Can anybody give a reasonable explanation?

[Mendicant]

I assume you've heard the old joke:

"What do you call the person who graduates with the lowest possible passing grade in med school?"



Lieutenant.

[NigelWalmsley]

A. For every wizard, there is an equal and opposite wizard. Wizards don’t rule because other wizards don’t want them to.

Why not? Who's more likely to support pro-Wizard policies, Wizards or Fighters? Wizards aren't fighting over finite resources. They benefit a great deal from sharing resources (most notably spells) with other Wizards.


B. Return on investment. You can use your magic to summon and control djinns. Or you can use your magic to control peasants. Which one is worth more?

You don't need to use magic to control peasants, just as historically kings weren't all out in the fields threatening to stab people to get grain. The power of politics is creating structures where other people can be made to work on your behalf, without you having to personally go out and do things.


C. The most powerful people aren’t the most powerful entities. Clerics don’t rule kingdoms because that’s not what their gods ask them to do.

Some gods do ask their servants to rule. If you assume there are people not doing that, all that happens is the nations with superior magical firepower conquer the rest. Remember, you can't just explain why some countries aren't mageocracies, you have to explain why non-mageocracies are able to remain stable when in conflict with mageocracies. Or you can just accept that mageocracies will eventually dominate and play games set before then if you don't find that appealing.


D. It’s a thankless, trivial job. The wizards are controlling cosmic, monumental forces. Why would they want to waste their time holding courts, negotiating treaties, managing bureaucrats, and otherwise doing menial work (for a wizard).

Why would anyone? Anyone powerful enough to rule a kingdom has the resources to retire to a pleasure palace full of blackjack and hookers. One might reasonably assume some of them do (certainly you can find plenty of examples of real rulers who spent more time partying than ruling). But someone has to end up ruling, and there's no particular reason to think that Wizards would be less interested in doing so. At minimum, a kingdom guarantees a steady stream of resources for whatever magical stuff you're doing.


E. It doesn’t make the game any more fun.

It also doesn't make the game any less fun. If you're going to do traditional dungeon delving, you care very little who's in charge politically. If you're going to do something that does care about politics, the politics need to be internally consistent.


Is there any reason why a wizard ruler would be able to summon better or more archons than a court wizard ?

No. But there's every reason to assume that a magocracy will have more Wizards. And therefore be able to summon more archons, Fabricate more goods, and generally bring more magic to bear. And as a result they will eventually overcome other forms of government. Just as historically, nations with gunpowder conquered the ones without it.


As J. K. Rowling wrote:

The existence of Wizard Civil Wars is not a good argument against Wizard rulers. In fact, it's a concession that to get anything meaningful done, you need Wizards on your side.

[Cluedrew]

E. It doesn’t make the game any more fun.
This is probably the best point anyone's made yet.I have... at least one reason I think it makes a lot of sense but even if it doesn't the result doesn't seem as fun. Actually it doesn't seem as general, there are still some stories you can set in a world were everything is run by wizards but that isn't as interesting.

Oh my natural reason is this: a wizard hasn't invested the time and energy into becoming a politician and leader. Someone who has put the time into studying conflict resolution, law, speechwriting and the other skills for politics is going to do a better job than a comparable individual who studied magic which doesn't have much of an overlap.

Not that magic isn't useful for a government, but court wizards and other wizards in society can fill that role better than a wizard-king as the wizard and king part can get in the way of each other.

[Satinavian]

No. But there's every reason to assume that a magocracy will have more Wizards. And therefore be able to summon more archons, Fabricate more goods, and generally bring more magic to bear. And as a result they will eventually overcome other forms of government. Just as historically, nations with gunpowder conquered the ones without it.
Well, that depends what is needed to become a wizard, but most likely a magocracy will not have more wizards. The same number of people with a talent for wizardry are born and because wizards are quite useful, every normal country will try to make wizards out of them as well. You don't need to actually be a spellcaster to notice how magic is useful and powerful.

Why would a magocracy have more wizards ?

[Nifft]

Why would a magocracy have more wizards ?

Well, like, you know how Monarchies have more kings...

--- ------ ---

Perhaps if a Magocracy puts all Wizards in some kind of special privileged class, then it'll attract foreign Wizards who want those same special privileges.

But if it's literally just "one Wizard on top" then there's no reason to assume more Wizards would appear there, unless magical talent were hereditary and the "one Wizard on top" had a lot of bastards, for a lot of generations...

[mindstalk]

I don't see how a magocracy makes things *less* fun either. Maybe more fun if governments not optimized for competence in governance provide more problems for PCs to solve. Then again hereditary monarchy isn't optimized either.

# of wizards could go either way. More wizards because there's more investment put into training, more wizards because they're not being killed off by witch-hunts, more wizards (sorcerers, dragon-blooded) because they're sleeping around more spreading their genes, fewer wizards because the wizards in charge suppress competition...

[Cluedrew]

To mindstalk: I clarified that it was more less general than your standard model. Mostly because of the implied increase in, or increased availability of, high-level characters (wizards and mages in particular, but the same would happen with most characters). If they are part of the government service than any problem will eventually work its way up to them. So unless the PCs are the high level wizards who alternate politics and running out to cast a few powerful spells, they will be getting the jobs that do not rate their intervention. And if that list is almost as long as the original setting... why are the wizards in charge? Which could lead to the second option: the PCs are fighting against the magical government.

[NigelWalmsley]

I have... at least one reason I think it makes a lot of sense but even if it doesn't the result doesn't seem as fun. Actually it doesn't seem as general, there are still some stories you can set in a world were everything is run by wizards but that isn't as interesting.

Sure, there are stories you can't tell in a setting where things are run by Wizards. But there are stories you can't tell in a setting where things aren't run by Wizards. Any setting, by its nature, excludes some things. That's what allows your setting to have a meaningful identity. The stories you can tell in Eberron are different from the stories you can tell in Middle Earth which are different in turn for the stories you can tell in Ravnica. That's not an argument for or against any of those settings in particular, it's an argument for making sure the setting your game is using is compatible with the stories you want to tell.


Oh my natural reason is this: a wizard hasn't invested the time and energy into becoming a politician and leader. Someone who has put the time into studying conflict resolution, law, speechwriting and the other skills for politics is going to do a better job than a comparable individual who studied magic which doesn't have much of an overlap.

There are casting classes with Diplomacy as a class skill. There's nothing stopping you from being an archmage and also a skilled politician.


Why would a magocracy have more wizards ?

Imagine that we replaced democracy with a system of government based on who could run the fastest 100m dash. Do you think the number of people training for the 100m dash would go up or down?


Well, like, you know how Monarchies have more kings...

I mean, you're actually right. Well, it's Knights, not Kings. Medieval societies were structured the way they were because Knights were the defining military technology of the age. What ultimately lead to the collapse of feudal societies was the invention of technologies that allowed you to field armies that beat Knights without needing the support system they required.


Perhaps if a Magocracy puts all Wizards in some kind of special privileged class, then it'll attract foreign Wizards who want those same special privileges.

You don't need anything like that. Wizards benefit from other Wizards existing. Another Wizard can let you copy spells from his spellbook, or do Circle Magic shenanigans with you, or craft magic items for you. There are lots of things Wizards can get from other Wizards that they can't get from random peasants or even people with non-caster PC classes. The game could certainly do more to enforce it, but there are good reasons to expect Wizards to congregate in groups and work together in some kind of Wizard school.


Mostly because of the implied increase in, or increased availability of, high-level characters (wizards and mages in particular, but the same would happen with most characters).

The rate of high level characters doesn't really matter. In some ways, you get a more pronounced effect if there are less high level characters. It's not about how much magic there is, it's about how you deploy the magic that does exist. You could easily imagine setting where there are a small number of powerful Wizards, or a large number of weak ones, or anywhere in the middle.


And if that list is almost as long as the original setting... why are the wizards in charge?

Because it'd be longer otherwise? Also, it's not like the list was going to be arbitrarily long in any case. For any set of problems available for the PCs to try to solve, you could imagine a setting where that list was one item longer. At a certain point, the coherence of the setting is worth more than increasing the length of the list of adventures the party could have gone on, but did not actually go on.

[mindstalk]

I mean, you're actually right. Well, it's Knights, not Kings. Medieval societies were structured the way they were because Knights were the defining military technology of the age. What ultimately lead to the collapse of feudal societies was the invention of technologies that allowed you to field armies that beat Knights without needing the support system they required.

Kings are a lot more widespread than "medieval" or "feudal" societies.

For some of those, you could make a similar argument: "power belonged to people who could afford bronze armor and chariots". And conversely many republics are where you have a city-state where a lot of the population is heavy infantry (Greece, Rome, Swiss cantons), or contributes to naval power as rowers (Athens).

OTOH you also get king-run empires despite a dominance of heavy infantry: Hellenistic empires, later Rome, China.

Possibly that would be different if anyone had invented representative democracy as a way to scale up democracy to large areas, beyond a single city.

[Satinavian]

Imagine that we replaced democracy with a system of government based on who could run the fastest 100m dash. Do you think the number of people training for the 100m dash would go up or down?
Would there be more people training than when a country decided to give everyone who can run faster than X a high paid gouvernment job in the countries runner brigade for life ?

Wizard is a prestigious well paid carreer choice regardless of actual rulership. Wizards are useful so every country would be expected to foster wizards and give incentives to become one. A wizard ruled country would not really have an edge here.

[Nifft]

I mean, you're actually right. Yes, I'm absolutely right -- a monarchy has UP TO ONE KING, and everyone else has ZERO KINGS, so a monarchy really does have more kings because an expected value close to one is more than zero -- it's just that what I'm implying by comparison with magocracy would be wrong, so I used the blue text to inform my clever readers about that.


Well, it's Knights, not Kings. No, it's not knights, it's Kings.

A monarchy has up to one King, and everybody else has zero Kings. Monarchies have monarchs.

The number of knights in a monarchy is entirely unrelated. You might notice that current-day monarchies have roughly the same number of Kings, but far fewer knights.


