with them in fiction that I can remember was - okay. In books, it was Monica Hughes's The Dream Catcher and then again in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door. On TV, it was that old 1990s X-Men cartoon (hey shut up, it was fun XD) and Counselor Deanna Troi. It's The Dream Catcher that's really the inspiration for how I write societies of people with mental talents; I wasn't really a Trekkie although I have a tone of friends who are. I don't doubt there's some Vulcan influence in my work too - but I digress.
The point of this post was not navel-gazing, it was how to write or RP mental talents in a way that doesn't annoy the bejesus out of people.
This is all my opinion, of course, and I know my way isn't the only way, but the examples I'm about to give are largely in the category of 'this is how NOT to do it well'. Discussion's more than awesome but pls refrain from talking to me as if I were a mentally defunct jumping bean XD
Of course every universe has its own rules; the examples I've given are from my own games and writing and from stuff I've seen myself. These deal with characters who have control over their gifts for the most part.
ETA: It occurs to me that I totally left out any stuff about n00bs. A n00b psychic is prolly going to get an eyeful of brain by accident OFTEN and end up flailing around because they would rather not have seen that dude thinking about that thing that time. This can ALSO be RPed or written annoyingly (along the "OH TEH MELODRAMAZ AND TEH WANGST AND TEH SORROEZ, and so on" lines of things) but for the most part I've dealt with developed psychics, so it's them I'm rambling about mostly. I'll likely deal with n00b psychics at a later date. This is principally about psychics who can control their stuff.
( words omg~ )
