101 Wizard Sports

[Dire Roc]

For the setting for my next campaign I have a country with two arcane universities. As is likely to happen when two educational institutions are near one another they have a massive sports rivalry. Wearing the wrong color in some places might get you a bad look and people who can attend games of... um... this is the part I need help with. What kinds of sports might wizards compete in?

For what it matters the system is Pathfinder but I'm pretty happy to look into adapting anything.

[Madbox]

Wizard equivalent of track and field. Who can levitate the most weight? Who can run fastest with a self-applied haste? Who can summon the most recent impressive monster? Who can make the hottest or biggest fireball?

[Erth16]

Salmon Whacking. You can fill in the rest.

[BlueHerring]

Ultimate Magic Missile. It's exactly like Ultimate Frisbee, but you can only tag with Magic Missile.

[ImNotTrevor]

Bear Blasting
Quantum Whatball
Fire-rugby

REALITYDOME (Lightning always happens when this game is mentioned, and it is properly pronounced by yelling it.)


Third Level Abyssal Harmonic Strip-Chess-Roulette-Poker-Rummy-squared

[Âmesang]

X-Treme™ Chess

[Madbox]

Wizard triathlon: flying, swimming (after ploymorphing into a fish), and burrowing through solid stone.

If we're talking old school wizards, eskrima would work. Fighting with sticks, knives, and bare hands is useful when you only get one spell per day.

[hymer]

Since Ridcully took over, the wizards of UU generally compete on who can eat the most, the fastest, without getting indigestion, who recovers fastest from indigestion, who can balance the most cheese on one cheese tray, and so on.
They also play football.

[Jay R]

Nobody's suggested quidditch yet? I'm surprised.

You can also do an equivalent to robot wars with summoning or conjuration, if you have spells that let you design your own monster.

[Agrippa]

Levitating 3D chess for one. Wizards are supposed be smart (and hopefully wise) and chess is a thinking person's game. That and chess technically is considered a sport.

[Bulhakov]

I assume the sports need to be relatively casualty-free, but exciting for spectators, so my first thoughts were:

Robot boxing
University student clubs prep golems/constructs in various size/weight categories. An undead construct could be a surprise controversial entry.

3D soccer/basketball, with all participants flying, and the ball is handled with telekinesis

Magic missile clay pidgeon shooting. Catapults launch several dozens of clay ball targets and a wizard attempts to shoot down the largest number of them.

Artisitic competition for the best large-scale illusion.

Illusion-enhanced traditional sports, such as fencing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leOP7rWwBpw

[Pugwampy]

Spelling Bee contests.

[Jay R]

Remember that we aren't merely talking about games and sports that wizards would play, but ones which fans would get excited about watching, sufficiently to develop into hooliganism.

I don't think either chess or spelling bees generate that level of excitement in their fans.

[ImNotTrevor]

Hence why
REALITYDOME
is obviously the best choice. It's really vague, and to the non-magical it's probably something like a competitive LSD trip. To the magically inclined it's a bit too quantum and fourth dimensional to explain, but endlessly exciting.

"When Dean Scrabbles made that illusory sidepass through the straits of madness and totally tricked their Flumper into tackling the concept of Abstract thought? Pure genius."

But then again it depends how serious this setting is. I'm imagining it's not particularly serious since we're talking about the least athletic fantasy people doing an athletic event.

[Dire Roc]

Hence why
REALITYDOME
is obviously the best choice. It's really vague, and to the non-magical it's probably something like a competitive LSD trip. To the magically inclined it's a bit too quantum and fourth dimensional to explain, but endlessly exciting.

"When Dean Scrabbles made that illusory sidepass through the straits of madness and totally tricked their Flumper into tackling the concept of Abstract thought? Pure genius."

But then again it depends how serious this setting is. I'm imagining it's not particularly serious since we're talking about the least athletic fantasy people doing an athletic event.

Well it developed from trying to put together some cultural quirks for the regions of my setting. I'll probably pick one or two ideas I really like from this thread and then have the others be more minor competitions. Given the schools will have a policy of taking anyone with the talent/will/ability to learn, I'm even thinking of the bards having a secondary competition in the vein of Eurovision.