Medieval societies were structured the way they were because Knights were the defining military technology of the age. What ultimately lead to the collapse of feudal societies was the invention of technologies that allowed you to field armies that beat Knights without needing the support system they required. This has nothing to do with anything I've said, nor anything related to the topic of the thread.

Monarchies and knights have no causal relationship.

[Democratus]

Yes, I'm absolutely right -- a monarchy has UP TO ONE KING, and everyone else has ZERO KINGS, so a monarchy really does have more kings because an expected value close to one is more than zero -- it's just that what I'm implying by comparison with magocracy would be wrong, so I used the blue text to inform my clever readers about that.


An empire has multiple kings and one emperor. At one point, there were scores of kings within the Persian Empire. The same applies to the Roman Empire which, at it's height, included multiple subject nations with kings.

[Nifft]

An empire has multiple kings and one emperor.

Your example empire is made up of multiple monarchies, then, and each with up to one king.

[Democratus]

Your example empire is made up of multiple monarchies, then, and each with up to one king.

The claim was that everything else other than a monarchy has zero kings. Which I have demonstrated as false. An Empire is a form of government with more than one king.

[Max_Killjoy]

The claim was that everything else other than a monarchy has zero kings. Which I have demonstrated as false. An Empire is a form of government with more than one king.

Which empires are you thinking of that had multiple kings subordinate to one emperor?

[hamishspence]

A good fictional example - David Eddings's Tamul Empire (from his Elenium and Tamuli trilogy) - one emperor, multiple Kings/Queens, all answering to the Emperor.

By contrast, "Aloria" in his Belgariad and Mallorean, is more of a federation, with the ruler of one of the states being "first among equals" but there being much more autonomy for the individual states than consistent with an Empire.

Same basic concept - kings & queens, answering to someone senior - but in the federation, there isn't the kind of bureaucracy that there is in the empire, which also has regional governors answering to the emperor rather than the kings.

[Max_Killjoy]

A good fictional example - David Eddings's Tamul Empire (from his Elenium and Tamuli trilogy) - one emperor, multiple Kings/Queens, all answering to the Emperor.

By contrast, "Aloria" in his Belgariad and Mallorean, is more of a federation, with the ruler of one of the states being "first among equals" but there being much more autonomy for the individual states than consistent with an Empire.

Same basic concept - kings & queens, answering to someone senior - but in the federation, there isn't the kind of bureaucracy that there is in the empire, which also has regional governors answering to the emperor rather than the kings.

I was thinking of historical examples.

In many instances, "emperor" and "empire" replace "king" and "kingdom", they aren't just a layer added on top of the normal feudal structure.

[Democratus]

Which empires are you thinking of that had multiple kings subordinate to one emperor?

Assyria is one of the earliest, with an emperor ruling over several city-states - each with their own kings.

Persia is, perhaps, the most famous. With numerous kingdoms, each with a king, subordinate to the Emperor who called himself 'king of kings'.

The Inca empire did the same. The ruler of Tahuantinsuyu proclaimed himself king of kings. The kings of rival states either submitted to his rule or were killed...with their children re-educated and installed as kings under the rule of the emperor.

As for other forms of government containing more than one king there is The Delian League - which contained many polities that had kings (Milos, Kimolos, Imbros, etc.).

[hamishspence]

Persian empires also had regional governors, which were "satraps".

[Max_Killjoy]

Persian empires also had regional governors, which were "satraps".

The regional "rulers" WERE the satraps.

"King of kings" is a form of emphasis, not a literal description -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Kings

[mindstalk]

Yeah, an empire might sometimes subordinate kings as it expands, but it's hardly guaranteed or I think even that common. Kings and emperors both prefer appointed governors, not hereditary nobles or sub-kings, if they can pull it off. Provinces of the Roman empire were overseen by governors, under the Senate or Princeps.

[Cluedrew]

The rate of high level characters doesn't really matter. In some ways, you get a more pronounced effect if there are less high level characters. It's not about how much magic there is, it's about how you deploy the magic that does exist. You could easily imagine setting where there are a small number of powerful Wizards, or a large number of weak ones, or anywhere in the middle.Most of the other points kind of boil down to "well its a matter of degree and it kind of goes by feel so I can only kind of state what I feel". There is no unit to measure variety of stories.

I am however willing to stand on the statement that there is a positive correlation between the number of people with magic (or any type of power at any power level) and how accessible magic (or that power at that power level) is generally in that setting. No it is not a perfect 1-to-1 relationship but still it is there. Now rereading I realized you might not actually have been saying "decreasing the amount of high level magic (users) in a setting increases the general accessibility of high level magic in the setting", but if you were I'm going to disagree with that.

[hamishspence]

The regional "rulers" WERE the satraps.

Yup. Satraps or regional governors could be separate from "the local client kings", in cases where client kings existed.

https://www.ancient.eu/Persian_Governor/

The Parthians also kept the Achaemenid satrapy system but allowed a looser confederation with less emphasis on the central government. Client kings (also known as vassal kings) were allowed to retain their positions and appointed satraps were given greater freedom in making and enforcing policy.


Kings and emperors both prefer appointed governors, not hereditary nobles or sub-kings, if they can pull it off. Provinces of the Roman empire were overseen by governors, under the Senate or Princeps.

It wasn't unheard of for a place to have both a governor, and a client king.

[Nifft]

The claim was that everything else other than a monarchy has zero kings. Which I have demonstrated as false. An Empire is a form of government with more than one king.

Sorry, I can't agree. It seems like "vassal king" is different from what is meant by "king".

[hamishspence]

An empire made up of subordinate monarchies is still an Empire. Emperors might dislike having to deal with sub-kings, but sometimes they're stuck with the situation.

[Nifft]

An empire made up of subordinate monarchies is still an Empire. Emperors might dislike having to deal with sub-kings, but sometimes they're stuck with the situation.

Do these kings have sovereignty over their state?

Is this "empire" some kind of treaty organization, in which signatories pay tax to the "emperor", but have sovereignty as independent states?

That's the way I could see this theory working with non-vassal kings, but at that point you've got an empire which isn't the government for most constituent states, and a bunch of constituent states which belong to a (biased) treaty organization.

[hamishspence]

The usual approach is a degree of sovereignty - but the empire still having some of its own soldiers in place, and a governor.

[NigelWalmsley]

If we really want to play the "you're not even technically correct" game, Sparta had two kings. Also, while some modern countries technically claim to be monarchies, and have kings (or queens), they're democracies in every meaningful sense.


OTOH you also get king-run empires despite a dominance of heavy infantry: Hellenistic empires, later Rome, China.

The institution of the feudal king is different from the way those empires behaved, and the model on which D&D is based. It's a model that is actually very well suited to D&D's mechanics.


Would there be more people training than when a country decided to give everyone who can run faster than X a high paid gouvernment job in the countries runner brigade for life ?

Yes, if you gave people government positions based on magical ability (to drop the analogy), that would result in more Wizards. But that would also be a mageocracy. It would be a different form of mageocracy from one where the title of Mage Emperor went to the best Wizard, but it would be one, just as both England and the USA are representative democracies, despite different political specifics.


Now rereading I realized you might not actually have been saying "decreasing the amount of high level magic (users) in a setting increases the general accessibility of high level magic in the setting", but if you were I'm going to disagree with that.

I'm saying you don't particularly need high level characters for a high magic setting. In fact, most of the magic that's useful for civilization-building is mid or low level. True Resurrection is a neat trick, but ultimately Fabricate or Animate Dead is a lot more useful to society.

[Nifft]

If we really want to play the "you're not even technically correct" game, Sparta had two kings.

IIRC those were even accurately describable as kings, so I think we can count that example as solid.

Point accepted.

[Satinavian]

Yes, if you gave people government positions based on magical ability (to drop the analogy), that would result in more Wizards. But that would also be a mageocracy. It would be a different form of mageocracy from one where the title of Mage Emperor went to the best Wizard, but it would be one, just as both England and the USA are representative democracies, despite different political specifics.Is the current US a military dictatorship because the whole military is paid and employed by the gouvernment ? Is modern day Germany a technocracy because all university professors are paid and employed by the gouvernment ?
A gouvernment can employ a lot of people for tasks beyond actually gouverning. And in a fantasy setting it could and likely would employ wizards for spellcasting (and research and teaching). And because spellcasting is so useful, it would try to get every spellcaster it could to cast spells dor the country.

[Clistenes]

Yeah, an empire might sometimes subordinate kings as it expands, but it's hardly guaranteed or I think even that common. Kings and emperors both prefer appointed governors, not hereditary nobles or sub-kings, if they can pull it off. Provinces of the Roman empire were overseen by governors, under the Senate or Princeps.

Rome had plenty client kings: Egypt, Numidia, Judea, Mauretania, Armenia...etc.

Yes, most were eventually assimilated, but some existed for generations.

[Tanarii]

Rome had plenty client kings: Egypt, Numidia, Judea, Mauretania, Armenia...etc.

Yes, most were eventually assimilated, but some existed for generations.
Interestingly I googled client king to see how it was different from king, and most of the links are about Roman client kings.

[Alcore]

Did we ever find out if a reasonable explanation was given?

[Lkctgo]

Did we ever find out if a reasonable explanation was given?

Honestly, having read the thread, there are two camps. One is the "hey a wizard won't want to be a ruler because it takes effort and distracts from their study" and "hey people respect hierarchy and tradition" vs "a wizard could use the kingdom to further their studies (by providing themselves with financial support etc)", "a wizard/mage ruling class would solve most of the kingdom's problems and would be far easier to accept as a ruler due to their high intellect/charisma etc", "there won't be a traditional feudalistic king if we were in a magic-laden world".

I'd say nope, no consensus explanation could be reached.

[Max_Killjoy]

Honestly, having read the thread, there are two camps. One is the "hey a wizard won't want to be a ruler because it takes effort and distracts from their study" and "hey people respect hierarchy and tradition" vs "a wizard could use the kingdom to further their studies (by providing themselves with financial support etc)", "a wizard/mage ruling class would solve most of the kingdom's problems and would be far easier to accept as a ruler due to their high intellect/charisma etc", "there won't be a traditional feudalistic king if we were in a magic-laden world".

I'd say nope, no consensus explanation could be reached.

