campaign reaction to uber wizard

[Fitz]

OK, having read several threads on how the wizard is so much better than every other class, i thought about how the rest of the world reacts to said wizards.
the bad news is that wizards are not a big proportion of the population and at levels below about 5 they are vulnerable (yes they have options but they can be beaten) thus the non-wizards start rumours about the wizards (insert random rumour here, but anything from history will do, think spanish inquisition or 1980's d & d) gradually wizards face more and more discrimination before finally they are outlawed for the safety of society (and yes the sorcerers get caught in this too) all low level wizards get killed off, those of higher level struggle to easily obtain materials etc (no one wants to trade with them, but will if they are compelled to) the libraries and scroll shops get burnt down.
Druids are banished to the wild (if they notice, ;-) )
the clerics are initially co-opted into controlling the wizards, but face problems if they step out of line or follow the wrong deity.

no this started as a theoretical excersize (i study politics and economics) but it actually sounds like quite an interesting setting.

any thoughts?

fitz

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I don't see it going the same way.

Wizards aren't necessarily notoriously powerful. It could be that most of them save their power for one-shotting dragons and such. But let's suppose wizards generally flaunt their power equally in the dungeon and the city. Still, in order for wizards to be notoriously powerful, there would have to be a number of very powerful wizards.

So sure, it would be nice for King Bob to solidify his power by ridding his land of incredibly powerful foes, but that means King Phil right next door has a bunch of angry wizards just waiting to demolish his armies (or even assassinate him) with a bunch of well-placed spells. Now not only does King Phil have the wizardly advantage, but his high level clerics aren't busy rounding up straggler wizards, and his Druids are free to roam. King Bob = screwed.

Response? Create pro-wizard policies in an attempt to attract more wizards to King Bob's locale (from his neighbors' kingdoms!), and then use his kingdom's magical superiority to wipe the floor with King Phil's ragtag team of high level fighters. Of course, Phil knows this, too, so he's doing the same. Oh, crap, now every kingdom has to respond in kind.

And now you not only aren't banning wizardry. You're subsidizing the Arcane Order (along with forestry programs and priesthoods).

[pasko77]

I don't see it going the same way.

Wizards aren't necessarily notoriously powerful. It could be that most of them save their power for one-shotting dragons and such. But let's suppose wizards generally flaunt their power equally in the dungeon and the city. Still, in order for wizards to be notoriously powerful, there would have to be a number of very powerful wizards.

So sure, it would be nice for King Bob to solidify his power by ridding his land of incredibly powerful foes, but that means King Phil right next door has a bunch of angry wizards just waiting to demolish his armies (or even assassinate him) with a bunch of well-placed spells. Now not only does King Phil have the wizardly advantage, but his high level clerics aren't busy rounding up straggler wizards, and his Druids are free to roam. King Bob = screwed.

Response? Create pro-wizard policies in an attempt to attract more wizards to King Bob's locale (from his neighbors' kingdoms!), and then use his kingdom's magical superiority to wipe the floor with King Phil's ragtag team of high level fighters. Of course, Phil knows this, too, so he's doing the same. Oh, crap, now every kingdom has to respond in kind.

And now you not only aren't banning wizardry. You're subsidizing the Arcane Order (along with forestry programs and priesthoods).

Let's suppose not everybody follows this politics.
After all, we are speaking in big numbers, then low-mid level. In certain states magic will be banned, with the aid of clerics, for example. Enough time passes, and a Teocracy is made. The state(s) where pro-wiz politics is chosen may become, on the other hand, magic-cracies (?) like thai, if i remember correctly. Same way for the druids domains, where technology may be banned.

Or else, globalization, that means no ban for no one, except maybe the wrong religions.

[Kurald Galain]

Governments have been notoriously bad, throughout the ages, of "removing" groups of undesirable people (such as wizards) without resorting to atrocities that eventually earn them the hatred of the rest of the world.

