Can anybody give a reasonable explanation?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

In the Imperial Chinese Bureaucracy example, yeah it was the lowest scoring individuals, among those who passed the rigorous standards (because you could still fail), after going through the years of education and study that were required before you even took the test. Does that sound like an Int 6 task?

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?"

"'Doctor.'"

The point of that example was not to impugn Imperial bureaucrats by implying they had Int 6, but to point out that there are lots of different jobs that require a lot less skill than your generic administrator and that are within a lantern archon's capabilities. The reason said bureaucrats needed to take exams to be someone who could relay messages or count money is not that they needed any kind of intensive training (anyone who can read and count can do both jobs) was to prove competence for the jobs and alignment with (and loyalty to) Imperial Chinese culture as an alternative to just hiring a bunch of nobles of dubious education and training.

Thing is, archons spring into existence (whether via spell or from the planes) fully-formed with knowledge, skills, and an unshakeable devotion to the ideals of Lawful Goodness. You don't need to spend 6 years--or even 6 seconds--teaching a lantern archon how to count money and how not to embezzle, they just do that. That's why the example is archons and not eladrin or devils, because the latter two are just as smart and competent but nowhere near as reliable.

The problem is that the archonocracy directly leads to a Tippyverse situation without intervention, assuming the archons stick around or others show up to replace them. Infinite teleports coupled with cargo allows for infinite energy (through waterwheels or other contraptions), infinite transportation capacity of objects that are less than 50 pounds per package, rapid communication across any distance, even warfare (archon teleports near hazardous material, then teleports it on top of whatever it wants to kill).

Remember, only lantern archons are infinite disposable minions, and they only last for 1 hour unless you pay them as per planar ally to stick around. The "archonocracy" we're talking about is still a mageocracy outsourcing some bureaucracy to conjured minions (or a theocracy in the case of Thrane, but still), and making fair and equitable bargains with the more powerful archons to do so, this isn't a "Celestia is empty and all the archons are here" scenario with chain-gated throne archons and such.

But, back in 2e? I had plenty of 11-int Wizards. Was it suboptimal? Sure. But that didn't make it any less fun.

11 Int in 2e isn't nearly as suboptimal as it is in 3e, of course. 2 bonus languages, up to 7 spells per spell level known, and just under a 50/50 shot to learn any given spell is nothing to sneeze at; a max spell level of 5th is a pain, certainly, but for that to matter requires making it past name level and that's hardly guaranteed. It's basically equivalent to a 3e wizard with a 15 Int, which is a perfectly respectable starting score.

[Vahnavoi]

A dystopian setting where a cabal of fighters uniformly murders level 1 wizards does nothing to explain why an ordinary D&D setting isn't a mageocracy.

Barbarian tribes and subsets of fighters hating wizards and magic is a common trope in D&D. IIRC, 2nd Edition AD&D gave barbarians extra experience for destroying magical things, such as spellbooks, and since this was supposed to reflect in-setting practices, these attitudes persistes to 3rd edition and beyond. So the scenario described is already a local truth in some setting (IIRC, Forgotten Realms, but I may be wrong) , explaining why some societies are not magogracies, even if some are.

---

People don't behave that way. They generally don't turn on their neighbors for resources, and when they do they sure as hell aren't drawing lines over profession. Moreover, even if you accept total self-interest, it's not even a smart strategy. Groups beat individuals. The Fighters would be better off recruiting some Wizards, just as they're better off forming into groups of Fighters.

People have fought each other for resources since the dawn of time, they have persecuted and even murdered each other based on profession up to this day. It's even more true in D&D than real life, due to the way Alignment and XP gain rules work. "Groups beat individuals" is text-book example of a Lawful attitude, and Lawful Evil in particular is defined as holding their in-group as superior and deserving to rule over or even destroy out-groups. By contrast, Lawful Good will act much the same way if their outgroup is actually evil, while Chaotic Evil, thinking might-makes-right, has no qualms of destroying anyone if they feel they will personally benefit... and they will benefit, by getting XP and loot, so what if their group suffers?

Neither groups nor individuals always act in their own best interest, and furthermore, what they deem to be in their best-interest isn't necessarily identical to what you deem to be in their best interest. A not-so-smart fighter won't think of the option you deem smart, the Evil or Chaotic fighter won't share your ideas of acceptance and co-operation.

It's not happening iteratively, it's happening in parallel. The population of the planet was already in the tens of millions by the rise of Rome, and by the Middle Ages, it was in the hundreds of millions. Maybe the Fighters beat up the Wizards in some places. But they won't do it everywhere, and that means at some point a nation of people without magic collides with a nation of people with it. That one does not go so well for the Fighters.

Every temporal dynamic system is iterative as much as it's parallel. The rest, I already covered. Again: I don't need to provide a reason why a world would never become a magocracy. I only need to provide one for limited time and space. "Maybe fighters beat up the wizards in some place" is a sufficient, reasonable explanation for why a magocracy doesn't exist in that place at the specified time, provided you can derive such a scenario from the rules used.

