A Psionics Sytem Using Playing Cards for Old School D&Ds and BRPs

Zener cards

First, you gotta see if you are psychic. You must roll a d100 at or under your mind stats (one chance per each stat. So in D&D you would roll three times, once each vs your INT, WIZ, and CHA.

Since the average score for an ability is around 10 if you are doing 3d6, you overall end up with about a 27% chance of being psychic in this system, so DMs gotta be aware that it won't be rare if they adopt this rule.

Let's get to the actual meat of the post. The brain meat. If your GM has access to those psychic guessing cards from Ghostbusters, use those. Most tables will have to use tarot or playing cards tho. Do magicians shops have Zener cards?

Anyhoo, to do a psionic thing, negotiate the potential effects this the ref and then guess a card (Zener) or a suit. If you guess right, you did the thing without issue. If you guess wrong, you take a consequence in accordance with how hardcore you pulsated your temple-veins.

when she goes
for closing the
gate at the end
of a season,
that is a
high stakes risk

For instance, if you tried to scanners a guy's noggin to pulp. The game Judge may simply say, "you're dead." But I say if you are trying to splode a simple mook's pituitary, the stakes are still low. If the stakes are low, I think it is more appropriate to have a psychic nosebleed.

You take damage from the nosebleed equal to the number that appears on the card (face cards make you pass out). Since Zener cards don't have obvious numbers, count the lines on them (a circle has 1 line, an star has 5).

See, now that you know they are more forgiving, you are going to buy the game facilitator a deck of these Zener things.

One parting bit of consideration: as a PC gains experience, perhaps they should get a little bit better at doing the dramatic stuff. Maybe once you get seasoned, stuff that used to be dramatic, like picking up a whole semi truck, are not quite as risky for you as they used to be. Or maybe you get to draw two cards and take the best for something that is now a tried and true power for you. The world is your Ψ-oyster.

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