In part because there is no universal answer, it depends on the setting and the specific polity.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Did we ever find out if a reasonable explanation was given?

Several, actually. Just not one perfect, inescapable explanation.

[Cluedrew]

I would forward that the fact there is a debate shows that there are reasonable explanations for both sides.

It is getting harder to say that in general but I also read both sides, found them reasonable and have a relatively high opinion of the average forum goer around here.

[Tanarii]

Did we ever find out if a reasonable explanation was given?
Yeah.

The rules only allow Fighters to rule a domain.
Magic-users just get to build a tower with a dungeon underneath it.

[Alcore]

Yeah.

The rules only allow Fighters to rule a domain.
Magic-users just get to build a tower with a dungeon underneath it.

I thought that was liches...

[Jay R]

The simplest explanation is that being a caster is a full-time profession. And being a ruler or conqueror is a full-time profession. They each require lots of time, with very different skills.

Yes, of course many spells would be useful for a ruler. But the primary skills she would need are knowledge(government), knowledge (local), Knowledge (legal system), etc. She must spend full time talking to people, dealing with problems, and the like. She can't spend an hour a day just memorizing spells, rater than thinking through the issues of the day.

By contrast, a full-time scholar or engineer (the closest mundane equivalent to a caster) spends lots of time thinking about abstruse concepts, or engineering design, etc. The trope of the absent-minded professor is based on the reality than many of them never quite stop thinking about their subject, even in social situations.

Neither being a caster nor being a ruler can be done well around the other.

But the crucial observation is that the idea pre-dates D&D. Arthur leads the kingdom while Merlin advises him because they require fundamentally different skill sets. Gandalf doesn't rule, but he helps Aragorn claim his throne.

[mindstalk]

The simplest explanation is that being a caster is a full-time profession. And being a ruler or conqueror is a full-time profession. They each require lots of time, with very different skills.

Being a warrior is a full-time profession, with very different skills than being a ruler, and yet warrior-rulers have dominated most of history.

Because "full-time" is vague. It can take a lot of intense training to become good enough, but then you can stop and do something else.

And being a ruler doesn't have to be a full time profession at all. That's what grand viziers/prime ministers/Hands of the King are for. You appoint someone else to do most of the work, while you skim off the taxes and make the final decisions.

[Cluedrew]

For the record I don't think fighters would make good leaders generally either. Boxing has about the same usefulness in politics as theoretical physics. But those that do make the jump might be better described as general-kings, as their accomplishments usually have to do with leading an army, not fighting in it. Not that I have the number on that but going off of the ones I can remember.

For skills staying the same once you get good, in D&D land maybe, but it is also designed to show people on an adventure actively using their skills regularly. So getting rusty is not really a concept they bothered to cover. Also if they did you might get some weird results about how stopping the adventure to build a house can cause you to loose craft ranks unless you repeatedly clear the basement of rats.

[Tanarii]

The difference is becoming a better Fighter involves conquering things. Becoming a better magic-user involves studying.

Or, you know, looting GP for XP for either.

[mindstalk]

"For the record I don't think fighters would make good leaders generally either."

As I said multiple times: sure, but they were the leaders nonetheless.

[Marcelinari]

I would posit that the reason that there aren’t more Magocracies is that wizards are actually too good at projecting personal power.

Traditionally, kings and rulers derive their personal power from their skill at arms. They may or may not be particularly skilled at arms, but their ability to project personal power was demonstrably less important than their ability to project institutional power. This institutional power manifested in the ability to send armies, make and enforce laws, mete out judgement, and so on. This power is derived not personally, but from the willingness of others to carry out the king’s command.

Institutional power derives from the consensus of the ruled. This was fundamentally true even in historical absolute monarchies, where tax laws were almost always passed with the consent of the taxed. Without the support of the nobility, the priesthood, the merchants, or the peasants, a king had no chance of getting anything done, and even with the support of at least 2 of those demographics it could be hard going. The reason that individual people would support a monarch like this, I posit, would be to share in that institutional power. By aligning themselves with it, they allowed it to work for their purposes, and in consensus, power could be successfully projected.

We return to the problem of personal power. A wizard is capable of reducing a castle to rubble, and army to cinders, and a number of other miracles. This would make a Wizard-king able to project a great deal of personal power. However, it also means that other wizards are capable of projecting similar power. These other wizards are not incentivized to support the claim of one particular wizard over their own, and therefore don’t feel the need to share in that institutional power. This weakens the wizard-king’s institutional power, and the trust and support that the other demographics may invest in the current ruler. Without that foundation of institutional power, a wizard-king is little more than a petty tyrant, and vulnerable to betrayal, usurpation, and rebellion. Anyone replacing him also faces these problems, until a person takes power who maintains the support of the non-mage demographics, and can convince the mages that he is a better choice for the leadership of the realm than continued internecine conflict.

And thus, a magocracy naturally evolves into a non-magocratic feudal society. Exceptions exist, surely, but if the argument I made is fairly solid, then it explains why the world is not covered with magocracies from end to end.

[NigelWalmsley]

But the primary skills she would need are knowledge(government), knowledge (local), Knowledge (legal system), etc. She must spend full time talking to people, dealing with problems, and the like. She can't spend an hour a day just memorizing spells, rater than thinking through the issues of the day.

Classes that get those skills: Wizard.
Classes that do not get those skills: Fighter.

Explain to me again how the class that gets every Knowledge skill and has wants to max Intelligence is going to be worse at Knowledges than the average person.


But the crucial observation is that the idea pre-dates D&D.

That doesn't mean it automatically holds in D&D.


They may or may not be particularly skilled at arms, but their ability to project personal power was demonstrably less important than their ability to project institutional power.

Yes, but that was because historically institutions were more powerful than people. That's not necessarily true in a fantasy setting. There are plenty of stories where archmages are capable of slaughtering entire mundane armies (or would be if people in those stories fielded purely mundane armies).


These other wizards are not incentivized to support the claim of one particular wizard over their own, and therefore don’t feel the need to share in that institutional power.

Why did a particular Duke, Earl, or Baron support the claim of the King over their own? Once again, this is a problem common to any political system, not just ones where the guy in charge is magic.

[Satinavian]

Classes that get those skills: Wizard.
Classes that do not get those skills: Fighter.

Explain to me again how the class that gets every Knowledge skill and has wants to max Intelligence is going to be worse at Knowledges than the average person.
The D&D skill system (all editions) is horrible.

But this is a general thread. There are no reason to assume 3.5 rules. Otherwise we could argue that aristocrat is the ruler class and anyone ruling would only get levels in aristocrat which is why wizards avoid it or something like that.

[Marcelinari]

Yes, but that was because historically institutions were more powerful than people. That's not necessarily true in a fantasy setting. There are plenty of stories where archmages are capable of slaughtering entire mundane armies (or would be if people in those stories fielded purely mundane armies).



Why did a particular Duke, Earl, or Baron support the claim of the King over their own? Once again, this is a problem common to any political system, not just ones where the guy in charge is magic.

On the first point: wizards may well be more powerful on a personal level than some armies, but the problem is that that power does not require buy-in from the people that are being ruled. The wizard has his power whether or not he is supported by the people, which reduces the leverage that other powerful people can exert over decisions made in government. And since one wizard-king without support is basically interchangeable with another, usurpers and traitors with similar personal power don’t require the broad support that raising a traditional army would require.

As to the second point: a duke, earl, or baron generally owes allegiance to the sovereign who will endorse and ratify their titles, claims, and power. They derive their institutional power from the acknowledgement of those titles and claims, and are incentivized to maintain the existing system. They also recognize that their ability to project institutional power on the sovereign’s behalf gives them leverage in government and makes their voices matter.

If they attempt to contest the sovereign’s claim, they would require a base of institutional power that was enough removed from the sovereign that they could wield it independently. At that point, they have enough buy-in from their own subordinates that ruling them is possible, and winning requires the opposing nobility (who presumably support the existing king) to recognize the rebelling noble’s superior claim (which is ultimately dependent on the number of loyal subordinates that rebelling noble has). At which point, there’s probably a little shuffle in the positional hierarchy, but ultimately the sovereign is the one with the broadest loyalty of the people.

Again, it’s not a 100% thing, this is definitely not how all magocracies would progress. But it’s plausible, at least, that wizards have too much personal power and too little use for the people they rule to be popular and stable leaders of nations.

[NigelWalmsley]

But this is a general thread. There are no reason to assume 3.5 rules. Otherwise we could argue that aristocrat is the ruler class and anyone ruling would only get levels in aristocrat which is why wizards avoid it or something like that.

Well, you couldn't argue that, because that's not how the advancement system works. But regardless, if you'd like to talk about some specific other edition that's fine. But as far as I know, Wizards are better at knowledge-type skills in all of them.


The wizard has his power whether or not he is supported by the people, which reduces the leverage that other powerful people can exert over decisions made in government.

No it doesn't. Those powerful people are still quite powerful. It's just also personal power. Your model of rulership simply does not apply in a world where nobles can kill people with their thoughts. The idea that power flows from the people is, broadly, true. But it's true because power depends on the people. In D&D it doesn't. You can go wander into the wilderness with a few of your friends and come back out a couple of months or years later as a major military power. That's a dynamic that is totally removed from anything that has historically existed, and expecting societies living in a world like that to behave like our own is simply naive.

[Marcelinari]

No it doesn't. Those powerful people are still quite powerful. It's just also personal power. Your model of rulership simply does not apply in a world where nobles can kill people with their thoughts. The idea that power flows from the people is, broadly, true. But it's true because power depends on the people. In D&D it doesn't. You can go wander into the wilderness with a few of your friends and come back out a couple of months or years later as a major military power. That's a dynamic that is totally removed from anything that has historically existed, and expecting societies living in a world like that to behave like our own is simply naive.

So you're advocating for a social hierarchy composed entirely of adventurers? Even if the noble class of society is composed entirely of magic-users (presumably by expelling and disinheriting anyone without the aptitude or skill for casting magic), can you police the church in the same way? Not every lay priest is a cleric after all - do you make them expel those members? Are the merchants all ex-adventurers too, fighters and rogues and bards who went adventuring for a month in their youth and came back with enough for a start-up? Do you strip any merchants without the ability to slaughter a dozen goblins of their license to trade? And the peasantry - do you just ignore their political ambitions, and say 'well, if you want to not be a peasant, go and kill an ogre or three. Then we'll give you a merchant's license'?