[TeChameleon]

Cantripping: Teams of students compete to see who can be the first to convince a panel of judges that they're experiencing an LSD flashback using only Prestigidation. Obviously, you'd need the local equivalent of ex-Hippies for the judging panel, but I'm sure you can find some way around that.

Given that the audience could see the 'trips' as well, it could make for some rather... interesting... viewing.

Competitive Scry-'n'-Die: Each Uni sends in a team of combat-oriented mages to race to take out a lich (the same one every year, much to said lich's considerable irritation) using classic scry-'n'-die tactics. The teams' own scrying can be fed back to the 'stadium' crystals, making jumbotron viewing for the audience.

Combat, tension, pyrotechnics, and armchair strategizing; I can see it being a popular spectator sport.

Armoured Cavalry: Competitive Barding (WAH-wah...) could become incredibly vicious thanks to two simple factors: Vote-determined winners... and Mass Charm Person. I can see it becoming utterly huge just because the two schools would go absolutely berserk trying to top one another; magic-fueled pyrotechnics, sabotage, summons...

Eurovision with magic wouldn't exactly be a tough sell for viewability

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Nobody's suggested quidditch yet? I'm surprised.

You can also do an equivalent to robot wars with summoning or conjuration, if you have spells that let you design your own monster.

I'm surprised no one's suggested Iron Mage yet - they must have rebuilt the arena by now after V accidentally blew it up in OOPC.

Borrowing from one of the classic Judge Dredd stories - Supersurf. Mages on Floating Discs navigating a multi-stage course of various hazards. Maybe with sections where they're allowed to open fire on each other.

[Cernor]

I quite like the idea of magical obstacle courses: there are enough TV shows in that genre (even if I can't recall the names of any of them off the top of my head) to easily come up with obstacles the contestants would face, but with MAGIC! For example, instead of trying to jump across a series of giant beach balls floating in a pond, they'd have to climb up a series of giant beach balls levitating above a pool of conjured custard! While it isn't directly competitive (the winner would be the one who could complete it in the lowest overall time), it would probably be a blast for the crowd. Who doesn't like seeing snooty wizards covered in custard?

[Pugwampy]

I don't think either chess or spelling bees generate that level of excitement in their fans.

What kind arcane fan does not enjoy seeing their Mage all stars practice their spelling ?


If i was bored peasant I am sure I would pay a good silver coin to see Manshoon summon a pit fiend from the nine hells to slowly flay Amlaruil Moonflower . Just saying....

[Fable Wright]

Gwent, Magic: the Gathering, and other such competitive card games. These are smart people thinking tactically using a limited number of cards in their repertoire, and they can practice pretty well without burning through all their spell slots. Perfect for Wizards who burn out their spells for classes and homework. And seriously, those kinds tournaments find surprisingly large numbers of spectators if they can see what's happening; the South Park episode on it was barely an exaggeration. Probably best for a side event rather than main spectator sport, though.

Alternatively, for the Artificer's college, ZenSpec: The sport where you try to get the most amazing effects possible with the least amount of magic involved. Put those Arcana checks and tool proficiencies to work, because last year Morgrave U managed to pull off a fully functional prismatic Homunculus in under an hour with two cantrips and a UMD check. Sigil Prep wasn't too far behind, though, with a pyrotechnics display that opened a Gate to the plane of fire with only a second level slot. Who knows what the teams might bring this year?

[Final Hyena]

Spelling Bee contests.

B-E-E
Wouldn't that get boring? Or is it that you have to make it into a sort of bee rap?
The difficulty is what other ingredients are you allowed in your wrap?

I don't think spelling bees generate that level of excitement in their fans.

I've never seen a spelling... bee, that would excite me!


For "serious" ideas;

• competitive firework displays, because showing off your displays in a manner the whole city can see is crucial to know who's got the most game!
• Kaiju battles, each team combines together in a ritual to summon and control a kaiju before they fight fight fight!
• Competitive eating/drinking (cake/beer), you know why (also think of the sabotage!).

[Âmesang]

Come to think of it… how %#$@'d up would Calvinball become if magic were involved?

[LooseCannoneer]

Come to think of it… how %#$@'d up would Calvinball become if magic were involved?

