This was always an odd game for me. The system gave me headaches, and the powers in the game ranged from disappointing to mildly impressive.
>What's it about?
Psionics is about a world where Project MKUltra caused people to develop psionic powers. And now people are developing psionic powers independent of that, usually through giving people specialized drugs, random chance or putting chemicals in the water.
There's a crap ton of secretive organizations running around, collecting Espers for their own purposes.
>The Power System?
For a game about Psychic Powers, they have a pathetically small assortment. Powers work in a level system from 1 to 6 (with each level giving you several capabilities). Powers are divided into 3 categories:
Telekinesis: Moving macro-scale objects with your mind.
Pyrokinesis: Molecular manipulation (according to the game, all Pyrokineticists can manipulate both cold and fire; they should be called Thermokineticists).
Telepathy: Mental manipulation. Rather heretically called "Psychokinesis" by the game.
Additionally, each of these three has three advanced powers that can only be accessed by being sufficiently powerful in their parent skill. These only go up to Level 4.
TK gets Necrokinesis (causing heart attacks and such), Biofeedback (healing yourself and others) and Somatokinesis (enhancing your muscles).
Pyrokinesis gets Entropokinesis (making thing decay on a molecular level and epic radiation blasts) Magnekinesis (not actually magnetic manipulation at all; it's a power revolving around manipulating the weather) and Synchronicity (probability manipulation).
Finally, Telepathy (I refuse to call it "Psychokinesis" as the writer insists) gets Scrying (D&D's Clairsentience, basically) Osmosis (draining other people's energy) and Technokinesis (magnetic manipulation and tech control).
Like D&D, using your psionics costs Power Points, proportionate to how powerful a power is. It also causes you to take an amount of nonlethal (sometimes lethal) damage. Oh, and it also causes what's called Overflow. If you reach a certain threshold of overflow, you basically undergo a psychic meltdown as you kill everything around you (and likely yourself) in a daze where you can't control your character.
Drugs have particularly serious effects on you, and can cause you to lose or gain Power Points or Overflow. As can sex. The book explicitly states that combining sex and drugs could end up turning into a disaster.
On the bright side, if you inject more of the chemicals that give you psionic powers, your powers increase. I like that.
Alright, that's my piece on the matter. Anyone else looked at this game?