On Sat, 21 Nov 2015 07:46:59 +0000 (UTC), "William Ewing"
<xxxxxx@yahoo.com> wrote:

>>From: Freelance Traveller <xxxxxx@freelancetraveller.com>

>>As I see it, you'd need Probe rather than Read Surface Thoughts to do
>>what you describe above; does a sleeping person _have_ Surface Thoughts
>>to Read? Also, a dreamer need not be a psion; a non-psion won't be able
>>to shield, dreaming or not, and under the standard rules, a psion is
>>automatically shielding all the time once s/he learns how, even when
>>sleeping.

>True, but I was not being terribly specific about ruleset. Second, based
>on X-Men and Star Trek (and other fictons), I assume non-psionic
>characters can develop a skill at shielding or at least annoying
>attempts to read them. Sleeping while wearing a psishield helmet will be
>very uncomfortable. And a trained adept may be automatically shielding
>when asleep, but that defense cannot be as good as a shield that they
>can modify as it is attacked. And I also assume that epilepsy can be
>triggered by teeping, with effects hitting the teeper AT LEAST as hard
>as the epileptic, who will have much more experience with the disorder
>than the teep will. 

There's no indication in the standard psi rules for any version of
Traveller that I recall that allows a non-psi to ever be able to
'naturally' (i.e., without techological assistance) shield or even
interfere with psi being used against him/her.

I'd have to look into just what happens during an epileptic episode in
real life (Rob O'Connor, are you still on the list and can you
comment?), but I do recall reading about at least one theory that might
allow for telepathically-induced (and therefore possibly
dreamwalker-induced) epileptic episodes.

>I like Asimovs (mentioned in B5, should be self-explanatory).

Since B5 was pretty much after I gave up watching TV, and I never had
cable anyway, this reference is lost on me - a quick explanation
wouldn't be taken amiss...

>                                                              Nodes (a
>novel I read; the psi imprints his personality and powers on a victim
>who then acts in his interests with a weaker version of his powers.Nasty
>things to do to PCs!)

Yes, this does sound nasty, and I'd never allow it in _my_ Traveller
games; it's too powerful/unbalancing. But it also sounds interesting,
and may be worth writing some rules for (separate from dreamwalking).
Can you provide a bit more information about the novel? Author, possibly
publisher, verify the title, etc.?

>                     I invented telegraphy in the 80s (teeping the
>opponents next actions from body language, nerves, and surface thoughts,
>without concentration, while in melee). Directed teke - instead of
>levitating things away from you, teke things you touch, or yourself -
>lift heavy items as if you are superstrong, leap like a Jedi, or express
>it as a third arm, like Gil the Arm. Sapience - tap the racial memory to
>'know' anything  - IF you can find someone who knows it. Madness can
>fool them into thinking they know it, so when you find them...

All of these sound potentially interesting; I urge you to write them up
in more detail, even if it's not for Freelance Traveller.

>Maybe this will give you some ideas? Because I still see dreamwalking as
>little more than a background flavor article, not something PCs will cue
>in on. If I used it as the explanation for a Manchurian Candidate
>situation, how many players would see the difference between
>dreamwalking, dominate, or any other mind control technique? The
>difference would fly over their heads. Dreamwalking allowing the changes
>to avoid seeming to caused by domination or other psionic means would
>make the players feel I lied to them when they find out he was
>programmed that way, even if I showed them the passage in the article
>that makes it clear that dreamwalking can program responses that seem
>natural and not installed psionically. They'd hare off looking for
>nanites or cranial screw-top brain surgery.

Dreamwalking isn't necessarily useful as something used _against_ the
PCs without clue-yielding setup and effects, and certainly not by one
NPC against another as an enigma for the PCs to solve (why is he acting
this way?). It's more intended for PCs to potentially use in the course
of an adventure, either to get information or to ensure that Something
Happens. With the addition of the training/learning rules, it's
distinctly possible for it to be used to cut the amount of time required
to gain a skill.

Also, this is meant as a supplement to the standard rules, which to the
best of my recollection don't include the cliché mind-control powers
(what you refer to as Dominate and Mind Control here). No rule can be
written to be 'neutral' with respect to all possible 'house rules', so
rather than trying to be all things to all people, it's best to write a
house rule (which is what Doing It My Way in Freelance Traveller is all
about) so that it's relatively balanced against the standard rules, or
perhaps the standard rules plus most widely-know common house rule
(e.g., in 1977 CT, using the Optional Survival Rule rather than
enforcing die-in-chargen-on-failed-survival-roll).

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Jeff Zeitlin, Editor
Freelance Traveller
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