So no, I don't find it reasonable to suppose that everybody "follows this politics".

I can think of several settings though where the wizards regulate themselves against this, either through mutual agreement, or because one powerful wizard decides to eliminate all (yes, all) of the competition.

[Zenos]

The state(s) where pro-wiz politics is chosen may become, on the other hand, magic-cracies (?)

Magic-Crazies ?

[Green and Red]

Magic-Crazies ?

I think the word is magiocracy... but dont ask me where i have that from, i dont remember

[Fitz]

to be honest i don't think the political situation is long terem stable, but i think it could hold true for some time if the political anti-mage feelings were built up slowly.
remember there are a couple of premises here: a) wizards are rare, this is common in fantasy literature, b) most will be low level at least initially, yes there will be some higher level ones but not many.
the idea that there may be kingdoms that don't kill all the wizards is fine, but they would try to control them, the whole idea is that being a mage or sorcerer means you would be a social pariah (sorcerers would usually disguise themselves to hide in the population). remember to get to the point where the wizard is that powerful takes time. if the kingdom next door is building up a magical arsenal they may get invaded by several other nations who are afraid of thier mages? the power of propoganda is very strong, and the way magic seems to get used doesn't engender trust.
sanctioned mages are an option: if you are a mage you have to study in the one school, and pass many tests, after which you are forced(or indoctrinated) to help hunt down those who rebel?

i think if i ran this as a campaign world the players would most likely be rebels fighting the established order, but i like the roleplaying theme to it.

Fitz

[Zenos]

I think the word is magiocracy... but dont ask me where i have that from, i dont remember

Magos means scholar so it Magiocracy could mean it's ruled by scholars (What?! Another tax for building a new university? We have, like, twenty of those! In the same city!)

[kamikasei]

Key assumption: there are, or have been, high-level wizards. This pretty much has to be true in order for people to have an idea of how powerful wizards are or can become.

Presumably these high-level guys don't exist in a vacuum. There are more lower-level wizards following in their footsteps: lots of the lowest-level guys and fewer as you move up in power. Since wizarding is a learned skill, there is communication between these wizards, master-apprentice relationships, and the like.

What do these high-level wizards spend their time doing? Making life hard for low-level wizards won't eliminate the threat posed by high-level guys, so it's not obvious why anyone would bother. Do the archmages have ways to protect their interests? Arrangements to provide services to the local kingdom in exchange for a steady supply of guano and onyx? Who are the "non-wizards" who gain enough benefit from persecuting low-level wizards, and have the means to arrange it, to offset angering higher-level wizards and destroying a resource (because arcane casters are a resource of value to those around them, like any skilled profession, but more so)?

Isn't it more plausible that wizards are organized into guilds and colleges where the weaker members are protected either directly or by association with the more powerful? That either these organizations are associated with governments and nations, in which case they would be defended like a branch of the military, or independent of them, in which case they could play the temporal powers off against one another?

edit: I see you replied while I was typing. I still disagree. The problem I see with your thinking is that the powerful mages are already there. They are already in a position to set terms. What you describe sounds more appropriate if either the wizards are collectively much less powerful than the nations around them (so that a rogue high-level wizard could be eliminated by non-wizards without the non-wizards taking losses bad enough to expose them to risk from their enemies) or there are only low-level wizards to start with but somehow everyone knows how powerful they could become. If high-level wizards already exist then it's more profitable to win them to your side than to try to destroy them.

[mostlyharmful]

Bear in mind how mind boggalingly useful low level casters are economically, they may not be world shakingly powerful but they can kick over any economy that they aren't allowed in through trade.

Given that Wizards are the only core caster class that can be taken just by being smart (sorcs need "dragon blood" or whatever, divine casters need a level of faith that few people can maintain over time, all a wizard needs is a positive Int Mod) if a nation wants the edge in economics, strategic power or standards of living then magics where its at in DnD and lots of casters are easist to get by training lots of wizards.

