How common are spellcasters?

[Dannyalcatraz]

That seems true on the surface, but it's pretty tough to find facts to back this up.

Not at all. You just have to look around. Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you love it. And there's no guarantee that the vicissitudes of life mean you'll be able to make a living at it even if you do.

I excelled in biology through college. I cook at a pro level. I have a rare gift for stringed instruments AND perfect pitch. People who own some of my jewelry designs have rejected bids of 50K and more.

What do I do? I'm a Lawyer with an MBA.

I have a buddy who is a jeweler. He used to be a very well-off stock-broker.

Another buddy was the bass player for a band getting major label attention. He's a computer programmer now- carpal tunnel syndrome ended that dream.

Go to Austin, Nashville, Minneapolis or any major music city in the USA and you'll find musicians you can't believe are not signed to major labels because they're better than what you hear on the radio. And they're making your sandwich at the sub shop.

Look at Susan Boyle. Had it not been for a cheesy TV talent show, the world would never have heard her gift.

I have no idea where you get that number since there is no way to measure his level of genetic ability, neither in magnitude nor direction.

Its an educated guess. (It's roughly 34 per 1 million men.)

Just looking at height, in 1963, there were 3.25 billion people in the world and about 5% of the males were 6'2" or taller. Mike is 6'6". Lets say that's 2.5% of the world's male population. That's 40,625,000 males with the potential to grow to be 6'6"+ tall men. Given the US's population as a percentage of the world, 2,437,500 of those males were born in the USA.

At 2.5% of 2,437,500, that's 60K. But clearly, there were not 60K MJs in the USA: as I said, I was talking 60K worldwide.

Only a few will have the reflexes he has. Of those, only a few will be as hardy as he was.

So the number gets pared down more based on other things, like environment.

Regardless of country, a certain number of those nearly 40M+ will not survive to adulthood. Nutrition will take a toll on max height. Accidents will take a toll. Wars will take a toll. Drugs will take a toll. Disinterest in basketball in general will take a toll. B-Ball not being played in your country takes a toll. Family expectations (as in, you ARE taking over your father's farm) will take a toll. Extreme interest in other things will take a toll.

Of those, only a few will have the opportunity to practice like he did. Only a few will have someone scouting their school. Hell, only a few will have the resources to get into a school that is likely to be scouted.

Only a few of those will have the drive to master it.

I find this statement curious.

To translate "drive" into game terms, think "take levels in the class in question". Any RW human who excels at something has a mix of talent and practice. In D&D Wizards "study" and Sorcerers "unlock" arcane secrets- that's fluff telling you they intentionally work at what it is they do, whether it is something purely academic (wizardry) or honing a natural gift (sorcery).

Or, simply put, a D&D character who is not "driven" to master the arcane will not take many levels in arcane classes.

 

[Empirate]

How common casters are really depends on the setting I'm GMing in. I've had radically different answers to the OP's question for this reason. Examples:

1. My 3E campaigns to date took place in the Forgotten Realms. Magic is the lifeblood of that setting, with lots of high-level spellcaster NPCs out there and whole societies founded on magic (Red Wizards; Halruaa; Evermeet etc.). Nobody would look askance at a Sorcerer or Warlock mixin' it up with nonletzal magic in a barfight - at least, nobody in the more civilized corners of the world. I always thought that there'd be about 1 in 10 individuals gifted enough for magic use in some way. More than 1 in 100 actually took levels in some kind of caster classes - and make that more like 1 in 4 out of the adventurer population.


2. Before I GMed D&D, I spent a looong time in a homebrew setting where we used Hârnmaster, but heavily houseruled. In that setting, there was a benevolent church-like organisation of psionicists who taught that everybody had the gift to use psionics. And you know what? They were right! They took in everybody who wanted to learn and was ready to spend three years in study. They even took the poorest of the poor and had them pay for their education in menial services etc. Every single one of their students wound up a psionicist of at least some ability - depending on attributes etc., of course, but there wasn't anybody who couldn't learn at least basic 'magic'.

However, there also was a different kind of magic, 'real' magic, the ability to submit one or more of the four elements to one's will. This kind of 'caster' was hated and feared (historical reasons), and no more than maybe one in 50,000 individuals ever became one. Although (predictably) one of the PCs was a Watermage, it took two years of playing before the group ever encountered an NPC elemental mage.


3. I'm going to begin DMing a new D&D campaign in another homebrew setting shortly (details in a thread I recently made here). In that setting, magic and technology are virtually indistinguishable. The PCs, hailing from a backward, stone-age culture, don't understand magic well, and hold it very much in awe. Casters are relatively rare among their culture, although every village usually has a wisewoman or witchdoctor, who will usually have mastered a few simple spells. Their magic is genetic, and they can tap into the 'nanosphere', a web of nanotechnological microbes that the atmosphere of their planet had been seeded with centuries ago. Spellcasting PCs have no idea that this is the reason for their magic, though - to them, it's just 'magical'. BTW, the players don't know this technological background. One of the PCs will be a Warlock - the only one in the entire world! Her talents are special, strange, and terrible, because they're actually caused by spirit possession.