I believe the universities banned it after the incident with the Balor and the ring gates.

[Dire Roc]

How about Magic Missile fencing? Each wizard is only allowed to cast Magic Missile and Shield. The sports' first tactical revolution occurred after a wizard realized that counterspelling was technically allowed. It was played to unconsciousness until the False Life doping scandals of '62, nowadays its a fixed number of hits. If both casters run out of spell slots its a draw.

[Mando Knight]

Gwent, Magic: the Gathering, and other such competitive card games. These are smart people thinking tactically using a limited number of cards in their repertoire, and they can practice pretty well without burning through all their spell slots. Perfect for Wizards who burn out their spells for classes and homework. And seriously, those kinds tournaments find surprisingly large numbers of spectators if they can see what's happening; the South Park episode on it was barely an exaggeration. Probably best for a side event rather than main spectator sport, though.

Set up some illusions to make the playing field come to life, add a dash of colorful characters like "The Dragonmaster" and "The King of Games" and you've got yourself a franchise.

[TeChameleon]

Set up some illusions to make the playing field come to life, add a dash of colorful characters like "The Dragonmaster" and "The King of Games" and you've got yourself a franchise.

...

Spoiler

Show

Now this is a story all about how
my life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute
just sit down, James
I'll tell you how I became
the undisputed King of Card Games.

In northeastern Africa, born and raised
in the palace was where I spent most of my days
chilling out max and relaxin' all the while
or playing some card games right beside the Nile
When a couple of guys, who were up to no good
starting making trouble in my neighborhood!
I got in one little fight and the gods got scared
they said "You're moving in
with Yugi and his Grandpa downstairs!"

I wound up in Japan, and things were less clear
like I couldn't kill folks for losing card games here!
If anything, I could say that this place is lame
but I thought, "Nah, forget it, I'll play some card games!"

I bought card game booster packs, seven or eight,
and I yelled at the old man "Yo, Homes, smell ya later!"
Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there
to sit on my throne with my ridiculous hair.

[2D8HP]

The last fantasy novel I read was
"A Gathering of Shadows", which is a sequel to:
"A Darker Shade of Magic"
Featured joust/sports magical "duels" and was AWESOME! I really can't describe it very well because:
1) I don't want to spoil it.
and
2) I'm not a good enough writer to do it justice.
But seriously, go to your library and check it out.
Simply BADASS! (in a good way). Also had pirates!

[Hamste]

How about Magic Missile fencing? Each wizard is only allowed to cast Magic Missile and Shield. The sports' first tactical revolution occurred after a wizard realized that counterspelling was technically allowed. It was played to unconsciousness until the False Life doping scandals of '62, nowadays its a fixed number of hits. If both casters run out of spell slots its a draw.

Wouldn't that be really boring to watch though? There would be several minutes of them just standing there watching each other if they used shield. The use of counterspelling might be interesting though the person with the most spells should consistently win. I have to say though, I really like that sorcerers would have the natural advantage in the fencing competition. Have the sorcerers be the jocks who got in for their spell slots but take all the easy classes like theory of magic and counterspelling 101 as they are not actually expected to learn more spells beyond the ones they know.

[Dire Roc]

Wouldn't that be really boring to watch though? There would be several minutes of them just standing there watching each other if they used shield. The use of counterspelling might be interesting though the person with the most spells should consistently win. I have to say though, I really like that sorcerers would have the natural advantage in the fencing competition. Have the sorcerers be the jocks who got in for their spell slots but take all the easy classes like theory of magic and counterspelling 101 as they are not actually expected to learn more spells beyond the ones they know.

Hm, maybe a lesser Shield variant with a shorter duration? But the idea of sorcerer jocks is very appealing.

[KillianHawkeye]

Probably any of the events from the old "American Gladiators" television show. You can modify many of them to be simple player vs player competitions (rather than player vs gladiator), and for the rest... maybe replace the gladiators with golems?

In a similar vein, magical versions of obstacle course-based shows (like Wipeout and Ninja Warrior) would surely be even more interesting when you add magic.

For a more team-based sport, you could adapt the Blitzball mini-game from Final Fantasy 10 (basically underwater rugby, but you could easily make a flying version of it instead).