---

The entire point of the aboleths-and-dragons example is not to say that those two races coming first means that therefore aboleth-and-dragon-only worlds are a natural consequence of the rules, but rather that "Well, aboleths arose earlier so aboleths would kill off or dominate over any creatures that arose later" and "Well, fighters have earlier starting ages so fighters would kill off or dominate over wizards and other later-starting-age classes" are both equally ridiculous statements.

They're equally arbitrary statements. Neither of them are ridiculous statements. My point was that they're not logically equivalent, because one includes a random element and the other does not. "Dragons and aboleths" is not a functional reduction to absurdity of the original statement.

Sure, at the current point in time 1st-level fighters are on average younger than 1st level wizards, but that means basically nothing at a societal level because...

Yes, a rule will do nothing if you decide to ignore it and any of its implications. You are engaging (via this argument) in the exact practice I was criticizing when I first brought up the starting age rules. Furthermore, you're essentially making the same argument Zarrgon made pages ago: that rules for PCs don't matter for the setting, because the GM can ignore the rules.

In more detail:

• ...starting ages might have been different in Ye Olden Days (e.g. back before most spells were invented, wizards might have had the same starting age as fighters, or even lower!);
• ...starting ages are averages, so it's entirely possible to have a tribe containing wizards who rolled 2 on the +2d6 and fighters who rolled 3 on the +1d4 so some of the wizards came first;
• ...different races have different starting ages, so it's entirely possible to have a tribe where the wizards are humans and the fighters are dwarves so all of the wizards came first;
• ...sorcerers and fighters have the same starting ages, so it's entirely possible for all the sorcerers to have killed off all the fighters instead;
• ...smart fighters might realize that if your tribe is N fighters + M wizards and other tribes are [N+M] fighters, you have a tactical, strategic, and logistical advantage against them;
• ...smarter fighters might realize that having at least one wizard on your side is better than not having at least one wizard on your side in pretty much all cases;
• ...Good-aligned fighters do not, as a general rule, commit mass wizard-ocide on teenage apprentices (or mass murder of anyone, in fact);
• ...and so on and so forth.

Trying to extrapolate from a single data point to an entire society is going to give you ridiculous answers, especially when that single data point doesn't actually have the fixed and unambiguous effect that you're implying it has.

In order:

• Yes, you can change what results you'd get from the same initial inputs by arbitrarily changing the algorithm you're using to process them. The only way your conclusion follows ("means basically nothing at a societal level") if you change them specifically to support it. That's begging the question and moving the goalposts at the same time.
• Yes, this is true. The difference to other arguments, as I already outlined, is that it's a rules simulation you can actually do and see how often it happens.
• This is another "yes it could happen, but why?" Provided you assume a random distribution of stats etc., it's possible but vanishingly unlikely.
• Yes, that's possible. Again, it's something you can use the rules to simulate and see how often it happens.
• This is the same argument NigelWalmsley made; furthermore, it's essentially the same argument as the multiclassing one and the one you make immediately below. Sure, the fighters might... but they might not. Every "might not" is a potential failure point of a magocracy forming. Again, the fighters don't have all the same knowledge you're using to decide what is the best option.
• Same as above.
• Again, due to the way Alignment and XP rules work, everyone has a motive to mass-murder someone in D&D. There is no general rule of co-operation and acceptance that would prevent fighting between classes.
• so on and so forth.

Trying to extrapolate from a single data point to an entire society is going to give you ridiculous answers, especially when that single data point doesn't actually have the fixed and unambiguous effect that you're implying it has.

It should be obvious by now that I don't expect a fixed and unambiguous effect, I expect a random function will produce multiple different outputs from the same initial input.

[Lkctgo]

I certainly had a fair number of "Int 11” classmates in my Computer Science classes - and numerous below-average intelligence people in university in general (really, if "there's a 1-in-6 chance of getting a '6' on a normal die (a d6 for us)" is an incomprehensible, "stuff of the gods" "how can you know that" concept? You may be making it through college on your back.).

Heck, now I want to run an 11-Int grey elf in 3e who had to go to human Wizard school, and still only made it through on her back.

But, back in 2e? I had plenty of 11-int Wizards. Was it suboptimal? Sure. But that didn't make it any less fun.

The real question is how you could MinMax on an 11 int.

[Jay R]

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

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?

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.

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).

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

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Barbarian tribes and subsets of fighters hating wizards and magic is a common trope in D&D. IIRC, 2nd Edition AD&D gave barbarians extra experience for destroying magical things, such as spellbooks, and since this was supposed to reflect in-setting practices, these attitudes persistes to 3rd edition and beyond. So the scenario described is already a local truth in some setting (IIRC, Forgotten Realms, but I may be wrong) , explaining why some societies are not magogracies, even if some are.

The only time barbarians had a hatred-of-magic theme was in their 1e Unearthed Arcana debut, and even then it was only hatred-of-arcane-magic-from-spellbooks-and-magic-items. By 2e that was gone, and no AD&D settings ever picked up the barbarians-hate-magic thing; in fact, in the Forgotten Realms the most prominent barbarian culture is Rashemen, which is a magocracy (quite appropriate for this thread) wherein the ruling Witches of Rashemen are highly respected.