Also when a nation starts trying to outlaw mages then while it might be simple to burn little old grame whatever with two levels of wizard at the stake but she had to get her training from somewhere, Wizards are the only class with an inherent link to each other and a motive for protecting each other (not to mention they're ALL smart enough to see it)

[Fitz]

ok the Wizards are powerful at high levels, granted, but if they are so paranoid as to have foresight up all the time, and the like then they are unlikely to co-operate with potential rivals, future enemies. also i have the assumption that wizardry is rare (as stated a fantasy staple , many fictional realms have few mages as it is a rare talent) so the very few powerful mages will be vastly scattered. Also the key to wizards learning spells no one has ever cast before is reaserch, someone must have invented the spell, and once you have invented it it gets jealously guarded.
so initially the powerful wizards will help cull the lesser wizards (because it makes them safer from lesser mages stealing thier spells) and then later they find they have been isolated (this is where clerics help a lot as they can help deal with some of the magic) the point here is that wizards have to (globally) play a team game or society reacts (in the basest way possible most likely...see witch hunts in an earlier era) also a typical fantasy setting is psudo-medeival which implies a high level of adherence to social norms. a prohibition on studying wizardry with social consequences will cause problems...eg the wizard isn't welcome in the villiage, while the store keepers will let the mage buy stuff out of fear they will not go out of thier way to help. the power of that level of social exclusion should not be underestimated.
as stated it would be an interesting setting,

Fitz

[kamikasei]

It could be an interesting setting, I just don't think it's an inevitable or particularly likely development in most worlds. It does make a little more sense if all wizards are being portrayed as ideal-Tippy-level paranoid, but still there is plenty that a highly paranoid, security-conscious, risk-averse wizard could do to cooperate with his peers in protecting their common interests and to make himself useful to other powerful groups.

[Fitz]

I'm making the assumption that there will be some banding together , but the momentum would have started before that happened, and that the clerics had been brought on board (then possibly stiched up as well, true clerics being rare at higher levels though low level ones less so)
the premise is along the lines of the support of other groups ganging up on the Wizards/sorcerers as they get blamed for disasters. and other factors the government is very benificial, it then becomes more apparent how corrupt it is, but by this point the wizards are persecuted (and have to rely on each other for survival, and have little access to spells as lots of old tomes have been destroyed) the Clerics have been bound into the governing power (and possibly can only access thier power through the state authorised deities)
at this point the PCs would be starting, the previously thought benevolent government has shown its corruption (or the start of it) and persecuted groups form resistance groups, who have to hide any wizards in thier group and generally not get found out.
might also make more sense if the government was run with the backing of devils and the like ?

Fitz

[mostlyharmful]

At which point some other country in this world offers sanctuary to all these dispossessed mages, becomes wealthier and more powerful than the rest of the setting put together and steamrollers the continent.

Countries have two options when it comes to powerful individuals, the first is to alow kneejerk paranoia and mob rule which leads to an impoverished nation surrounded by predatory countires with arcane might the mage-less army can't match or the second option is to co-opt them into the structure with legal protections, tax breaks, socail status, whatever.. and then try to regulate them legally while playing to their self interest in maintaining their comfy positions. Which seems more likely to endure more than five minutes?

[kamikasei]

It depends on your goal.

Are you looking to assemble a campaign world where you can run an entertaining game with the PCs acting as an oppressed rebellion against a wizard-persecuting regime?

Or to engage in a thought exercise about the problems of playing extremely paranoid, powerful wizards?

Or to create a campaign world in which certain things have to be true (that is, how flexible are you)?

The problem I see with your historical allusions is that such persecution is generally directed at the powerless; rulers or demagogues create a spectre of an Other to motivate the population through fear and direct their anger and energy away from their true oppressors. Oppressing actually powerful people doesn't really fit with that scenario.