However, there will be another, high-tech, culture in the setting. Technology, which I'll model like standard D&D arcane magic mechanically, is what those guys grow up with, and their nanite symbionts allow them to interface with and use all technological items (magic items) with ease. Mechanically, every single one of them has a level of Wizard - but the feel of it will be totally different. Note that the PCs will actually see those high-tech people as a people of wizards, not understanding technology at all!

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

My games tend to occur in a fairly vanilla, homebrewed world. Even the most backwoods commoner has heard of magic, and a large village may request the services of a Plant Growth spell from a local druid once per year, Any meat packing plant has a few Eternal Wands of Chill Metal and trains specialized employees to use them, and if you're really wealthy, you can acquire a wand of Prestidigitation to flavor your food, clean your laundry and tidy your house.

Items of level 0 or 1 spells are available to anyone who can afford them.

 

[Dandu]

That seems true on the surface, but it's pretty tough to find facts to back this up. Mozart was gifted at birth, genetically. You can argue that it was luck that he ended up in a musical family, but it may have been the presence of music while he was in the womb that allowed him to develop his ability prenatal.

What.

 

[Arrowhawk]

Not at all. You just have to look around.

Look around? That's essentially arguing a point based on anecdotal evidence. You brought up Michael Jordon. Guess what? MJ wanted to be a baseball player. He didn't start playing basketball until highschool. After MJ retired from basketball, he went to the minor leagues and tried to resurect his baseball dreams....and failed. The arguably greatest basketball player in history can't even make a major league team in baseball. So if we "look around" Jordan, despite all desire to the contrary, ended up playing basketball.

You said this:

Well, just because you're qualified to do something doesn't mean you'll wind up doing it.

I think the basis of our disagreement stems from my interpreting qualified in a much more narrow range of being truly gifted as opposed to being merely competent at something. I mean you're "qualified" to be a waiter, a postal carrier, and a office temp. But I don't think you're arguing that type of qualification.

Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you love it.

I don't know why you bring this up.

And there's no guarantee that the vicissitudes of life mean you'll be able to make a living at it even if you do.

Again, I fail to see the relevance of this assertion.

Go to Austin, Nashville, Minneapolis or any major music city in the USA and you'll find musicians you can't believe are not signed to major labels because they're better than what you hear on the radio. And they're making your sandwich at the sub shop.

Now we're quite far afield. There's a lot that goes into what it takes to get an entertainment contract and talent is only part of it. Just ask Mili Vanili. Just because you have talent doesn't mean you're deserving of a contract or you should be on the radio. Success in entertainment isn't stricly based on merit or probably even predominantly based on talent.

Its an educated guess. (It's roughly 34 per 1 million men.)

So it's not based on any statistcal research? Just a guess based on other info.

Just looking at height, in 1963, *** Only a few will have the reflexes he has. Of those, only a few will be as hardy as he was.

This is the part of your educated guess that gives me the most trouble. Height is only loosely correlated to basketball prowess. So you're using a stat that says really very little about one's ability to play basketball at the profesional level and that extrapolating that to how many people who were at Jordan's level?

I think you compound the problem by bringing in reflexes, something we have no statistical data on at a population level.

Of those, only a few will have the opportunity to practice like he did.

Which is how much exactly?

To translate "drive" into game terms, think "take levels in the class in question".

In 1e, you pretty much took all your levels in the same class. So your earlier statement:

"Only a few of those will have the drive to master it."

Dosen't seem so applicable to D&D. D&D doesn't really require any "drive" to succeed. I think it's pretty much assumed to exist as a result of someone willing to crawl in to a dungeon and fight monsters. And what's really silly is that you can technically level to the highest levels by backstabbing level appropriate humanoids. So the game doesn't even specifically require that you even cast a single spell to gain 9th level spells (but your DM might).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Look around? That's essentially arguing a point based on anecdotal evidence. You brought up Michael Jordon.

Not merely anecdotal: any pro athlete goes through a winnowing process that narrows the talent pool from hundreds of thousands or even millions to just a few hundred in a given league.

Well, just because you're qualified to do something doesn't mean you'll wind up doing it.

I think the basis of our disagreement stems from my interpreting qualified in a much more narrow range of being truly gifted as opposed to being merely competent at something.

I personally know a NY Yankee draftee who never played a game for them- he blew up his knee between being brought into the organization and opening day of the next season.

One of my clients is a talented rapper and protegee of Erykah Badu- he called in all of his favors to get a gig in a Dallas nightclub in order to showcase his talent to a Sony Records exec. Hours before his show, the club was hit and all of the electronic gear was stolen: the Sony bigwig didn't feel like staying for a rap show without lights, microphones, speakers or turntables to supply music for my client to rap over. That was in 1995- his window of opportunity is closed.