The people in this magocracy still have power. They have the power to obey or disobey the laws that the ruler makes, they have the power to trade or hoard or destroy crops and livelihoods. They have the power to answer a call to arms, to riot and rebel, and without cooperation, any so-called ruler will find that they have no nation to speak of.

The core of the argument I'm making is "what makes the wizard-king the king"? Is it the fact that they're the most powerful person in the realm? Then they lose the right to rule as soon as somebody kills them, and the killer earns that title. Is it that they're doing the most good with their vast magical power? Then why do they need to be the king to wield that power? Can they not do it at the behest of a government that rules with consent of the people?

I can feel my argument weakening, but I think it still holds water. Not everyone is going to be a wizard, and those people are going to want a share of the power too. If you deny it to them, you have to kill them - and if you don't have the popularity to maintain the loyalty of the people, you won't find anyone crying when the second-most-powerful wizard ganks you for your pointy hat.

[AdAstra]

Well, you couldn't argue that, because that's not how the advancement system works. But regardless, if you'd like to talk about some specific other edition that's fine. But as far as I know, Wizards are better at knowledge-type skills in all of them.



No it doesn't. Those powerful people are still quite powerful. It's just also personal power. Your model of rulership simply does not apply in a world where nobles can kill people with their thoughts. The idea that power flows from the people is, broadly, true. But it's true because power depends on the people. In D&D it doesn't. You can go wander into the wilderness with a few of your friends and come back out a couple of months or years later as a major military power. That's a dynamic that is totally removed from anything that has historically existed, and expecting societies living in a world like that to behave like our own is simply naive.

But in a 3.5-style advancement system, as you propose as the basis, such world-rending people would be extremely common. Basically anyone with sufficient luck, competence, and ruthlessness can get to 20th level, including exotic creatures and outsiders. So in such a world, the military would also have tons of high-level characters, and thus we're back to square one in terms of personal power, which is to say that it's not the end-all-be-all to be a 20th level Wizard in a world where 17th-20th level Wizards, Clerics, and Druids grow on trees.

Sure, the peasantry is even weaker comparatively than they would be IRL, but you'll still need the consent of the other high-level characters of the realm, or else you're like any other BBEG. You get ambushed and dogpiled to death by a party of plucky adventurers out to make a quick buck and a nice story. And any one of that numberless peasantry, when sufficiently motivated, can become strong enough to challenge you in a matter of months.

[hungrycrow]

I feel like a society full of super-assassins playing rocket tag would make any stable government almost impossible.

[NigelWalmsley]

So you're advocating for a social hierarchy composed entirely of adventurers?

Well, the phrase "advocating for" implies a degree of approval I don't really have. Such a society is pretty profoundly horrifying. It's like feudalism, except the king actually is better than you. And with more violent revolution. But it's the natural result of a system that works the way D&D does.


Even if the noble class of society is composed entirely of magic-users (presumably by expelling and disinheriting anyone without the aptitude or skill for casting magic), can you police the church in the same way? Not every lay priest is a cleric after all - do you make them expel those members?

Who needs to police the church? Imagine that there were some priests who could actually, literally, provably talk to their gods. Is the fact that those priests are in charge, and other priests are not, really something that needs any particular explanation?


Are the merchants all ex-adventurers too, fighters and rogues and bards who went adventuring for a month in their youth and came back with enough for a start-up? Do you strip any merchants without the ability to slaughter a dozen goblins of their license to trade?

Have you seen the things that are supposed to be out in the wilderness in D&D? Pretty sure attrition is going do a better job of ensuring that all your merchants are adventurers than any policy ever could.


And the peasantry - do you just ignore their political ambitions, and say 'well, if you want to not be a peasant, go and kill an ogre or three. Then we'll give you a merchant's license'?

Do you think that's weird? Kings were not especially know for going "hey peasant, want to make some politically meaningful decisions?" D&D cuts off even the fairly limited avenues peasants had towards influence. Who needs levies when the bulk of your army is flying artillery? Magical production of food or luxury goods is, when not simply higher than what peasants can deliver, at least sufficient for the needs of the kings and emperors of the world. What leverage are the peasants supposed to apply here?


They have the power to obey or disobey the laws that the ruler makes

You'll note that people have this power under every government that has, does, will, or even could exist. It's not really an argument about anything.


they have the power to trade or hoard or destroy crops and livelihoods.

Which harms them, and not their rulers. A Wizard can replicate a lifetime of work from a peasant in an afternoon. What leverage is the peasant supposed to get by striking?


The core of the argument I'm making is "what makes the wizard-king the king"?

What made Henry VII the King of England? The answer is, ultimately, the ability to murder everyone else who claimed to be King of England. Three guesses who's best at murder out of "casters", "non-casters", and "peasants".


Can they not do it at the behest of a government that rules with consent of the people?

Sure. As soon as you can find one in medieval Europe. Maybe you can get a democracy going. But the reason that happened in the real world was a shift in the balance of power from elite warriors (Knights) to mass armies (guns, or initially crossbows). And maybe something analogous will happen in D&Dland. But it would have to be absolutely massive to overcome the power of kings who could command the armies of hell.


But in a 3.5-style advancement system, as you propose as the basis, such world-rending people would be extremely common.

Sure, "apocalypse" is an even more likely outcome of the D&D rules than "mageocracy". That's why there are so many ruins lying around that are fully of magical goodies, bizarre monsters, and ancient Wizards. But a stable society is going to be run by the people who can do the work of modern civilization with a word and a flick of a wrist, not the people who can't, whether because they're low level or because they're Fighters.

[Marcelinari]

I could try and do a point-by-point rebuttal, but I doubt you would find it convincing, and I’m not particularly interested in getting into the weeds about those details. Suffice it to say that I find my conception of these social dynamics to be a plausible solution to problem as described in the OP, and you find it lacking. I can live with that.

[AdAstra]

Well, the phrase "advocating for" implies a degree of approval I don't really have. Such a society is pretty profoundly horrifying. It's like feudalism, except the king actually is better than you. And with more violent revolution. But it's the natural result of a system that works the way D&D does.


Who needs to police the church? Imagine that there were some priests who could actually, literally, provably talk to their gods. Is the fact that those priests are in charge, and other priests are not, really something that needs any particular explanation?

To use the 3.5 ruleset, there's no way to guarantee yourself an audience with your god proper, even if you get powers from them. At least not in a way that's guaranteed not to piss them off. Also, gods can generally talk to whoever they please, powers or not. An angelic ally/messenger (or an entity that can pass as one) might provide just as much, if not more, deific legitimacy as magic. Outside of 3e, you have even less of a guarantee.




Have you seen the things that are supposed to be out in the wilderness in D&D? Pretty sure attrition is going do a better job of ensuring that all your merchants are adventurers than any policy ever could.



Do you think that's weird? Kings were not especially know for going "hey peasant, want to make some politically meaningful decisions?" D&D cuts off even the fairly limited avenues peasants had towards influence. Who needs levies when the bulk of your army is flying artillery? Magical production of food or luxury goods is, when not simply higher than what peasants can deliver, at least sufficient for the needs of the kings and emperors of the world. What leverage are the peasants supposed to apply here?

Well, if a real-life peasant takes to the woods, vowing to gather allies, kill you, and take the throne themselves, the chances of them actually succeeding are next to nothing. No matter how much they hate you, there's only so much they can do to mess with your power. Even the most successful are liable to fail at the actual rebellion stage. On the other hand, DnD commoners can have a decent chance of becoming high-level adventurers instead, with all the wealth, power, and influence that entails. After all, a great many such characters start from next to nothing. Sure, most will probably just die in the woods, but the ones who don't can become nightmarishly dangerous. Even if they don't themselves get more levels, they can still make deals with outsiders like devils, or get the ear of do-gooder adventurers.




You'll note that people have this power under every government that has, does, will, or even could exist. It's not really an argument about anything.



Which harms them, and not their rulers. A Wizard can replicate a lifetime of work from a peasant in an afternoon. What leverage is the peasant supposed to get by striking?



What made Henry VII the King of England? The answer is, ultimately, the ability to murder everyone else who claimed to be King of England. Three guesses who's best at murder out of "casters", "non-casters", and "peasants".

Yes, but when you actually look at the details, Henry VII's ability to murder anyone else didn't come from his personal murderiness. If he had been alone, he would have failed miserably. Even if he had used pure force of arms, he likely wouldn't have done nearly as well. He did, however, gather allies and support, both military and civilian, including marrying into the "proper" royal family. He ascended to the throne because he had enough consent of the governed to beat up those who did not consent.

So in our hypothetical DnD 3e-based universe, what's needed to become a king or form a government isn't being the biggest, baddest caster around, it's having enough big bad casters on your side to beat up the big bad casters who actively oppose you. That in itself does not require that you be a caster. And even that's a simplification, because it's not as if non-casters and low-level casters don't matter at all, even with 3e's wonky balance. They're just a lot less valuable on an individual basis.




Sure. As soon as you can find one in medieval Europe. Maybe you can get a democracy going. But the reason that happened in the real world was a shift in the balance of power from elite warriors (Knights) to mass armies (guns, or initially crossbows). And maybe something analogous will happen in D&Dland. But it would have to be absolutely massive to overcome the power of kings who could command the armies of hell.

That is a massive simplification that's not even remotely accurate. Athenian democracy (flawed as it was) well predated the gun or even the armored Knight as we generally perceive it today. In Germany (or the states that came before it in the area) there wasn't democracy until the 20th century. Even in Britain, where the dates could be sorta, maybe argued to line up, the transition to a proper democracy was very gradual, starting with Parliament's formation in the 13th century. It was only in the 17th century, well after the age of the Knight was solidly dead, that the idea that the monarch acted only with Parliament's consent was codified, first unofficially with the Parliamentarian victory in the English Civil war in 1651, then legally in 1688. This isn't even getting into places outside of Europe. Warring States-era China, for example, had crossbows for ages, and generally relied on large state-owned armies including plenty such weapons. There were also plenty of cavalry and professional soldiers, which often became very important, but it was never much of a nobles' club. C'mon, we can do better than this level of pithy one-liner history.

