Established Psionics Institutes in Traveller

[Sigtrygg]

There is always the T4 psionic Institutes book

T4 Psionic Institutes - Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) | Traveller 4 (T4) | DriveThruRPG.com

T4 Psionic Institutes - The beginning days of the new Sylean empire are a time of open acceptance of psionic powers and those who have them. Ins

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[PeterFdH]

Campaign Compatible takes priority. Canon Compatible is nice.

Canon is only mandatory for the writers.

I was just looking for canon compatible as an ideal since most of the books I will be using are Mongoose 2E. For the purposes of this, it was just that one of my players randomly got psionics in character creation so the suggestion of Wypoc was a perfect foil. I note that the planet does research in protecting vs. hazardous environments so have made that research centre a cover for psionics 'research'.😁

 

[Vormaerin]

There is always the T4 psionic Institutes book

T4 Psionic Institutes - Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) | Traveller 4 (T4) | DriveThruRPG.com

T4 Psionic Institutes - The beginning days of the new Sylean empire are a time of open acceptance of psionic powers and those who have them. Ins

www.drivethrurpg.com

That's probably a pretty good source for how things were a thousand years ago, before the Psionic Suppressions Does it have more recent info? I have to admit, I didn't buy much T4 stuff and had forgotten all about that book.

 

[GypsyComet]

And yet, this thread suggests that not everyone is aware of the *relative* importance of Canon.

If a Referee insists on staying Canon compliant in the face of little or no actual material, then that is a choice. But Campaign should *always* come first. Canon is, perhaps surprisingly, very flexible when it comes to some things. Institutes are one of those. The Imperial Orders that shut down, then reopened, the Institutes in the 800s make the case that Institutes in the 1100s can be anywhere, look like anything, and be as easy or as difficult to identify as the campaign needs.

If you know Canon well enough to be worried, then you should also be in an excellent position to design a Canon compliant encounter with an Institute. Trust yourself. Your players do.

 

[GypsyComet]

Does it have more recent info? I have to admit, I didn't buy much T4 stuff and had forgotten all about that book.

It does not. The T4 books are very much about Imperial Years -30 to 200, or so.

 

[MonkeyX]

Not in the Imperium but Blue has one as pieced together in the Drinax books. Also when doing research on mega corps there are a number that run psionics experiments, normally outside Imperium space but that info has to be used somewhere.

 

[Vormaerin]

And yet, this thread suggests that not everyone is aware of the *relative* importance of Canon.

If a Referee insists on staying Canon compliant in the face of little or no actual material, then that is a choice. But Campaign should *always* come first. Canon is, perhaps surprisingly, very flexible when it comes to some things. Institutes are one of those. The Imperial Orders that shut down, then reopened, the Institutes in the 800s make the case that Institutes in the 1100s can be anywhere, look like anything, and be as easy or as difficult to identify as the campaign needs.

If you know Canon well enough to be worried, then you should also be in an excellent position to design a Canon compliant encounter with an Institute. Trust yourself. Your players do.

That's good advice, but I don't see how it has anything to do with anything in this thread. GURPS Psionics Institutes does have some pretty substantive divergence from the core setting, so it is a good idea to warn people about that, so that new players are aware before they buy. I was quibbling with Sigtrygg's "don't buy it at all", because I think that it has some useful info as long as you are aware you can't take all of it at face value for the OTU.

 

[Sigtrygg]

As an OTU source GT PI is worthless, as a generic guide to PI it isn't bad. Like I said, the author appears to know little about the setting and since the OP is asking about the Third Imperium...

 

[Vormaerin]

I get that. I mentioned that I thought the Terra and Wypoc was from GURPS so had canonicity issues. He said he didn't care about that. So I recommended that book, as I found it has some value for the question at hand. It would be nice if there was something better, but the psionic underground is a sadly unexplored area of the universe.

 

[NOLATrav]

If a Referee insists on staying Canon compliant in the face of little or no actual material, then that is a choice.

How is that even possible? Canon with no supporting material is... not Canon? Home-brew? Unable to be complied with?... I don't see a choice here. Either a thing is Canon or it's not.

Clearly everyone can play however they want and I wish them the best but I believe Canonicity is such a straightjacket. In whatever TTRPG system we're playing in. At best Canon should be a guide when you feel lost, or uninspired, or rushed; pick out something cool and run with it, feel free to ignore the rest. It's like everyone says, no prepped material ever survives contact with the players. Why should Canon be any different? Some player is going to say "Well, actually..." and boom they just re-wrote Canon.

And yet, this thread suggests that not everyone is aware of the *relative* importance of Canon.

This could be read as "Canon is irrelevant." Which is why I flipped the order of your statements, to hopefully make my own more clear.

Maybe it's just semantics. MWM said "I am bound by canon" but then he's retconned quite a bit of stuff over the last several years.

 

[Vormaerin]

IMTU (In My Traveller Universe) is what matters at your table and no one in this thread has ever suggested that your table has to be canon compliant. That was a strawman put up, presumably as a result of misreading Sigtrygg's and my digression. But if someone asks on the forums for information about how a certain thing works, one should at least identify whether your answer is an official rule or a house rule. Or whether it is official lore or alternate universe lore. What they do with that information after that is up to them.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The OP asked about PI in the Third Imperium setting.