There's also the fact that, if wizards are really heavily oppressed, then there just wouldn't be any wizards. Why would people pursue such a hated course if it's so hard for them and there are so many easier uses for their talents? Being a wizard isn't like being a sorcerer, or mutant, or Jew. It's not even like being a heretic. A wizard is just a smart guy who's pursued a course of study. This is, of course, assuming you don't add an element of "magic potential" to wizarding where certain people are born with the talent and learn to train it.

How long have wizards been persecuted? Is it a first-generation thing where only within the lifetimes of low-level wizards who had already embarked on their careers have they come under threat? Is this an extremely low-magic setting (with so few wizards, and apparently mundane governments able to dictate terms to divine casters)?

There are a few ways you could bring about a persecuted-mage scenario. Firstly I'd recommend adding an element of inherent talent to magic, even if it's not as extreme for wizards as for sorcerers. I'd also suggest having something dramatic target it. Perhaps as you suggest evil entities could take over one or more kingdoms. Perhaps there was a great disaster apparently caused by arcane casters and the people and gods have turned against them. An alliance of churches suppressing non-divine magic is an obvious way to keep wizards under wraps.

You can go further with this. Maybe there aren't enough potential wizards to keep up a credible, frightening Other. So lie. Have the kingdom wildly exaggerate the signs of wizardhood. Have parents giving up their children for testing and many more than should testing positive. You don't need to kill those kids. Brand them. Give them "magic" tattoos or collars "to suppress their curse". They'll be marked forever. The actual potential wizards are among them, and can be taken off for sanctioned training. The rest are afraid of themselves and of the people who fear them. You've created a hated social class who rely on government approval for protection because without the government's guarantee that their power is suppressed, their peers will turn on them. Make them work for that approval. Here you can essentially choose any intelligent child and make them an agent who does your bidding for fear of their life.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Of course, if we're talking about the staple high magic D&D world, a good high level wizard will hear about that and go apecrap on your kingdom until you cut the crap. I can clearly imagine a prismatic sphere disintegrating a whole landmass, annihilating the stocks of a gigantic market, devastating crops...

[mostlyharmful]

Of course, if we're talking about the staple high magic D&D world, a good high level wizard will hear about that and go apecrap on your kingdom until you cut the crap. I can clearly imagine a prismatic sphere disintegrating a whole landmass, annihilating the stocks of a gigantic market, devastating crops...

While satisfying in the short term high level wizards ought to be smart and experianced enough to know better than this, while they might well mindrape the countries leaders in private it would be loud blasty tantrums like this that would create this kind of negative feedback. Even if you're an evil arcane overlord or shadowy necro it still hurts you in the longterm to hurt the image of mages, just in terms of making everything three times as much work in manipulating the sheeplike population around you.

Lobbing fireballs down the mainstreet might feel invigorating in the moment but it makes living in that country complicated

[Saph]

Remember that wizards don't have any particular reason to like each other. In fact, if your campaign has high-level wizards as incredibly powerful entities capable of dominating whole countries, then the study of wizardry is going to attract a large fraction of paranoid megalomaniacs. And paranoid megalomaniacs don't, as a rule, get on very well with other paranoid megalomaniacs.

So it's perfectly reasonable to have most of the negative attention towards wizards coming from other wizards.

- Saph

[Azerian Kelimon]

Mostly, you DO know that all that is just a demonstration of strength, to tell the people that you are "SRS BSNS!", right? The point of doing that is scaring the pants off of people. If they don't cut the crap, you're going to turn the kingdom into a wasteland. If they DO cut it, you're going to create items of Food and Water, and a few of prestidigitation to flavor 'em, you're going to rebuild what you destroyed, etc. The point is, you WANT to make them fear you.

[TempusCCK]

This scenario makes the assumption that all Wizards are, as it was so eloquently put "Tippy-level" paranoid and powerful. Think about it this way, sure, you may be a high level wizard capable of reshaping matter with your thoughts, but you were probably also raised with a certain set of values and you had some interests before you started magic, or maybe magic is just your interest. You're going to focus on these things rather than... wanton destruction and control. Sure, you'll have the evil ilk, but this will be few adn far between, especially because nasty good-aligned wizards will come after you later.