[NigelWalmsley]

To use the 3.5 ruleset, there's no way to guarantee yourself an audience with your god proper,

Commune gets you answers from "your deity—or agents thereof". Which, sure, is not a full conversation, but is a hell of a lot more than the "nothing" lay priests get.


On the other hand, DnD commoners can have a decent chance of becoming high-level adventurers instead, with all the wealth, power, and influence that entails.

Not really. The fatality rate on adventurers is going to be pretty damn high, especially starting from NPC stats and with a dead Commoner level. You're a Wizard with no spells, you're not killing much of anything.


Yes, but when you actually look at the details, Henry VII's ability to murder anyone else didn't come from his personal murderiness. If he had been alone, he would have failed miserably.

Of course not. Personal murderiness doesn't scale very far in real life. It does in D&D. And this is not just a 3e phenomenon! The idea that you will eventually be good enough at murder to murder gods or demon princes exists in pretty much every edition. High level D&D characters do not care about armies. There is simply no amount of "consent of the governed" that is worth having an extra 10th level Wizard on your side.


So in our hypothetical DnD 3e-based universe, what's needed to become a king or form a government isn't being the biggest, baddest caster around, it's having enough big bad casters on your side to beat up the big bad casters who actively oppose you. That in itself does not require that you be a caster.

That is a mageocracy! It doesn't matter if the guy in charge isn't a mage if the model is still "the government is the faction with the most mages".


Athenian democracy (flawed as it was) well predated the gun or even the armored Knight as we generally perceive it today.

Athenian naval power depended on manpower. Hence democracy.


In Germany (or the states that came before it in the area) there wasn't democracy until the 20th century.

Yes, the transition was not immediate. Doesn't change the cause.


C'mon, we can do better than this level of pithy one-liner history.

I mean, can you? Because it's not like your "it's always the mandate of the masses even in societies that very explicitly claimed personal superiority as the basis of authority" model is actually better.

[AdAstra]

Commune gets you answers from "your deity—or agents thereof". Which, sure, is not a full conversation, but is a hell of a lot more than the "nothing" lay priests get.



Not really. The fatality rate on adventurers is going to be pretty damn high, especially starting from NPC stats and with a dead Commoner level. You're a Wizard with no spells, you're not killing much of anything.
The very existence of PCs and PC classes assumes that NPCs are capable of having PC-level stats, or even better. PCs are just assumed to be exceptional individuals. NPCs also do not necessarily have levels to begin with, so they are not required to have an "dead" levels either. It's not like a player picking up the character sheet suddenly turns a random person into a superhuman. In universe, that character usually existed before someone started playing as them, and unless they die, well after that person stops playing them as well, as an NPC. Also, 3/3.5e had tables and stuff to estimate how many characters of x level are running around in a place. People calculated that even a small country (Medieval Scotland-sized, if I'm not mistaken) is liable to have over a hundred Archmages alone.




Of course not. Personal murderiness doesn't scale very far in real life. It does in D&D. And this is not just a 3e phenomenon! The idea that you will eventually be good enough at murder to murder gods or demon princes exists in pretty much every edition. High level D&D characters do not care about armies. There is simply no amount of "consent of the governed" that is worth having an extra 10th level Wizard on your side.

Not just talking about DnD though. Not every game has the same level of power progression, nor the same level of imbalance between martials and casters.

And "consent of the governed" does, in fact, include those 10th level Wizards, of which there are going to be quite a few in a country. There are also going to be plenty of Sorcerers, Druids, Clerics, etc. Heck, even the Monks and Fighters can still contribute, just not to the same extent. These people would also be citizens, and would have wants and needs that could be catered to in order to gain their support. Wants and needs beyond "guy who can cast spells".

So yes, I would rather get the support of the masses than one 10th level Wizard, since those masses are liable to contain people even more powerful than one 10th level Wizard.




That is a mageocracy! It doesn't matter if the guy in charge isn't a mage if the model is still "the government is the faction with the most mages".
Monarchies are not defined as "the government is the faction with the most people of royal blood". Monarchies, representative democracies, etc, are at least nominally supposed to be about who's actually making decisions at the highest levels. If a non-mage is ordering around the mages, then it's not a mageocracy. Even just having a hereditary king happen to be a Wizard doesn't really count all that much, since his claim to the throne is based on his ancestry, not his magicalness.



Athenian naval power depended on manpower. Hence democracy.
The Athenians didn't have guns, though, and crossbows were still a new technology and not really influential at the time. And you also fail to address the other examples of nations which had the things you propose as a catalyst for democracy, but didn't develop it.




Yes, the transition was not immediate. Doesn't change the cause.

If there is over 400 years between your supposed "cause" and its effect, you should really consider whether effect is actually solely due to the cause. Did the decline of the elite noble soldier class affect the rise of democracy? Sure. Was it the chief cause? Not even close.

The gun, and certainly not the crossbow, was not the only thing to cause the decline of elite soldiers. That sort of thing has happened in many places for many reasons. And the decline of elite noble soldiers, conversely, was not a direct cause of democracy either. The dominance of elite soldiers has come and gone for many reasons, and is not always inversely associated with democracy.



I mean, can you? Because it's not like your "it's always the mandate of the masses even in societies that very explicitly claimed personal superiority as the basis of authority" model is actually better.


It's not mandate of the masses, it's mandate of power and influence, which is held and concentrated to varying degrees by people, and it's still more complicated than that. Kings becomes kings for all kinds of reasons, it's just that it can, with a certain loss of detail, be simplified to "acquired the support, active or passive, of enough people of enough importance to cow those who disagreed, be it through violent or nonviolent means". It's still not perfect, but it's also not patently incorrect like what you posit. Kings don't just become kings by killing the previous king, or even simply gathering an army and killing the previous king's army. Usually, he would gather the support of other players, big and small, who would bring whatever resources they were willing to muster in support. Be it their own armies, or just individual people who decide to join up. Sometimes it doesn't even directly involve armies (though those armies are usually involved indirectly); sometimes it's monetary resources, sometimes it's electors among the nobility, sometimes its the approval of the church. Sure, sometimes one king's army kills the other king's army. But it certainly didn't always work out that way, not even close. And killing the other king's army didn't always work out for the new king, either

[Max_Killjoy]

The gun, and certainly not the crossbow, was not the only thing to cause the decline of elite soldiers. That sort of thing has happened in many places for many reasons. And the decline of elite noble soldiers, conversely, was not a direct cause of democracy either. The dominance of elite soldiers has come and gone for many reasons, and is not always inversely associated with democracy.


IMO, the primary driver of the decline of the military elite as the ruling class was socioeconomic changes, starting with population growth. Larger armies both dilute the effect of a small elite.

(This also relates to the gun vs armor conundrum, where cheap munitions grade plate armor made for 1000s of soldiers isn't nearly as resistant to early firearms as the high-end custom-fit tempered-steel plate armor made for the elite, resulting in historical records and modern tests both giving wildly different evidence, and the myth that the gun immediately made armor obsolete.)

[NigelWalmsley]

Not just talking about DnD though. Not every game has the same level of power progression, nor the same level of imbalance between martials and casters.

Sure, there are settings where magic is insufficient for a mageocracy to form. That's really not a substantively meaningful point in the context of the rest of the discussion.


So yes, I would rather get the support of the masses than one 10th level Wizard, since those masses are liable to contain people even more powerful than one 10th level Wizard.

It's intellectually dishonest to try to reframe your position as being about all the other high level characters at this point. Do the other Wizards matter? Sure, but they are, fundamentally, also Wizards.


Monarchies are not defined as "the government is the faction with the most people of royal blood".

Except that's exactly what they are? A monarchy is a form of government where legitimacy comes from having the King (or Emperor or whatever) on your side. It doesn't stop being a monarchy if the decisions are made by a council of advisors, or if the king bows to popular opinion, or is a weak-willed idiot who is controlled by his vizier.


The Athenians didn't have guns, though, and crossbows were still a new technology and not really influential at the time. And you also fail to address the other examples of nations which had the things you propose as a catalyst for democracy, but didn't develop it.

Yes, they had a different technology that shifted where the balance of military power came from. And I'm not going to answer every example you have, because history is full of things you will demand I explain if I start doing that. Don't make me tell you why you're wrong, tell me why you're right.


Was it the chief cause? Not even close.

This argument would be more convincing were it an actual argument, rather than a bald and unsupported assertion.


It's not mandate of the masses, it's mandate of power and influence

So the king has power because he has acquired power? I'll grant you that's almost certainly true, but it's not really useful. Fundamentally, your error is in projecting Enlightenment values onto pre-Enlightenment societies. Which is entirely unsurprising, because those values are so all-encompassing they appear to be universal and fundamental. But they aren't. You're trying to model Kings in terms of something like a modern notion of political legitimacy, but that is simply not how people in those societies thought. The King is King because he has the ability to crush anyone who says otherwise.

[Marcelinari]

So the king has power because he has acquired power? I'll grant you that's almost certainly true, but it's not really useful. Fundamentally, your error is in projecting Enlightenment values onto pre-Enlightenment societies. Which is entirely unsurprising, because those values are so all-encompassing they appear to be universal and fundamental. But they aren't. You're trying to model Kings in terms of something like a modern notion of political legitimacy, but that is simply not how people in those societies thought. The King is King because he has the ability to crush anyone who says otherwise.

Not all forms of power are equal, no matter what Xykon says. In this case, it’s important that the King’s power primarily comes from the support of others, because fundamentally that creates a contract between the ruler and the ruled. ‘Some of us get a say in what you do, and in return, we provide you with your base of power’.

When the ruled cannot meaningfully contribute power to the sovereign, no such contract exists. At this point, the ruler is simply the person with the greatest ability to personally murder any potential rivals, and not be murdered in turn. This isn’t a magocracy, it’s a tyranny. Tyrannies are notoriously unstable, and I contend that it would eventually devolve either into anarchy or a standard feudal system which would not meaningfully favour mages.