This highlights again the issue with many people thinking Traveller is the Third Imperium setting.

If someone asks for Traveller rules on PI I would direct them to the GURPS product, the T4 product and a couple of CE based products.

But if the question is about the setting then canon rears its contradictory, incomplete, liable to retcon hydra heads

 

[Garran]

Within the Imperium, the navy's Vanejen research base also deals with psionics. This is covered in a couple of places, including an adventure. It isn't an institute in the sense of teaching psionics skills; it's just for the study of psionic creatures and phenomena.

Still, it might be enough, depending on why the OP needs to place one.

If it's for the sake of a PC with psionics training then a hidden institute is probably the go-to option. A not-so-hidden institute outside of Imperial space also works; visiting the Zhodani to learn it would invite all kinds of trouble, both there and on returning to the Imperium, but they aren't the only ones who openly practice psionics.

 

[Vormaerin]

The OP asked about PI in the Third Imperium setting.

This highlights again the issue with many people thinking Traveller is the Third Imperium setting.

If someone asks for Traveller rules on PI I would direct them to the GURPS product, the T4 product and a couple of CE based products.

But if the question is about the setting then canon rears its contradictory, incomplete, liable to retcon hydra heads

Yeah, I didn't actually recommend that GURPS product until after he said he didn't care about canonicity

But on the point of the Third Imperium setting.... even that isn't all Third Imperium. I could be misremembering, but I think only the "Third Imperium" sourcebook on Core is actually about a region that is entirely in the Imperium. Every other sector book IIRC is a frontier or completely outside the Third Imperium. Just because the default setting assumption is that the PCs are citizens of the Third Imperium doesn't mean that they are actually adventuring inside the Third Imperium.

 

[Garnfellow]

The GURPS Psionics Institutes book is possibly the worst book they ever put out. The author had no clue that psionics are outlawed in the Imperium. Avoid it.

What on earth are you talking about? Unless the earlier version of this book was heavily revised, the author pretty clearly understands the canonical background. The introduction to my copy (Version 1.1 November 22, 2005) makes this clear:

Finding a psionics institute depends on who you are, where you are, and what year it is. . . .

[Within] the Imperium prior to the Psionic Suppressions (800 to 826), finding an institute for psionics was no more challenging than locating any mundane college. During the Suppressions, institutes lost their charters and their leaders were imprisoned. Whole families faced persecution and many fled to more sympathetic worlds outside the Imperium or to the Zhodani Consulate. The psions that remained in the Imperium went underground, changing their names, their occupations, and living double lives. In the nearly 300 years since, the use of psionics has remained ostensibly illegal and psionics institutes officially banned. However, the Imperium secretly established two psionics institutes of its own, disguising them as military installations, and continues the covert use of psions.

Worlds outside the Imperium and the Consulate vary from oppression to acceptance of psis, and everything in between.

 

[PeterFdH]

It's all good. I guess my initial query was about using something written out for the OTU. However, when it became apparent that there was no such thing then I was grateful for any suggestions, be they books or planets. As it happens Wynoc fitted the pc perfectly due to its proximity from his homeworld and the wiki entry gave me ideas for a neat cover. It's not completely fleshed out but it doesn't need to be right now. Leaving it open has its advantages....(mwahaha...).

 

[Sigtrygg]

What on earth are you talking about? Unless the earlier version of this book was heavily revised, the author pretty clearly understands the canonical background. The introduction to my copy (Version 1.1 November 22, 2005) makes this clear:

I apologise, having now read v1.1 it is a much better book than the one I remember.

 

[GypsyComet]

How is that even possible? Canon with no supporting material is... not Canon? Home-brew? Unable to be complied with?... I don't see a choice here. Either a thing is Canon or it's not.

Canon is only vital to writers of future published material. To a Referee, Canon is just a designation for universally familiar elements.

This could be read as "Canon is irrelevant."

To a Referee, it CAN BE irrelevant. The Campaign at the table should ALWAYS be the priority. If Canonicity helps the campaign design and player immersion, GREAT! If the body of Canon helps inform a decision that isn't specifically outlined, and that decision doesn't disrupt the Canon everyone is using at the table, EVEN BETTER. That's what "Canon Compliant" means.

In this case, there is little said directly about the internal structure of Psionics Institutes, and the few bits we have across all editions are different. To some, that leads to a crisis of Canon. To others, that says something else: "Published Canon says these institutes are not all the same, so I can make the one I'll be using different as well."

Canon is also, like the old saw about politics, *local*. If my campaign is in the Marches, the Canon regarding modern events in Diaspora is indeed irrelevant, and the Canonical list of historical events there is probably 99.9% irrelevant. Who cares how the Institute on Terra is run? I'm in Deneb! Years of travel away across an Imperium that is Canonically diverse. Terra's Institute is one example within that diversity, not a cookie cutter for every Institute everywhere.

And if you, the Referee, decide that Institutes in the 1100s are, in fact, all or mostly alike, you are still Canon compliant because Canon doesn't say anything. AND you've now implied a new Secret for the players to discover. After three centuries of scattering into hiding on diverse worlds, why are they all still so alike? If that answer doesn't invalidate the Canon in use at the table, then even this is Canon compliant.