I just grabbed this one off the shelf because I wanted an example of a GURPS powers book for this week and it is always fun to bag on psionics, right? Imagine my shock when I read through it and found it to be…pretty cool.

I feel like psionics are generally hard to grasp. This might be because they were poorly implemented in the original D&D rules and that cast a long shadow over other games. It might also be that while amazing mental powers sound pretty cool, in a mechanical sense they aren’t super dynamic. Two guys punching each other is always going to be zippier than two guys staring at each other while looking constipated.

The GURPS Psionics book (1991) is a little more robust. It takes the basic psionics system from the core rulebook and combines it with the material in Supers. It goes further afield, too, introducing hive minds as well as tackling ghosts and poltergeists.

My favorite chapter is Psychotronics, which looks at psionic technology – computers, dream scanners, starship drives and more. This is psionics at its pulpiest, far removed from the sort of monk-like aestheticism that usually characterized mental abilities. There’s some of that in the book, of course, and some good old hippie-ish psychedelica too. But as far as this sort of thing goes, there is way more variety than I expected. I could, dare I say it, even see myself using this book to run an entirely psi-based campaign. It’s weird enough, I think!

The art is firmly OK, hitting that vaguely clip art GURPS style. It is mostly a bit dull, mixed with some super fun illustrations, like the psychotronic suit or the brain in the jar. Good stuff.