[AdAstra]

Sure, there are settings where magic is insufficient for a mageocracy to form. That's really not a substantively meaningful point in the context of the rest of the discussion.



It's intellectually dishonest to try to reframe your position as being about all the other high level characters at this point. Do the other Wizards matter? Sure, but they are, fundamentally, also Wizards.



Except that's exactly what they are? A monarchy is a form of government where legitimacy comes from having the King (or Emperor or whatever) on your side. It doesn't stop being a monarchy if the decisions are made by a council of advisors, or if the king bows to popular opinion, or is a weak-willed idiot who is controlled by his vizier.



Yes, they had a different technology that shifted where the balance of military power came from. And I'm not going to answer every example you have, because history is full of things you will demand I explain if I start doing that. Don't make me tell you why you're wrong, tell me why you're right.



This argument would be more convincing were it an actual argument, rather than a bald and unsupported assertion.

You were the one who made the assertion that democracy came about as a result of the decline of an elite noble soldier class, without any supporting evidence whatsoever. I refuted that assertion, using historical examples that would seem to contradict your claim. I was not making any particular point, I was just pointing out that you said something that was not supported by evidence. Which makes your accusation of making unsupported assertions both moot and rather rich.


So the king has power because he has acquired power? I'll grant you that's almost certainly true, but it's not really useful. Fundamentally, your error is in projecting Enlightenment values onto pre-Enlightenment societies. Which is entirely unsurprising, because those values are so all-encompassing they appear to be universal and fundamental. But they aren't. You're trying to model Kings in terms of something like a modern notion of political legitimacy, but that is simply not how people in those societies thought. The King is King because he has the ability to crush anyone who says otherwise.

Yes, the King has authority because of his ability to consolidate power. The important, non-circular part of this, is that in most cases, this consolidated power is largely the power of others. A king gains power and authority by securing alliances, deals, conquests, loyalty, friendship, trust, etc. Those ideological and material allies (or conquests) contribute whatever assets they feel are warranted for their situation, be they intellectual prowess, monetary/resource wealth, or the cooperation of yet more people with their own resources. Then, the king uses those resources and people to do what he wants, which ranges from defeating enemies to securing more allies to just improving the lives of people around him, cementing the loyalty of his present allies. Or just do whatever the hell he wants, consequences be damned. Then the king uses what he gains to acquire more, do more. It's not circular, it's cyclical.


I'm not attributing any values onto anyone to my knowledge? I don't think I've made any assertions about what is and isn't right, or what historical people think. All I've talked about is what historical people did. While it's certainly possible that I've been projecting, I don't see anywhere where that would actually be the case.

[Satinavian]

Well, you couldn't argue that, because that's not how the advancement system works. But regardless, if you'd like to talk about some specific other edition that's fine. But as far as I know, Wizards are better at knowledge-type skills in all of them.
There are plenty of systems where players buy the knowledge (and other) skills and the spellcasting abilities from the same ressource pool which means more spellcasting -> less knowledge. There are probably more systems working this way than systems that don't.

[Xervous]

There are plenty of systems where players buy the knowledge (and other) skills and the spellcasting abilities from the same ressource pool which means more spellcasting -> less knowledge. There are probably more systems working this way than systems that don't.

Though if you’re looking at a system combining attributes and skills (shadowrun comes to mind) there’s still the overlap of knowledge keyed attributes and spellcasting keyed attributes. Anecdotal or just an example? I haven’t perused enough systems to make a call on the patterns of skill+attribute vs pure skill systems.

[Democratus]

There are plenty of systems where players buy the knowledge (and other) skills and the spellcasting abilities from the same ressource pool which means more spellcasting -> less knowledge. There are probably more systems working this way than systems that don't.

Yeah. Point buy systems like Champions/Hero and GURPS are like this.

[NigelWalmsley]

Not all forms of power are equal, no matter what Xykon says. In this case, it’s important that the King’s power primarily comes from the support of others, because fundamentally that creates a contract between the ruler and the ruled. ‘Some of us get a say in what you do, and in return, we provide you with your base of power’.

No. Again, that's an anachronism. Medieval societies were not based on the social contract. They were based on divine right. Barbarossa did not believe that he was in charge becase that was good for the people under him, he believed he was in charge because god said so.


I contend that it would eventually devolve either into anarchy or a standard feudal system which would not meaningfully favour mages.

Why wouldn't a standard feudal system favor mages? Mages can pass on power to their children by crafting magic items and provide more military power than standard medieval lords would be able to.


You were the one who made the assertion that democracy came about as a result of the decline of an elite noble soldier class, without any supporting evidence whatsoever.

The supporting evidence is that that is the timeline of events that happened. "Guns and crossbows lead to the decline of knights" is a factual claim, and one you did not bother to actually contest. Try again.


Yes, the King has authority because of his ability to consolidate power. The important, non-circular part of this, is that in most cases, this consolidated power is largely the power of others.

Yes, because in the real world you cannot personal gain the power to break an army with a word. In D&D you can. Your thesis that power from others matters more than personal power is blinded by an inability to comprehend the difference between our world and one where actual superhumans are a fact of life


Though if you’re looking at a system combining attributes and skills (shadowrun comes to mind) there’s still the overlap of knowledge keyed attributes and spellcasting keyed attributes. Anecdotal or just an example? I haven’t perused enough systems to make a call on the patterns of skill+attribute vs pure skill systems.

Exactly. While a Shadowrun mage may have to trade off their knowledge against their magic, a street samurai has to trade off their knowledge against their stabbing, and is encouraged to buy attributes that are less useful for knowledge-type skills. That gives the mage a comparative advantage, if a slighter one than a D&D Wizard possesses when matched against a Fighter. Are there systems where "sword guy" is organically the best leader? Probably. But it's fairly rare.

[mindstalk]

The supporting evidence is that that is the timeline of events that happened. "Guns and crossbows lead to the decline of knights" is a factual claim, and one you did not bother to actually contest. Try again.

Decline started happening with infantry formations that could hold off cavalry, like Swiss pikemen.

There may be some connection between reliance on heavy infantry and more republican governments, see Greece and Rome. OTOH Greece spawned Alexander and his successor monarchies, and the Roman army became the tool and maker of emperors, so, not a tight connection.

If anything guns led to stronger autocracy. Royal cannon reduce noble castles. Japanese guns became the basis of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Medieval kings might have had some divine connection, a la anointing, but you really start seeing claims of divine right absolute monarchy in the Modern, gun-rich, period. England goes 'democratic', very loosely speaking, by the late 1600s, but it takes France another 150 years or so, and even longer for the rest of Europe. Maybe the Dutch too? If so, the Netherlands and England both being mercantile states seems perhaps more causal than guns...

[AdAstra]

No. Again, that's an anachronism. Medieval societies were not based on the social contract. They were based on divine right. Barbarossa did not believe that he was in charge becase that was good for the people under him, he believed he was in charge because god said so.


Why wouldn't a standard feudal system favor mages? Mages can pass on power to their children by crafting magic items and provide more military power than standard medieval lords would be able to.



The supporting evidence is that that is the timeline of events that happened. "Guns and crossbows lead to the decline of knights" is a factual claim, and one you did not bother to actually contest. Try again.

No, I will not. Guns and crossbows were no wonder weapons, and knights declined for plenty of reasons, social and material. You can research for yourself, because history does not care about sound bytes.




Yes, because in the real world you cannot personal gain the power to break an army with a word. In D&D you can. Your thesis that power from others matters more than personal power is blinded by an inability to comprehend the difference between our world and one where actual superhumans are a fact of life

But in this case, said immense personal power is tempered by the fact that plenty of other people have immense personal power. Sure, a 20th level Wizard can lay waste to armies of conventional soldiers, but what realistic army in a DnD setting would use solely conventional soldiers? In DnD, superhumans aren't just a fact of life, they're a dime a dozen, so any prospective Wizard king is going to have to deal with the fact that the people they want to rule over includes plenty of individuals or groups who could beat him into the dirt.

[Marcelinari]

No. Again, that's an anachronism. Medieval societies were not based on the social contract. They were based on divine right. Barbarossa did not believe that he was in charge becase that was good for the people under him, he believed he was in charge because god said so.

Barbarossa may have believed he was in charge because 'god said so', but Barbarossa was actually in charge because everyone else accepted that he was in charge. The pope gave him legitimacy, his prince-electors gave him legitimacy, and ultimately without that legitimacy, he would not have been the Holy Roman Emperor. If the pope and prince-electors had withdrawn that legitimacy by crowning another HRE, neither his religious conviction or an intercontinental ballistic missile would have made him the Holy Roman Emperor until he intimidated or persuaded those people to reassign legitimacy to him again. And then once again, he would be HRE because of the legitimacy granted to him by that societal contract.

A king does not need to be a good king to uphold the unspoken contract between himself and his nobles. He needs to allow them to accrue and hold power, and they need to wield that power in a way projects his influence and does not impede his authority. When the king does not require his nobles to wield or project power (because he can do personally), this contract is likely to break, and if those nobles withdraw their legitimacy, the sovereign is a king of nothing. A king of nothing is no king at all.

[Satinavian]

Though if youÂ’re looking at a system combining attributes and skills (shadowrun comes to mind) thereÂ’s still the overlap of knowledge keyed attributes and spellcasting keyed attributes. Anecdotal or just an example? I havenÂ’t perused enough systems to make a call on the patterns of skill+attribute vs pure skill systems.
Well, there is a tendency to make magic an attribute itself (You mentioned Shadowrun but it is not the only one). In some cases that even leaves wizards with overall lower non-magic attributes including mental ones if there is a limited pool for attributes.

There are also Systems that like to include attributes that would map closest to agility into the spellcasting process to account for complex gestures. What is even more common is to have an attribute that relates to strength of the mind (in the sense of courage, pain resistance, stubborness, willpower) but not anything else related to D&D-wisdom and make that the main caster attribute.

There are systems that have different attributes for different scools of magic like agility for wind magic, constitution for earth magic, intuition for divination, charisma for illusions, strength for buffs etc.

