-Bad goes first. Why? Because it's the most important. Telepathy in role play is taboo because it's too close to godmoding/metagaming/the rest of the bad words. The reason for this is that you are playing with other people. It would not be a problem at all if you were writing a novel by yourself, but you don't control all the characters here. Other people wrote them, and only they can know or say what they're thinking. Only they can decide whether or not to let you/your character know what's going on in their heads. Furthermore, I don't like it. I know, personal opinion, but I don't like it for some very good reasons.
- It's misused. You can give people all the guidelines you want. You can give them good reasons, and well thought out arguments, and anecdotes, and some of them will listen. The others will blatantly ignore you, call you "n00b", and rape your character's brain for giggles. That's the internet for you. Telepathy is one of the things that if permitted goes overboard fast. It's like tossing a loaded gun to a crowd of preteens. No matter how much you tell them to be careful, some idiot is going to pull the trigger. There are a lot of idiots on the internet.
- You can't emote it. In a forum/narrative style RP, sure, you could describe it pretty well. In a game/action-based RP, however, all that anyone is going to see or hear is what's going on in front of their faces. Anything in a character's head is not in front of their faces. You could do telepathic conversations (I'll get to that), but psychic battles, trying to break through someone's mental barriers, etc. are all off limits simply because of the play style. The most you could feasibly do is "Felodious scrunches up his face in concentration" or "Felodius looks glossy-eyed and distant in Amy's general direction." It doesn't matter what's actually going on in there. That's all that anybody near you would realistically see. There's an exception. Be patient. I'll get to it. But even with the exception, people standing around you will have no idea what's going on.
- It's a little bit too Special Snowflake. I've seen people play telepathic characters very well, with good reasons for and good reactions to the talent. They're not the ones this is directed toward. More than likely, you're playing fantasy. Magic exists.You can heal people with a thought, throw around fireballs, make pretty flowers grow on a whim, and kill dragons. Do you really need to read people's minds on top of all of that? Most people I've seen using telepathy with their characters have just been doing it to make themselves different from everybody else, without any sort of thought as to why everybody else isn't telepathic. For every character I see who is politely restraining themselves from reading everyone's thoughts, there are ten who go around flinging shadowy mind-sparrows at you just to spice things up (this has happened to me, I kid you not).
-The Good. Even I have to admit that characters with telepathic powers are occasionally fun. It isn't common, but someone who knows how to write them can write up some interesting plots or help out when no one else can. So for the sake of people who can do it successfully, here we go.
- It's handy. Say that Our Brave Hero Felodius has a telepathic friend - we'll call her Thedria - on the other side of the world. Now Thedria's pretty good at taking care of herself, but suddenly some jerks show up and kidnap her. Oh no! But what's this? She can mind-call Felodius and all will be well. Maybe the group needs to see around a corner because they don't know whether or not a troll's there. Astral projection to the rescue. It has perfectly legitimate uses, so long as nobody misuses it.
- It's a fun plot device. Imagine a psychic villain stealthily using his powers to pit Felodius and his compatriots against each other in an attempt to bring them all down. I've played that plot before. It's incredibly fun. Especially if the person playing the villain is a better writer than you (Yes, better than me. Shocking, I know).
- I really can't think of anything else. Feel free to add things in the comments.
Alright, so we've got all of that covered. I'm going to cover the how-to now, but I'm going in with this disclaimer: Only once in a blue moon is there ever a good telepathic character. Unless you absolutely know what you are doing, unless you are a very well-read and experienced writer/role player, please, oh pretty please, sweet mother of ice cream sundaes with mountains of whipped cream and cherries on top, please don't play a telepathic character. Please? For me.
Here we go.
- YOU NEED PERMISSION. Not from me, obviously; I'm probably not going to give it to you - from the people you're playing with. If you have plans to do absolutely anything at all that involves the mind of another character, then you need the permission of the person controlling that character. EVERY TIME. A simple "Hey, can I read Amy's thoughts really quick? Thedria's feeling nosey today" will probably do. You need to do this every time you want to read anyone's mind because at any time they may not want you to. That is their choice. It is their right to tell you no, and you have to respect that.
- Communicate! In order to read someone's mind, you obviously have to know what they're thinking, and because you're not in control of that other character, you have to ask the person who is to tell you discreetly and OOC.
- Remember your perspective. Everything that you're doing telepathically is only going on in your head, and the heads of people you're affecting. Remember how I mentioned in the list of bad things that it's practically impossible to emote? Well it is, to everyone not involved, by which I mean everyone not included in the mind link or what have you. Thedria very well could be having a psychic battle with her evil twin Badria, but even if Felodius is standing right next to her, he's going to see nothing but a couple of very concentrated-looking women. One of them might wince every once in a while. That's about it. Thedria and Badria, however, could be having the fight of their lives in private party chat or a whisper. Felodius will have not one fracking clue. So if you're going to have a psychic battle with other people standing around, for their sake, wince, or stumble, or something to make it interesting. Maybe say something out loud by accident. Also, please no shadowy mind sparrows.
- Concentrate. How many times did you drift off and look at something else in the middle of reading this? I'm not mad at you, I have a short attention span too. I'm not personally psychic in any form so I can't know for certain, but I think it's reasonable to assume that doing anything with telepathic skills is going to require a lot of concentration. Your character will probably have had to train themselves a little to deal with that. They may have to concentrate hard to use their powers or to consciously not use their powers, but you can bet that it will probably enter the game at some point. If they lose their concentration, things could backfire. Remember that any time they spend meditating, in a trance, trying not to implode people's brains, etc., is time that they're not spending on training with swordsmanship or beer pong (or the fantasy version of that. Mead pong?).
- Be nice. This is more OOC than anything else, because people you don't know are probably going to be iffy about you playing out a taboo, no matter how good you are. They might ask what's going on when a group of you are huddled around in a park emoting blank stares. They may even insult you. Don't snap at them. Just explain that this is what you and your friends have decided to do right now, all of you have consented to it, and they don't have to participate if they don't want to. And if that doesn't work, there's generally an ignore feature. ;)
I think you're prepared now. You know the basics, at least. You know why it's considered something that people generally shouldn't do. And so I am asking you please, if you have any measure of restraint at all, pretty please, oh please, oh please, refrain from playing a telepathic character simply for the sake of playing a telepathic character. Play one because you're a good writer and the character makes sense. Play one because it's an insidious villain. Play it because your usual group gave you the go-ahead. Don't play it to put words in people's mouths.