The only vestige of that trope in later editions is a brief mention in the 3e class writeup that they "distrust" the "book magic" of wizards, and then only because they don't understand it (due to their illiteracy); they get along fine with bards and sorcerers and don't have opinions on magic items.

They're equally arbitrary statements. Neither of them are ridiculous statements. My point was that they're not logically equivalent, because one includes a random element and the other does not. "Dragons and aboleths" is not a functional reduction to absurdity of the original statement.

Indeed it is, because in both cases you're assuming that the thing that comes first is going to stamp out the thing that comes later--whatever that might be, whether fighter before magic-users or aboleths before humans--for no reason whatsoever when doing so is both irrational (because wizards are helpful at a societal level and humans have opposable thumbs) and does not at all entail "and therefore no magocracies/dragonocracies."

Yes, a rule will do nothing if you decide to ignore it and any of its implications. You are engaging (via this argument) in the exact practice I was criticizing when I first brought up the starting age rules. Furthermore, you're essentially making the same argument Zarrgon made pages ago: that rules for PCs don't matter for the setting, because the GM can ignore the rules.

No, I'm saying that the GM can follow the aging rules to the letter for PCs and NPCs alike and still not extrapolate anything useful about the existence and prevalence of magocracies from those rules, because there's a huge gap between those rules affecting individual characters and "...and therefore society looks like X, Y, and Z." The rule is that the starting age of fighters and wizards is random, and that on average the value for fighters is lower than the value for wizards; your extrapolation is that therefore all fighters start out younger than all wizards (false) or that all societies have most fighters start younger than most wizards (false) and so on, and that this necessarily says anything about how fighters and wizards interact in general (false).

All of the counterexamples I gave were examples of scenarios in which starting age is used completely RAW but the "young fighters prevent magocracies" thing is false for other reasons: unusual rolls, certain racial makeups, Int rolls for various characters etc. In your rebuttal you argue "X might, but then it might not," and that is in fact the whole purpose of those examples: to show that taking a single rule with random outputs and no direct impact on any other rules and drawing large-scale conclusions from it is ridiculous and arbitrary.

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

Ah yes, the Law of Conservation of Wizardry, Newton's Third Law of Setting-Building. Don't forget the other two laws: "A wizard either remains in his wizard tower or continues to adventure at a constant rate, unless acted upon by an outside wizard" and "The level L of a wizard is equal to the current level l of that wizard multiplied by the rate of change of XP r gained by the wizard."

[Satinavian]

Remember, only lantern archons are infinite disposable minions, and they only last for 1 hour unless you pay them as per planar ally to stick around. The "archonocracy" we're talking about is still a mageocracy outsourcing some bureaucracy to conjured minions (or a theocracy in the case of Thrane, but still), and making fair and equitable bargains with the more powerful archons to do so, this isn't a "Celestia is empty and all the archons are here" scenario with chain-gated throne archons and such.

Is there any reason why a wizard ruler would be able to summon better or more archons than a court wizard ? I don't think so.

Let's just assume that the number of employed archons is the same in every gouvernment type not particularly hostile to that practice and move on.

[Jay R]

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

Ah yes, the Law of Conservation of Wizardry, Newton's Third Law of Setting-Building. Don't forget the other two laws: "A wizard either remains in his wizard tower or continues to adventure at a constant rate, unless acted upon by an outside wizard" and "The level L of a wizard is equal to the current level l of that wizard multiplied by the rate of change of XP r gained by the wizard."

Cute. But it doesn't address the point. Wizards aren't all on the same side. While they are powerful, the wizards who oppose them are just as powerful.

As J. K. Rowling wrote:

The Prime Minister gazed hopelessly at the pair of them for a moment, then the words he had fought to suppress all evening burst from him at last.

“But for heaven’s sake — you’re wizards! You can do magic! Surely you can sort out — well — anything!”

Scrimgeour turned slowly on the spot and exchanged an incredulous look with Fudge, who really did manage a smile this time as he said kindly, “The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.”

[mindstalk]

If the only thing stopping a wizard from ruling is other wizards, that just ends up with different wizards ruling. "I should be in charge" seems more likely than a commitment to "wizards should not be in charge". And if a king owes his throne to a wizard, what happens the wizard disagrees with the king about something? The wizard has most of the power.

If the wizard Kalel is defending a democracy, things might be different: more of an ideological commitment to not having one-man rule, and more importantly a more diffuse nature of power and legitimacy in the society. Even then, if Kalel is the only thing between them and rule by the evil wizard Zod, Kalel will probably have lots of influence and be able to get away with a lot. Kalel is kidnapping girls to the Tower of Solitude? Well, at least he's leaving most of us alone, unlike Zod...

[Jay R]

If the only thing stopping a wizard from ruling is other wizards, ...

“If...”

I specifically gave five different reasons. This is only one of them.

[The Fury]

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).

This is pretty close to my point from earlier. Phrased a little differently.

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

This is probably the best point anyone's made yet.

[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