But yes, it is also common to link casting to attributes about knowledge or Insight or intelligence (or charisma because magic comes from interactions with spirits)


But what really makes a difference is that most of those systems actually have a place for non magical scholar PCs and makes them useful. That automatically entails that casters don't get to be as knowledgable as them. D&D unfortunately only considers PCs that cast magic or kill things with weapons and of those two options the caster looks like the more scholarly one.

If you go away from D&D you will very soon realize that in many systems many non-caster PCs are more about mental than physical stats.

[Max_Killjoy]

The supporting evidence is that that is the timeline of events that happened. "Guns and crossbows lead to the decline of knights" is a factual claim, and one you did not bother to actually contest. Try again.


Except that it's not an outright factual claim, it's a simplification in the way much of the pop-history of Medieval and "early modern" Europe is a simplification.

The height of custom-crafted high-end full-plate harness comes almost entirely AFTER the introduction of firearms to Europe, not before -- never mind the ongoing existence of the bow and crossbow long before and straight through the heyday of the armored knight.

The decline of fighting nobility and armored knights has more socioeconomic causes than technological.




Barbarossa may have believed he was in charge because 'god said so', but Barbarossa was actually in charge because everyone else accepted that he was in charge. The pope gave him legitimacy, his prince-electors gave him legitimacy, and ultimately without that legitimacy, he would not have been the Holy Roman Emperor. If the pope and prince-electors had withdrawn that legitimacy by crowning another HRE, neither his religious conviction or an intercontinental ballistic missile would have made him the Holy Roman Emperor until he intimidated or persuaded those people to reassign legitimacy to him again. And then once again, he would be HRE because of the legitimacy granted to him by that societal contract.

A king does not need to be a good king to uphold the unspoken contract between himself and his nobles. He needs to allow them to accrue and hold power, and they need to wield that power in a way projects his influence and does not impede his authority. When the king does not require his nobles to wield or project power (because he can do personally), this contract is likely to break, and if those nobles withdraw their legitimacy, the sovereign is a king of nothing. A king of nothing is no king at all.


Furthermore, the whole idea of absolute monarchy as expressed in Europe is largely an artifact of the post-medieval world, the rise of which went hand-in-hand with the decline of the fighting nobility and armored knight. It was retro-imposed on the history of rulership in Europe, more than it was a thing widely and strongly believed at the height of the actual medieval period.

Though it wasn't expressed in the same terms, medieval feudalism was very very much a system of social contract, not divine right or absolute rule.




But in this case, said immense personal power is tempered by the fact that plenty of other people have immense personal power. Sure, a 20th level Wizard can lay waste to armies of conventional soldiers, but what realistic army in a DnD setting would use solely conventional soldiers? In DnD, superhumans aren't just a fact of life, they're a dime a dozen, so any prospective Wizard king is going to have to deal with the fact that the people they want to rule over includes plenty of individuals or groups who could beat him into the dirt.


IMO, there's a very narrow space in which high-powered wizards are common enough to make mageocracies a common form of government instead of a special case, while not being so common that they all negate each other in the calculus of power.

[AdAstra]

Except that it's not an outright factual claim, it's a simplification in the way much of the pop-history of Medieval and "early modern" Europe is a simplification.

The height of custom-crafted high-end full-plate harness comes almost entirely AFTER the introduction of firearms to Europe, not before -- never mind the ongoing existence of the bow and crossbow long before and straight through the heyday of the armored knight.

The decline of fighting nobility and armored knights has more socioeconomic causes than technological.




Furthermore, the whole idea of absolute monarchy as expressed in Europe is largely an artifact of the post-medieval world, the rise of which went hand-in-hand with the decline of the fighting nobility and armored knight. It was retro-imposed on the history of rulership in Europe, more than it was a thing widely and strongly believed at the height of the actual medieval period.

Though it wasn't expressed in the same terms, medieval feudalism was very very much a system of social contract, not divine right or absolute rule.




IMO, there's a very narrow space in which high-powered wizards are common enough to make mageocracies a common form of government instead of a special case, while not being so common that they all negate each other in the calculus of power.

Excellent points, Max. There's definitely a point where high-level casters are just rare enough to be dominant as individuals, but common enough that you'd expect them to be all over the place. Though we probably also have to count Druids and Clerics in addition to Wizards, since if I'm not mistaken they can generally compete.

I don't think DnD 3.5 assumes that critical point is the case, however. As has been mentioned before, 3.5e has tables for determining the highest-level characters that would be expected in settlements of various sizes.

Your typical "metropolis" of 25,000+ people, which is not very large even by the standards of Medieval cities, could be expected to have:
-4 Clerics of levels 13-18
-4 Druids of levels 13-18
-4 Wizards of levels 13-16
-8 Clerics of levels 6-9
-8 Druids of levels 6-9
-8 Wizards of levels 6-8

The book also presents the possibility of high-level characters being just about anywhere, even places that wouldn't normally have them using the generation tables.

If we extrapolated to larger cities, you could probably expect meaningful numbers of max-level casters in major urban centers. Small and Large Cities by the definition of the book (5000-12000 for small, 12000-25000 for large) would also be able to contribute significant numbers of mid-level casters.

Of course, these tables have all sorts of problems, like how apparently there just, aren't any casters of levels 10-12 in metropolises, so take them with a grain of salt. Especially since these tables imply that either Druids love living in cities, or that there are so many Druids, including high-level ones, that even the cities have a bunch.

[Hopeless]

I've been looking into this for a campaign setting I'm running.

When I started it was about a kingdom that was usurped by a Wizards Guild ending up in a bitter war because for all their power the Wizards cannot overcome everybody else without powerful allies to back them up that ability to rewrite reality is a delusion that becomes very, very obvious.

When I finally started this the Wizards Guild is a big deal but I wanted a legitimate reason why they're there and keep them involved despite them becoming the eventual big bad.

Originally the Guild was invited in by the King to help create a place for his ex-wife a sorceress as place to feel safe given being an elf she was doomed to be eventually hunted down and killed upon being discovered as she wasn't interested in ruling others but her level of power was far too great to be ignored.

That version led to her killing the Guildmaster in revenge for murdering her son and countless others used to power his phylactery as he tried to achieve lichdom.

This would lead to the daughter he had with the Queen becoming a lich and repeatedly trying to achieve what her father failed to accomplish.

In the one I ran that sorceress is now a cleric and she's banished to another prime material world in her efforts to thwart the attempt to send the kingdom into the Shadowfell ultimately freeing Vecna and granting the Guildmaster his lichdom.
The PCs chase the Guild master off and although initially successful they're now on a quest to find the heir only recently losing him when he's rescued by a Gold Dragon whose been posing as an acolyte to the Cleric PC from the Cult of the Cloaked Serpent whose been possessing people with Naga Spawn (thinks Goa'uld).
The bad guys as a true threat, the wizards guild is working in the background the King is in a coma and unlikely to survive they're chasing for one heir the other is somewhere back in the capital eventually this female wizard will learn her true heritage and achieves what her actual father failed at becoming the eventual recurring nemesis until they're high enough that the real villain the wizards guild makes their appearance.

I apologise for the longwinded prose but the easiest answer is that unless they're already established you have to deal with the fact no plan survives contact with the players!

The above is my attempt at establishing one, but given this game is set on Exandria a whole century before Vox Machina appears they aren't going to be entirely successful but that doesn't mean they can't be used to link to other orders or explain the Cobalt Soul for example.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Of course, these tables have all sorts of problems, like how apparently there just, aren't any casters of levels 10-12 in metropolises, so take them with a grain of salt. Especially since these tables imply that either Druids love living in cities, or that there are so many Druids, including high-level ones, that even the cities have a bunch.

Those things are quirky, but not especially problematic. Regarding caster level gaps, the demographics tables are explicitly defaults and averages for "[w]hen the PCs come into a town and you need to generate facts about that town quickly," the relevant facts in this case being e.g. "Is there a caster here high enough level to do X?" and "If Character A dies/is in a coma/hates us/etc., are there enough casters of a similar level to still do X?" A DM can always do things like insert non-random NPCs of certain levels and smooth out the tables by adding more town categories, and the DM has to figure out how to handle a city much larger than 25K people (like the 100,000-person metropolis mentioned on the very same page), whether to extrapolate linearly or quadratically or whatever...but even if they don't, the tables are there to define the curve for DM extrapolation, not rigidly enforce rules, much like the wealth by level "rules."

Regarding druids in cities, even ignoring urban druids, druids have been explicitly concerned with crops and humans-as-part-of-nature since 1e, and while they don't like to live in heavily urban areas there's nothing preventing them from living on a city's periphery:


They have an obligation to protect trees and wild plants, crops, and to a lesser extent, their human followers and animals.
[...]
Druids as a class do not dwell permanently in castles, or even in cities or towns. All druids prefer to live in sacred groves, dwelling in sod, log, or stone buildings of smallish size. When attaining levels above the 11th, characters will generally inhabit building complexes set in woodlands and similar natural surroundings.


Druids are charged with protecting wilderness--in particular trees, wild plants, wild animals, and crops. By association, they are also responsible for their followers and their animals. Druids recognize that all creatures (including humans) need food, shelter, and protection from harm. Hunting, farming, and cutting lumber for homes are logical and necessary parts of the natural cycle. However, druids do not tolerate unnecessary destruction or exploitation of nature for profit.


Druids may live in small towns, but they always spend a good portion of their time in wild areas. Even large cities surrounded by cultivated land as far as the eye can see often have druid groves nearby—small, wild refuges where druids live and which they protect fiercely. Near coastal cities, such refuges may be nearby islands, where the druids can find the isolation they need.
High-level druids are definitely intended to fit the "crazy wild hermit" stereotype eventually, but druids living downtown temporarily, living in protected forests, and such is fine and even the more reclusive druids might make their own full-on druid hamlets instead of roughing it. And since towns and cities are a human's natural environment and druids are fine with agriculture and forestry, it's not unreasonable to find a bunch of druids in and around anything below a Small City or so.

So sure, folks can take them with a grain of salt, but they shouldn't be dismissed as "bad math" or "just tables" either as some tend to do.