Your average wizard in a high-level campaign isn't going to be running around on battlefields throwing out Cloudkills, he's going to be sitting at home taking notes on the effect of X magical energy on Y substance etc. etc, even if this Wizard is 9th, 12th, ot even 15th level. Most wizards who aren't adventurers wouldn't even learn Cloudkill.

[Fitz]

thanks for the feedback.
in terms of powerful groups targeeted : the templars would be a good example , hence in my view the need to have support.
I would definitly like to expand the ideas to wrtie up as a full setting, the idea of a trait needing to be inborn to be a mage is a nice touch, kind of a potential that needs unlocking. I think initially i will have the setting where the mages have been ground down somewhat, (and sorcerers too) and the clerics are under the boot a little too (though they weild some power within the domain) I was thinking of having a spanish inquisition type organisation hunting down heritics including the arcane casters. plenty of hidden societies like the rosicrutians and freemasons (with a fantasy spin)

more soon
Fitz

[hobbitguy1420]

On a slightly related note, i think the word might be Thaumocracy

[Azerian Kelimon]

Nah, it's magocracy. Not magiocracy.

[Zenos]

Nah, it's magocracy. Not magiocracy.

Ah yes, I remember now, from an old D&D book.

Anyways, magocracy of magic crazies? Hmmm, that would make for good BBEG's...

[Oslecamo]

Everbybody knows that wizards spend all their free time inextradimensional private space and only come out to buy spell components and kill/loot stuff, then disapear again.

How do you police that?

[Kurald Galain]

For an example of a magocracy failing in practice, read Mistress of the Empire, by Raymond Feist.

[Zeful]

If you run wizards like TLN's Batman Wizard. The class stops being a PC class. This is because the two or three most powerful (and therefore most paranoid) wizards will be constantly looking to keep themselves from being usurped. Any other spell caster will be hunted down and killed the moment they notoriety because they are a threat.

[illathid]

If you run wizards like TLN's Batman Wizard. The class stops being a PC class. This is because the two or three most powerful (and therefore most paranoid) wizards will be constantly looking to keep themselves from being usurped. Any other spell caster will be hunted down and killed the moment they notoriety because they are a threat.

Killed? Why on earth would they be killed?

It'd be much more useful to use programmed amnesia to force them to become a perfectly loyal zealot, willing to give their life for you at a moments notice.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

If you run wizards like TLN's Batman Wizard. The class stops being a PC class. This is because the two or three most powerful (and therefore most paranoid) wizards will be constantly looking to keep themselves from being usurped. Any other spell caster will be hunted down and killed the moment they notoriety because they are a threat.

So many people have said this, but no one has presented any evidence for it besides assertions.

Point to one part in TLN's guide that even implies this. I can see about 10 references to cooperating with other Wizards, none for hunting them down.

And there is no reason for a level 20 Wizard to be afraid of level 12 ones, either level 20 is the maximum, in which case they can never exceed him, and will probably be worse off because he's had more time to set up precautions and prepare. Or it isn't the Max and he'll already be a God thanks to Epic spellcasting before they even reach 20.

EDIT: Not to mention that nowhere in any Wizard guide does it talk about killing things several levels lower then you before they become a threat. The point of an Optimized Wizard is that no one is a threat to you. Not even other Wizards, since you are both Astral Projecting from your respective Genesis planes while immune to every status condition in existence with ray deflection and Spell Turning up.

[Saph]

You know, it's funny. When I first started reading up on the wizard guides on these boards, I found them really interesting. I had a lot of fun learning the strategies and using them in games.

Now, though, it's been so done to death and exaggerated that the one and only thing that I'm unreservedly looking forward to about 4th Edition is that it'll finally put the lid on the endless stream of "Wizards win everything" threads.

- Saph