And I wasn't kidding about my buddy the bass player, nor exaggerating my abilities with stringed instruments or cooking. Carpal tunnel syndrome took away his shot, and I chose to do other things.

Just because you're good at something doesn't mean you love it.

I don't know why you bring this up.

Because it is another reason why an otherwise talented person would turn his back on something he's good at without looking for "setting-specific reasons why casters aren't chosen more often by NPCs." Simple everyday life and decision-making will keep many talents away from study of the arcane. Hell, someone may simply be risk averse.

And there's no guarantee that the vicissitudes of life mean you'll be able to make a living at it even if you do.

Again, I fail to see the relevance of this assertion.

NPCs gotta eat. If you can't make money as a wizard but you CAN as a merchant, you're going to become a merchant.

Why can't you make money as a wizard if you're so smart? Maybe you live someplace where you can't get the material components for the few spells you may know and still make a profit selling your skills. And if you don't care for the adventuring life, that means you need to find another way to make money.

Now we're quite far afield. There's a lot that goes into what it takes to get an entertainment contract and talent is only part of it. Just ask Mili Vanili. Just because you have talent doesn't mean you're deserving of a contract or you should be on the radio. Success in entertainment isn't stricly based on merit or probably even predominantly based on talent.

True- and likewise, just because you have the Int, Wis or Cha to become a spellcaster doesn't mean you'll get the opportunity to learn the basics to start down that road.

Say you're one of the 4 brightest people in the county, and a Wizard has come around looking for an apprentice. You're in the running, but eventually, the Wizard chooses your closest rival, the son of an aristocrat who had political pull and money to make the Wizard's life a bit easier. You were smarter, but your rival's "total package" was better. You don't even get to learn Read Magic. Oh well, there's always the next Wizard, right?

Well, no Wizard comes around looking for an apprentice for the next 23 years. By this time, you're a leader in the community and you have a wife and kids, including a daughter who is every bit as smart as you are. Do you compete against her (and the others) for the apprenticeship, or do you do for your daughter what your rival's father did for him?

This is the part of your educated guess that gives me the most trouble. Height is only loosely correlated to basketball prowess.

<snip>

I think you compound the problem by bringing in reflexes, something we have no statistical data on at a population level.

MJ's height is one of very few things we can look at and say it gives him an advantage.

There are very few players in the NBA under 6' tall- Muggsy Bogues, Allen Iverson, Avery Johnson and Spud Webb are among the most famous- the league's average height is 6'3". So while its not directly corollary, it IS one of those things that coaches will use to sort out who gets to play and who doesn't. IOW, it directly influences opportunities

As for his reflexes, those, while not on record as being measured under lab conditions, were repeatedly in evidence on the b-ball courts season after season.

Of those, only a few will have the opportunity to practice like he did.

Which is how much exactly?

MJ was noted for practicing for hours after regular practices were over. Most people don't have that opportunity: as a kid, they have homework or a job to go to, and as they age, there are more demands on their time.

In 1e, you pretty much took all your levels in the same class. So your earlier statement:

"Only a few of those will have the drive to master it."

Dosen't seem so applicable to D&D.

1) Maybe when you played, but not me. Most of my characters were multiclassed, and when I could, my Humans tended to be dual-classed. I even played a Bard or 2.

D&D doesn't really require any "drive" to succeed.

Again, the "drive" is implicit in taking the levels in the first place. Someone who doesn't have the drive to be a Wizard will not take the steps to become one- he will not study spellbooks, he will not acquire (pricey or dangerous to acquire) material components.

Someone with a Int 19 may think to himself- "Its pretty damn foolish for me to go adventuring in dark, dank and dangerous dungeons just so I can bankroll my fantasy about being a Mage- I think I'll just use my intellect to make my family's business the biggest in the region."

IOW, that person lacks the drive to be a mage, despite his raw talent.

 

[Dandu]

Once could easily ask "How come so few people in America become Ph.Ds or MDs despite the fact that so much prestige and money are associated with a doctorate?"

And I suppose the answer would be applicable to wizardry as well.

 

[Empirate]

Having recently received my doctorate, I fail to see where prestige and money enter into the equation. Looking forward to it, though. Or maybe I shouldn't have become a historian?

Maybe law or business administration would have been better, at least where money is concerned. To put it into debate-relevant terms: I'm positive I'd have the brains to become a Wizard in D&D, and yet I chose to become an Expert with a bunch of knowledge skills instead - because 'magic' doesn't interest me as much as medieval history does. Choice, not talent. Based totally on personal preference, with perfect information on what would have been the 'more powerful' choice.

 

[Dandu]

Having recently received my doctorate, I fail to see where prestige and money enter into the equation. Looking forward to it, though. Or maybe I shouldn't have become a historian?

Shut up, you're making more money than the dropout who works at McDonalds.

 

[Empirate]

Sure enough, and I do have the good luck to have another 2 years' contract. But after that? In Germany, when you're in the humanities, you either manage to become a professor at some point - or you leave the country.