[AdAstra]

Those things are quirky, but not especially problematic. Regarding caster level gaps, the demographics tables are explicitly defaults and averages for "[w]hen the PCs come into a town and you need to generate facts about that town quickly," the relevant facts in this case being e.g. "Is there a caster here high enough level to do X?" and "If Character A dies/is in a coma/hates us/etc., are there enough casters of a similar level to still do X?" A DM can always do things like insert non-random NPCs of certain levels and smooth out the tables by adding more town categories, and the DM has to figure out how to handle a city much larger than 25K people (like the 100,000-person metropolis mentioned on the very same page), whether to extrapolate linearly or quadratically or whatever...but even if they don't, the tables are there to define the curve for DM extrapolation, not rigidly enforce rules, much like the wealth by level "rules."

Regarding druids in cities, even ignoring urban druids, druids have been explicitly concerned with crops and humans-as-part-of-nature since 1e, and while they don't like to live in heavily urban areas there's nothing preventing them from living on a city's periphery:






High-level druids are definitely intended to fit the "crazy wild hermit" stereotype eventually, but druids living downtown temporarily, living in protected forests, and such is fine and even the more reclusive druids might make their own full-on druid hamlets instead of roughing it. And since towns and cities are a human's natural environment and druids are fine with agriculture and forestry, it's not unreasonable to find a bunch of druids in and around anything below a Small City or so.

So sure, folks can take them with a grain of salt, but they shouldn't be dismissed as "bad math" or "just tables" either as some tend to do.

The problem is that the tables have issues that are not necessarily inherent in such quick and easy generation methods. The logical, obvious way to do a table like this would be to give general level brackets, then have a table describing about how many people in each bracket might be expected to live in a place of a given size. So for example, In a small town, you might expect 1d4-1 members of each class that are levels 5-6, 2d4-1 members of levels 3-4, and 3d4 of levels 1-2. If a class would be more or less common in an area, treat the population of that settlement as larger or smaller for the purposes of determining the members of that class in that area (probably with some guidance as to where a class might be more or less common). Assume that half the members of each bracket, rounding up, are an odd-numbered level, and that half rounding down are an even-numbered level. This system would allow you to give settlements a more realistic spread of levels, while still allowing for quite a bit of randomness and being easy to look up. It’s not very elegant, but it requires little math and should be quite easy to actually use.

I’m aware that these tables aren’t supposed to be hard rules, I’m just pointing out that they have no claim to being elegant or logical ways of determining how many people of x level are in a place.

As for the Druid thing, I’m aware that there are plenty of reasons for Druids to live in large cities, I’m just pointing out that the tables assume there are going to be about as many Druids in even very urbanized settlements as any other class, and in fact slightly more druids and rangers in smaller settlements on average. I’m not protesting the fact that Druids sometimes live in cities, I’m just pointing out that their proclivities would suggest there being far more Druids than other classes, if you actually held the tables as gospel. Less a complaint about the tables and more just an amusing observation that relates to the thread topic.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I’m aware that these tables aren’t supposed to be hard rules, I’m just pointing out that they have no claim to being elegant or logical ways of determining how many people of x level are in a place.

They're certainly not elegant at all, especially in terms of most settlements of the same size ending up pretty similar. Their main benefit is that they don't have any complexity like die rolls leading to die rolls, like in the model you described, so it's one roll per class down the line and everything else is deterministic from there, making it a very fast calculation you can do while the players are discussing plans when they reach the city.

The DMG could definitely have given much better demographics rules for use when the DM isn't pressed for time, I agree, and a smoother spread and more variation would be great there. I just see lots of people say (in these sorts of "what's the 'average' setting look like?" discussions) that the tables have a bunch of problems to imply that they then can/should be disregarded entirely as unrealistic/infeasible, so I was pointing out that they work just fine for their intended purpose.


As for the Druid thing, I’m aware that there are plenty of reasons for Druids to live in large cities, I’m just pointing out that the tables assume there are going to be about as many Druids in even very urbanized settlements as any other class, and in fact slightly more druids and rangers in smaller settlements on average. I’m not protesting the fact that Druids sometimes live in cities, I’m just pointing out that their proclivities would suggest there being far more Druids than other classes, if you actually held the tables as gospel. Less a complaint about the tables and more just an amusing observation that relates to the thread topic.

Well of course there's more druids than anyone else. All the power of a tier 1 class without having to study all the time or worship a specific god--what's not to love?

[Satinavian]

Exactly. While a Shadowrun mage may have to trade off their knowledge against their magic, a street samurai has to trade off their knowledge against their stabbing, and is encouraged to buy attributes that are less useful for knowledge-type skills. That gives the mage a comparative advantage, if a slighter one than a D&D Wizard possesses when matched against a Fighter. Are there systems where "sword guy" is organically the best leader? Probably. But it's fairly rare.
If you really take Shadowrun, the most important attribute for a mage is magic. The second place goes to willpower and only in the third place might be something knowledge rerated.

Sure, that is earlier than for an archetypical street samurai, but what about other archetypes like "face" or "decker" or "rigger" ? If i take a typical Shadowrun group, a mage is likely not the best in knowledge skills.

[mindstalk]

Well of course there's more druids than anyone else. All the power of a tier 1 class without having to study all the time or worship a specific god--what's not to love?

"Education in the basics of druidery is free and compulsory for all qualified children of the kingdom."

[NigelWalmsley]

Druids are actually a pretty good backbone to build your civilization around. Druids get Plant Growth, as well as Goodberry (arguably more efficient in practice than Create Food and Water, as it's a 1st level spell). Convincing Druids to serve as the backbone of your civilization might take some doing, but a society where Druid circles are a core part of life seems like a pretty plausible output of the rules if you can get over that initial hurdle.


No, I will not.

Then I will be forced to continue to be unpersuaded by your point.


In DnD, superhumans aren't just a fact of life, they're a dime a dozen, so any prospective Wizard king is going to have to deal with the fact that the people they want to rule over includes plenty of individuals or groups who could beat him into the dirt.

So in D&D, instead of having a society dominated by individual powerful mages, we will have a society dominated by groups of powerful mages. That seems like a super compelling refutation of "mageocracy" as the dominant form of government, except for the part where it is proposing "mageocracy" as the dominant form of government.


Barbarossa may have believed he was in charge because 'god said so', but Barbarossa was actually in charge because everyone else accepted that he was in charge.

Because they believed that god said so! It was the "divine right of kings" not the "general political approval of kings". People who lived in these societies simply did not use the kind of model you are suggesting to describe their society. Hobbes' notion of a social contract comes at the very end of this period.


intimidated

With, perhaps, an ICBM? Once you acknowledge "intimidation" as a path to power, your argument collapses, because now people can bootstrap all the stuff you say they need instead of personal power from enough personal power. Once "make me HRE or I have demons eat you alive" is a viable path to the approval of the Pope, the Pope's approval is no longer meaningfully distinct from personal power as a source of legitimacy.


Decline started happening with infantry formations that could hold off cavalry, like Swiss pikemen.

Sure. But that's not really a dispute of the core claim -- that political power mirrored military power. Even the claims about how it was economic or whatever aren't really substantive rebuttals. The core claim is that democracy is driven by social structures in which meaningful power is held by the masses. Saying "but what about economic power" or "but what about these non-gun technologies" is not responsive to that.


IMO, there's a very narrow space in which high-powered wizards are common enough to make mageocracies a common form of government instead of a special case, while not being so common that they all negate each other in the calculus of power.

That's not really how it would work out. Nukes didn't negate other nukes in the calculus of power of the 20th century, they just divided countries into two groups: countries with nukes, and countries that got pushed around by the ones with nukes. Even with plentiful mages, power structures are still going to be driven by the need to get mages on your side. Until you invent something that allows low-level people in groups to truly push around mages (like the Standards in the Commonweal books), or reach near-saturation of high level mages in the population, politics is going to be defined by the people who can kill with their minds.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's not really how it would work out. Nukes didn't negate other nukes in the calculus of power of the 20th century, they just divided countries into two groups: countries with nukes, and countries that got pushed around by the ones with nukes. Even with plentiful mages, power structures are still going to be driven by the need to get mages on your side. Until you invent something that allows low-level people in groups to truly push around mages (like the Standards in the Commonweal books), or reach near-saturation of high level mages in the population, politics is going to be defined by the people who can kill with their minds.


Wizards aren't nukes, wizards are people, and there are direct countermeasures against and between wizards.

[Cluedrew]

I think this thread has focused in on the wrong question. The original question was something like* "Why aren't (almost) all governments based of spell casters - mageocracy/theocracies - instead of the ones we actually see in stories?" The thing is people have actually been focusing in on "Can you form a government from magic users?" but really I think the better question is "Can you still form other forms of government?". And I think the answer to both questions is yes.

Like a wizard-warlord who values magical ability and fills the army's leadership (and then the government's leadership) with spell-casters. But what about a fighter warlord? Who probably has some spell casters in their army but spends a lot more time actually leading than they do. And once the nation has access to magic, there isn't any benefit I can think of to have the leaders be doing that magic themselves instead of dispatching other spell casters to the jobs.

* I did look back but there were a couple of versions of it so I'm paraphrasing to try and cover most of them.

[AdAstra]

I think this thread has focused in on the wrong question. The original question was something like* "Why aren't (almost) all governments based of spell casters - mageocracy/theocracies - instead of the ones we actually see in stories?" The thing is people have actually been focusing in on "Can you form a government from magic users?" but really I think the better question is "Can you still form other forms of government?". And I think the answer to both questions is yes.

Like a wizard-warlord who values magical ability and fills the army's leadership (and then the government's leadership) with spell-casters. But what about a fighter warlord? Who probably has some spell casters in their army but spends a lot more time actually leading than they do. And once the nation has access to magic, there isn't any benefit I can think of to have the leaders be doing that magic themselves instead of dispatching other spell casters to the jobs.

* I did look back but there were a couple of versions of it so I'm paraphrasing to try and cover most of them.

I mean, this has pretty much been my approach since the beginning. So long as it's feasible to have a government that where the decisionmaking and power is not held directly by casters, there is a "reasonable explanation" by the standards of the OP.