D&D 5E Discussing Worldbuilding: Why Don't The Mages Take Over The World?

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

For the same reason nations are not ruled by the mightiest swordsmen: Just because you wield great individual power, doesn't mean everybody does what you want when you aren't standing over them with sword (or wand) drawn.

Now, if wizards see themselves as a "tribe" and band together to promote the interests of wizards against everyone else, they can take control of nations. But if they don't, they're just like big guys with swords. Every ruler needs some, and you always have to reckon with them in your plans, but you don't have to be one to rule.

Spellcasters normally can achieve powers much greater and more versatile than just being a swordsman. And some types of them are born with magic (sorcerers and certain races). People generally aren't born good swordsmen.

And this is a systemic topic. I'm not saying that if there's just a single mage in the setting that they're destined to rule everything. More that if mages do exist, are fairly common, and have more power than non-mages, then the chances of them using their magic to take power is practically inevitable in the long run unless there are large roadblocks built into the setting that prevent this.

In the real world where magic doesn't exist, monarchs across the world throughout history have claimed to be divinely mandated to be royalty. In a setting where people can be born with magic, those claims (true or not) would be even stronger. People with more money (merchants and nobles) would be more likely to put their children through a school that can teach them magic (bard or wizard), which would give the family better tools to gain even more money and more influence around the world around them. It would have a snowball effect where more money increases arcane power for the family which would increase the family's ability to get more money and political power in the setting.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sure, but the goal is to make an interesting environnement to let the players characters evolve. It may look logic to have casters overrule the world, but would it makes a more interesting place to play?

I don't see why it wouldn't be.

 

[Dioltach]

you assume most wizards want to rule the world more likely most are too busy trying to exploit the planes for fun and profit or killing all the people who bullied them, ruling tends to need paperwork and that sucks.

I was just about to make the same point. Why rule kingdoms (or magedoms) when you can let other people deal with the hassle? Assuming the mage is powerful enough to seize power, they're probably powerful enough to get whatever they want through other means that besides rulership.

 

[Oofta]

While a wizard is great at artillery, they're glass cannons. Armies in the middle ages could easily have tens of thousands of soldiers. That wizard is going to run out of fireballs real quick. Everyone needs to sleep now and then as well.

Besides, political power is rarely held by those that actually do the fighting, capabilities in combat are not that important to being a ruler.

 

[jasper]

For world building I see two options.
1.Create a fantasy world and use the rules to play in it.
2. Or Analyse the rules to create the most logical world to fit with those rules.

1. The best and LOGIC does not exist.
2. See your world totally change when the next WOTC player book comes out. BIG EVIL GRIN.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

While a wizard is great at artillery, they're glass cannons. Armies in the middle ages could easily have tens of thousands of soldiers. That wizard is going to run out of fireballs real quick. Everyone needs to sleep now and then as well.

Besides, political power is rarely held by those that actually do the fighting, capabilities in combat are not that important to being a ruler.

Fireballs and other means of magical "fighting" are far from the only way a wizard could take power. Enchantment spells can control minds. Divination could be used to spy on and blackmail figures of power. Utility spells can be used to easily gain more money than non-mages could make. Necromancy and Conjuration can be used to do the fighting without putting the mage in danger. Cantrips that deal more damage than typical weapons exist, too.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I was just about to make the same point. Why rule kingdoms (or magedoms) when you can let other people deal with the hassle? Assuming the mage is powerful enough to seize power, they're probably powerful enough to get whatever they want through other means that besides rulership.

Again, this is a discussion of the systemic effects of D&D's magic system, not about what individuals would choose to do. People born with magic would probably be more likely to be seen as royalty in human cultures, so all royalty/aristocracy might be sorcerers. People born into wealthy families would have more access to arcane schooling. And those that want more power/want to prevent themselves from losing power could seek out an Otherworldly Patron and become a Warlock. A King that wasn't born a mage might purposefully seek out the secrets of becoming a Warlock in order to keep up with his rival monarchs that were born with magic power.

This isn't really a discussion of "well, individual mages might not want power". Capitalism and/or Feudalism + Magic = Magically-Enforced Inequality

Tons of people in the real world want power and do whatever they can to achieve it. It would be easier to achieve power in D&D due to magic and harder to undo the consequences of those born in better circumstances than it is in the real world.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I can’t speak for others, but in our setting the most powerful mage is the one in our group and he is 15th lvl. After him, the strongest is 10-12th level. Hardly strong enough to take on king’s body guard let alone their army.

This is the answer, frankly.

Even in Eberron proper spellcasters are wildly outnumbered, and just as easily ganked as a veteran soldier, at best.

But IMO even Eberron fails to take fear properly into account. If your friend can shoot lightning, that’s rad. If your bully can, that is bowel-shakingly terrifying.

Which means, IMO, that you’re more likely to see nations where it’s effectively legal to murder a spellcaster for any sign of imminent violence from them, than nations ruled by them. The court advisor is a wizard and the captain of the kings guard thinks the mage is doing a wormtongue? Stab.

Now, I prefer optimism in storytelling so I don’t do that, but I think it’s more realistic than ubiquitous mageocracy.

 

[Fanaelialae]

IMCs, this is due to a number of factors.

Powerful mages are rare. In my worlds, there are typically only a handful of mages alive at any given time who have the power to make a realistic attempt at taking over a nation.

Most mages are more interested in the pursuit of cosmic power, as opposed to governmental authority. The powerful mages (and even less powerful mages) typically have goals that stretch far beyond "conquering the world". Why conquer a nation when you have the potential to conjure forth entirely new realities of your own making? Why settle for rulership when you can aspire to godhood?

Which is not to say that it never happens. I had a powerful lich who was trying to conquer an elven nation. But that was because he was the former king of that nation, brought back in undeath by Orcus, and he viewed the elven throne as rightfully his. The twisted lich mindset would not allow him to abide someone taking his stuff (even though the new king was the son he'd loved in life). He had no actual interest in ruling. Had he succeeded, he would have transformed the nation into an undead mockery, and then moved on to more interesting matters.

And the final reason is because, as was the case for the lich, heroes often arise to stop them.

 

[Audiomancer]

In my headcanon, it comes down to a couple of things:

1. Actual rulership is way more boring than it looks on the brochure. Few high-level wizards want to spend their time mediating disputes between squabbling barons, sitting through budget meetings, or solving the capital city’s perennial waste-disposal problems.

2. Wizards are mostly driven by the acquisition of knowledge. Your average wizard would be much happier trying to invent an Elixir or Perpetual Youth, writing the definitive scholarly tome on planar geography, or cooking up new monstrous creatures in the bio lab.