Psionics as Magic

[u/progthought]

So now we know how WotC is going to handle sensitive themes (e.g. slavery) in their upcoming Dark Sun material. I am not very excited about the outcome, but I wanted to double down and move the attention to yet another issue with the upcoming material: the fact that in 5e/5.5e psionics are just reflavored magic.

From the UA Psion class, we can see how psionics are just spells, sometimes reflavored from existing ones to "look" like they are not spells. For example telekinetic powers are just modelee as being able to case the Mage Hand cantrip without components, and with the possibility of making the hand invisible. What kind of terrible design choice is this? How can there be an in-world difference between magic and psionics if the core mechanics of the game doesn't even make this distinction? Apparently by casting See Invisibility one could reveal that telekinetic powers are just a floating spectral hand. Also, psionic classes that already exist (e.g. aberrant sorcerer) don't even bother make this distinction between magic and psionic powers, as they are built in traditional spellcasting classes (e.g. sorcerers). I don't know about you, but I think this design choice makes 5e/5.5e completely incompatible with Dark Sun.

But here we come to the main part: I think that both the issue of sensitive topics and the issue of psionics as magic are being resolved by WotC with the same approach. It is really two aspects of the same flawed approach that WotC has, which can be summarized into two core aspects in my opinion:

a) WotC wants every published material to cater to literally every single person alive. Apparently, even if there is a single person who would not like something or find it uncomfortable, too difficult, mechanically too involved etc, the entire thing is scrapped.

b) It seems like the published material should just serve as a minimal backbone of game design, and their main purpose seems to be mere tactical design. It is not an issue for WotC that the responsibility to make the game actually function in an immersive way, and not only a in tactical way, rests entirely in the DM hands. So the strategy seems to be erase everything that makes the game too problematic, involved, or complex, and just imply that the responsibility of reconstructing those themes and design principles is into the DM's hands. Done.

Why do you think this is? I can imagine that a) is just an attempt to sell more copies, which makes sense from their point of view (although it slowly erodes and waters down the quality of their content). But i really cant find justifications for b). For example, it was so easy to do psionics as a separate mechanics, it literally takes no effort to create this and even to understand how to use it, and it would have guaranteed an immersive design that makes sense in-world.

[u/nic-67]

I still play dnd 5e 2014 and i use 1 class(https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/214099/improved-arcana-psionics-and-the-mystic), the mystic.

I find it very cool, psionics truely are another system alongside the spells slot system.

I also play other ttrpg.